Working at the grocery store at least provided a welcome distraction from the awkwardness at home. After our first night together ran right off the rails, I was convinced Rylan would run screaming back to his parents’ house, but instead he'd decided to stick around. I wasn't disappointed by that, though I was surprised.

Grabbing his hand like I had, not to mention the not-so-subtle overtones I'd sent by bringing home Chinese and a corny romance movie, wasn't like me. To say I was inexperienced with relationships would’ve been putting it lightly, a fact that’d come into stark clarity for me thanks to the way Rylan had withdrawn.

During the two nights that’d passed since then, our conversations after I got home from work had devolved into nothing more than a simple “How was your day?” with a laptop screen between us. That was Rylan’s way of coping with things, of shutting out his feelings, under the guise of looking for jobs. So, though I had to deal with the angry customers who wanted nothing but a ham we couldn’t give them, being in the store was a welcome break from the almost unbearable tension that’d settled between Rylan and me at home.

I was glad to be able to lose myself in my thoughts, thanks to the giant shipment the store had gotten earlier in the morning—sans hams. With every box and can I put up on the shelf, my mind settled down a little more. There really is something to be said about the peace that comes from doing a repetitive, mindless task. But all that zen disappeared when Derek’s face appeared on the glass jar of pickles I held.

“Something wrong?” I asked over my shoulder. His hands were on his hips and he chewed his lower lip. “Whatever it is, just spit it out.”

“I think the coolers have gone down again,” he said.

“What? Seriously?” I asked, my pulse quickening. That’d happened a few times over the years and it was always expensive and time consuming to fix during normal times, so I could only imagine what kind of turnaround we’d be looking at to have a repair done during Christmas. It was one thing not to have any hams, it was another thing entirely to have the whole frozen food section offline. There wouldn’t be any pies, frozen vegetables, milk, any of it. We’d almost certainly have to close the store if we had to go for more than a day or two.

“Yeah, seriously. Stuff is melting,” he said, looking away from me. “I hadn’t noticed until one of the stockers told me.”

“But you’re the one in charge of taking temperature readouts,” I said.

“I hadn’t gotten there yet today,” he said, his tone defensive.

“Well, come on, we’d better get moving,” I said, leaving the case of remaining pickles on the floor to come back to later. We marched across the store, bobbing and weaving through all the customers, who only seemed to have gotten rowdier with each passing day, until we came to the last two aisles on the far right side, which were dedicated to cold or frozen products.

It was obvious even from the outside something wasn’t right. The shelving wasn’t wearing its usual thick layer of frost. Instead, it was actively dripping, the water pooling at the bottom of the cooler.

“Go get as many carts and stockers as you can. We’ve gotta move all this stuff into the back coolers,” I said, my entire body tightening. This was the absolute last thing I needed to deal with, especially given what I had to look forward to when I got home. There really wasn’t any rest for the weary.

Over the next three hours, all five of us—me, Derek, and three of the stocking staff whose names I’d never learned—loaded the products into shopping carts, hauling them into the giant walk-in cooler behind the dairy case, and playing Tetris to get everything to fit into the one working cooler we still had.

The exhaustion didn’t stop there, because I spent another hour after that calling around various places to try to get someone to come and look at the machinery. Tom, our usual repair guy, had taken the week off to be with his family, which I understood since he worked like a machine during the rest of the year, but that left me in a really shitty position because no one else would even set foot in the store without hundreds of dollars in fees for coming out three days before Christmas.

By the end of my shift at 5 PM, I’d given up and booked someone at their full rate. They wouldn’t be able to come in until the following day, but neither could anyone else, so Derek and I strung up signs along the coolers to say they were down and I punched out as soon as we were done.

Outside, we’d gotten another heaping of snow dumped on us courtesy of Mother Nature, and it took me close to half an hour to dig my truck out of the snowdrift the plow truck had so graciously thrown on it. When I finally got into the truck, my fingers and palms so cold they stung, I fumbled with the key to get it into the ignition, turned it, and cranked the heat.

If today was any indication of how things were going to be going forward, I didn’t see myself making it much longer in the job. I only had to get through New Year’s and I could go back to my life of dumping snow on other people’s cars instead of having it done to my own, but even that seemed an eternity away. All I wanted was to go home, strip off my clothes, and sit on the couch with a stiff drink but I couldn’t even do that because Rylan was there and there was no telling what he’d be up to when I walked in the door.

Part of me regretted inviting him to stay with me because it’d done nothing but create problems for both of us, but another part of me was almost glad to have him to come home to, like a real couple or something. Mom passed away in January and I still hadn’t quite gotten used to being in the house alone. It’d been too big even for two people to share, but now that Mom was gone it felt hopelessly empty at times. It didn’t help that I’d torn down more or less every single thing Mom had put on the walls, but the bare paint was better than being reminded of her at every turn.

