It’s Christmas Everywhere But Here (7 page)

Adjusting, Russ reminded himself. Dave was adjusting. Different time zone, trip exhaustion. That was all.

He busied himself making the beds, then took out the garbage, overflowing with the remnants of the ruined breakfast.

He stepped into the hall from the garage and had to jump back when a dark-haired boy bolted around the corner toward the back bedrooms. Russ leaned out enough to watch Austin vanish under the covers. A moment later, a shoe fell to the floor. A second later, the other one.

Russ followed the noise of his husband into the kitchen. Dave was standing at the sink, guzzling a glass of water. After it was empty, he filled and drained it again.

“Not used to that.” Dave grinned. The sight of the sharply defined nipples would have given Russ pause, but today they were overshadowed by the heaving of Dave’s chest. “Chasing a seven-year-old is the best workout ever.”

“It’s how I keep my girlish figure.” Russ smiled, though the joke felt flat.

“Naw.” Dave shook his head and sauntered over. “Not girlish, lover.” Warm hands settled on Russ’s waist, and Dave coaxed his lips apart. Which was enticing until Dave yawned. “Sorry.” He grinned around the fist covering his mouth.

It was probably the shadows from the harsh morning light, but Dave’s eyes looked sunken, dark smudges underneath them. The lines at the corners of his eyes and around his mouth stood out.

“No, it’s okay.”

“What do you need help with?”

“Nothing.” Russ plastered on a smile. “The laundry is started, you said you ran the carpet cleaner on the spots in the hall, and we’ve rescued Austin’s clothes.”

“Do we need to mop the floor in here?”

“I’m not sure if this is real hardwood or not. I’ll ask Mom when they get home. It’s not sticky, and it’ll keep until then.”

“Okay. Wanna sit on the couch and cuddle?” Dave pressed in close again.

“Yes. Why don’t you find something to watch, and I’ll be in in a minute.”

“Deal.” Dave stole another kiss before wandering to the living room.

Russ took several calming breaths and refilled the sink, adding dish soap.

“Russ?”

“Just setting these frying pans to soak,” he called back as he started scrubbing them clean. It took ten minutes until everything was rinsed and air-drying in the rack, but Dave was already asleep on the couch.

Russ stood, watching, wanting to touch but not wanting to wake Dave. He’d slept from at least one to 7:00 a.m. on the couch. He shouldn’t be worn out from thirty minutes of playing. Shouldn’t have the bags under his eyes or the lines on his face or the hollows in his cheeks.

Russ walked out of the room to find something to do before he woke Dave up.

T
WO
LOADS
were finished, and the last was in the dryer.

Russ pulled the coffee table over and sat down, pressing his butt against Dave’s legs. Dave stirred and stretched.

“Hey.”

“Hey yourself.” Russ pulled the first thing out of the laundry basket and started folding. One of his brother’s concert T-shirts. Not too staticky, despite skipping the dryer sheets. Doris had a strange brand, and Russ didn’t want to risk a laundry rash. As it was, he planned on rewashing everything once he was home.

“Did I fall asleep?” Dave scrubbed at his face and sat up.

“Yeah.”

“Sorry. I was gonna help you clean up.”

“You did. It was mainly the laundry that was left.” Russ scooted the basket closer with his foot. “Which you can help me fold.”

“Sure. I think I remember how to do that.”

“You’d better.” Russ folded the pair of jeans and set them aside. “Since, as househusband, laundry now falls under your purview.”

“Househusband, huh?” Dave leaned in so their shoulders bumped.

“Yeah.”

“I get to be a kept man?”

Russ bumped back. “For a little while, at least.”

“Mmm, I like the sound of that.”

“You’ll have to cook.”

“Then again.”

Russ glanced to the side. Dave was stifling another yawn.

“Did you not sleep well last night?”

“I was tossing and turning. Didn’t want to wake you up.”

Russ lowered the T-shirt he was trying to fold. “Why did they send you home early?” He kept his eyes on the fabric in his lap.

“I told you. We were done with our tour.”

“Are you sick? Is that why?”

“Russ, why would you ask that?”

A hand closed around his arm. Russ leaned toward the touch.

