Page 19 of A Very Armitage Christmas
“Yeah.” Ian sighed. “Maybe I’m a coward, but I can’t go inside right now. I ought to go bail Nate out, but I’m going to fix the inflatable Santa first. Maybe he’ll forgive me for leaving him to mom’s mercies if I get that done in the meantime.”
“You’d better do more than fix the Santa. I think we’re both going to be groveling for a while. Can you imagine, mom and dad driving up and finding them there with all the body parts? With us not even there to run interference?”
Ian looked at me, and I looked at Ian, and we both doubled over laughing like hyenas. Fuck, it felt good to laugh with my brother again. When had we gotten so fucking serious? Maybe having our parents around was good for something, after all. Even though they mostly just pissed us off.
I slipped discreetly inside the house through the weird little side door no one ever used because it always got stuck, spent a minute unsticking it and shutting it again, made it upstairs without running into anyone, and got myself cleaned up. The house smelled like ham and coffee and cinnamon, someone had put Christmas carols on the record player, and all the kids seemed to be having a party — or maybe staging a revolution. I couldn’t tell. The noise could’ve gone either way.
The pack house felt like home, like it had when Ian and I had been growing up. It hadn’t been all roses, but…yeah, I suddenly really, really wanted to hug my mom.
I’d gotten as far as drying off when I heard the bedroom door open and shut.
Arik. I could feel him through the bond, and I could smell him — although he didn’t smell like himself, exactly, more like some weird cross between a cherry pie and a potato.
My stomach rumbled.
“I heard that,” he said, and opened the bathroom door, leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed. He had a smudge of flour on his nose, and his fingers were stained all purplish-pink. “I’m glad my suffering makes you hungry.”
I dropped my towel on the counter and crossed the small distance between us. He’d put his hair up in a ponytail, probably to keep it out of the pie he’d obviously made — and it was making my eyes cross, imagining my prickly, dangerous, revenant-raising mate baking a pie with my mom, but I knew saying that would only piss him off. A long strand of pale blond hair had escaped to hang over his forehead. I pushed it back, letting my finger trail down over his cheek and jaw after I had, using my thumb to rub the flour off.
“You smell like pie. I can’t really help it. Also, suffering? I’m the one who had to do the snowblowing. A finger hit me in the nose.”
“I had to meet your parents. Without you. While standing in a yard filled with pieces of revenant.”
I moved a little closer, until I had him backed up against the door frame, turning so that I stood in the doorway and he had nowhere to run. Maybe he and Nate hadn’t made a break for Venezuela yet, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t change their minds.
“Yeah,” I said softly, leaning down and nuzzling his temple. “I do owe you for that.” I pressed a kiss to the sharp line of his cheekbone, loving the way I felt him start to flush under my lips. “I should probably make it up to you. Any ideas?”
“Christmas Eve dinner isn’t for a couple of hours. You could scrub the bathtub. Or organize my sock drawer. Or go downstairs and clean the kitchen, I think there’s kind of a mess — fuck, Matthew, put me down!”
I did, tossing him onto the bed hard enough that he bounced a couple of times, and then I landed on top of him, squishing him down into the mattress. He laughed and squirmed under me, his cheeks red and his hair flying out of its ponytail. I pinned him down by the shoulders and leaned up enough to look at him.
Stare, really.
“What the hell are you looking at?” Arik demanded.
How did I tell him what I saw when I looked at him, particularly like this: open and happy and smiling…joyful, even, and that wasn’t a word I’d ever thought I’d be able to use to describe my mate, no matter how much joy he brought me every day he chose to spend with me.
“I love you,” was all I could manage to say. “So fucking much, Arik.”
His blush deepened, creeping down his neck. He tried to scowl at me, but his lips kept twitching up. It was so fucking cute.
He opened his mouth, but I never heard whatever he’d been about to say.
“Hey! Look out your window, Matt!” Ian, shouting at me from right outside. “Merry fucking Christmas, big brother!”
A burst of laughter followed, Ian and Nate both, it sounded like.
Arik and I looked at each other and then scrambled off the bed, going to the window and pulling the curtain aside enough to peer out.
The sun had finally gone down, but the inflatable Santa had a small spotlight set up at its feet, the underlighting making its face look like it belonged in a Christmas horror movie.
One of its hands held a big bag of toys on its shoulder. The other had a huge middle finger up, pointed right at our window.
“Nate,” Arik hissed. “Hedid that. He fucking enchanted it! That little bastard!” I started to laugh, but broke off when Arik elbowed me in the stomach. Hard. “Not fucking funny!”
“It’s a little — okay, no, not funny at all,” I said, backpedaling quickly as his face went from angry to enraged, his eyes practically glowing. “Not funny. Totally serious. I’ve never seen anything less funny in my entire li— oof!” Arik shoved me so hard I flailed backward and landed on the bed, with him on top this time.
He straddled me, glaring, his chest heaving. I might’ve been more upset about it if he hadn’t positioned his ass perfectly on top of my cock, which liked that just fine.
