Page 34 of In the Shadows

Chapter

Six

Christmas morning

All of us, well Joey, Diamond, myself, and Joe, wanted to be next door for Christmas morning to watch Brandon open his gifts. We’d put our gifts under their tree last night after Brandon went to bed. Mickey was spending the day, and the majority of his off time with his family since we were flying back to Florida on January second.

Much to our surprise, Mom had to wake him up after we arrived, and we showed up at six a.m. I was in the kitchen, setting Joey up with his caffeine IV when Brandon came barreling down the stairs.

“Santa came!” he exclaimed, rather loudly for this time of the morning. We’d put so many presents under the tree that it looked like the mall threw up under it.

“Merry Christmas, Brando,” I said, ruffling his bed head.

He launched himself into my arms. “Merry Cwismas, Ricky. Where’s JoJo?”

“I’m right here, bud,” Joey said, entering the room from the kitchen.

It meant so much to me that if Brandon saw me, he automatically assumed Joey was to be right there with me. And nine times out of ten, that held true.

“Do you want your stocking, Brandon?” Brett asked him.

He squirmed in my arms to get to his dad and as soon as I released him, he shot off like a bullet from a gun. When he finished slinging the contents of the stocking across the coffee table, Brett perched himself beside the tree and started handing the presents to Brandon to play little Santa to hand the presents out to each respective person.

We sat and watch him rip his open first, it was like seeing the Tasmanian Devil from the Warner Brothers cartoons come to life. My mom was on a mission to catch each and every piece of wrapping paper before it hit the floor but was failing miserably. I found this to be quite entertaining, but when she caught me laughing, I received her signature smack to the back of my head. Much to her dismay, that didn’t stop my laughter.

After the little man finished, the adults dug in. Seems my bandmates had the same idea, and I’m not sure how we pulled this off individually, but Joey got me an autographed guitar, signed by the guys from Maiden Voyage. I could already picture it framed and hung on a wall in our house. Well, the house I hoped he’d want to buy with me. Joey and I had ordered Diamond a case of personalized drum sticks. We had his signature and our logo printed on each one. He was thrilled. Diamond got Joey, Mickey, and myself autographed Maiden concert shirts. Mickey got me what looked like a lifetime supply of guitar picks with the Social Sinners logo he’d drawn on them which was funny considering we ordered the same for him.

And me, being the sap that I was quickly becoming put together the most personal gift of all, for Joey. Since we’d started dating, we’d been taking selfies at each concert venue, not to mention the millions of pictures he’d snapped and shared with me of our trip to the canyon. Well, a million was an exaggeration but I knew he had to purchase more cloud storage to back up his pics after that trip. I took the most intimate ones and put them together in a framed collage for him. Cheesy? Yes, but the look in his eyes told me I’d made the right choice.

“Stoli,” was all he said, tracing the pictures through the glass with his fingertips. “This means more to me than you’ll ever know.” He leaned over, kissing me. Not a quick peck, but not porno tongue either, but a kiss that was filled with so much heart, so much love that it spoke volumes to me. Fuck, I was even a bit choked up over his reaction.

“Ohhh Joey and Ricky are kissing, Mama,” Brandon sang loudly, swinging his hips from side to side in some sort of dance move. That kid was too damn cute for his own good.

Across the board, it seemed the presents we’d chosen went over well with everyone. We were due back later for dinner at my folks’ house, so we scrambled back to Joe’s to catch a nap before returning. Joe’s girlfriend and her son came over for dinner as well. We’d put a package of autographed Social Sinners swag together for him and the kid went fucking nuts when he opened it. You couldn’t help but smile when fans fangirl or fanboy out, made the excruciating hours we put into our art worthwhile.

For New Year’s, we opted to stay home and ring it in with our family. Joe’s girlfriend Maggie and her son Brad came over, flanked by about twenty of his friends who wanted to meet his mom’s boyfriends “son” ha, we knew they wanted to meet the entire band. Mickey came over and he and Diamond hung out for a while before Diamond started bitching about needing to get laid, so he and Mickey headed out around ten p.m.

Joey and I talked to Brad’s friends for a while, never hiding the fact that Joey and I were a couple. There had always been a magnetic pull between the two of us, which had only deepened since we started dating. We usually have an arm around each other, holding hands or touching in some form or fashion. Stolen kisses, sweet glances, gentle caresses. I refused to hide who I was and it appeared we weren’t the only pair drawn to each other in the room. Brad and one of his friends, Jackson appeared to be a bit more than friends.

When midnight rang in, Maggie and Joe were outside watching fireworks which left Joey and myself along with Brad and his entourage inside the house. Joey and I didn’t think twice before we were wrapped tightly around each other, our lips locked in an embrace amid the cat calls, whistles and bro hugs filling the room. But as we parted, I glanced over at Brad and Jackson, both of whose faces were flushed, shoulder to shoulder, nervously sipping their drinks while the rest of the crowd was riled up.

“All right, time to bail,” one of the guys Brad brought with him announced, “Stoli, Joey, you guys wanna hit the city with us?”

I looked at Joey, curled up in my lap and knew he wouldn’t want to go out. “Nah man, thanks for the invite, but I think we’ll stay here.”

“Suit yourself, dude.” One by one, they walked over to us, saying goodbye and thanking us for hanging out.

“Dude, are you and Jackson coming?” he asked Brad when he saw they weren’t following him.

They both shrugged and shook their heads. “We’re gonna hang out here. We’ll catch a ride home with my mom.”

“Cool, later.”

“Oh, um, I guess I should have asked first. Are you guys okay with us hanging out here?” Brad asked us, looking like he was ready to bolt if we said boo.

“Yeah, man, we’re good with it. Just gonna watch some mindless TV and unwind,” I told them. My gut was telling me that there was more to their hanging around than they were letting on. But, they needed to open up to us – not the other way around.

They sat together on the love seat while Joey and I were sprawled out across the couch and with our long legs it left no room for others to sit. I was flipping from channel to channel, finally landing onAtomic Blondeplaying on HBO.

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