Chapter 6: Ryan—Paper, Gold, and Flight

RYAN SAW Scott tear out of the house, walking fast toward the road, and scrambled to follow him. He couldn’t. He had the kids, who were ready to go in, and the dog, who needed to be toweled off. Dammit, the angle of Scott’s shoulders and the dejected droop of his head did not speak well for a lover who had his shit together and was happy about Christmas Eve. Ryan had plans for Christmas, fuck it all, and Scotty’s happiness was of preeminent importance.

He totally ditched his dad in the mudroom, buried in a flurry of zippers, scarves, and rubber boots. He didn’t even take his own boots off before walking into the kitchen to ask his mom where Scotty was going.

She was looking disconsolately at something that might have been mashed potatoes but that had too many sharp angles in it, and the look of unhappiness she sent him over her shoulder was eloquent, even if her words were evasive.

“I don’t know where he went, sweetie. We were talking, and he just left.”

“What did you say to him?” Oh God, four days of careful dancing to keep the two of them from spending too long in the same room, and it was all ruined because his mom had decided to cook! Why had she decided to cook? Most Christmases, Ryan’s dad cooked. When Ryan saw Scott get the stuff out of the freezer, he’d asked Gordon quietly if it was okay if Scott took over this year, and Gordon hadn’t had a problem with that.

“Nothing in particular,” Taylor said evasively. She was prodding what looked like Italian stuffed flank steak with a fork, and Ryan groaned.

“Bullshit,” he muttered. “Complete and total bullshit.”

“Ryan?” Ryan cringed as his dad came up in time to hear him swear at his mother—but that didn’t stop his temper from ramping up.

“She said something to him, Dad. I don’t know what it was, but that’s Scotty’s flank steak she’s poking and Scotty’s potatoes she’s screwed up, and Scotty is outside with his feelings hurt, and I don’t even know how to fix it.”

Taylor turned to him bitterly. “Wonderful! That man sat here and explained to me how he didn’t have the focus of a butterfly and that was okay with him because you would pick up his slack, and he gets his feelings hurt when I ask him if that’s fair!”

Ryan shook his head, resisting the urge to kick the counter. “You’re the one who’s not fair, Mom,” he said, and then turned around right back to the mudroom, wading through kids saying, “Where are you going, Uncle Ryan?” and not paying any attention until he ran headfirst into Walter.

“’Scuse me,” he mumbled, and Walter put out a hand and steadied his shoulder, then spoke over him.

“Hey, Taylor, what did you say to Scott? He just apologized for being a freeloader, and he was almost in tears.”

That got Ryan’s attention. He whipped his head around and glared at his mother. “Don’t bother serving us any of your slop, Mom. Scott and I will be heading home. I’d rather drive off a cliff than let him deal with any more of your crap!”

With that he ran in search of Scott.

Blitzkrieg was game to come with him, but she was still panting from the run that the kids had given her and still shivering from the cold. Ryan left her drying off in the mudroom. He grabbed his parka and pulled his gloves on as he walked, shivering in the change of temperature even from ten minutes earlier. The sun was almost horizontal over the edge of the valley. In a few minutes it would be completely gone, and the frigid edge of twilight would cut through the air and his parka and his long johns and probably sever his balls right off and let them roll around like hairy marbles.

He followed Scott’s direction—easy to spot because of the lone set of footprints going toward the main road—and trotted as fast as he could, panting with the effort. He was in shape, but Scotty rode his damned bike all over creation and could probably leave him in the dust when it came to hauling ass through snow. He resisted the urge to call Scott’s name—besides being melodramatic, he was half afraid of hearing Scott telling him to fuck off, and that wasn’t their style, never had been, and it would probably break his heart.

Scott’s parka was bright cherry red, which was not Scott’s best color but it did match his playful heart. He’d had it before he met Ryan, and it was one of those ultimate mountaineering things that was lined with Gore-Tex and something else space-age. Scott’s balls would be just fine, and Ryan was glad, because by the time he spotted that cheerful, happy color against the snow, the only reason his own weren’t freezing off was that, under his long johns, he’d worked up a bit of a sweat.

“Scotty?” he asked cautiously, and Scott shrugged his shoulders and turned away, the gesture particularly adolescent. Ryan’s heart sank. Oh no. He and Scott were gay men—about as gay as it got, that was true. They wore their emotions on their sleeves, easily accessible. Hell, they blew most women Ryan knew right out of the water when it came to emotional availability. But Scott was happy, playful, maybe the most cheerful person Ryan had ever met. They’d suffered through the flu together and hard finances and Ryan’s decision not to set the world on fire if he could be Scotty’s world instead, but for the most part, their lives had followed a gentle curve. They hadn’t lost so much as a goldfish or mourned a grandparent in the last three years.

