Page 68 of Season of Gifts

“I am perfectly capable of making rational choices for Mother’s care during her convalescence.”Though she’d seemed more depressed today than she had been last week.A reaction to yesterday’s setback?Or something more.He found the conservatory unbearable; retrieving the orchid this afternoon filled him with a wash of fleeting memories, the bright jumpsuits of the EMTs, the pale blue of Mother’s lips, the words jumbled, flying too quickly through phrases he didn’t recognize.But she might find the bedroom more distressing, a renewed sentence in a prison where she’d been caged before.He would need to keep an even closer watch over her.“We are doing fine.”

“Sounds like something your father would have said to you.”

The kitchen blurred.Heat boiled over, engulfing his chest, his throat—a steaming kettle seeking an outlet.“When did you become a sadist, Will?”

“I’m prodding for a reaction, I won’t deny that.But not for my pleasure.I take no pleasure in this, Henry.”A low exhale stretched into silence.“I’m prodding because my oldest friend is behaving in ways I’m certain he would despise if he gave himself the time to analyze them.”

Raw, that was how his throat felt.As if he’d been screaming for days with no one in earshot.“I haven’t the luxury of time, Will.Mother needs round-the-clock monitoring.She is the one most in danger.”

“Are you sure of that?”

He shivered, a chill sweeping in as the fever passed.“What do you mean?”

“Talk to your pets, Henry.Don’t get so caught up in the past that you let the present slip away.”

“Why—” A notification flashed across the screen too quickly to catch more than the sender’s name.“Jay is texting me.I need to address this.”

“Good for him.I hope he tells you what he needs and that you truly listen, Henry.”

“I am always listening.”

He ended the call with a vehement tap and bent over the counter, forearms on the cool surface.Would that he could stopper the unceasing storm of needs bubbling up from all corners.Mother’s despondence.Will’s insistence on stirring up old wounds.Alice’s wary distance.Jay’s hunger for constant companionship.Exhaustion clouded his every waking moment.He could almost drowse here, on his feet like a horse.The monitor emitted Mother’s soft, fluttery snores.Jay was waiting.

Henry pushed himself up and swiped into the text thread.

“I am always listening.”

Chapter thirty-six

Jay

Passingthetable,Jayswapped a bumpy pink seashell for a sky-blue paperweight from the tray beside the water pitcher.Danny kept a whole bunch of fidget objects in his office, lots of shapes and textures, and Jay didn’t need permission to get up and wander around and tumble pieces in his hands during his sessions.

“I don’t know why it’s still bugging me, though.”One missed anniversary, and not even a real anniversary.Plus, Emma had spent like two hours with him for dinner last night, and asked him to walk her back to the club, and then this morning Alice had given him such a show that he’d popped like a champagne cork the second her rules allowed it.“I’m so moody this week.Wobbly, you know?”

“Wobbly’s a great word, Jay.”Danny slouched in his chair while they talked, but his eyes tracked Jay.He listened almost as good as Henry, even when he didn’t look like he was listening at all.“How does that feel to you, being wobbly?”

“I feel like…” He rolled the paperweight between his hands.Smooth like a river stone.Cool, but warming up the more he touched it.“Like I’m balancing a bike for the first time without training wheels, and my hands and knees are all scraped up, and next time I crash it’ll be a mouthful of gravel.”His phone was in do-not-disturb mode for his session, but the outline of it showed through his cargo pocket.“Every day I’m up-down, up-down.”

He checked for work notifications throughout the day, on his phone between routes, connecting with Carrie, updating progress, handling problems—but now no notifications wasn’t good news.It was just another reminder that Henry and Alice weren’t checking up on him.Which was stupid, so stupid, because they didn’t constantly message on a regular day anyway.He went plenty of days without hearing from them during work hours.

“Can you name how you’re feeling now, Jay?In this moment?”

“Stupid.”The word slipped out, and he flinched, bobbling the paperweight before catching it.“I mean…” He clenched the crystal oval.That was okay.It wouldn’t break.And it wasn’t sharp anywhere to hurt him.“Angry with myself.And…” So damn needy, that was him.“Lonely.”

On regular days he had his breakfast talk with Henry, and dinner all together, and after dinner games, and bedtime with their bodies beside him, Alice’s curves and Henry’s tight hold.The heat so welcoming as he drowsed grew into an inferno that had him kicking off the sheets in his sleep by morning.Sometimes he woke to gentle hands caressing his back, lips leaving kisses along his shoulders—so much touch he could carry a shield of it with him all day, some sci-fi personal force field under his clothes that smelled of Henry and Alice and wove their love around him.And now nothing but occasional messages and calls, at odd times, nothing he could rely on.

He’d started sleeping with the phone in his hand and the sound turned up, a serious violation of Henry’s usual rules, but if he missed a message when it arrived, he might not get another chance the whole day.What if he’d slept through Alice’s good morning today?He wouldn’t have gotten to see her laughing at his bedhead or listen to her work herself up with her fingers or tell him what she was gonna do to him when she got home to him.And he needed those things more than he needed his next breath.

“Really good catch there, Jay.I love how you dug deep for what was behind that ‘stupid’ label, because we know that’s a liar word trying to hide things from you.So…” Danny tapped his fingers against his mouth like a gamer mashing the controller buttons, then stopped and made a No.1 with his index finger.“Yesterday you wished your spouses a happy anniversary, and they didn’t respond.”

“No, I—” He slowed his loop and rubbed the smooth crystal with his thumb.“I waited to hear from them.”

He’d just expected it.He’d written about his excitement for the anniversary in his wish book, and about his disappointment that wearing the new collar and cuffs would have to wait.But Henry wasn’t home; he wasn’t reading Jay’s wish book.And no matter how smooth his lovers seemed, one of the first paragraphs in their contract agreed that no one was a mind reader.Communication was a must-must-must, right up there with safewords, like the CEOs of submission.

“Shit.I messed up.”He blew out a long breath as the mental wave ofstupidpassed.“I know better.That’s why I’m mad at myself.”

“Returning to patterns that aren’t right for us anymore happens to all of us, Jay.Everybody.Usually something brings it on, and the trick is to recognize when it’s happening, like you just did.That was fantastic.”Danny sat forward, elbows on his knees, and clasped his hands together.“So let’s work through this.Did you feel like you couldn’t message them first?”

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