Thirteen

Ashton

I couldn’t get out of Mom’s fast enough. But I did have some Christmas shopping to do. I didn’t have anything for Will. And while that would have been fine as far back as a week ago, it wasn’t fine now. For one thing, he wouldn’t have anything to open on Christmas if I didn’t get him something. And for another, I was pretty sure our relationship or whatever it was had moved far past friendship. I had to have something for him. I just had no idea what to get. What would be nice, but not over the top? What was the perfect thing for whatever we’d become?

“You ok?” Will asked.

As ok as I was going to be. I blew out a breath as I turned off Mom’s street. “She drives me crazy.”

“You know, if you’d just told her the truth from the beginning—”

“Do not tell me how to deal with my mom,” I snapped. “You think it was bad back there? You have no idea what it would have been like if I’d told her about Braden.”

He wisely said nothing to that. He just looked out the window as we drove through the neighborhood.

“There were a million people there,” he said after silence had engulfed the car

At Mom’s? “Yeah,” I agreed. “All of Bob’s family comes out of the woodwork for the holidays. I hate being there with all of ‘em.” And then the craziest idea ever popped into my head as we turned onto Kings Highway. “Will, why don’t we just drive across the country to your aunt’s and pretend we never came to Connecticut. We’ll make a road trip out of it and—”

He laughed. “You want to drive across the whole country right before Christmas?”

“Why not?” I said, liking the idea a lot more. “You’ve seen my fucked up family, it’s only fair I get to see yours too, right?”

Will shook his head. “In the first place, my Aunt Jill is not fucked up. Her whole family is like the epitome of normal. But in the second place, I know you want to be here, Ash. I saw you at the airport when your flight got cancelled, remember?”

I breathed out a breath. “Maybe I forgot how crazy they make me.”

“We’re going to blame that on your family, huh?” he teased.

“Thanks a lot,” I grumbled. And even though I didn’t really want to smile, I did anyway. It seemed like Will could make me smile no matter what.

“They might make you crazy, but you love ‘em anyway.”

I guessed he was right about that. What did that say about me? That I loved my family even though they drove me ape shit?

“Hey,” I began, as I stopped at red light and then looked over at Will. “Is there anything you want for Christmas?”

His eyes rounded. “Christmas?”

I grinned at him. “I mean, you’re here for Christmas. Is there anything you want?”

“Ash, the only thing I’ve wanted since last night was for you to finish that blowjob.”

I rolled my eyes. “I can’t wrap that and put in under the tree.”

A wicked little smile tipped the corners of his mouth. “You don’t have to wrap it.”

“Will!” I laughed. “You have a one track mind.”

“Uh, yeah. Hi, Ashton, I’m a guy. Have we met?”

“Would you be serious?” I shook my head.

And then he laughed. “I think you’re the only person in the world that has ever said those words to me.”

Someone behind us honked their horn and I realized the light had turned green. So I pulled into the intersection and refocused on driving.

We parked close to Main Street, and I shoved my hands in my coat pockets to keep them warm as we started toward the shops. But we ducked into Starbucks and each got a venti peppermint latte to keep warm before we went back outside.

I had to get him something. I’d feel awful if he didn’t have a present to open Christmas morning. And it had to be something special, something…Oh, I don’t know. Not socks. Not something crappy like that. But something…unique.

We popped into J.Crew and he picked up a scarf for himself. I glanced through the racks, but nothing was jumping out at me. It would be easier if I had some idea what to get him, but clothes didn’t seem right. That seemed like something a mother or grandmother would buy or a girlfriend who really knew his tastes. And I didn’t. I didn’t know what he’d like. And if I got something like clothes would that send up some warning flag, like I thought we were something we weren’t? I didn’t even know what we were. It would definitely be easier to shop for him if I knew what we were.

And then he completely shocked me when he stopped in front of the toy shop and smiled at the kids playing with wooden trains in the window. He looked like a little kid all of a sudden.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

He gestured to the trains. “I haven’t seen those in years.”

