I’ve never liked Christmas. In fact, I’ve never liked most holidays, for more or less the same reasons: entitled gift demands, the dread of obligation, and retail hysteria. That last one in particular really gets me.

So, the irony of walking into a red and green bedecked grocery store for my first shift as the new manager one week before Christmas wasn’t lost on me. It was like the universe was playing some sort of cosmic joke, getting back at me for being such a Scrooge all these years by forcing me into the thick of the retail war zone—yeah, not even grocery employees get a break when “the most wonderful time of the year” rolls around.

But in the end I had no one to blame but myself because I’d volunteered to take over for Chuck, the old manager, who’d quit unexpectedly the week before. Now that I was literally stepping into his shoes, I kind of understood why he’d bailed out because as soon as I walked through the front doors, several employees flocked to me with questions or to let me know something was wrong.

Thank God I’d had the foresight to agree to do this temporarily.

“Ben! We, uh, need to talk,” Derek, the assistant manager, said. His voice carried over the others easily and like frightened insects they scattered to let him pass. His eyes shifted left and right behind his giant Coke-bottle glasses, making him look like some sort of cartoon villain, and when he stopped in front of me he looked down and started fidgeting with his hands. Derek was an odd duck, with brown hair that stuck up in every direction like he never bothered to comb it, but even he usually didn’t act this, well, weird. This couldn’t be good.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“The ham,” he answered, still not meeting my eyes. The what?

“Ham? What about it?”

“Uh, the distributor called just a little bit ago and told me the truck carrying our shipment was involved in a wreck earlier today,” Derek said, which still made no sense.

“And?”

“Well, we aren’t going to have any Christmas hams for Christmas,” Derek said, looking up just long enough to meet my gaze before his eyes shot down to the floor again. Well, joy to the fucking world, huh?

I guess I really didn't have any idea what I was getting myself into. Stepping in as manager for a grocery store seemed pretty simple at the time, but I never took into consideration small emergencies like the one that’d just fallen into my lap. If it weren't for the necessity of the items we weren’t going to receive, the whole situation might've been funny. I mean, it's not everyday you hear about a truck full of Christmas hams getting run off the road. Did the pigs revolt? Maybe they were behind all this.

"What are you smiling about?" Derek asked.

"Oh, nothing. I was kind of off in space," I said. It wasn't a total lie.

"So, what are we gonna do? Ham is our number one seller for Christmas," Derek said, and he would know. He’d been the assistant manager of the store for as long as I’d been working there, an amount of time I'd now lost track of. I’d just gotten to the store and already I needed a cigarette. Maybe this was going to be tougher than I’d thought.

"Honestly, I don't know," I said. The only thing that came to mind was the amount of angry people I would no doubt have to deal with over the next few days when they were told we didn’t have any hams, the very centerpiece of their Christmas meals. It didn't help that the store was known for its quality when it came to ham, which in and of itself was kind of absurd.

"Should we put up a sign or something?" Derek asked. I didn't see any other solution, so I nodded my approval, and without another word Derek set off toward the back of the store where the coolers that normally kept the ham were located.. I set off behind him, not really sure what to expect, and as I exited one of the long aisles, my heart gripped my throat when a cart crashed into a giant display of canned food that had been put together in the shape of a Christmas tree, sending dozens of cans rolling across the floor. The old man who’d been piloting the cart stood in stunned silence, his eyes as wide as the moon, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. My face must've looked pretty similar, because when I turned to Derek, he looked like his entire world had come undone.

I couldn't take any more, so I left Derek to manage the mess and carefully stepped around the cans lolling about the floor to crash through the double doors that led to the stockroom. I disabled the alarm on the door that led outside the building and shoved it open, pulling my pack of cigarettes out of my back pocket as I did. This was unbelievable, unlike anything I'd ever seen, like some sort of slapstick Christmas comedy movie—only it wasn't very funny.

As I fired up my first cigarette of the day, the smoke filled my lungs and spread out from my core, bringing relief to each of my nerves as it traveled. The noise and commotion from five minutes in the store put my nervous system on red alert and it was a struggle to keep the cigarette in my mouth thanks to my jittery hands.

