Page 18 of The Christmas Keeper

The water was lukewarm now, so we had to rush to get washed. I worked shampoo into his curls, amazed at how long it took to rinse all the bubbles. He washed my back. I lathered his long legs, kissing his knees, which made him giggle like a teen girl. When we left the shower, we toweled off, side-eyeing each other timidly, our gazes wanton and bold even if our thoughts were on the shy side.

I wanted to say something clever, erudite like someone on some fancy romance show would say to the man they’d just frolicked with in the shower, but all I could do was rub his hair with a towel and marvel at the texture of it as it dried.

“I think you have the most beautiful hair,” I whispered. He blushed a little, stole a kiss, and carded his fingers into my wild mass.

“And I think you have beautiful hair too. I love the color and the way it falls over your brow.”

“Mutual hair admiration society is now called to order.” I nipped at his lower lip. The awkwardness was still in the air, along with some lingering steam, but I felt less uptight now. “Lunch sound good?”

“It sounds incredible.”

He padded out to the dryer to pull on clean clothes while I hurried to dress in my bedroom. When my ass was covered, I fluffed up my two pillows and ran my hand down over thecomforter. All clean and ready for a new lover to tumble into them. The thought of falling all over each other in the shower—twice—had never entered my mind, so I’d readied the bed. I even went so far as to buy lube and condoms, just in case. Be prepared and all that.

When I met him in the kitchen, he was wearing old jeans with torn knees, an oversized sweatshirt with a yellow monkey on the front, and thick woolen socks.

“You look so cute,” I said as I wrapped my arms around his middle. “I’d like to cook you something really fancy, but my culinary skills stall after burger flipping and deep fryer lowering.”

“If you have eggs, I can whip up a pretty nice omelet.”

I pecked his nose. He purred like a cat napping on a sunny walk. Then we set into making an omelet filled with green pepper, onion, and covered with sharp cheese. I made toast and coffee, and we carried our brunch into the living room where we sat on the sofa, plates on our thighs, silently eating while stealing peeks at each other. Hand to God I felt fourteen all over again. Fourteen without pimples or algebra homework. Could it get any better?

***

As it turned out, thingscouldget better.

My general vibe of lie around Sunday won out after we were filled with eggs. We curled up on the sofa to watch movies. Now I was a standard action spy guy, but Kenan had other ideas about what made for a lazy winter Sunday flick fest.

He cued up a movie that I’d never seen before, his lovely brown eyes lighting on me as I made faces at the promo on the screen.

“Seriously?” I asked because…seriously?

“It’s funny.”

He was a cute little wheedler. I gave one of his curls a tug. “This isn’t really my favorite genre…”

“Give it a thirty-minute no thank-you watch.”

Cute but persistent. “I thought that was a no-thank-you bite.”

“Same rule applies. If you dislike it after thirty minutes, we’ll watch something else.”

I sighed as theatrically as possible, then folded. It was those brown eyes of his.

“Okay. Thirty minutes, then we find John Wick or Jason Bourne.”

“Deal.”

And that was how I spent the next few hours watching Will Ferrell as an elf. To be fair, it was cute, in places. Over-the-top holiday sweet, enough to give me cavities, but overall, the movie was entertaining. Not even close to theTerminatororRedseries, obviously, but the movie made Kenan laugh aloud throughout. And that alone was worth giving up explosions and bullets for a little while.

The day sped by amid folding wash, kissing, and cuddles on the couch. We tucked Fred and Wilma into their coop for the night to keep them safe from predators. If they slept outside, a random fox or coyote would love a nice fat goose for a late-night snack. They wouldn’t get too cold since they were wearing down bodysuits.

When dinner time arrived, I was loathe to leave my sofa, but Mr. Blum had texted earlier to double-check we were coming. We’d said we were, so we had to go. Kenan pulled on a dark blue sweater with some black jeans. I followed suit with a sweater Nora had mailed to me for Christmas a few years back and a newish pair of Levi’s.

“Okay, so I know this is going to be a stupid question,” I said as we stood by the front door tying our winter boots for the short walk up the lane.

“There are no stupid questions,” he replied with a playful wink.

“Oh, trust me, there are,” I replied, tugging my laces tight and straightening them.

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