Death to Christmas Sweaters by LE Franks

Author:LE Franks [Franks, LE]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Gay Romance
ISBN: 978-1-64405-050-7
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2018-12-12T16:00:00+00:00

CHESS HELD the phone to his ear, just a second longer than required—his mother had disconnected, but her words still held him—“You haven’t brought anyone home since you were thirteen. I can’t wait to meet him.” The request had just slipped out. And now… he was a little stunned, and a lot terrified.

It was the low caramel of Benjamin’s accent that drew him out of his haze. “What does your aunt look like? Could that be her?” A sedan pulled away from the curb, unblocking their line of sight. He nudged Chess with his elbow, pointing farther along the sidewalk, where several groups were clustered, before disappearing again behind the next vehicle moving into place.

“Where?” Chess asked.

“There.” Benjamin pointed with a lean.

Chess could see a towering figure in gray wool, draped in a shawl that made her resemble a warship dressed in full colors preparing to steam off to war. A passenger van nosed into the curb, cutting off his view—and a flood of teens, in matching warm-up gear loud enough to make any clown college proud, spilled out.

Chess watched the driver wrestle their bags onto to the sidewalk with an alacrity that screamed he hoped they wouldn’t notice he was dumping them at arrivals instead of departures. With a slam of doors, the van lurched back into the relentless flow of holiday traffic circling LAX, abandoning the girls to their cases.

Chess now had a clear shot at the woman. “Maybe? I think I was maybe five when I last saw her.”

The woman in question was standing with her back to traffic, presiding over an island of luggage planted in the middle of an endless stream of passengers flowing from the terminal. Chess dredged up vague memories of a woman the size of a giantess terrifying him as a child. Who else could it be? He looked again, and she turned.

“Oh, my fucking hell…,” Chess groaned. It was Great Aunt Beatrice.

She was a menace. If any of his mother’s stories were true, any minute she was liable to relaunch the British Empire on her own. In fact, it looked like she might be doing that now—holding court and marshaling her forces—in this case the three skycaps hovering next to her. There was another couple waiting in her thrall, or possibly swept up in her eddy, unable to escape.

“No. No, no, no,” Benjamin whined next to him, startling Chess.

Reaching over, Chess gave Benjamin’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “I’m supposed to say she’s not that bad, but I can’t lie to you, Benjamin—she is the devil. My mom hates her… always butting in when my dad was alive.” His throat tightened just saying those words, but he wanted Benjamin prepared.

“What? No. I mean—I believe you on the great aunt front—we have worse problems.”

“The luggage?” Chess glanced to the back seat and then over to his aunt’s perfectly matched set of Louis Vuittons, the bags graduating in size from the ostentatious to the ridiculous. He was glad the fashion of Brits traveling with trunks had faded along with the empire.

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