Ryan had never seen Scotty cry.

“Scotty?” he said again, his own voice cracking a little. “Babe….”

Scott let out a breath, the deep, painful kind that shuddered like wind through a broken window, and let out a little not-laugh. “Don’t tell me that dinner’s ready. I watched her try to cook it, Ry—we’re better off with tinned soup.”

“I was going to tell you to warm up the car,” Ryan said gruffly. “You warm up the car, I’ll throw our shit in a suitcase, and we can be home in….” He trailed off painfully.

“Twelve hours,” Scott supplied with grim humor, “but I appreciate the thought.” He looked up then and wiped his face with his wrist, but he was trying a smile, and it gave Ryan the courage to take a few steps in and wrap his arm around Scott’s shoulders. There was no resistance in him—there never had been, not in Scotty. He went where the wind took him. He’d said once that after he’d met Ryan, all winds seemed to sweep him to Ryan’s door. That was right before they moved in together, because Ryan said Scott didn’t need the wind to ever be pushed into Ryan’s arms.

“We can get the camping gear and sleep in the garage,” Ryan said. He was completely serious, and Scott gave a tortured little laugh.

“We’re going back inside and fixing some soup and having Christmas with your family,” he said quietly. “You know it, I know it. We’re stuck, Ry.”

Ryan nodded, feeling heartsore. “I’m sorry she’s being such a bitch. You know I don’t believe any of that shit, right?”

Scott looked down at Ryan’s chest, but Ryan could still see the trembling lip. “I’m not a freeloader, am I?”

Ryan grasped his faintly stubbly chin. (Scott didn’t grow a good beard, so he didn’t shave a lot when he was on vacation or someplace where he couldn’t be seen and preen like the lovely peacock he was. Ryan liked it when he started getting the Shaggy whiskers like the guy on Scooby-Doo.)

“Scott, you remember when I told my boss I couldn’t take so many business trips, and even though that meant less money, you were really happy?”

Scott nodded and snuggled his head against Ryan’s shoulder. “You missed your own birthday,” he mumbled. Ryan laughed a little, because Ryan hadn’t missed his own birthday actually. He’d come home on his birthday when Scott hadn’t been expecting him, and it had ended up being probably his best birthday ever. But Scott would always remember it as the year Ryan missed his own birthday, because as much as Scott tried to hide it, he’d been hurt beyond words, right up until Ryan had showed up on the porch, naked, with a bow around his waist.

“Yeah,” Ryan agreed, even though it wasn’t true. “Yeah. And you didn’t bat an eyelash over the money. You said my being there was more important than anything else. And because of that, that decision made me really happy. Do you think it’s different with me? Yeah, sure—you’re smart. You could have had your business degree two years ago, or you could be running one of your family’s businesses, but would that have made you happy?”

“No.” It was so true Scott may as well have bought a T-shirt and a matching tattoo.

Ryan laughed a little and squeezed Scott even tighter against the encroaching cold. “Me neither,” he said, directly into Scotty’s red-rimmed blue-gray eyes, because Scott needed to know this was the truth. “I love you exactly the way you are. And the way you are is happy. You and me. It’s always been you and me. Why would I want to change you? You’re the man that I fell in love with in a bathroom. I mean, geez, Scotty—I can’t imagine not loving you. I would do anything to see you happy, and the real miracle is that all I have to do to see you happy is love you just the way you are. I’m not going to change that. Not for all the money on the planet.”

Scott nodded and smiled. Scotty was vain on his best days. He would not be pleased at how he looked. His face was blotchy, his nose was red, swollen, and running, his eyes were red, and his chin kept crinkling as he fought the urge to cry over hurt feelings. Even Scotty, comfortable with his sexuality as nobody in the world could be, felt too manly to cry.

But his smile on that wide, pouty-lipped, mobile mouth was still a miracle—a pure-as-snow, one-hundred-percent-unfiltered-joy miracle.

“Can I give you something?” he asked, his voice still clogged.

“A stomach pump if we have to eat my mother’s cooking?” Ryan asked dryly, and Scott shook his head, then stopped and grimaced.

“Maybe your dad can salvage it. As long as we don’t have to eat the potatoes. But that’s not what I wanted to give you.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small gift box wrapped in gold foil with a burgundy velvet ribbon, because Scott had a sense of presentation like no one Ryan had ever met.