I’d thought this gig would be a temporary reprieve from the mundane work of snow removal, which took up most of my time during the winter, but I would've given anything to be back in my snowplow with nothing but the slush of moving snow and the squeal of classic rock to get me through the day. No wonder there was such a high turnover in grocery staffing.

A car pulled into the parking lot, much faster than was necessary, its radio blaring so loud that the sound poured out through the closed windows. It was a generic rental car, obvious from the stickers adorning the sides and windows, some Nissan or another.

The driver slammed the car into park in the handicapped row of parking spots in front of the store—without a placard, of course—and I stepped almost immediately over to the car to tell this jackass he needed to slow down and park in the appropriate space, like a good grocery store manager was supposed to do.

The driver was hunched over rummaging in some sort of bag when I reached the car, and when he turned around my body froze and my breath caught in my throat. Though the beard covered his face somewhat, I would've recognized the soft features and bright brown eyes on that man anywhere. This wasn't just any jerk high on Christmas hysteria, it was Rylan Smith, who I hadn't seen in more than two years when he’d skipped town and left me with my head spinning. His face changed from surprise to shock when he realized who I was and he jumped out of the car, a bright smile appearing beneath his beard. As much as I was over the whole hipster beard fad, it looked good on him.

"Ben? You're still working here?" Rylan asked, accidentally slamming the car door behind him.

"It’s complicated. But that's beside the point—what the hell are you doing back here?" I asked, almost overwhelmed by the memory of the last time I'd seen him. We’d had a number of good dinner and movie dates over the years, but the last one we’d shared wasn't exactly a success. Then again, there probably wasn't any way it could’ve been, not with the news he’d dumped on me. So was his showing up here now some sort of prank? Rylan wouldn’t have come back to Monroe unless he’d had no other choice, a fact he’d made abundantly clear when he’d left. So why was he here?

"It's a long story. Isn’t it always?" he asked, and though he laughed, his nervousness seeped through. He fidgeted with a string dangling from his hoodie before moving to his car keys while he waited for me to say something. He was usually so calm and collected. What was going on? Why was he back? More than that, why did I care? As far as I was concerned, when Rylan left that was the end of things, but as he stood in front of me it seemed like the beginning all over again. The only thing missing was a soccer ball.

"That seems to be the theme of the day," I said, taking another drag of my cigarette before flicking it away from me as if by instinct. He'd always hated that habit, always complained about the smell it gave me, how awful it was for me, and the way it made him cough. I didn’t owe him the courtesy, but I guess old habits really do die hard.

"Seriously, though, I can't believe you're still here. I thought your job with the city would’ve taken you away from this a long time ago," Rylan said.

"That makes two of us. But, you know, sometimes life doesn't work out the way we think it's going to," I said and his face fell. I hadn't meant for it to be a commentary on our relationship, but evidently my tongue and brain weren't on the same page. "Sorry, I didn't mean it that way."

"No need to apologize, it was fair," he said with a shrug. "Well, you look good," he continued and his words set my senses on fire. He’d always had a sort of power over me and his presence alone was often enough to tie my tongue and jam up my mind. He hadn’t lost that power.

"Thanks, same to you," I said and I meant it. Despite my brain’s insistence not to, my eyes had been raking him up and down from the second he stepped out of the car. Defying the laws of biology, he’d grown another inch, maybe even two, and he’d filled out his frame too, his waist having finally caught up to the breadth of his shoulders.

And speaking of his arms, holy shit he’d gotten ripped since the last time I’d seen him, his biceps pushing through the sleeves of his otherwise baggy hoodie. Two years ago, that same hoodie would’ve swallowed him, but now he looked like he was ready to burst out of it, Hulk style. He must’ve noticed me ogling him because he scratched his head and shifted his weight such that there was less of him to be seen. I cleared my throat.

"Look, are you in a hurry? I’d love to catch up with you," I said, breaking the awkward silence that’d settled between us. What else was I supposed to say? We hadn't seen each other in two years and we hadn't exactly parted on good terms, but I also hadn't totally shed my feelings for him, so I wasn't about to let this opportunity go without at least trying to figure out what he'd been up to.

