Christmas Mountain: A Christmas Gay Romance by Garrett Leigh

Author:Garrett Leigh [Leigh, Garrett]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fox Love Press
Published: 2021-11-08T18:30:00+00:00

9

Fen

There was something wrong with me. Okay. Maybe not wrong, but definitely different. Last week’s me wouldn’t have found himself fetching someone’s repaired car from the better-equipped garage he’d taken it to without telling them and driving it home, but that was exactly what I did with Rami’s beat-up Fiesta.

You’re manipulating the situation so he has to see you.

Couldn’t deny it. My tenuous excuse was that he’d given me the impression that he wanted to. And, he seemed to have forgotten about his car, though why I was making it easier for him to leave, I had no idea.

Because you’re a genius, that’s why.

Gold star.

I parked Rami’s car outside my house—whatever my motives, I still had little faith that it would make it all the way up the mountain. Then I played a game of chicken with my phone, knowing I should text him but not knowing quite what to say.

Ultimately, I lost. And I wasn’t good at doing nothing, so when my work for the day was done, I drove the damn Fiesta up Christmas Mountain like a good lumberjack to deliver the news in person.

Safia met me at the gate. She was clutching a plate of mince pies, the good ones laced with cherry brandy and wrapped in the almond pastry my dad had taught her to make a month before he’d died. It was a Hawthorne special and I was so happy this chaotic little family had come to our land to keep it alive.

My stomach was glad too. I ate two on the spot, then relieved her of the plate. “Did you see me coming or hear my belly grumbling?”

“Both.” Safia winked. “And actually, I suspected it wouldn’t be long before I saw you today.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because you kept my brother out all night.”

She winked again. I pulled a face and ate another pie—my standard reaction to most things. Praise the Lord I didn’t have a sedentary desk job. “I kept him safe, not out. Did you want him to climb the fell after a skinful?”

“I wanted him to have fun.”

“And did he?”

“You tell me.”

“No.” I finished stuffing my face and handed Safia the plate. “I did bring his car back, though. It’s fixed.”

“Oh.”

Safia’s face looked like I felt: unenthused. No one wants him to go. Why can’t he just stay? How I was so convinced I needed that after so little time with him, I couldn’t say, but I. Did. Not. Want. Him. To. Leave.

But it wasn’t my place to beg him to stay. It was Safia’s, and I got the feeling she’d already tried and failed, and wasn’t that a depressing thought? “Where is he, anyway? I have the bill for him.”

“Ah, he already told you not to pay it for him, eh?”

I shrugged. Whatever conversations I’d had with Rami, I knew better than to force that situation on him. He was an adult, which equalled his car, his problem. I’d got him a deal, though, and the invoice stuffed in my pocket—which you could just give to Safia, you fool—was half what it would’ve been in Manchester.

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