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Merry Christmas
,
Baby
Aly Graham
D
EREK
nervously buttoned and unbuttoned the cuffs of his
dress shirt.
Three months.
The thought was terrifying. Three months since he’d
been back to this restaurant. He felt like his insides were
caving in with each familiar scent and face. The music was
the same, the design was the same, the same people worked
there, and the same people frequented the bar. Three
months and the Christmas holiday hadn’t done a damn
thing to change the place.
Three months.
The waitress he’d had the last time he came to the
restaurant brought him a glass of water and he had to think
hard about not asking for liquor to follow it. Maybe it would
calm his nerves, ease his fears back in his overly excited
brain. He couldn’t think without one thought jumping to
another, and then another. His fists clenched and
unclenched in his lap and he had to force himself to breathe
normally. He reminded himself that it was Christmas Eve
and even though the restaurant didn’t seem to recognize the
holidays that didn’t mean that traffic didn’t. He was probably
just running late. That excuse didn’t hold for long.
2
Merry Christmas
,
Baby
Aly Graham
Every time the door opened and closed his muscles
twitched anxiously. He’d been sitting there for twenty
minutes now, drinking glass after glass of water, and though
he was sure he’d need to relieve himself soon he didn’t want
to leave the table. He didn’t want to risk the chance that the
door could open and the right person would walk in without
him there to see him. Three months had changed a lot.
Derek tugged at his collar as he grasped bits of
conversation floating around him, drifting into his ears
voluntarily making his neck warm and his cheeks redden.
“– Look at the poor guy.”
“– He might be here by himself. And on Christmas
Eve!”
“Besides he hasn’t ordered any food and –”
“– he must be waiting for some one or maybe –”
Derek frowned. They were just words. Words of some
nosy people who should be more concentrated on their food
than why he was sitting there alone. He checked his Rolex,
noting that it was twenty until ten. Twenty minutes had now
turned into an hour, one long embarrassing hour.
A disappointing hour.
Some carolers went by and Derek’s ears perked to
listen to the strains of
Silent Night
. He breathed in deep to
calm himself. ‘
Lonely’
Night
was more like it.
3
Merry Christmas
,
Baby
Aly Graham
Derek’s stomach dropped and his eyes remained
downcast as he stood up and pushed the chair in.
He wasn’t coming. Chase wasn’t coming and Derek
was suspicious of whether the other man ever intended to,
after they made the date.
The bittersweet sound of the soft music followed Derek
on his way out. The strains of the violinist’s chords were cut
short when the door closed behind him. The carolers had
moved on down the street, ringing bells and belting joy from
the top of their lungs. Derek didn’t care. He wasn’t much for
holidays. That had been Chase’s department. He always got
the tree, decorated it, and lit it up. Derek didn’t have time for
such things. He was usually out and Chase was more than
always in.
With his hands in his pockets Derek trudged home
where he knew a comfortable bed and a mountain of work
waited for him. Work that prepared him for his next trip,
another three months away from the concrete sidewalks and
asphalt streets, from the harsh glow of the street lamps, and
Chase. He guessed he couldn’t blame Chase for not coming.
He ran his thumb over the smooth surface of his cell
phone willing it to buzz to life and catch him before he went
too far.
Too little too late, he supposed when he reached his
flat on the north side of the city and with a push of a button
cut his phone off just as the tiniest of vibrations could be
4
Merry Christmas
,
Baby
Aly Graham
felt.
It was over. For good this time.
C
HASE
started when the connection was lost. He lay on his
stomach in his bed across town staring at the small phone.
His dark eyes were wide with disbelief and his jaw slack in
surprise.
He dialed the number again only to receive a short
answer that Derek was unable to answer the phone. Flipping
the phone closed, Chase set it quietly aside and laid his head
down, unable to stop the churning of his stomach. He’d been
so angry three months ago when Derek told him that he was
going away for a while. He had been so angry that he refused
to see him off or converse with him at all during the trip.
He’d thrown himself into his work, developing the latest
issues of his comic books at such a rapid rate that his
publishers questioned him about the now dubbed “dark
issues” and if Chase were in his right mind.
Chase happily replied that a right mind hadn’t made
them the money they eagerly accepted. He had to admit that
when Derek left he was more crass than pleasantly sarcastic
and outright depressed rather than fun-loving.
He wasn’t in his right mind. Not when he was
imagining Derek here, dark complexion mixing against his
pale one.
5
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