By the time I pulled into the driveway at home the sun had long since set, and Rylan had already closed all the curtains. Still, a ton of light poured out through them and as I turned my key in the front door’s lock, thumping and scraping sounds echoed out into the frozen darkness. When I opened the door and stepped inside, I almost burst into tears.

The house was entirely decorated, from top to bottom, covered in the ornaments and memories of Christmas Mom had left behind. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the placement of the decorations, specifically the Christmas lights, which were haphazardly strung up along the ceiling with what looked like nails, but somehow it all worked—except for the tree standing bare in the far-right corner of the living room.

In the hallway, the ladder leading up to the attic was down, and the light in the attic tumbled down its steps, accompanied by the scraping and thumping noises I'd heard when I came in. Obviously Rylan had taken it upon himself to spruce the place up, but why?

"Rylan?" I shouted up the stairs and he screamed, which was followed by another loud crashing sound as boxes came tumbling down. I charged up the ladder and found him in a tangle of Christmas lights and assorted tree decorations.

"Jesus, you scared the shit out of me," he said, flinging the handful of lights he held against the ground.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to. What made you decide to do all this?"

"The simplest answer is I was bored. The more nuanced answer is that I was depressed and needed some picking up," he said. "I didn’t want you to think I’m totally self-absorbed. I can think of other people from time to time." It was absurd, all of it. Though I appreciated the thought behind Rylan’s effort, it didn't make seeing all this stuff any easier. I’d put it away, far out of sight, for a reason, and had consciously decided not to drag it back down when the season rolled around. I’d even made sure the boxes were so far back in the attic that they wouldn’t be easily accessible, just in case I was tempted.

"This isn't a good idea," I said, already reaching for and grabbing every little decoration I could get my hands on to stuff it back in the box it’d come from. I didn't want to see this stuff—couldn't see this stuff. It was too painful.

"Why not? This place is like a cave, it could use some brightening up," he said, pulling a string of lights out of my reach as I approached. "Besides, I thought it might be fun and kinda festive to decorate the tree together."

"Decorate the tree? Have you lost your mind? Two nights ago you nearly jumped out of your skin when I tried to hold your hand, and now you want to decorate a Christmas tree like some sort of domesticated couple? Talk about mixed messages," I snapped. His face fell, and my heart fell along with it, as I realized I'd hurt him. I hadn't meant to, there was just something about seeing all the stuff again that was triggering and made me want to lash out.

"I know, but that's exactly why I thought we could do this," he said, pushing himself up onto one knee while trying not to trip on the serpentine bundle of lights wrapped around him.

"Look, I haven't had a good day. All I want to do is relax and forget about fucking Christmas for a while. Would that be okay?" I asked, which was ridiculous since we were in my house. Why did I need to ask permission? He wound his way out of the tangle of lights and walked over to me. When he put his hand on my shoulder, it took everything I had not to shrug out from under him.

"What's wrong? What happened?"

"This is too much. It's all my mom’s stuff, and I can't really deal with that right now, not with you here," I said and his face softened as he looked me up and down.

"Ben, I'm sorry, I didn't even think about that. I thought this was all your stuff. Though I’ve gotta say, it makes a hell of a lot more sense," he said, and despite myself I laughed.

"Yeah, you can blame all the cheese on my mom. This is all her shit she’d collected over the years," I said. Though there was a part of me that did like decorating and getting into the holiday spirit—all of the holidays—this year was different. I didn't see much of a cause to celebrate, didn't feel like I had anything to be grateful for now that Mom had passed away and the rest of my family started to treat me like I had too.

But maybe I was missing the one thing I had to be grateful for, the one gift standing right in front of me. Rylan hadn't meant any harm. In fact, he was totally oblivious and just trying to do something nice for me. What if I let him? Would that really be so bad? He did have a point, the house was dreary at best, which probably wasn’t helping my mood at all.

"We can put it all away if you want, I don't mind," he said, gesturing around the attic at all the stuff he’d dragged out.

"No, maybe you're right. Maybe we should just do something nice, since it looks like neither one of us are going to have a particularly good Christmas," I said and he laughed.

"Yeah, this Christmas feels like it's about as far from good as possible. I don't have a job, my parents are furious, and I don't even know if I’m going to have a place to live when I get back to New York," he said. Back to New York. His words shouldn’t have been a surprise to hear, because of course Rylan wasn’t going to stay in Monroe, but they still hit me hard, harder even than seeing all of my mom’s Christmas knick knacks again had.

"So, I mean if you really want to, maybe it'll be nice to take my mind off all that for a least a little while,” he continued but his words barely registered. Even if I followed his lead and decorated the house with him to take my mind off Mom, it would only be replacing one source of sore memories with another. That was the thing with Rylan, everything was fleeting, temporary. He came and went as he pleased, never paying much mind to the effects he had on other people as he did.

