Page 189 of Untouchable

* * *

Something dropsinto place for Harp like a hand-cut gear in an old engine: sharper than every part around it, slotting in perfectly. It’s a shiny solution to at least some of Parker’s pain.

"Why don't you spend Christmas with me?" Harp asks.

“Huh?”

Parker looks at him like he’s insane.

Maybe I am insane, he realizes. I’m tired of holding back.

“Spend Christmas with me,” Harp repeats, and Parker blinks.

* * *

“Er,I think I’m supposed to go to my uncle’s house—”

"Yeah, but fuck your family. When was the last time you actually enjoyed a holiday? Because to be honest, I don't think I ever have. So fuck 'em. Let's spend it together."

A dozen excuses and rebuttals are on the tip of Parker’s tongue, but then he stops, because Harp is exactly right. Christmas has been looming on Parker’s mind, like a dark, sparking thunderhead on the horizon, occupying a disproportionately large part of his mental energy for the past week or so. But when he thinks of spending the holiday with Harp, all he feels is relief. And joy. And excitement.

Just the way Christmas shouldbe.

“I—I’d have to tell my mom,” Parker says, turning pale at the thought of that. “I don’t think she’d… let me not come home for Christmas.”

He wishes it could be as simple as saying yes, but it’s impossible for him to deny the hold his family has over him.

"What's the worst thing they can do? They don't support you financially so... what, they withhold Christmas gifts?"

“They’d be… mad at me,” Parker says, and as soon as the words are out of his mouth he realizes how silly it sounds.

He looks at Harp, wide-eyed.

“Okay,” he says, his voice as shaky as if he’s just agreed to go skydiving. “Let’s… let’s do it.”

"Hey, only if the fallout is worth it, Parker," Harp says seriously. "But... I really think it might be good for you. If you want it."

“No—” Parker says quickly. “I want to. I really, really want it. I’m just, uh—oh boy, this is. Yeah. It’s going to be… one heck of a conversation with my mom.”

He flushes.

“I’m… I’m worried I can’t do it, though,” he admits. “I dunno, sometimes when I talk with my parents… I feel like, I go into a conversation knowing what I want to say and then… somehow I get all twisted up and suddenly I’m agreeing with them and doing whatever they want.”

"What if you called right now. Rip the bandaid off while I'm here with you. And we'll still have a terrific night afterwards, no matter what happens."

Parker laughs even as he holds up his hand so Harp can see how hard he’s shaking.

“Okay,” he says. He feels a hot rush of motivation to get it out of the way, to simply give in to what feels good, what feels right, rather than what his family wants. He knows it won’t last, so before he can talk himself out of it, he leaps up and grabs his phone from his jeans. He’s got a few missed texts from Mindy demanding to know what surprise Harp had planned, and then later, if they’re banging, but he ignores them.

“I’m gonna do it,” he says, crawling back onto the bed. He sits cross-legged next to Harp and grabs Harp’s hand, clinging to him as he calls his mom. He puts it on speakerphone and he’s not sure if getting her voicemail would be a good thing or a bad thing.

She answers on the second ring, and already Parker feels like he might throw up.

“Hello, Parker,” she says. “Did you get the quote from the mechanic yet?”

“Er—no,” Parker says, immediately thrown off guard. “I mean, there was the first estimate he made, but he—he said he’d take another look and see if he could knock the price down at all.”

“Well, get it to us as soon as possible,” she says. “We’d like to know before the beginning of the year whether it’s repairs or the cost of an entirely new car. You know, Parker, this really couldn’t have come at a worse time, Celia and her husband are—”

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