From the corner of his eye, David saw Anna poking her head into the workshop. He waved before pulling out his earplugs and tapping Isaac, who was bent over a long board, sticking out his tongue in concentration as he measured the marks for cutting.
Isaac straightened up and pulled out his earbuds. “Hey, Anna.”
She grimaced as she came into the concrete rectangle and shut the door behind her. “Wow. Is it always this loud?”
David nodded grimly. “It’s gotten worse and worse.” His neighbor’s music thump, thump, thumped through the wall and seemed to reverberate in the air like a living creature. Most of the other garages down the alley stored cars, but he had the terrible luck to be next to a man who repaired engines to the so-called tune of the loudest music David had ever heard. He’d asked many times to have it turned down, and the next day it was inevitably shaking the foundation again.
“It wouldn’t be so bad if it was pretty,” Isaac said. “I thought songs were supposed to have melodies and stuff.” He picked up his phone. “I’ve got some great songs on here I can listen to, at least. I try to drown it out.”
David wished he could, but it drove him just as crazy blasting music in his ears, so he stuck with the earplugs. Even with the orange foam squeezed into his ears, he could feel the heavy beat of the music and hear it faintly.
Anna put her hands in the pockets of her red raincoat. “Well, I hope you can find somewhere else to work soon.” She scuffed the toe of her sneaker on the concrete, pushing sawdust back and forth. “So…”
David cringed. “What? I know that tone. What did you do?”
“Nothing!” Her cheeks pinked up. “I swear. But I have a favor to ask. Of both of you.”
David and Isaac shared a glance. “Okay.” David waited, his muscles rigid.
“Well, I was thinking maybe you could take a couple hours off and we could go shopping? There’s a mall we can take the bus to. I need your help finding gifts for Aaron and Jen.” She raised her hands. “I know, I know, we’re not supposed to be spending our money on gifts, but I want to get you all a little something and wrap up the boxes with sparkly paper and put them under the tree on Christmas. And I know you both got me something even though we said no gifts.”
David and Isaac shared another glance. “How did you know?” Isaac asked.
She smirked. “I didn’t for sure, but I figured. So will you come? Lola can’t, and it’s Christmas Eve.”
Sighing, David hung up his saw on its hook on the wall. “I wouldn’t go to the mall on Christmas Eve for anyone but you.” There’d been a story about it on the news that morning saying how busy it would be.
As they fought through a surge of bodies an hour later trying to get out of Macy’s, David concentrated on long inhales and exhales. He hadn’t had a panic attack in months, but sweat prickled the back of his neck, and his heart raced.
He didn’t know how there could be this many people in San Francisco, let alone this many of them crammed inside one mall at one time. Christmas carols filled the air, along with the buzzing drone of the crowds, people with desperate, hungry faces striding from store to store.
“Okay?” Isaac murmured, snagging David’s hand.
“Yeah.” David blew out a long breath. “It’s hot in here.” He tugged at the collar of his hoodie.
“I know.” Isaac called ahead, “Anna, are you almost done?”
“Almost.” She grinned. “We’re getting the full English Christmas experience.”
“We’re going to the bathroom,” Isaac said, tugging David’s hand. “We’ll meet you by the pretzels down there.”
“Isaac, I’m fine,” David protested, but he let Isaac lead him down a hallway and inside an empty and surprisingly clean bathroom. Considering he’d used an outhouse for years, he shouldn’t have been picky anyway.
Isaac ushered David into a stall and pressed him against the door, kissing him gently. “Hey,” he whispered.
“Hey.” David exhaled with a smile. “I’m okay, Isaac. I’m not going to freak out. It’s crowded and noisy, but… I’m okay. It’s not like it was when we first came here. I can handle it.”
“I know.” Isaac brushed their lips together again. “I needed a break too. Let’s just catch our breath for a minute.”
David nodded gratefully, and for minutes they simply held each other, breathing in and out as other men came and went. David’s pulse slowed, and soon he felt fortified and ready to go back out and face the mall. But Isaac didn’t seem to be in any rush, so what was a few more minutes? He snuck his hands under Isaac’s sweater, tracing his fingers over the skin of Isaac’s lower back.