“Yeah, sure. What else are we going to do?” I asked.

“We could always just eat our feelings. That’s what my mom does during the holidays and it’s obviously worked wonders for her,” he said, rolling his eyes. Christmas really does have a way of stirring up family crud, doesn’t it? I’d always been envious of Rylan's relationship with his family, or at least those he had with his mom and younger sister, because I’d never had that with my own. My family was complicated, to say the least, and they weren't exactly accepting nor understanding of my choice not to get married and have kids at 20 years old like the rest of them had. So, to hear Rylan express dissatisfaction with them made me realize that my family definitely wasn't the only dysfunctional one in town.

"Maybe we should just make our own Christmas, have our own holiday cheer," I said, reaching for one of the fallen boxes, which was labeled "Ornaments," and which rattled with the sound of broken glass when I moved it. That could only mean one thing, but I tried not to get upset thinking about which ones and how many had been broken in the box’s fall.

"Are you serious?" Rylan asked, his face lighting up like the endless circles of lighting around him would’ve if they’d been plugged in.

"Why not? It can't make things any worse, right?" I asked and he laughed.

"Right, sure, that's what people usually say before things go horribly wrong." I hoped he wasn't right about that. Together, we cleaned up the mess we’d created and carried down box after box from the attic. When they were all neatly stacked and gathered in front of the tree, I broke into the first one and picked out the uppermost ornament, which was a plastic snowflake covered in silver glitter. It was beyond tacky, right up my mom's alley, but the sight of it still tightened my throat.

As if he’d been reading my mind, Rylan’s hand found mine and gave it a soft squeeze, robbing the memory of its power over me. Maybe this didn't have to be a sad event. Maybe we could celebrate what it’d brought us, the fact that we were together for Christmas when it should never have happened in the first place, instead of mourning what we didn’t have.

I locked my fingers in his and he smiled at me as he took the ornament and hung it on the tree. It was crooked and imperfect, just like us, but beautiful nonetheless. We fell into an easy rhythm after that. I picked out the ornaments and lights and passed them to him to hang on the tree, and our hands never broke, which would’ve given me a major case of panic even just a day ago. Now, however, it was the most natural thing in the world.

When the tree’s fake plastic branches couldn’t hold any more, he finally let go of my hand long enough to plug the electric strip into the power outlet on the wall and the room lit up, the reflections from the shining ornaments casting over every surface like an illuminated diamond.

My face tingled from the smile that split it when I realized how much I’d actually missed this small and silly ritual, and how grateful I was to Rylan for forcing me to do it. I’d always dreamed of spending Christmas with him, as unrealistic as it’d seemed during all the time we’d been together, and now I had it. It didn’t seem real, like it was too good to be true. His hand found mine again and when I turned to him, he beamed even brighter than the tree, his eyes glistening.

“Are you OK?” I asked.

“Yeah. It’s just odd because my mom never let me help her with this kind of stuff,” he said.

“What? Why not? That’s what you’re supposed to do with your kids during Christmas.”

“I never did it the right way, according to her,” he said.

“Well, you did it perfectly for me,” I said and he sniffled, which sent a yearning roaring through my entire body. I wanted to pull him into my arms, to tell him how sorry I was for not being the man he’d deserved when we were together, but something stopped me. As good as it felt, a voice in the back of my mind screamed to remind me it was temporary. His life wasn’t here with me anymore, and it might not have ever been. I couldn’t afford to forget that he’d be gone soon and I’d be alone with nothing but my memories of him yet again.

“We didn’t put the angel on top,” he said, stirring me out of my thoughts as he rummaged around in one of the boxes to search for it.

“That’s because Mom hated angels,” I said.

“How can anyone hate angels?”

“Good question. We always used a star instead,” I said, pushing past him to pull it out of the box I’d stored it in. It wasn’t anything special, just a translucent, six-pointed star with a tube on the bottom to slide the tip of the tree inside, but when he took it from me, capped it on the tree, and plugged in the cord, it seemed much more impressive.

We stood staring at it hand-in-hand and my mind centered on the sweat of his palm against mine. When we parted it would dry almost instantly, disappear just like he had two years ago without any explanation. I couldn’t bear the idea of losing him again, not now that he was here with his hand in mine and we’d decorated a home together. If that wasn’t bonding, I didn’t know what was.

So when Rylan leaned over and kissed me, his beard tickling my nose and face as he did, I didn’t resist him. Instead, I gave into him, wrapping my hands around his waist and pulling him into me, drinking in every little moment and sensation so that when he left I’d never forget any of it. I wanted to store his scent, the way his body folded into mine perfectly like a puzzle piece, and the soft fullness of his lips in my memory forever.

Because he would leave, just like he had before, and this moment would be the one I’d remember for the rest of my life.