Chapter 8

Anthony arrived at the Pockaway mailbox at 11:50 p.m. He parked at the top of the driveway, leaving the engine running and his headlights pointed at the house. Waiting.

Christmas Day at the Bellos’ had lasted for ev er. Normally that was a good thing, for maximum relaxation. But Anthony had glanced at the clock and his phone screen at least thirty times, wishing for midnight and hoping for word from Martin. He’d been so preoccupied, he’d forgotten to leave the room before the Christmas Vacation scene where the cat got electrocuted. Katrina had noticed and teased him about it later.

At 11:55, the gate in the Pockaway privacy fence swung open, and Martin appeared, illuminated by the walkway lights. He stepped forward, cutting the distance between them from a hundred yards to ninety-eight.

Anthony’s blood hummed at this sight of him. He flashed his high beams twice to say hello. Was Martin about to invite him in before midnight? Maybe, if his day had been uneventful. Maybe, if he believed he’d broken the Curse.

Martin waved back. A greeting, but not a beckoning.

Anthony sighed. So Martin still believed in the Curse, still believed he had to protect Anthony from it. Had something bad happened today while Martin had been alone, despite all his precautions?

He waited, gazing at Martin, breaking their connection only to glance at his own phone lying on the passenger seat with its screen on. Counting down the minutes and seconds to their last night together.

Last. Night. Together.

11:58

Images flitted through Anthony’s mind like a PowerPoint presentation run amuck:

Catching Martin bare-ass naked.

Betty commandeering the sofa at Martin’s invitation.

Martin’s sigh at his first bite of apple-cider doughnut.

The moonlight on Martin’s face before their first kiss on the hilltop.

11:59:00

Fixing Martin had been a project, and Anthony had needed a project. But Martin didn’t need fixing, and he was so much more than the sum of his misfortunes.

11:59:15

Besides, he’d fallen for Martin before knowing about the Curse. It had happened the moment Martin insisted on taking Pumpkin Spice home instead of releasing her. Most people in such pain would have been glad to be rid of the one who’d caused it. But even in his agony, Martin had done the right thing, the kind thing.

That kindness was what had brought him to Pockaway in the first place, his unflagging desire to keep people—and animals—safely out of his presence.

11:59:35

And then, faced with the choice to bow to his belief versus keeping Anthony and Betty safe from the ice storm, he’d chosen the two of them over his own obsession.

11:59:50

Anthony put the truck into first gear. With one foot he held down the clutch while the other revved the engine.

12:00:00

He took his foot off the clutch and jammed on the gas. For a moment the transmission balked, and it seemed as though the engine would stall. But then the truck shot forward, gravel rattling like hail against the chassis beneath him.

As he rounded the final, circular part of the driveway, the pickup gave the dramatic fishtail he was aiming for. Then he stopped, switched off the engine, and sprang out of the cab.

Luckily, he hadn’t closed the door yet when the wheels started to move again. He dove back into the truck and yanked up the emergency brake. Whew.

He shut the door, and suddenly Martin was in his arms, kissing him, backing him up against the truck, pressing every inch to every inch.

Anthony kissed him back, relishing the taste of toothpaste and hazelnut coffee and him . All thoughts of the future, all memories of the past, went up in flames.

“I missed you,” Martin hissed against his neck as he tugged Anthony’s shirt from his jeans.

The warmth of Martin’s palms against his waist made Anthony groan. “Missed you, too. Go inside now?”

“Aye.” Martin grabbed his hand, and they ran together down the pathway, past the gate, and through the door.

Then they were ladder-bound, tearing off coats and shirts along the way.

In the loft, Martin pushed him onto his back on the bed and straddled his legs. He undid Anthony’s belt—why had he bothered wearing a belt?—then his jeans.

“Here.” Anthony reached into his right front pocket and brought out the small bottle of lube.

“Oh.” Martin took the bottle but looked confused. “I didn’t-I don’t—I’ve no condoms.”

“I’m not asking you to fuck me. That’s to make all our friction the fun kind instead of the chafe-y kind.”

Martin smiled. “Brilliant. You’re brilliant. You’re?—”

Anthony sat up and cut him off with a kiss. Hands went everywhere, pushing and pulling at flesh and fabric. It was a tragedy that they had to part long enough to finish stripping, a crime that clothes couldn’t simply be wished off their bodies.

Once they were naked, Martin slathered on the lube, and the slide of his grip nearly made Anthony come right then and there. Martin added extra to their abs, providing a slick glide zone with a wide margin. “How’s that, then?”

“Mmm, I don’t know. Come here and let’s find out.”

Martin stretched out upon Anthony and for a long moment just looked down at him, the Christmas lights glinting off each red, gold, and auburn strand of hair.

Then they began to move. Slowly at first, testing each new sensation for comfort and…well, efficacy.

“Good?” Martin asked, as always his tongue tapping the d in a manner that Anthony felt all the way down his spine.

