Page 2 of Meeting Mr. Christmas
“He’s always on his best behavior for you. For me, he’s an eating, sleeping, barking fart machine.”
With the pup cup gone, Peter curled up on Jed’s lap, a picture of blissed out contentment. Noel got it, he really did.
Taking a sip of the drink that was really a liquid dessert, Noel sighed in contentment, closing his eyes as the rich, sweet goodness slipped down his throat and sent warmth flooding his belly. “That is so good,” he murmured, snapping his eyes open when Jed laughed.
“Whatever turns you on.”
The heat of the drink was nothing to the heat throbbing in Noel’s face. He knew exactly what it was that turned him on, and it had nothing to do with the sweet drink he held in his hands.
Noel cleared his throat. “Shouldn’t you be at work making up… flowery things?”
“Lucian let me go early, so I thought I’d get my Christmas shopping done?—”
“Instead of leaving it until Christmas Eve, and bitching about all the stores being too full and the shelves too empty?”
“You know me so well.”
I’d like to know you a whole lot better…The unlooked for thought sent another burst of heat to Noel’s cheeks that was no match for the heat flooding his groin. He buried his face in his drink. It was just the sugar rush. Maybe.
“… so instead of fighting my way through the crowds in the mall over in Boomfurt, I thought to myself what better way to spend the afternoon than with my best bud?”
Noel beat down the butterflies that were flapping their wings in the pit of his stomach. “You mean your girlfriend of the moment’s at work and you’re at a loose end?”
Jed’s girlfriends came and went, and Noel was never sure who Jed was seeing from one week to the next. He’d meant it as a lighthearted, humorous comment, but instead it had sounded kind of bitter and sour. Jed obviously thought so too, if the deep furrows in his brow were anything to go by, along with the hard sheen in his gray eyes.
“No,” Jed said quietly, never taking his gaze from Noel. “Just haven’t seen you for a few days, that’s all. We’ve both been kinda busy.”
“You’re right. Sorry. Work’s been crazy lately. Because the world really needs more mobile apps, right? Maybe it’s made me a little cranky.”
“A little?” Jed’s brows shot up, but at least he was now smiling, and Noel’s nerves relaxed.
“Say, how’s that side project of yours going? You’ve been real quiet about it,” Jed asked, after a few minutes gossiping about mutual friends.
“Side project?”
Jed laughed, shaking his head at the same time.Doofus, his gesture said, although his eyes were full of bright affection. “That chocolate making course you took. Handmade chocolates to sell at the farmers’ market? What were you going to call them?” Jed clicked his fingers, his forehead scrunching as he tried to remember before a huge grin split his face in two. “Noel’s Naughty Nibbles.”
Groaning long and hard, Noel let his head fall forward, hiding the cringe over his failed attempt at becoming Collier’s Creek’s one and only creator of hand-crafted artisan chocolates.
“I kinda ate them. As I went along,” he mumbled, peeking up though his bangs. It was necessary to taste as he went, for quality control, every strawberry cream, vanilla truffle, and nutty praline. The only problem was that he’d tasted so many there had been none left to sell.
“Noel Christmas. WhatamI going to do with you?”
Noel’s heart jerked, along with his dick. He had plenty of ideas about what Jed Mason, his best friend, his very straight best friend, could do with him, every one of which he was going to keep strictly to himself. All he could do was shrug and offer a wry smile, ready to push the conversation on to less dangerous ground when Jed leaned forward.
“Have you seen The Chronicle today? There’s a big piece in it about this new gay dating app that’s got all the town talking.” He nodded towards a poster pinned up on the wall of entwined rainbow hearts, Love Heartz’s lurid logo. There was also a stand with a batch of flyers for the app on the end of the counter.
“Er, yes, I have. Maybe I should try it out.”What the—?Where the hell had that come from? He had no interest in swiping through digitally enhanced images of the Creek’s lonely hearts. He’d find love the old-fashioned way, not that it’d worked for him so far.
Jed shrugged. The smile had fallen from his face as he tapped the table with his fingers. “Suppose you can’t do worse than you have already.”
“I don’t have problems with getting dates.” It was true; his problem was not wanting to see them again. Noel shifted in his seat and took a sip from the cup that was really a soup tureen. Jed chewed on his thumbnail.
“You haven’t been seeing anybody since you broke up with that Doug guy. He was kinda okay. I guess.”
“Dougal MacDouglas. And okay? I don’t remember you ever calling him that, because you were too busy calling him a self-obsessed dick with more product in his hair than he had brains between his ears.”
“And wasn’t I proved right?”
