Page 18 of Christmas Wishes

Before I created content, I needed a place to post it. I launched my personal Instagram account and tapped until I landed on the spot to create a new account. The cursor blinked on the empty username field. My usually active brain went quiet at the prompt.

When I created my personal Instagram account a thousand years ago, @KeatonRossi was taken. I hadn’t even known there was another Keaton Rossi on the planet. So I’d plugged in @KeatsATreat without a second thought. The username for my beauty content though? That needed consideration. What did I want my brand to be?

I enjoyed talking about beauty for queer men, enbies, and people who wanted their outside to match their inside. That didn’t exactly distill down into a catchy name. I wanted a healthy dose of snark with my honesty when discussing the good, the bad, and the scammy in the beauty industry. I wanted people to watch my videos and feel like they were chatting with their bestie over an iced coffee.

How the hell did I capture all of that in a username?

@BeautyByKeat or @KeatonBeauty was generic. @QueerBeautyWithKeat was way the hell too long. @TakeABeatWithKeat was cute, but both too long and generic.

I huffed and dropped my phone onto the table. If I couldn’t even create a name, how could I become a brand and earn people’s trust?

Maybe I needed to get out of the house. Since there wasn’t a new pile of snow, it might not be too heinous out there. A decent coffee would do me well.

While I was out, I should track down a grocery store and get stuff to make dinner. The house manual in my room said I was welcome to use anything in the kitchen, and that would be cheaper than eating daily at the diner I’d passed yesterday. I could leave some for Riggs too. He seemed like he could use a home-cooked meal. Poor guy. I hadn’t been kidding about him needing sex either.

Damn, it had been hard not to think about sharing a roof with him. I’d had to jerk off last night to relax enough to sleep. The man wasexactlymy type. The kind of brusque grump who acted like an asshole but had a marshmallow core. The kind of guy who smiled rarely, but when he did, damn, was it a sight. Or maybe I was horny and projecting all my fantasies on him.

I picked up my phone again and went to navigate to Google Maps, but saw that the badge icon number of my texts had increased by a dozen or so since I’d last noticed. Since I didn’t have a push notification for new texts, that had to mean they were on the family group chat I sometimes silenced. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to participate, but I wanted to do it on my terms. That chat pissed me off more often than anything, so my mental health tactic was to mute it.

It was probably my family making sure I’d made it to Arizona okay and gotten settled in. I hadn’t checked the thread since I’d left Minneapolis yesterday. I launched the texting app, and my heart sank as I caught up on the messages. My older brother got a new fellowship with his fancy doctor job, and everyone was piling on about celebrating at Christmas. Then, one of my younger sisters mentioned she got an award at her corporate job. I kept scrolling through the congratulations to get through to the end.

Jen: Bradley and I need to find a babysitter so we can go to the award ceremony.

Chris: Have Keaton do it.

Steph: Isn’t he out of town?

Chris: He gets vacation time at that job? Keat, aren’t you hourly?

Not a single person asked if I’d survived the trip, if I was having fun, or what I was even doing in Arizona. I loved my family. I really did. It wasn’t that they didn’t love or care about me—I knew each of them would take a bullet to save my life. But with all that was happening in my gigantic family, I was often overlooked because I didn’t have a flashy job, a relationship, or adorable kids. I was always the one with “nothing going on” who could babysit so my sister could accept an award. I was tired of being taken for granted.

Keaton: Made it to Arizona. Might be slow to respond for the week. Send me the date for the award ceremony, and I might be able to help.

My mood started tanking, so I put my phone away.I’m on vacation, dammit.Even though I was surrounded by snow, I was determined to have a great time.

Time to get a good coffee to cheer me up. I made my way downstairs and could’ve sworn I saw a flash of gray fur scurrying under the couch. I’d forgotten about the cat. I made a mental note to grab cat treats at the store too.

I pulled the ugly coat—though it was sort of growing on me—off the rack and dug around in the interior pocket where I’d left the car keys since the exterior ones were shot. My fingers brushed a piece of paper. At first, I thought it was a rental car tag attached to the keyring, but when I pulled it out, it was a folded piece of paper. Curiosity got the better of me, so I unfolded it.

My Christmas wish is for Sparky to find someone who will appreciate and love him as he deserves. He’s kissed a lot of toads, and now it’s time for his prince to arrive. Preferably one who knows how to cook.

What the hell did that mean? Who randomly wrote down a Christmas wish? Then I remembered it was Riggs’s late boss’s coat. Hmm. So maybe he wrote it? It might be gibberish, but just in case it wasn’t, I should give the paper to Riggs. I hoped it didn’t trigger him, but I figured I’d want to know if I were in Riggs’s situation.

I’d deal with that later. First, coffee, then grocery store. I might poke around downtown to search for a place with reasonably priced winter gloves. If I was going to be stuck in freezing weather all week, I needed to dress for it.

And maybe I’d get lucky and run into Riggs at the coffee shop again.

Chapter11

Riggs

One thing was for sure:I’d succeeded in working so hard that I’d avoided seeing and thinking about Keaton. Mostly. I trudged into the garage at almost nine and shed my work gear. As soon as I stepped into the kitchen, I caught the lingering scent of Keaton’s dinner. It smelled hearty and savory.

I heard muffled sounds—a video?—coming from the living room. My feet carried me there without instruction, and I found Keaton curled up on Nico’s expensive recliner, staring at his phone. Someone was talking about eyeliner and cats and wings.

The urge to retreat to the kitchen and dig around the freezer for something to reheat was strong, but I wanted Keaton to have a good stay. For the positive Airbnb review, of course.

“How did your videos go today?”

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