We’d been home one week and my resolve was crumbling. It was harder than I’d imagined being apart from Gabe, especially since Mom was trying to make up for lost time. She’d taken vacation so we could spend some quality time together, which left me even more isolated from Gabe than I’d prepared for. Luckily, Gabe had a plan, because there were three weeks left before we headed back to Wilmington and I was ready to crawl out of my skin. Now, I had to convince Mom that I was a responsible adult and couldn’t be kept under lock and key all the time. To do this, I enlisted the help of Dad. He knew what it was like to be a young man trying to make a life for himself; surely he’d help me convince Mom.

I rapped my knuckles on the wall as I entered his den. He was kicked back with the tablet in his lap and the evening news playing in the background. He folded his reading glasses and set them on the end table. “Trevor, is everything okay?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?” I hoped my voice wasn’t as unsteady as it sounded to my own ears. I sat in the chair across from him and tried to keep from fidgeting with the frayed strings at the cuffs of my hoodie. Gabe’s hoodie. Did any of the parents realize I’d swiped his sweatshirt and wore it around like a security blanket?

“You only knock like that when something’s bothering you.” Leave it to Dad to pick up on subtle tells.

“It’s nothing bad, I promise. I just….”

Dad leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He steepled his fingers in front of his lips while he assessed my face the way he used to when he was trying to figure out if I was lying to cover for Gabe.

“Really, Dad, it’s not bad,” I repeated. I was making this so much bigger of a deal than it should be. I was nineteen years old. I had my own money I hadn’t touched after graduation. That money had been given to me by my grandparents to do something fun. Well, I knew what I wanted to do, thanks to Gabe’s suggestion. He had a matching account, so if we wanted, we could live like kings. Instead, he’d scoured the Internet for deals and we were traveling as cheaply as we could. His logic was we could then keep using that money to take other trips when we needed to get away.

“Trevor, what’s going on? You’ve always been able to talk to me about anything.” Yeah, well I wasn’t always in love with my best friend, and ever since then, you only think I’ve been talking to you about everything.

I decided the only way to approach this was like ripping off a Band-Aid. “I want to take a trip for part of winter break.”

“Okay.” He drew out the syllables as though he was confused why this might be an issue.

“Gabe and I want to go to New York. Well, it’s something I’ve always wanted to do and we figured this would be the best year to do it. There’s no telling if we’ll have to take winter interim classes in the future.”

Seeing New York City at Christmas had always been a dream of mine. Gabe used to tease me about it, but I wanted to see the tree at Rockefeller Center. I wanted to see the city dressed up in lights and baubles. I even wanted to see the Rockettes. Okay, so it was mostly that last one that earned me endless ribbing from my boyfriend, but it didn’t change the fact that I’d always been fascinated by their precision when I’d seen them on the Thanksgiving Parade.

“I think that’s a very responsible decision.” He sounded genuinely proud and I preened a bit. “So why the trouble telling me about your plans? Are you thinking you’ll be gone over Christmas? Because I have to tell you, that won’t go over well.”

“Um, no. I don’t think either of us has a death wish.” Dad and I both chuckled. “It’s just… okay, please don’t think I’m being disrespectful here, but Mom’s out of control. I’m pretty sure she’d take me to work with her if the clinic didn’t frown on it.”

“Ahh, I see.” He scrubbed the shadow of a beard he’d been trying to grow out. “And you’re hoping I’ll help pave the way, be an ally in your corner when you tell her?”

“Yeah, something like that.” I chuckled again. “I don’t want to upset her, but Dad, seriously, it’s like she’s trying to cram me back in the womb.”

“I don’t know that she’s quite that bad,” he countered. He picked up the remote and turned off the TV. “Trevor, she misses you. I know you’re trying to focus on your studies, but she wasn’t prepared to let you go so soon. She was convinced you’d do what you talked about your entire life and go to Duke. She would’ve driven you crazy if you had, so maybe it’s for the best that you’re far enough away that she has to make a time investment when she wants to see you.

