Page 74 of Two for Roughing

Kilian looked down at his skates. He needed to bend over to unlace them. He was so tired though. Last night, he’d slept like a log in Damir’s arms, but when he woke that morning to find Damir had made him pancakes from scratch, it still wasn’t enough to shake the exhaustion Kilian felt in his bones. He wanted to go home, but home right now meant the spare room of the guy he was pitifully into despite knowing nothing could come of it. Now that he’d been outed, his chances of Damir ever wanting more than sex had gone from miniscule to nonexistent.

“Howie?”

Kilian snapped his head up. “Huh?”

“You going to Victoria for the break?”

Kilian couldn’t stop himself from laughing out loud. “Fuck no.”

Ketchup frowned. “That sucks. Thought we might be flying together.”

“Nah. I forgot to cancel my flight from San Francisco.” Kilian shrugged. He should probably feel guilty. They’d call his name at the airport, maybe even hold the flight for him. He sure as fuck wasn’t going to call to cancel now. He hadn’t looked at his phone in days, except to beg for Damir’s attention the only way he knew how. The longer he waited to read the copious messages pouring in, the more scared he got.

“But…” Ketchup trailed off.

“What?”

“Don’t you want to be with your family…now?”

Kilian couldn’t think of anything he wanted less. “Nah.”

“Have they been…”

“I have no idea how they’ve been,” he snapped. “I haven’t talked to them since…since…”

His voice broke, and he clenched his jaw shut. Surely there had to be a point in time when he’d stopped crying about shit. He thought he’d run out of tears last night when Damir had spanked him until he was a clean, blank slate, hollow and whole.

Apparently, there were more tears waiting for him, doing nothing to combat the sissy gay boy stereotype.

“Oh, shit, I’m sorry.” Ketchup pulled him into a rough side hug. “Are you gonna be okay? I can cancel; we can do Firecrackers Christmas. It’s—”

“No,” Kilian said. “No, it’s cool. Not really in the mood to celebrate, y’know?” He’d never wanted the comforting traditions of a Howard family Christmas more, not even last year when he’d stayed in San Francisco and been so brutally lonely for every minute of every day, including the time he’d spent at the team party at Phil’s house. This year, he’d booked his ticket home for the holidays in July, thinking it would be the lesser of two evils to subject himself to holiday traffic.

Kilian wanted his grandpa to come over for brunch with a suitcase full of presents, dressed as Santa Claus, despite all of them being an easy decade too old for it. He wanted his mom to make hot cider and scorch the bottom of the pot. He wanted his sisters to squabble over who got the best gifts and end up sharing their favorites anyway, leaving Kilian to pilfer the nail polish colors they deemed too garish for his own toenails. He wanted to doze off, full and happy, under the tree with the scent of pine and candles in his nose.

He wanted to be the person they wanted him to be.

It would be so much easier if that were still a possibility.

“You’re sure?” Ketchup asked.

From somewhere deep within himself, Kilian dredged up a smile. “Yeah, no worries. I’ve got Damir; he doesn’t do Christmas either. We’ll just…I don’t know. Work out or something.”

Ketchup shuddered in exaggerated horror. “Saddest Christmas plan I have ever heard.”

Over his shoulder, Kilian caught Damir’s eye. He crossed his arms menacingly, drawing himself up to his full, impressive height right behind Ketchup’s back. Ketchup turned a fraction of an inch, caught sight of him, and flinched all over.

Damir’s mouth twitched almost imperceptibly. He thought he was so funny. Kilian wouldn’t stroke his ego by laughing.

They packed up their bags and drove Ketchup to the airport. He spent the drive talking about all the things he intended to do in his three days at home—80 percent of which seemed to center on food.

Driving around the airport meant holiday traffic full of people in a hurry, and when Damir stalled out for the second time, it took him two full minutes to calm down enough to get the car moving again.

Ketchup’s parting words were “Get yourself an automatic for Christmas.”

With him gone, the car went quiet. Damir took deep, slow breaths.

For a while, Kilian debated saying something comforting, but he had no idea what would work. So, he slid out of the back, walked around to the driver’s side, and opened the door. “I’m driving us home.”