“My Christmas present? Wasn’t tonight early enough for you?”

Scott shook his head. “The whole family is going to be opening gifts tonight, and then the kids are going to be opening presents from Santa tomorrow, and it’s going to be loud, and it’s going to be fun,” beat “sort of, but it’s going to be… in front of everyone, you know?” Scott wasn’t great with subtext. Ryan easily translated that to I don’t want to give this to you in front of your mother, and he grunted in agreement. Anything, anything to keep Scotty from running out into what was now evening and crying in the snow.

“So here,” Scott said nervously, hopping from one foot to the other. “Open it while you can still see inside.”

Ryan’s gloved fingers were clumsy, and Scott’s were only a little less so as he helped to get the bow off and get under the foil, and then they both popped the lid of the box open.

Ryan gasped and then giggled and then, wonder of wonders, felt his eyes burn a little, even as he squinted them against the darkening twilight.

“For us?” he asked, stroking a covered fingertip reverently on the plain gold.

“Yeah,” Scott said. He was gnawing on his lower lip and there was a little horizontal bar between his eyes, and Ryan had to laugh that Scott would be anxious about this.

“So we can be husbands, right?” he asked, feeling his voice wobble, and Scott looked at him with shining eyes and nodded.

“I mean, we’re going to sign the cohabitation papers and everything,” Scott said. “But that’s not really romantic. It should be romantic, you know?”

Ryan nodded, touching the rings again, for a moment lost in the stillness of the woods at night and the gleam of gold, the smell of pine and snow, and the closeness of the other half of his heart. “It’s totally romantic,” he whispered and then kissed Scott’s upraised face. Scott straightened and answered the kiss full throttle. Ryan snapped the lid of the box closed and stuffed it in his pocket and then opened his mouth and launched an out-and-out incursion into Scotty’s mouth, because in that moment, he wanted Scott, all of him, wanted him naked, wanted him spread out, head back, bare and completely at Ryan’s mercy. Scott was his, all his, and not a soul in the world could doubt it or question it or accuse Scott of being anything but the other half of Ryan’s soul.

Scott groaned and backed up against a tree—something not pine, with bare branches and no threat of snow falling on their heads—and Ryan kept up the kiss, taking the long, deep, wet kiss to a series of voracious, quick, deep, attack kisses that he knew would make Scotty crazy until Scott bucked his groin up against Ryan’s thigh. Ryan felt Scott’s erection through the fabric of his jeans and underwear and thought that if he didn’t touch it or taste it somehow, he’d die.

It was dark now, and the temperature was dropping damned fast, but Ryan knew his lover, knew his kinks and his quirks and knew what would make Scotty come so quickly things would not even start to think about freezing off.

Without preamble, feeling sheltered by the night, he dropped to his knees in front of Scotty and undid just the fly of his jeans. He shucked off his gloves and tucked them under his arm, then took Scott’s hardened prick in one hand while he scooped up a small handful of snow with the other. While Scott made muffled, strangled moans above Ryan’s head, Ryan opened his hot mouth and took Scotty in as far as he could go.

Then he pulled back and took that little chunk of virgin, powdery snow, and traced it on Scott’s length as he pulled back.

Scott gasped, whined, shuddered, and Ryan threw his head forward again, feeling his hat slide down his back as Scott’s fingers knotted in his hair. Scott made his “I’m gonna come!” sound, and Ryan did the same trick a few more times. He pulled back, back, keeping only the ridge of Scotty’s erection wrapped hard within his lips, and traced the shuddery, edgy length with cold as he retreated. Then he swallowed Scott down as far as he could go, all the better to squeeze Scott’s cockhead with everything he had.

That was all. A little bit of exposure, a little bit of snow, and a whole lot of boiling love, and Scott gave a muffled scream and came, shuddering, gasping, moaning over Ryan’s head—but not crying. Not crying and not doubting and not worrying.

Ryan swallowed and swallowed (because spitting would make his mouth wetter, and that would be cold and uncomfortable), and finally he leaned his head against Scott’s stomach for one brief moment to catch his breath.

And heard Walter call their names from over Scott’s shoulder.

“Hey, guys, is that you? What are you doing? Taylor and Gordon are worried to death—oh, geez, are you guys… oh ew!”

Ryan had buttoned up Scott’s fly and threw his gloves on from Walter’s first word. He looked up at Scotty in horror, and Scott pulled his cotton sleeve out of the cuff of his jacket to wipe Ryan’s face. His eyes darted to Ryan’s pocket and he mouthed, “Ring!” and Ryan read his mind.

