Page 12 of Just for the Holidays

“Thanks,” Nichol grumbles.

“Anthony should be home any minute. I’ve just got to set the table, but dinner is ready.” Katie calls from the kitchen.

Max and Stuart are cuddled up on the sofa, like the Tweedle Twins, watching the classic stop-motion animated Rudolph special.

“What time is it?” Nichol can’t tell. It was barely light when he fell asleep and it’s already dark again.

“Six-thirty.” his mother chimes. “I’ll set the table,” she bellows into the kitchen and waddles behind her own trailing voice.

The front door sweeps open and Anthony enters, flipping a red baseball cap off his shaved head and tucking it under his arm.

“Hey, Nichol!” His snow-under-moonglow smile beams and his blue eyes squint. Katie managed to land herself the gawky boy, turned hot-nerd-daddy, for a husband. They’re middle school sweethearts that have withstood the test of time.

Nichol envies them and always has. His sister fell in love as a tween, and it stuck for life. While he barrelled into his mid-forties and has only had brief flings with ridiculous men.

Well, Peter wasn’t a fling, but a four-year-long game of cat and mouse that Nichol was never going to win. Peter was the man he thought would bethe one, but Peter had lots of othernumber ones. That was the last straw that Nichol cared to ever pull out of the dating cup. Aside from a few casual hookups through the Gaydr app—here and there—over the past few years, he’s not gone on a proper date since.

Katie made a rustic spread of perfectly charred turkey meatloaf, buttery garlic mashed potatoes, steamed sweet corn—dumped straight from the microwaveable bag, and a pot full of boxed stuffing. All slightly tweaked versions of the exact same spread they grew up on.

Rebecca loves to point out the differences. “I like to make mine with beef and ketchup, instead of barbecue sauce, andturkey,” she says.

Katie smiles and swallows the sickly sweet criticism.

“Katie said your rental car broke down?” Carl asks, scraping a glob of potatoes, piled on a chunk of meatloaf, from his fork.

“Shit!” Nichol remembers, “I forgot to call the rental company. It ran out of charge. I'm sure it’s been towed off Main Street by now.” The last thing he needs is that additional charge.

“The silver spaceship sitting halfway in the street?” Anthony sips a glass of cola.

“Yeah.” Nichol cuts through a corner of his meatloaf slice with the edge of his fork.

“It was still there when we passed by an hour ago,” Rebecca adds.

“I’ll call Charlie Baxter after dinner. He owes me a favor, he can tow it here.” Carl always knows a guy who can solve a problem. He’s lived in this little town his whole life. Everyone at the table, except Nichol, has.

“Oh! Charlie Baxter’s son, Chucky, is gay now.” Rebecca wags her eyebrows. “You remember him don’t you?”

“No,” Nichol lies.

Chucky was a terrible bully, two years ahead of Nichol in school. He’d managed to escape the football player’s torments but witnessed other kids being harassed by him for years.The worst bullies are usually hiding their own secret torments—so that makes sense.

“How did you get here?” Anthony asks.

“Theodore Monroe dropped him off,” Katie smirks at her husband.

“Oh, I miss Gertie’s donuts.” Rebecca reminisces.

“He knew me, but I don’t remember him at all.” Nichol shrugs.

Katie scoots her chair back and trots to the living room, chewing a mouthful of food, and returns with a book. She sits and flips it open on her lap, scanning its pages, until she finds what she’s looking for, and passes the book over the table to Nichol.

“Left page, third row, second kid in.” She says.

Nichol accepts the yearbook and peers down his nose at the photo of a pimply boy with gapped front teeth, triggering a memory.

Nichol had been fuming that morning. Enraged after a roaring truck—carrying his own high school bullies—passed thebus stop cheering “faggot” at him, over blaring hideous honky-tonk music from their windows.

The teenager in the photo is a slightly older version of the chubby orange-haired boy that he remembers rescuing from a trio of snarky pricks teasing him on the school bus.

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