"Actually, I've got all the time in the world," he said, surprising me. After the way we’d parted, I never would've guessed he would want to spend time alone with me again, much less after an unexpected meeting like this. "Are you on your lunch break? I don't want to ruin that," he continued.

"I’m not and you won’t," I said. "There’s a picnic table around the corner, come with me," I continued and led the way around the store back toward the doors I’d come through. The table itself was still covered in snow from the last dumping we’d gotten but I brushed off as much of it as possible and patted the bench for him to sit. He looked at it apprehensively but eventually gave in and I sat down across from him, paying no mind to the snow melting underneath my jeans.

"I can't believe you're here," I said, my face tingling with the strain of holding back the smile dying to get out of me. Excitement and terror both coursed through me. I shouldn’t have done this, and figured I’d regret it at some point, but at the moment all I cared about was the young man sitting across from me, the same young man who’d run off to New York with my heart. Things weren’t exactly as they used to be, but they were damn close.

"Neither can I. It wasn't exactly a planned thing," he said, not meeting my eyes. That didn't sound good, which lined up with my impression that he hadn't come back solely because he missed the place—because no one could miss this place, not even me.

"Oh? What happened?" I asked and he drummed his fingers on the table while his free hand tangled up in his beard, twisting and pulling at the coarse hairs.

"Well, remember how I got that job writing for a magazine in New York?" he asked. How the hell could I have forgotten? That job was the one and only thing that’d taken him away from me.

"Yeah, sure. You were so excited about it," I said, trying to at least put somewhat of a positive spin on how I felt about it.

"I was. It was my golden ticket, so to speak," he laughed. "Well, you know, sometimes all that glitters isn't really gold. Things went really well for the first year and I moved up the chain pretty quickly, but a few weeks ago my editor pulled me into her office to tell me they were laying me off," he said and all the feigned happiness that previously covered his face drained away.

"I'm sorry to hear that," I said, and though it was partly true, another part of me perked up at the news, daring to hope it meant what I thought it did.

"Yeah, so that's about the long and short of it," he said. "The worst part is that my parents just found out, literally like ten minutes ago.

"Ouch," I said. Judging from his general demeanor, they hadn't taken it well.

"Yeah. That’s the perfect word for it," he said, shaking his head.

"So, I take it you didn't come here to get groceries then, huh?" He smiled and for a moment it was just like old times, the two of us alone and cracking stupid jokes just to make each other laugh. He held my gaze for a few moments, much longer than any two people who were just friends might, and then the moment broke. The shield he'd been wearing that’d slipped had come back up.

"Well, I don't know about that. I might need some basic supplies for the next few days," he said.

"Why's that?"

"I was supposed to stay with my parents, but they were a little less than happy to hear about my predicament and it kind of turned into an argument," he said. That wasn't a surprise. Rylan and his dad had had a rocky relationship for as long as I'd known him, and it didn't seem to have improved in the last two years.

"Dad?" I asked and he nodded. That was all he needed to do, because I never wanted to hear the details of his dad's latest episode. In fact, I wanted to have some choice words with his dad myself and had volunteered to do just that on more than one occasion, but he'd always turned me down in the name of keeping family peace. Clearly, that’d worked out.

"Where are you going to go? Do you have any other relatives you can stay with?" I asked, the blood pumping in my veins again. It was crazy, but part of me hoped he didn't have anywhere else to go, that I could offer him to stay with me in my giant house that was so empty it was unbearable. I would've loved to have any kind of company, especially over the holidays, but the idea of having Rylan in the house was more appealing than was probably appropriate.

"I'm not sure. Given the time of year, my grandparents probably don't have any room left in their places, and even if they did I'm not sure I’d want to stay there. I don't doubt for a second that word had already traveled throughout the entire family grapevine," he said.

"Yeah, I know exactly how that goes. What is it with family members and their inability to keep their mouths shut?" I asked

"Good question. That's exactly what sunk my ship," he laughed. Silence fell between us again and the blood hammering in my ears was so loud I feared he could hear it too, so I cleared my throat again and summoned the courage to ask the question that’d been burning in the back of my mind.