“And I hate to tell you, but there’ve been quite a few times she’s seriously considered driving down to check on you on your days off,” he told me. It wasn’t a surprise, but it made me uncomfortable. How easy it would’ve been for her to make one of those impromptu trips and catch Gabe and me in a compromising position. Granted, they didn’t happen often other than late at night, but I had faith Mom would choose the worst possible moment to knock on our door. Hopefully, I’d forget about that before we left for spring semester, otherwise I’d never be comfortable doing anything with Gabe in our room.

“I’m not telling you this to make you feel guilty or upset you,” he added, his voice carefully moderated like it was when he delivered bad news. “I simply want you to understand that it’s been difficult on her to have you boys gone. And yes, she misses Gabe just as much as she misses you.”

“Because he’s not where she can keep an eye on him to make sure he’s not corrupting me.” And oh, the ways he was corrupting me were divine. It was wholly inappropriate, but my dick twitched at the unwanted thought of our sex marathon the night before we’d come home.

“We have to have enough sex to get us through the next month,” he’d told me as he carefully stripped every stitch of clothing from my body the minute I’d walked in from my last exam. We’d originally talked about him packing the Jeep so we could leave as soon as I got back, but this was a changed plan I could fully support. It’d been after four in the morning when we passed out, needing to get a few hours of sleep so either of us would be fit to drive.

“There may be some truth to that,” Dad agreed, “But that’s not the only reason. When we got married, she’d hoped we’d have a houseful of kids she could stay home and raise while I worked. As you know, that’s not the hand life dealt us. The older you boys got, the more she clung to both of you. She always said that if she couldn’t have more kids, she was grateful Gwen and Joel were willing to share Gabe with us.”

Thank you, Dad, for heaping on more guilt than you could ever imagine. I’d been trying to work up the balls to eventually be honest with everyone about how much Gabe meant to me, but with this one conversation, I felt as though I’d been kicked all the way back to start when I’d been just about to win the whole dang game.

“I’m sorry, son. I’m getting away from what we were talking about,” he apologized. “I think it’s a great idea for you boys to take a trip. You both worked so hard over the summer so you wouldn’t have to dip into your graduation money during the school year.”

‘The boys.’ That’s how we’d always been referred to. That was infinitely better than the short-lived phase when the dads jokingly called us twins from different wombs because our moms loved to buy us coordinating outfits. Never matching but always a matched set like salt and pepper shakers.

“Your mom isn’t going to be happy about it, but I’ll work on her,” he promised. “When were you thinking about going and when would you be back?”

Oh boy, here was the big sticking point. It was already the fifteenth, which meant we needed to leave in the next day or two if we were going to have any real quality time up there.

“Let me guess, Gabe’s already booked the trip and you’ve been struggling with how to tell us you’re going to do something as outlandish as live your own life?”

“It’s not like I’ve been chickening out for days. But yeah, Gabe booked tickets for us to head out on the late train tomorrow night.”

“I see.” He started tapping on his tablet while we talked. It was uncharacteristic for him to multitask while we were talking. He’d always been a firm believer in giving his family his undivided attention. “And when will you be back?”

“The night of the twenty-third.” It wasn’t like six days was a significant chunk of our break, but it was going to be about a week too long for Mom’s taste, and I knew her well enough to know Dad was going to hear about it for giving us his blessing.

The silence dragged on as he kept typing. I wondered if an emergency had come up at work.

“Okay.” He grabbed a piece of paper and wrote something down before handing it to me. It was an address and phone number. “You don’t have to if you don’t want, but this is one of my former colleagues. He and his partner bought a small apartment in New York, but they’re at their vacation home through the first of the year. If you’re interested, and as long as you promise you’ll treat their home with respect, you boys can stay there.”

“Seriously?” I kept staring from the paper back to him. “Why?”

“Because New York is an expensive city and I don’t want both of you blowing all of your graduation money at once. This way, you’ll be able to spend more on the things you want to do without paying holiday prices for a room you’ll only be using to sleep.”

Wow. That was pretty cool of him. Gabe was going to freak when I told him how awesome Dad was being.

“Besides, I think it’ll ease both your mom and DeeDee’s minds to know you’re staying in a locked building with a door attendant.”