“Cool your jets, Walter,” he said, marveling at how composed he sounded. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the rings, where they gleamed under a clear rising moon. “We’re not doing anything dirty in the woods—I’m proposing.”

“Well?” Walter demanded, walking up but keeping a respectful distance, which was fine with Ryan, who, once again, felt like he had “I just blew the Chrysler building!” stamped on his forehead.

“Well, what?” he said with a private smile to Scott.

“Well, what’d he say?”

Scott took Ryan’s chilled face between his wool-covered hands, looking down at him in the gathered dark. “There’s only one answer, you know that, right?”

Ryan grinned and got to his feet, and gave Scotty a quick, soft kiss, with just enough tongue for Scott to taste himself, because he knew that would turn Scott’s key.

“Yes,” Ryan said softly. “He said yes.”

“Awesome!” Walter congratulated, and then clapped Ryan solidly on the back. Ryan turned toward him with a rather surprised look on his face, and Walter gave Scott a fully developed, full-body bear hug. “My God!” Walter said with some fervency. “You have no idea how glad I am to not be the only one Taylor can bitch at!”

Ryan couldn’t help it. He had to laugh—pained laughter, yes, but laughter, because Walter had a point. His mother was protective, exacting, and demanding, but one thing was certain.

Getting on her bad side apparently meant you were family.

He wrapped a protective arm around Scott’s shoulders, and the two of them fell in step beside Walter while Walter congratulated them with more sincerity than Ryan would have given him credit for at the beginning of the week.

Well, maybe being a douche didn’t necessarily mean he was stupid or a complete asshole. And maybe family was just complicated, a subtle little dance of old prejudices and new expectations and behaviors, and the real beauty of it was that everyone was stuck with each other and had to make it work.

“So how are you going to do this?” Walter wanted to know. “Vermont? Canada? Aren’t there some other states you can get married in?”

“New York,” Ryan said with certainty. “In the spring.”

Scott rolled his eyes when Walter couldn’t see. “Nice touch!” he mouthed, and Ryan grinned.

“Thank you,” he said mockingly, thinking of the box he’d snuck under the tree the night before, the one that Scott really needed to open with witnesses. The rings? Those were special. Scott was right—those needed to be opened in private. Ryan’s gift to Scott?

That was something Ryan’s mother needed to see in person.

“So,” Ryan said, feeling well and truly like Christmas for the first time since he and Scotty had thrown all their stuff in the back of the little outdated Honda and pulled out of Sacramento for the hills, “what did my parents do with dinner? Do we have time to dress?”

AS IT turned out, not only had Gordon put a ban on dressing for dinner, the flank steak was actually salvageable, even if the potatoes ended up in Blitzkrieg’s bowl. Ryan’s dad had worked some sort of subtle magic and put the flank steak into a Dutch oven for half an hour until it fell apart, and then threw in the sautéed veggies, pulled out some fresh tortillas, grated cheese, and sour cream, and served some absolutely awesome (if unconventional) fajitas.

The family started the meal as soon as Ryan and Scott washed up and then ate as though nothing had happened. Gordon talked happily about how good the steak marinade was and how that had saved the entire works for them while Taylor looked pointedly at her plate. Scott stayed out of that conversation, but the kids were so wound up about opening their two allotted presents that the din at the kitchen table probably carried over the lake anyway.

That was especially true when dinner and dessert were over. (Dessert was a kind of homemade tapioca that Scott had made the night before and chilled in the refrigerator in the garage. Taylor ate it with a look like sour lemons, but the rest of the family thought it was delicious.) The kids circled the Christmas tree, chattering like magpies, choosing exactly the right gifts to open.

The big mysterious package for the girls figured large in their plans—as it should have—but Yvonne, using some canny bargaining skills and some exasperated looks at Scott and Ryan, managed to talk them into opening their new pajamas and one toy to play with before their dad took them upstairs and read ’Twas the Night Before Christmas, which was their own family tradition.

Tommy and Ella-Jaye, the two oldest, were both insistent that the adults open a present, and Ryan seconded the motion. “I’ll get yours,” he told Scott quietly. “You open last.”

Ryan felt a little bit of cold anticipation shiver through him while the other grown-ups got their Christmas Eve gifts. Taylor was pleased with the tennis bracelet that had her grandchildren’s birthstones on it, and Gordon was pleased with the golf club covers for his favorite set of clubs. Walter had given Yvonne a spa day—and Yvonne had given her husband two tickets to a baseball game that she insisted she wanted to attend with him.