“Good.” Anthony gasped as the warm, wet pressure between them increased a notch. He felt Martin’s racing heart throb against his chest. “Real good.”

They moved faster, firmer, their gazes locked. Martin looped his arms under Anthony’s shoulders, holding him tight. In all the important ways, this act felt as intimate as being joined.

Anthony slid his hands down until he grasped Martin’s ass, feeling the flex and release of each glute. He pulled him closer, harder.

Martin groaned, his face flushing red in the golden light. They began to surge and thrust in a desperate rhythm, as close as could be but never close enough, with the urgency of all the future moments they would never share.

Martin came first with a whole-body shudder, turning the space between them even wetter and hotter.

Anthony rolled them over to pin him down.

“Do whatever you need,” Martin whispered. “Take whatever you want.”

“You’re all I want.” Anthony buried his face in Martin’s neck and moved within their sure embrace. “All I want,” he repeated as the point of no return hit him like a hurricane. “All…”

Every muscle seemed to spasm at once, then release in a long, searing flood that stole his control and even, for a moment, his sense of time and space.

They lay side by side, half-entwined, fighting for a single easy breath. Anthony brought Martin’s hand to his lips and kissed his fingertips one by one, then started over again.

Martin tapped the end of Anthony’s nose with his thumb. “How was your Christmas?”

“It was okay. Yours?”

“Aye. Okay.”

“Did anything bad happen?”

“No.” Martin sounded surprised. “Well, Milwaukee had a bit of a dry spell whilst I was watching, but apparently they beat the Knicks anyway.”

So Martin hadn’t cut himself off all day, at least not from sports news. “No curse can defeat the Bucks when Giannis is in form.”

Martin nodded. “Maybe it worked, coming here. Maybe the Curse is finally broken.” For some reason, he frowned.

“That’s a fucking Christmas miracle. So what did you do all day to avoid being radioactive?”

“Mostly watched holiday films on cable TV.”

“Like It’s a Wonderful Life, that kinda thing?”

“Erm, no.” Martin sniffed. “The telly somehow got stuck on the Hallmark Channel.”

Anthony chuckled. “And I guess the remote control stopped working.”

“Exactly.”

“Yeah, that can happen with channels like that.”

“I survived. I won’t deduct a star on my review for this minor technical glitch.”

Anthony poked him in the breastbone. “Speaking of movies, fuck you for making me watch The Snowman . You could’ve told me he dies in the end.”

“He doesn’t die. He melts.”

“Melting is how snowmen die.” His raised voice echoed off the low ceiling. “I can’t believe they show that to little kids.”

“Children need to learn that everything ends.”

Well, that was dark. “Maybe in life, but not in Christmas stories.”

Martin looked genuinely sorry as he stroked Anthony’s cheek. “Did it make you cry?”

“Hell yeah, it made me cry.”

“It’s meant to.” Martin kissed him. “I’ll miss you when I’m gone, ya big softie.”

“Same.” Anthony opened his mouth to ask him to return, maybe in the summer after school let out. Maybe for longer. Maybe for long enough to know if they had something worth…something.

But would Anthony even be here in June? Six months ago he’d been in Pittsburgh. Six months from now he could be anywhere.

On most days, that kind of uncertainty would excite him. Today was not most days.

Martin pulled back and looked down at the space between them. “We’ll need another bath after this glorious mess.”

And just like that, the moment for asking for more was gone.

“Definitely.” He brushed an imaginary piece of lint off Martin’s shoulder, as an excuse to touch him. “What time is your flight tomorrow?”

“Five,” Martin said. “So I’ll leave at noon, as I need to return the car, and it’s a ninety-minute drive to BWI.”

“Why didn’t you fly into Dulles? It’s way closer.”

“Because I took Icelandair, with a stopover in Reykjavik. I could’ve saved bags of time with a direct flight to Dulles, but this flight was cheaper. Plus, I always wanted to see Iceland.”

“How was it?”

“Icy.”

Anthony laughed. “Okay. So what do you want to do with your last eleven-and-a-half hours? Your wish is my command.”

Martin rolled onto his back, eyes searching the ceiling. Then he brightened. “Can we go for a wee drive?”

“Sure. Where?”

“I want to see the places you love. The places that made you.”

“Great, we’ll do that in the morning.”

“No. Now. In daylight there’ll be other people at those places.” Martin brushed his fingertips over Anthony’s arm. “I want to see them empty so I can put you there in my mind.”

Anthony nodded, but the words made him tense, almost pull away. Martin wanted to know him as much as Anthony wanted to be known by him.

What did that mean? What was the use of growing closer over these last hours together, only to be torn apart?

Normally he’d shrug off a question like that, leave it for Tomorrow Anthony to deal with. Enjoy their remaining time as fully—as full of Martin—as he could.

But here in this safe, thawing-out place they’d created, it was already as tomorrow as it would ever be.

