Page 48 of Home For Christmas

“Which you did,” Colt reminded him in a way-too-reasonable tone.

I had a feeling we would have continued to go in circles had Derek not spoken up. “Presents?”

When I looked over, he was still sitting in front of the train, but it was going in circles. His body was turned toward the tree and the presents that had mysteriously appeared at some point that evening. I hadn’t had anything to do with those gifts, and hopefully they had nothing to do with me, either. I held my glass out for Harrison to pour some wine into it, then patted the seat beside me. If I couldn’t beat them, I might as well join them.

With everyone seated, Colt looked over at Derek. “Want to hand out gifts?”

Derek nearly fell in his rush to get gifts. He grabbed the first gift and took it over to Ty, then another and handed it to me. He went around the room, handing everyone gifts, until he settled in next to Colt on the couch with his own gift.

I recognized the gift Derek was holding. It was something I’d seen on a supply run in Ada one day, and it had instantly made me think of Derek. I hadn’t been exactly sure when I should give it to him, but apparently, since it had Derek’s name on it, whoever had gathered the gifts had decided it should be added to the pile. I wasn’t going to complain because it took the decision away from me.

I’d been so focused on Derek’s gift that I’d been going through the motions of opening my gift but not really paying attention to the item I was unwrapping. It seemed like everyone else was focused on their own gifts, and it allowed me to watch Derek.

The wrapping paper fell away quickly and Derek’s face went from excited to what I could only describe as overjoyed. He tugged on Colt’s arm, despite Colt having been watching him closely. “Daddy, look, it’s the ATSF engine!” He turned the box over a few times. “And it’s a steam engine!”

The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe line was the closest major railroad that ran near Ada while we were growing up. Derek had always tried to downplay his love of trains, but he’d been pretty shit at it considering he watched every damned documentary that came on. He still watched Thomas in high school—though that made a little more sense knowing what I knew now—yet would pick apart any inconsistencies in the show. After getting my driver’s license, I’d found out the train schedule and one weekend had taken him to the nearest rail yard so he could watch the trains. All I remembered about that day was losing interest about twenty minutes in, then grabbing a book to read, but by the time Derek had tired of watching the trains, I’d finished the book and it had been dark.

Derek must have remembered that day too.

After I was sure Derek liked the gift, I finally looked down at what I was holding. It felt heavy for the size, and when I flipped the packaging over, I nearly dropped it. “What the hell?” I asked the box, then looked for the gift wrap to see who’d given it to me. “Seriously, Ty?” I waved the box with the blown-glass butt plug… in the shape of a Christmas tree.

Ty started to giggle, and I began to wonder how much of that bottle of wine he’d already drunk. “I got one as a Christmas gift, and it’s so pretty. I thought you could use it as a decoration since you didn’t have any, or you know, you could actually use it for its intended purpose.”

“Plenty of decorations now.” I laughed, holding the butt plug up to the light. Then Ty’s words processed. “Wait, you have the same butt plug?”

Ty nodded. “Yup. It’s sitting on the mantle at home.”

I had the same butt plug as my brother. Yup, my life had taken a weird turn.

Harrison tapped me on the shoulder with a giant candy cane. “Which one’s better… or is it worse? Your butt plug Christmas tree? Or my giant candy cane dildo? It’s kinda skinny, though. I don’t know how useful it will be.”

And this was why our gifts needed to be opened here, not the main house.

Conversation flowed and gifts were forgotten as we sipped at our drinks and ate cookies. I looked over at one point to find Derek nursing the bottle of milk Harrison had made him. He was holding it with one hand while playing with Colt’s shirt with the other. It wasn’t until then that I noticed how large the bottle actually was and caught myself wondering where he’d bought it.

After another glass or so of wine and a few more cookies, it seemed that Derek had finished his bottle and was just looking at his train. When I started to wonder if we should keep toys in the house for him, I realized there were more gifts. Maybe someone else had got Derek toys as well. “More gifts?” I asked the group.

Derek gently placed the steam engine beside him on the couch and grabbed the next round of gifts from under the tree. Thankfully, that time around, the gifts were a little tamer. Not by much but by enough that the only thing in my gift bag was a pair of barely there briefs, and Harrison and Greg had complementing pairs. “For tomorrow,” Colt explained with a smile. “Dare picked them out.” Derek had been too engrossed in the blocks that Ty had bought him to notice what gift we’d opened.

A few more glasses of wine, another few cookies, and another round of gifts later, and Ty squealed. “Oh my god, it’s so pretty!”

I glanced over to see Ty shaking out a very short, very sheer nightie. It was red with a white fur trim around the bottom of the skirt. There was no way the thing would cover anything private.

“Like it?” Harrison asked as he scooted just a little closer to me.

“Like it?” Ty gasped. “It’s gorgeous! Thank you.”

I groaned as Ty pulled the matching panties out of the bag and began to work them up his legs. “These are so amazingly perfect.”

Harrison grinned widely even as Ty reached down to pull his nightshirt off, and I knew I was going to get way more of a show than I’d anticipated. “Ty!” I shut my eyes. “I have not had enough alcohol to see you naked twice in one night!”

Greg looked over at me, his glass of wine halfway to his lips and eyes as big as saucers. “You know, this doesn’t get any less strange.”

“Tell me about it,” I muttered as I focused intently on my glass of wine. Trying to ignore my brother stripping and changing into a frilly nightie in the living room was not an easy task.

I couldn’t say I was all that disappointed when the gifts ran out. Ty prancing toward the kitchen for more wine was enough of a reminder to me that we really needed to work more on boundaries. Hell, Harrison had been the one to buy my brother lingerie. I didn’t care how much we felt like we could share; there were some things brothers didn’t need to see, and tonight I’d seen way too much of Ty’s junk.

With the gifts finished, empty wine bottles piled up quickly while we chatted. Derek stuck to milk, juice, or water, but he’d gone through so many bottles I hadn’t been that surprised when Colt took him to their room to get changed a few hours in. We laughed and talked, and the sound of the various toys Derek was playing with filled any silence. Before I knew it, Christmas Eve had slipped by and Christmas Day was upon us.

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