Page 75 of Must Love Christmas

“Only if you’re looking for proof. If you want me…” Simon’s throat threatened to cut off his words. “If you want me the way I want you, then you’ll see this morning as just something that happened. It wasn’t our best moment, but we can learn from it and move on.” He forced his eyes to meet Garen’s. “But if you don’t want me, then yeah, I guess you can use my setback as an excuse to push me away. Just don’t ask me to pretend it’s for my own good, because it’s not.”

Garen held his gaze for a long moment, his face slowly softening. Then he lay down behind Simon and wrapped his arm around his waist. “Okay,” Garen whispered.

“Okay what?”

“Okay, I want you.” He kissed the back of Simon’s earlobe. “I’ll try and do better.”

“Don’t do better.” Simon put his hand over Garen’s. “Just do you.”

Chapter 16

Garen sankonto the comfy couch at the Shawlands Rink warm room, regretting his promise to spend the day here alone to receive door-prize deliveries. All he wanted was to be home, monitoring Simon’s condition and attending to his needs. Catriona the physiotherapist had assured them that episodes like this morning’s pain and immobility were common during GBS recovery, but Garen couldn’t see how something so dramatic could ever be normal.

What if it happened again when Garen wasn’t there? Or what if it happened again when hewasthere, and he made even more of a state of it than the first time?

He checked his phone for messages from Simon, on the slight chance he hadn’t heard the designated ring tone during the bus ride here.

Nothing. He sent another one anyway:

How are you feeling? If you’re extra hungry you can have my half of the leftovers. Yes the stuff in the red containers is yours--consider it a one-day special!

He added several emojis, then deleted most of them, not wanting to look any dafter than he already sounded.

Then Garen put his phone back in his pocket, determined to make good use of his time. He had plenty of Jingle Bell Rocks tasks to distract him here, apart from waiting for parcels.

He pulled out his laptop to review the games and giveaways that were to take place during the shorter, non-meal breaks between Saturday’s draws. Garen had assigned himself this task, thinking it would be fun, but it had turned out to be a supreme pain in the arse. He’d ended up asking for help from Oliver, who had a sideline gig as a party clown.

Garen sent a few more emails to volunteers, asking them to help coordinate the giveaways on the day, then ran a final check on the opening draws. Satisfied he’d included every team and matched up none who shared a coach, he sent the festively colored diagrams to the office printer, then went down the hall to retrieve the documents.

When he came back into the warm room, Garen stopped to look out onto the ice. With the lights off in the rink, the sheets looked almost eerie. The stones were lined up against the back of each sheet rather than along the sides, making room for the ice-maintenance crew to scrape and pebble the sheets before tonight’s wheelchair-league games.

The warm room, however, looked as inviting as ever. It truly had been a home from home for Garen since his parents had left Glasgow years ago. During the summer months when the rink was closed, he often felt unmoored without his curling community. He wondered if next summer he would still see Luca every week, or if his best pal would drift away during their curling hiatus without a shared living space to tie them together.

His phone blooped with Simon’s ring tone. He pulled it out to see his message returned:

Simon: Feeling fine are you sure you don’t mind me eating your half of our leftovers question mart

Garen: I’m sure! And if I forget you can show me this message as proof

Feeling a bit better, Garen took a quick survey of the warm room’s Christmas decorations. They were the same as ever—silver and gold streamers descending from the drop ceiling, along with dangling origami curling stones made from red and green paper. A tiny artificial tree sat on the registration table near the door, and there was a statue of a snowman holding a banjo on one end of the bar.

“Sorry, this won’t do,” he told the empty room. The decorations were sufficient for most Christmases, but this year’s deserved better.

Garen lifted his phone. If he had to spend the day away from Simon, he had a choice: He could fret his way into madness, or he could use that energy to make a wee bit of magic.

* * *

Thankfully,all the door prizes were delivered by three o’clock, so Garen made his way home, stopping at the local bakery for a pair of coffees and an assortment of biscuits.

He entered the living room to find his flatmate slumped over the dining table, his head on his arms.

Garen shouted his name as he hurried over, nearly dropping the coffees.

Simon jolted, then sat up, looking dazed. “Hey. I was just having a quick nap.” He yawned as he tapped one of the keys of his laptop to wake it up. “Oh thank God, it’s only quarter to four. I didn’t sleep through the meeting.”

Garen joined him at the table, his pulse still pounding. “How’s your first half-day of telecommuting?”

“Boring.” Simon yawned again. “Catriona warned me it’d be hard to focus at first.”

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