Martin hadn’t realized how dampened his enjoyment of the holiday’s sights and sounds had been. Most years—especially this one—the season had filled him with dread. But as Anthony drove him the length and breadth of Jefferson County, Martin savored the houses and streets lit in full Christmas glory, including one with a musical accompaniment one could listen to by tuning to a specific radio frequency.

First Anthony showed him his high school (where he’d been “third-tier cool” because he played soccer instead of football or basketball), then the rapids far upriver where he and his friends would go tubing to avoid the tourists, and finally the half-frozen swimming hole where he’d nearly broken his neck diving in on a dare but had changed his mind at the last second and “cannonballed” instead, breaking merely a foot.

As they headed back toward Pockaway around half past three, Anthony peered through the windscreen at the sky. “Clearing up now. In that case, I got one more place to show you. It’s not far.”

Ten minutes later, they pulled into an empty, unlit carpark. “Which river is this?” Martin asked when he saw water glistening in the headlight beams.

“This is the Shenandoah.” Anthony pointed through the top left portion of the windscreen. “Pockaway is up yonder.”

“So this is the part of the river I can see from the house?”

“Yep.”

Martin remembered standing atop the hill in Harpers Ferry, looking toward the bridge he’d first crossed. Another bookend.

“What major life event happened here?” he asked. “Did you lose your virginity in the backseat of your dad’s car?”

“It’s where Katrina and I had our first beers, courtesy of Vanessa.” Anthony shook his head. “But I brought you here because it’s a good place to look at stars. C’mon.”

They got out and went to the back of the truck, where Anthony folded down the tailgate. The truck bed was cold beneath Martin’s back, but he didn’t mind, because the stars were brilliant—despite the light of the waning gibbous moon—and Anthony was warm beside him.

“It’s one of the only spots around here with a big open sky,” Anthony said, “thanks to the power lines’ right-of-way.”

Martin sat up halfway to see where the lines met the giant transmission tower far on the other side of the river, emanating an unearthly blue glow.

He pointed to a familiar constellation southeast of Orion. “Canis Major.”

“The OG goodest dog.”

“Sirius has always been my favorite star. At home it’s lower on the horizon, since we’re farther north.”

“This one time,” Anthony said, “I was in Ocean City with some friends over Labor Day weekend—that’s at the beginning of September. We stayed up all night partying and in the morning went out on the boardwalk. And even though it was still hot as hellfire, and technically still summer, Sirius was rising in the east over the ocean, just ahead of the sun. Like a little preview of winter. I don’t know why, but seeing it made me really happy.”

“Do you not feel sad when summer ends?”

“I don’t feel sad when anything ends.” Anthony drew in a quick breath. “Sorry. That’s not—I didn’t mean this.” He brushed his hand over Martin’s without taking it. “I meant seasons, years, stuff like that.” He cleared his throat. “I like to look forward, not back. The future is always in flux, but the past is so…frozen.”

Martin didn’t answer, just listened to the gurgle of the Shenandoah and the faint buzz of the power lines. He felt both light and heavy. This moment was perfect, but even as he touched it, it slipped into the frozen past. As did this moment, and this moment, and…

He stopped. Stopped trying to hold onto this feeling with both hands, this concept of any future that included Anthony. As he let go, the contentment settled in. They had now, they were now, in this place where the earth met the water met the air met the fire of electricity.

After a long time, Anthony turned on his side to face him, so Martin did the same.

“I think…” Anthony wrapped his gloved hand around Martin’s. “I think I should just take you home. And not stay, I mean.”

Martin nodded, though his heart wanted to leap out of his chest in protest. “Why?”

“Because if I spend another night with you, lying beside you, holding…I don’t know if I could say goodbye.”

Martin bit back the words he was thinking: So what if you ‘don’t know’? What happened to being comfortable with uncertainty?

But out loud he only said, “Then let’s not say it. Let it end here in the dark, where it’s still magic.”

Their last kiss was soft and lingering, one that would’ve been magic anywhere, anytime.

Anthony held his hand tight as they made their way back to Pockaway, letting go only to shift gears. Martin’s throat was so constricted he felt he could choke. He took the most indelible mental photos he could, of Anthony’s face glowing blue in the dashboard lights, of the dwarf spruces glowing white beside the driveway, of Pockaway’s facade glowing green in the headlights.

“We’ll keep in touch,” Anthony said, then visibly winced. “No, I mean it. We’ve got each other’s numbers and emails. And if you’re ever?—”

“Shh.” Martin put a finger to Anthony’s lips. “It’s understood.”

He got out of the truck and walked the pathway to the terrace without looking back. Once he was through the privacy-fence gate, he leaned back on the wooden slats until the rumble of Anthony’s engine faded into the night.

Though his chest felt like he’d swallowed a rock, Martin had to admit one undeniable truth:

It had been, by any measure, the least-worst Christmas ever.