"Why don't you stay with me?" I asked, my voice somewhat shaky. He eyed me for a moment, all of me, and smiled.

"That's sweet of you but I'm not sure it’s a good idea. You know, after everything…" His cheeks flushed. There wasn't anything to be embarrassed about, it wasn't like we’d done anything untoward, but he was probably right. Still, I couldn’t let the idea go. He literally had nowhere else to stay and it would've been irresponsible and out of season for me to leave him to fend for himself.

"I don't bite, you know. You’ll have your own room, as far away from mine as you want, and you can come and go as you please. Besides, I'm going to be working for most of the time anyway, so it's not like we’ll even cross paths all that much. I know you could get a hotel or whatever, but that seems stupid. Why pay for a shitty room when you cold stay with me for free?" I asked, and the desperation in my voice was evident even to me. He sighed and fidgeted with his beard again.

"I don't know…"

"Worst case scenario, you can always leave if things get too awkward," I said, though I sincerely hoped that wouldn't happen.

"I guess you're right," he said. "I don't really have a lot of other options, do I?" he asked and my pulse quickened. It was stupid, borderline childish, to think that this random chance meeting might lead to anything more than a nice visit between us, but my stomach flipped anyway. "When do you get off work?"

"I actually just started the shift, so I won't be free until 11 tonight, but I can give you my key to the place. I trust you," I said, already reaching for the ring of keys hanging from the back belt loop on my jeans.

"That's probably not the best judgment," he said, smirking, and he really had no idea how right he was. I'd spent the two years since he'd left doing my best to forget everything that’d happened between us and coming to grips with the fact that I’d probably never find a relationship like ours again. It wasn't like my life was over or anything, but at 42 years old it wasn't very likely I’d find someone who clicked with me as well as Rylan had. More than that, though, I didn’t want to give another person the chance.

"Listen, Ben, this is really nice of you but you don't have to give me the keys to your house. I can just bum around town, maybe meet up with some friends or something, until you get off work and I can meet you there," he said but there was no way in hell I was going to let that happen. If I let him go now, I would probably never see him again. Like I said, stupid and borderline childish, but that’d never stopped me with Rylan before.

"Bullshit," I said, sliding the one and only copy of my house key I had to him over the frozen plank of the picnic table. He hesitated, almost as if he were afraid that touching it would shock him or something, but when I pushed it further he took it. "If you lose that, we're both fucked," I said and he laughed.

"Don't worry, I’ll guard it with my life," he said. And I would guard you with mine. "Thank you, Ben. You didn't have to do this." He had no idea how wrong he was.

"I should be home around 11:30 or so. I don't have anything at home to cook—bachelor life, you know how it goes—but I'd be happy to bring you something home later," I said.

"You're already letting me stay in your house, you don't need to go overboard," he said. "But if you're feeling generous, I could really go for some take-out Chinese,” he continued. I laughed. It was the most ridiculous thing to ask for, especially given the time of year, but somehow it fit him. He'd never really followed tradition, and maybe that was one of the many things that’d drawn us together despite all our differences.

"You got it," I said. My eyes locked on his hand, which clutched the house key on the picnic table, and I resisted the urge to reach across the table and cup it in mine, the way I might've done before. It would've been too shocking for him, too obvious a display of the ways I'd changed since he'd left, so I pushed the feeling away in hopes I would get another, more appropriate, chance.

"Okay. Well, if you don't mind, I'm going to go. I need some time to unwind," he said as he stood from the table.

"Of course, I can imagine. Make yourself at home, don't be bashful," I said. He raised the key at me, winked, and left me standing at the table alone. Though I wanted to follow him back to his car, if for no other reason than to make sure he wasn't a ghost who would disappear as soon as he left my sight, I stayed rooted to the spot.

This had to be some sort of dream. Rylan Smith was back in town and he was staying at my house. Maybe this Christmas wouldn't be so bad after all, even with the case of the missing hams.