“You’re so tired, David. More than the time difference would account for. Twenty minutes chasing Austin wiped you out. And you’re so skinny.” He ran a hand over Dave’s abs. “You’re thin and you’re haggard and….” Russ closed his eyes and pressed his face against Dave’s, tears he couldn’t hold back squeezing out. “Please tell me, David.
Please
. If you’re sick we’ll get through it. But not knowing…. The not knowing is the worst part. I am so
fucking
sick of not knowing.” Russ dropped the T-shirt to swipe at his tears. “I can get through anything except the not knowing….”

Dave kissed him hard, and they fell back on the couch, wrapped around each other. Russ didn’t try to hide the sobs, kissing his husband through them. The tremors eventually stilled, and they lay on the couch, torsos hugged tight, legs tangled.

“I’m not sick.”

“Oh, thank God.”

Dave squeezed him more tightly, the words soft puffs of breath on Russ’s neck. “It—got bad at the end. The missing you and—other things. I had no appetite. I couldn’t sleep. I’d go to the gym on base and just—run on the treadmill until I wore myself out.”

Russ turned to look at his partner. Dave was crying, silently and without shaking. “Oh, baby. Oh, Davey.” He wiped the tears from Dave’s face. “But you’re okay?”

“Yeah. I just need you. So bad, lover.”

Russ reassured Dave with a kiss, deep and searching. He reversed the roles from the previous night. Now it was Dave pushed back into the cushions, Dave’s mouth getting coaxed open, Dave’s knee hiking up to wrap around Russ’s hip and pull him closer.

“I’m here, David. I’m right—”

“Russell!”

Russ jerked, swearing when Dave’s teeth caught at his lip.

Doris stood in the hallway, a horrified look on her face.

“You promised!”

“And I did not break that promise.”

“But you were—”

“Kissing.
Not
having sex.” Russ sat up, shoving his hair back out of his face and ruthlessly folding whatever it was he’d grabbed out of the laundry basket.

“Russell! Emily!”

“Is old enough to know what sex is and that I expect her to not engage in it.”

“It’s my fault,” Dave started.

“No, it’s not.” Russ grabbed Dave’s arm and squeezed. “Two consenting adults engaged in a physical expression of mutual love and did
not
break any promises. So no one has anything to apologize for.” Russ lifted his chin and looked Doris straight in the eye. He knew it was a blatant challenge for her to contradict him.

“Well, I’ll take your word for it.” Doris turned to hang up her coat. “However, I think it would be best if David spends tonight on the couch. Shouldn’t be a fuss, since he slept there last night.” She disappeared back toward the kitchen.

Russ tossed the pair of socks he was trying to fold onto the table and buried his face in his hands.

“Lover?” Dave’s hand rubbed the back of his neck.

“I’m not mad at you. But I refuse to apologize for being there for my husband, whether she agrees with that or not.” Russ kissed Dave again, hard and brief. He turned back to the socks, pulled them apart, staring at them. They didn’t even match each other.

“Russ?” Dave’s hand rubbed a line up his lower spine.

Russ turned to look up at his husband. “What do you think? One more day?” he kept his voice low.

“Now?” The rubbing hand turned into a fist gripping Russ’s shirt.

Russ hooked his hand on the inside of Dave’s thigh. “Yes, but….”

“But your parents actually invited you, and this is the first time they’ve gotten to play with the grandkids?”

“Yeah. After a fashion.”

Dave resumed rubbing. “You probably have a better read on Austin than I do at this point.”

“Let’s see how he is in the morning.”

“Sounds good. You know socks are supposed to be in pairs, right?”

Russ threw the socks at him, but he followed them with a kiss. “Sergeant, you’re now in charge of Operation Socks.”

“As you wish, General.”

Russ grinned and reached down into the basket for the next item.

“R
USSELL
,
WILL
you come set the table, please?” Russ looked up from Ansel Adams’s biography to his mother. Doris stood in the hall to the kitchen, hands folded in front of her.

“I’ll do it.” Max started to get up.

“I asked Russell to. Besides, you helped with lunch, Maxwell. It’s only fair.”

Russ closed his book and met Max’s apologetic gaze. He’d avoided his mother by doing laundry, watching movies, and helping Randall move some heavy antique that Max considered taking home.

“We can both help. It’ll go faster.” Dave squeezed Russ’s arm.

“Don’t disturb Austin; he’s finally calm.” A dirty trick. Austin was on Dave’s far side, head on his father’s bicep as he played his game.

