Page 87 of Mr. Frosty Pants
“The eggs, yeah. But keep the rest of the bacon. We’ll want that later.” Joel moved away to grab his coat, thinking about the day ahead and their lack of any ingredients for a suitable Christmas dinner. He flipped the collar up as he tugged it on, nerves about his visit to his father clawing at his gut.
“You’re hot when you do that,” Casey said, raising a brow and stepping closer. He licked his lips, and his wet mouth glistened in the morning light through the mobile home’s kitchen windows. He mimicked flipping up a collar and grinned. “Mysterious and sexy.”
“I try,” Joel snarked.
“When you get back, I’m going to show you how hot you are. For hours.”
“Don’t have to twist my arm,” he whispered, grabbing for his keys as Casey drew closer again, tempting with his warm body and acres of exposed skin. Joel took a deep breath. “Later, do you want me to try? You know, the other way? Where I do it to you?”
“If you want to, sure.”
Joel frowned, his stomach balling up. He didn’t know why he didn’t want to do it to Casey, but he just didn’t. He shrugged. “Okay, if you want me to, I will.”
Casey rolled his eyes. “I already told you. I like to be on top, so if you don’t want to switch, we don’t have to.”
Relief punched through him, and he took Casey’s chin in his fingers before going up on his toes and kissing him hard. Casey moved in closer, pressing his tongue into Joel’s mouth and slipping his hand down toward Joel’s crotch.
“I have to go,” Joel muttered as his dick fattened up fast and traitorously in his pants. “I’ll see you later.”
Casey released him with so much reluctance that Joel nearly gave in and dropped to his knees to suck him off. But he stopped by the Christmas tree and pulled out one of only a few gifts he’d tucked underneath it the prior afternoon.
It may not have been time for Casey to move on from his family, but, like he’d realized the night before after leaving Casey’s folks’ house, it was past time he made a clean break from his own. His stomach churned, and he wanted to turn back to Casey and tell him what he was about to do, let Casey take him in his arms and hold him until Joel stopped stupidly shaking.
But no. It was his dad, and he could do this. Casey would be waiting when he got back.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Hey, Pop.” Joelentered his father’s room without an Egg McMuffin as usual. Even the local McDonald’s franchise allowed its employees the day off. He held out the present he had for his father instead. “Merry Christmas.”
Charlie, as Joel had decided to think of him from now on, glared at him from the bed. “I hoped you wouldn’t bother showing your face today after the crap you’ve pulled this week.” He didn’t reach out for the present, content to glare and sneer.
“Funny, I almost didn’t come.” Joel put the gift on his father’s nightstand and shoved his hands in his pockets. He didn’t bother pointing out that Charlie had been the real monster this week, abusive and humiliating. He just said, “Go ahead and open it.”
Slowly, Charlie reached for the present like it might bite him. “What’s in it?”
“The last thing you’re getting from me,” Joel said easily, like it didn’t pull hard at his insides to speak the words he should have said when he turned eighteen. “So, I hope you enjoy it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Charlie’s fingers stilled in the ripping of the wrapping paper, his weak eyes narrowing into another glare.
“It means I’ve already let you have too much.”
Charlie stared at him like he didn’t understand before turning his attention back to the gift. He opened it and pulled out a framed photo. It was a picture of the outside of Vreeland’s Home and Garden, done up for the holidays and dated on the bottom as the year before Joel’s mother had passed away.
“I found it in some boxes when I was looking for the tree ornaments. I thought you might want it.”
His father sneered. “Why would I want a crummy picture of a place that stole the best years of my life?”
Joel felt the wound open, but he thought of Casey’s stubbornness, closed his eyes, and stitched it back up with his own determination and will.
When he looked at Charlie again, he said calmly, “It’s a thank you, in a way. Vreeland’s is the best thing you ever did for me. It may not be my dream career, but it’s going to be my way to my dream.”
He’d realized the night before during his brief discussion with Courtney that he didn’t have to stay at Vreeland’s forever. He could sell the place to someone who could love it and use the proceeds, slim as they might be, to start on the log cabin or, hell, to live on while he wrote more books.
He didn’thaveto remain at Vreeland’s unless he wanted to. And right now, he did want to. But the job had an escape hatch. One that he could use when or if the time came. That realization had opened the world up for him, relieving the trapped sensation he’d been stuck in for so long.
“Your dream? More faggy talk already?” Charlie tossed the photo onto the bed. It nearly slid off to the floor, but he made no move to catch it. Joel didn’t either.
Joel walked around the room, going to every photo of his mother and taking a snap with his phone.