Sneaky and slightly devious. I loved it. I got up and hugged him tightly, promising we wouldn’t let him down. He didn’t think anything of it when I told him I was going to walk down to Gabe’s to give him the news. This was too awesome for a text message.

Gabe opened the front door before I could ring the bell. He took one look at me and pulled me inside. As soon as the door closed behind us, he pulled me into his arms. “I was wondering where that hoodie disappeared to.”

“Would you believe I grabbed it the other night when we all had dinner here because I forgot my jacket at home?” It was a half-truth, but it wouldn’t have killed me to walk home in my shirtsleeves. The rest of the truth was I wanted a piece of Gabe with me to remind me I hadn’t dreamed the past few months.

“Don’t care why or how you got it.” I tensed when he kissed me tenderly, cupping my face as he stared into my eyes. “I love seeing you in my clothes.”

Gabe deepened the kiss, pushing me against the wall. “We can’t do this.”

“No one’s home. Dad took Mom out to lunch and they were going Christmas shopping.” Another kiss, this time coupled with him grinding his growing erection against mine. It’d be so easy to forget every argument I’d ever given against doing this. He flicked his tongue against my ear, knocking another hole in my resolve to stay chaste in our parents’ homes. I wanted him. I missed him. Missed this. I blamed sleep deprivation caused by not having him in bed with me for what I said next.

“We need to go up to your room.”

Gabe practically ripped my arm off as he clamped a hand around my wrist and dashed through the house. The bedroom door slammed as he kicked it shut, and he locked it for good measure. “We’re totally alone for a few hours. Tell me what you want.”

Would he think my request was stupid?

“Just want to be next to you.” I couldn’t hold back a yawn, evidence that my body knew it was time to shut down now that we were together.

Being a true gentleman, Gabe led me to his bed and pulled back the covers. I laughed because I realized his bed at home was bigger than the one we shared every night at school. “What are we going to do with all this room?”

“Sleep,” he deadpanned. “Maybe without clobbering the hell out of one another. We’ll even have space to roll away from each other if we want, and no one will wind up on the floor.”

It’d only happened one time and I still felt bad for laughing at the look on Gabe’s face when he landed. The floors may have been carpeted, but according to him, that didn’t mean a damn thing when your hip made impact with the concrete beneath. I sniggered at the memory and he threw me back on the bed, straddling my hips as he started tickling me. “You wanna laugh? I’ll give you something to laugh about.”

I writhed, trying to get away from him. The problem was, every time I moved, I felt his dick against mine. I was about to beg him to make love to me when Gabe rolled off and flopped back on the bed, holding out an arm for me to curl up next to him.

“Missed you,” he whispered. I kissed his chest and returned the sentiment. He sighed, and I knew he felt the same peace I did. He lifted his hips to pull the phone out of his back pocket, quickly setting an alarm before telling me to put it on the charger.

“This is nice,” I admitted, the words slurred as I was already drifting off to sleep, surrounded by the scent of citrus and sandalwood.

I woke up first, a thought nagging at the back of my mind that I’d forgotten something important. I shot upright when I remembered the entire reason I’d come down here. Well, other than to see Gabe, because I would’ve done that anyway.

I shook him awake, unable to keep from telling him what Dad had done for us. He grumbled that the alarm hadn’t gone off and rolled over. I shook him again.

“You’re a pain in my ass,” he complained as he batted my hand away.

“But you love me,” I teased. “And you’re going to love me even more when I tell you what happened this morning.”

Now I had his attention. Not fully, because it always took him a few minutes to wake up, but at least he was semi-coherent.

“I told Dad about the trip,” I began, going through the mundane parts, skipping over the whole bit about Mom considering unannounced visits, and getting to the good parts once he was fully awake. “He talked to a friend and we can stay at their place for free as long as we don’t throw parties and we clean up after ourselves. And bonus, they live less than a block from the subway, so it’ll be easy for us to get around.”

“That’s fucking awesome!” This was going to be the best Christmas ever. The first, hopefully of many, where we took time to just be us, Gabe and Trevor, without all the other titles we wore most of the time.