Russ turned to Dave, kissing him lightly. “Have the medics ready,” he murmured.

Dave caught his chin and kissed him again, sucking on Russ’s lip when they pulled apart. “Don’t be long.”

Russ got to his feet but did not follow Doris into the kitchen, instead heading to the hall bathroom to wash his hands. It was the small acts of defiance that got him through his teenage years, no reason to stop now.

Doris hovered in the kitchen when he came in to pull plates and silverware out of the cabinets.

He could only put it off so long. Already, expectation begat tension, coiling down Russ’s back. He rolled his shoulders to try to combat the tightness. “How was the park?”

“It was fine. Your father and I took a walk while Emily and Max played with the dogs.” She didn’t sound pleased.

“Nice morning for a walk.” Russ carried the pile he’d made over to the table and came back for the glasses.

“You promised me.” Russ took a deep breath and set, rather than slammed, the glass down. “Russell, you promised me that you and David wouldn’t—” She paused, fidgeting in place. “—that you wouldn’t….”

“Have sex?”

She flushed at the word and turned partly away from him. “Yes.”

“And as I told you, we weren’t.” He surveyed the table, setting the remaining glasses in place.

“What were you doing, then?”

“He was upset. He had some things he needed to tell me.” For several seconds, Russ positioned plates and forks in relative peace.

“Did he have an affair?”

The rest of the flatware tumbled to the tabletop. “Oh my God!”

“Russell!”

Russ leaned forward, arms spread wide on the edge of the table, and stared at the jumble of utensils as if they were a fortuneteller’s runes.

“There are women in the military now; maybe he went back to—”

“Stop talking, Mother.”

Russ made himself look at her. Doris frowned back, her mouth pinched shut.

“Is every straight man an adulterer?”

“Why are you asking me that?”

“Answer the question, Mom.” Russ moved to meet her line of sight. “Does every straight man commit adultery?”

“No.”

“Well, neither does every gay man. David and I have a relationship just like yo—we have a loving, committed,
monogamous
relationship. And if we didn’t, I wouldn’t be in it. And it hurts me”—he pushed ahead when Doris opened her mouth to speak—”when you automatically assume the worst.”

Russ picked up the flatware, then let it fall again. “You know what? I can’t do this right now.”

Glad he had shoes on, he headed straight out of the front door, ignoring whatever sounds his mother was making behind him. The wind was up, blowing a few high clouds across the sky. It tugged at his hair, sending it every which way as he stalked across the yard. He stumbled when the wind blew stinging tears into his eyes. Russ hadn’t realized he’d started crying.

This was not how Christmas was supposed to go. It was supposed to be happy. Full of joy and excitement and love. Not constantly justifying yourself to a woman who wouldn’t accept you.

“I am a goddamned adult!” Russ yelled at the racing clouds.

They ignored him, as did the wind tugging at his limbs.

He went the rest of the way to where the tree house had been. The oak was gone, victim of a rotten core, replaced now with a bench and a little gravel area and a fruit tree. He sat down on the bench, staring out over the pastureland to the foothills.

This was why he hated coming home. Because things had changed, but not really. He was still Doris’s little boy, still subject to her every whim and command. Heaven forbid he make a decision or parent his kids or love someone contrary to what she wanted, what she thought was right. It had been a joke, growing up: “If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”

He wasn’t laughing anymore.

“Here.” Russ jumped when the sweater was extended toward him.

“Thanks” died in his throat when he looked up and found his father instead of Dave.

Randall stood behind the bench, gazing out over the hills. “You always did like it here.”

“Far enough away from the house I could pretend not to hear Mom when she called.” Russ shrugged the sweater on.

“Max played his music loud; you preferred physical distance.” Russ scooted over, and Randall sat down. “You okay, Russ?”

“No.” Russ shook his head. He knew he was hunkered down, arms crossed over his chest, gazing out over the fields instead of looking at his dad. “I try, Dad. I try to understand and be respectful of her beliefs so she can be part of the kids’ lives, but—I’m not getting anything back.” Russ clenched his jaw to try to keep them in, but the words tumbled too fast, now that he’d let them out. “I’m willing to meet her halfway, but she’s the fucking immovable object, waiting for me to give in and come to her. And I
won’t
. I will not compromise myself that much just to make her happy. I did that for way too long, and I was way too miserable to ever go back.”