“A toy train?” I looked up at him.

“Not just a toy train. Thomas the Tank Engine. Come on, Ash,” he said, like I should be proficient in all things toy trains and had just been found lacking.

“You had Thomas the Tank Engine when you were a kid?” I guessed.

He shook his head. “My cousins did. I got to play with them whenever I was over there though. Thomas, Percy, Duck, Gordon—”

“Duck?” I couldn’t help but laugh. “One of the trains was named Duck?”

Will looked at me like I was crazy. “Yeah, he came over from the Great Western Railroad. He had the most common sense of all the engines.”

I could not help but laugh. “You are cracking me up.”

Will shook his head. “I can’t believe you don’t know Thomas the Tank Engine.”

“I can’t believe you do,” I countered.

He shrugged. “It was awesome, all the wooden track I could design any way I wanted. Tunnels, turns.”

“So you were an engineer when you were a little boy?”

“Pun intended?” he asked.

“Huh?”

“Engineer,” he said. “Train engineer. Civil engineer.”

Yeah, I hadn’t intended the pun. But I smiled and shrugged anyway. “Sure.”

“Uh-huh.” He took out his phone and snapped a picture of the train set in the window.

“What are you doing with that?” I asked.

“Tweeting it. Everyone else will get the whole Island of Sodor thing.”

I shook my head. “Whatever you say, Engineer Will.”

“Oh! Shit.” He frowned. “My mom called a couple times. I gotta call her back.”

“Yeah.” I nodded.

Will tapped away on his phone and then gestured to a bench in front of an empty store. “Looks quieter over there.”

“Ok.” And as soon as he turned his back, I darted into the toy store.

Will

My mom never calls me. Texts I’ll get occasionally, but email was her usually her communication of choice. To see three missed calls from her made my stomach drop. Something was wrong. It had to be wrong. She would never call otherwise.

I dropped onto a frozen bench in front of an empty store just as my mother answered her phone. “William?”

“Mom, are you ok?”

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” I said, and I was relieved to hear her sound like herself. “You called me. I’m just calling you back.”

“Where are you?” she asked.

“Westport, Connecticut,” I said, and then thinking about Ashton’s certainty that my mom was seeing someone, I added, “Where are you?”

“Home.”

Just like I thought. “Ok, well, is that all you needed?”

“Some Tom Havens from the Associated Press emailed me, trying to find you.”

Shit. “Sorry. I had a tweet that went viral and I’ve been ignoring all interview requests.”

“I saw the tweets,” she said, and she didn’t sound very happy. “It’s your life, Will, and you can do whatever you want with it, but in ten years you won’t want to google your name and see those posts. And you won’t want some employer to do that either.”

I hadn’t really thought about it like that. “I had no idea it was going to go viral, Mom. But I can delete them.”

“Like I said, it’s your life.” Which was as close as she ever got to giving advice.

“I’ll take ‘em down.”

“You’re not going to Jill’s for Christmas?”

“No.” I shook my head even though she couldn’t see me. There was no need to add that I was spending Christmas with the girl from the tweets or how much I liked Ashton. Mom wouldn’t really care one way or the other. I glanced back toward the toy store, but Ashton wasn’t there. Huh. Where did she go? “Staying in Connecticut.”

“All right. As long as you’re not in some trouble.”

“I’m good,” I said. “Hope you are too, Mom.”

“Thanks. Well, Merry Christmas.”

“Yeah, Merry Christmas.” I hung up, pushed off the frozen bench and started back toward the toy store, glancing up and down the street, looking for Ashton. Where in the world was she?

And then a little jewelry store across the street caught my eye. Jewelry was probably a really stupid idea. I’d probably kick myself for it later. If Chase ever found out he’d kick me for it, but I found myself crossing the frozen street and walking into the store anyway. The little bell tinkled over my head and a pretty blonde behind the counter smiled at me. She would be perfect.