Page 43 of The Holiday Disaster

We exited the building and walked to the parking lot. They continued to tease Kingsley and me, cooing about how cute we were together and crying that we were growing up too soon. I rolled my eyes at that since we were already adults and had been living away from home for a while now. But I still let them shower me with their love.

Surrounded by my amazing family and the man I wanted to create a future with, I felt like life couldn’t get any better than this.

I truly was the luckiest person in the world.

TWENTY-SEVEN

ETHAN

Christmas Day

Our families finally stopped being weird about the fact that Kingsley and I were together after a few days of adjusting. However, that only applied to our parents.

Elliott still gave me shit about it, joking that I’d conquered both the Sharp siblings and left him with no one. I rolled my eyes at him. I was used to his dramatics since he always loved making huge deals about things since we were kids. Despite how he was playing up the pitiful card, I still pulled him in for a hug.

“Thanks for not making this any more weird than it has to be. It means a lot to me that you accept us,” I said, pressed into his hard pec. Elliott had always been taller than me, and with him playing sports all his life, he was quite a bit bulkier than me as well.

He sat next to me on the couch, his beefy arms around me as he hugged me so tight I almost felt my soul leave my body. “Let me know if he ever hurts you. I’ll kick his ass,” he said softly. The teasing tone from earlier was gone and replaced with such seriousness that I couldn’t help but laugh.

“I’m not joking,” he grumbled as he loosened his hold on me.

“I know.” Elliott had been protecting me since I was born. We were completely different, from our sizes to our hobbies and interests, but that had never stopped us from being close. “You’re the best brother in the world, you know that right?”

He chuckled and ruffled my hair before letting me go. “And you better not forget it. I expect your first child to be named after me,” he teased.

My ears heated at the mention of kids. Despite knowing that I was gay since I was young, I also knew that I wanted a family someday. Even if I never found someone to love and be with, I’d considered raising children myself when I was financially stable.

However, that was far in the future. I was still young and had a lot of life to live before settling down with a family.

Plus, that was still one of the things that needed to be discussed with Kingsley. Our relationship was still so new that we hadn’t had much time to talk about what we wanted in the future. Although with how much he loved the kids on the youth soccer team, I wouldn’t be surprised if he said he wanted enough children to form his own sports team.

Those were all things that would be discussed later. For now, I wanted to enjoy it being the two of us as we caught up on all the time we had missed.

Speaking of Kingsley, he had texted and asked me to come over, and I wasn’t going to say no to seeing him. I left Elliott on the couch and told him I’d be back for dinner. There was still a couple hours before the guests arrived for the holiday party, and Mom and Dad had gone to pick up my grandparents.

While Kingsley and his family would stop by after their own dinner, we wouldn’t get any time alone together. My extended family would surround us, and they were sure to have plenty of questions about the new changes between Kingsley and me.

I walked into the backyard and opened the fence gate that separated the Sharp house from mine. The fence had been built long before the Sharps had moved in, but since our families were so close, we never left the gate locked, and more often than not, kept the back sliding door open during the day as well.

I tried the glass door, and it opened without any resistance. The house was quiet, the only noise was their Australian Shepherd running up to me in greeting.

I gave Howl all the pets and hugs he obviously deserved and looked around for any signs of human life. “Babe?” I called out as I peered into the living room. The Christmas tree sat in the corner decorated in colorful ornaments and tinsel. Presents sat underneath the tree, and I saw several with my name on them.

I’d purchased everyone’s gifts online and had them sent to my house while I was in college with stern threats to my mother not to open any of the boxes in case she accidentally opened her own gift.

It was a fifty-fifty chance of her actually listening to me since opening packages was Mom’s favorite thing to do, but the boxes had been neatly stacked in my room, unopened. I’d wrapped them in pretty paper and brought them down to our own tree, but my gifts had been overshadowed by all the other ones.

Mom was big on gifts, so the living room was overfilled with perfectly wrapped boxes of all shapes and sizes. You could always tell which ones were hers since she went all out on the presentation.

“In my room,” Kingsley called from upstairs. Howl followed me to the staircase before getting bored and returning to his bed by the tree.

I’d walked these stairs a billion times in the past, and they become just as familiar as the stairs in my own home. The pictures hung on the wall had also become a part of my memory, with one particular photo that haunted me every time I passed these walls.

I knew I could pretend it didn’t exist like a normal person would, but my fixation on it wouldn’t save me from that heartache. I braced myself for the same tinge of jealousy to wash over me like it did every time I saw the photo but was surprised when the picture that my eyes naturally sought out wasn’t there.

In its place was a frame covered in tissue paper and a tag with my name on it. I unhooked it from the wall, hugged it to my chest, and ran to Kingsley’s room.

He was waiting for me on the other side of the door with his arms spread out. I ran into them as he enveloped me in a hug. This was the true meaning of coming home.

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