And then it was Ryan’s turn. Ryan grinned and said, “I already opened my present from Scott. When Scott opens my present to him, I’ll show it to you.”

Walter made a little kid’s sound, like “Heeeeeeeeeeee!” bouncing next to Ryan on the couch, and Ryan turned to him in mock exasperation.

“Geez, Walter, calm down! You’ve already done this!”

Walter’s grin was beatific, and the look he gave Ryan’s sister put paid to a lot of douchey insensitivity. Ryan could tell by Yvonne’s expression that she thought so too. “Yeah, but it’s really awesome, and I’m happy you get to do it too.”

Taylor and Gordon didn’t hear him, but Yvonne did, and she clapped her hand over her mouth in suppressed excitement.

Scotty, on the other hand, had never suppressed excitement in his life. Ryan watched his open, pretty face carefully as he turned the wrapping paper on the shoebox into confetti, and then started rifling through the contents. His excited squeal brought the kids gathering around in a tangle and sent Blitzkrieg jumping up and down and barking excitedly into the general chaos.

“New York? New York!” Scott flew to his feet and started bouncing on his toes. “Ohmygod, Ry! You’re taking me to New York! And we’re gonna see Camelot!” He pawed through the box for a moment to get to the last envelope, the one with the cool, dry legalese proclaiming the most romantic thing in the world. “Ryan! Ohmygod, Ryan! We’re gonna get married! And….” The realization hit Scott in one breathless rush, and Ryan stood up too so he could capture that full look of awe with a kiss. He pulled back, his eyes closed, Scotty’s wonder on his lips, and Scott put his fingers delicately on his mouth.

“You planned this,” he said in wonder. “You… I bought the rings because I wanted a… a… token, but… oh, God, Ry! We’re going to have the real thing!”

Ryan smiled and took him into a bear hug of joy, and Scott sob-laughed into his shoulder for what felt to be the rest of the night.

Things did calm down eventually—at least, they did after Ryan pulled out the rings and he and Scott slid them on in the midst a jumping excited throng of squealing children. Eventually though, the kids were hustled off to bed with their story, the wrapping paper was cleaned up, and the special gifts from Santa were placed beneath the tree.

The adults were left lounging on the couch, Yvonne sitting on the floor between her husband’s spread thighs, resting her cheek on his knee. Ryan was leaning back into the corner of the couch with one leg propped up, and Scott snuggled into his arms where he belonged. Their left hands were intertwined so they could admire the plain gold bands on their fingers, although Scott had insisted that he take them back after the wedding to get the date inscribed on the inside. Blitzkrieg was passed out so completely at their feet that Ella-Jaye could probably lie on her back and the poor thing wouldn’t so much as breathe heavier.

Gordon was sprawled on one end of the love seat across from them with Ryan’s mother sitting primly next to him, drinking coffee mixed with something that smelled heavily alcoholic even from where Ryan was sitting.

The quiet was soft and easy, in spite of Taylor’s apparent tension, and Ryan was rubbing his cheek dreamily on Scotty’s hair, watching Scott’s tanned, long fingers play with the ring on Ryan’s blunter, paler one. Him and Scotty—it was the only Christmas he wanted to have.

“New York,” Taylor said bluntly into the silence, and Ryan nodded happily. Scott was the born romantic of the two of them. It was nice to have a win in that department every now and then.

“Yup,” he said softly, “New York.”

“That’s awfully final,” she said, her tone still a little stiff, but Ryan was too cozy and warm to take offense.

“Marriage usually is,” he said evenly, and Taylor’s sigh was a concession.

“Indeed. Welcome to the family, Scott.”

Scotty never could hold a grudge. “Thanks, Mrs. Connors.” He gave a happy sigh back into Ryan’s arms. “I’m really happy to be here.”

Ryan’s mother’s expression relaxed a little, and then a little more, and then her posture on the sturdy leather love seat became a little mellower, like a happy matron, surrounded by her family on Christmas Eve.

“We’re happy to have you,” she said at last.

Ryan angled his head to get a good look at Scott’s expression.

“Thank you,” Scott said softly. “Merry Christmas, Mrs. Connors.”

“You’ve always called me Taylor before,” she admonished mildly. “Merry Christmas, Scott.”

Sometimes Christmas was just like life. It was all about the little moments. Ryan determined that he’d carry that one all the way to New York with him and Scott, wrapped up in his pocket with two gold rings.