Shivering, Isaac kissed him again, sliding his tongue between David’s lips. The outer door of the bathroom opened, and they kissed as the man went about his business at the urinal. When they were alone again, David chuckled. “We shouldn’t be doing this. Too many people around.”
“We’re not doing anything.” Isaac smiled slyly. “Although I heard that lots of gay men have sex in bathrooms like this. They call it ‘cruising.’ I don’t know why, but they do.”
David pondered it. “So, are you cruising with me, Isaac Byler?” The stress and tension of the crowds seemed miles away here in their private little corner.
Isaac grinned. “Maybe I am. You interested, David Lantz?”
He dipped his hands below Isaac’s waist, squeezing his round ass. “Always.”
Biting his lip, Isaac said, “I guess we shouldn’t be in here too long, though.”
“Hmm. Guess not.” Their eyes were locked, and tremors of desire rippled through David. They hadn’t had to hide and be quiet for so long, and excitement ran hot in his veins.
Apparently in Isaac’s too. “Maybe you should fuck me in here. Up against the wall.”
A little boy’s voice rang out. “Daddy, I can go myself! I’m a big boy!”
“Okay, you do it by yourself,” a man said, chuckling.
With Isaac rigid against him, David held his breath. He felt the flush all the way to the tips of his ears as he and Isaac stared at each other in horror. They waited for what seemed a terribly long time while the child went to the bathroom and then washed his hands so thoroughly he could have been a doctor on one of the medical shows on TV.
When they were finally alone again, they burst out laughing and quickly hurried out of the stall. “Uh, we’ll finish that later at home,” David muttered as he washed his hands.
Isaac nodded vigorously and wrinkled his nose. “Cruising isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
By the pretzel store, they looked for Anna, peering at endless faces that rushed by. David frowned. “She should be here by now.”
“Oh, there! She’s waving.” Isaac headed into the center of the mall where a fancy house sat. It looked like it was made of gingerbread, and in front of it was a man in a Santa suit sitting on a plush red throne.
“Hurry! It’s almost our turn.” Anna waved them over. When they looked at the line snaking out behind her, they hesitated. “It’s okay. I told them I was saving your spot.”
As they joined the line, David watched a little girl climb onto Santa’s knee. “Almost our turn for what?”
“Pictures with Santa. They print them out right over there. We get two poses, so one with me on Santa’s lap, and then one with you two.”
“Us two…on his lap?” Isaac exclaimed. “We’re too heavy.”
A young woman dressed in a short red dress with fuzzy white trim ushered them forward. “Adults do it all the time. Santa can handle it. Come on, you’re up.”
Beaming, Anna skipped up to Santa and plopped on his knee. They had a conversation David couldn’t hear, then smiled widely for the photographer. Then the woman in red was urging them up the three steps to the throne.
“Uh…” David waved at the man. “Hi.”
“Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas!” The older man patted his meaty thighs. “Have a seat and tell me if you’ve been naughty or nice.”
With a helpless glance at each other, they did as they were told, David perching as gingerly as he could so they didn’t crush the poor man.
“Um, mostly nice,” Isaac answered with a blush.
“Your sister tells me this is your first Christmas here in San Francisco.”
“Yes,” David said. “Where we’re from, Christmas isn’t like this.”
“And what do you want Santa to bring you?”
David and Isaac looked at each other, and Isaac said, “A house would be really nice.”
The man barked out a laugh. “Wouldn’t it?”
“But as long as we have each other, we don’t need anything else,” David added.
“Geez, you guys should get a job with Hallmark.” Santa laughed. “Okay, say cheese!”
When they went back for their set of pictures twenty minutes later, David stared at the images of Anna with her infectious grin, and he and Isaac laughing with Santa. In Zebulon, mirrors hadn’t even been allowed, never mind pictures. He could imagine how their parents would frown, the bishop and preachers wagging their fingers and sermonizing about the vain, worldly sinfulness of it all.
“Let’s go buy picture frames,” he said, taking Isaac and Anna’s hands and battling the crowds with a smile.