“What am I doing here?” Liam’s maternal grandmother, Bridget Dunlea was still sharp as a tack at eighty-five. Tall and slim with a full head of thick white hair, she’d alternately terrified Liam and his siblings and spoiled them rotten their whole lives.

She gave him a pointed look, eyes tracking the marks on his naked chest. “The same thing you were doing, only quieter.” She crossed her arms and tilted her head, her bathrobe hanging like a judge’s robe from her narrow shoulders.

Liam’s cheeks burned like fire. He barely resisted looking back at the door. What had she heard? Maybe she didn’t know who was sleeping in that room. Could he pretend it was someone other than Joey? He searched his mind for some plausible woman who wasn’t married, lesbian, his relative, or both.

Nothing. His mind had nothing for him. Except…wait. What had she said? Liam put his hands on his hips and looked down at his grandmother. Brigit was tall for a woman, almost five foot nine, but Liam had been taller by the time he was fifteen. It still surprised him every time.

“Wait. Nana. What did you say you were doing here?”

“You heard me,” she said steadily.

Only the two spots of color high on her cheeks hinted at her embarrassment at being caught. Damn Irish complexions didn’t hide anything. Liam grinned. “Are you,” he searched for a polite way to ask, “stepping out with Nonno Lollo?”

Joey’s grandfather, Lorenzo Luciano, was eighty-seven, a widower for almost fifteen years, and not shy about showing his appreciation for the ladies. Liam tried to hold back a grin.

Brigit smacked him upside the head. With love. “I wouldn’t be so quick to throw stones, Mister ‘I just came out my childhood friend’s room looking like I was rode hard and put away wet.’”

It was official. Liam was going to die of embarrassment on Christmas Eve, half-naked in the hallway.

“Come on,” his nana said, smacking him on the back of his head again. “Put a shirt on and come to the kitchen with me. I’m hungry.”

“What about…?” Liam gestured down the hallway at the door to Nonno’s bedroom, which, he quickly realized, shared a wall with Joey’s room. Fabulous.

“He’s asleep,” Brigit said with a half-smile Liam didn’t want to think about.

Liam hesitated, not wanting to open the door. Brigit rolled her eyes. “Go. Shirt. Kiss Joey. Meet me in the kitchen.” She strode away, bathrobe flapping majestically behind her.

He wasn’t programmed to ignore his grandmother’s orders, so went back into the bedroom.

Joey sat up in the bed, scrubbing ineffectively at his chest with a wadded up t-shirt. “Holy shit, dude. Was that your Nana?” His eyes were wide.

Liam nodded.

“And she saw…?” He waved at Liam’s bare chest.

He nodded again.

“Do you think she…?”

“Oh, she definitely,” Liam answered. He flicked on the overhead lamp, blinking as the bright light stabbed his eyes.

“Are we in trouble?” Joey asked.

Liam stopped digging through his carry-on for the one t-shirt he had packed. Were they? “I don’t know,” he answered honestly. He stood up and grinned at Joey as he pulled the t-shirt over his head. “Though I did catch her coming out of your Nonno’s room. In her bathrobe.”

Joey looked confused. “But it’s so late.”

Liam watched while realization dawned in Joey’s eyes. “No!” He covered his mouth.

“Oh, yes.” He walked over the bed. “I think we both have secrets we’d like to keep tonight.” It was all kinds of wrong, but seeing Joey all sleepy and sex-rumpled made Liam want to crawl back into bed with him and see what other sounds he could pull out the gorgeous kid.

A hint of sadness in Joey’s eyes tugged at Liam’s heart as he bent down and, with a gentle hand on his chin, pulled Joey’s mouth towards him. The tension in Joey’s shoulders lessened when Liam kissed him quickly but deeply. “Nana told me to do that and then meet her in the kitchen. Apparently, she likes a post-coital snack.” He groaned and stood up. “And I can’t believe that sentence just came out of my mouth. I need a drink. A bunch of drinks.”

Joey clutched the dirty shirt to his chest and looked between Liam and the door. “Should I go down, too?”

“Do you want to?”

Joey looked uncertain, then he frowned and shrugged. “I could eat.”

It was such a Joey thing to say, Liam couldn’t help but laugh. “Of course you could.”

“I’m a growing boy,” Joey objected.

“I know you are. How ‘bout you give us some time alone? Take a quick shower and then meet me downstairs in say ten minutes?”

Joey nodded. Liam kissed him again, quick and sweet, then headed downstairs to face the music.

* * *

The gentle snores and sniffles of sleeping children floated through the dark living room. A thin line of light spread beneath the kitchen door and Liam heard the telltale click and pop of Tupperware lids being opened.

He pushed the swinging door open, keeping a hand on it so it closed quietly. His family—and that included the Lucianos—could smell marinara sauce in the air quicker than a shark could sense blood in the water. The last thing he needed was a horde of relatives descending on the kitchen for a late night snack.

“Hey, Billy-boy,” Nana Bridget greeted him, handing him a glass of whiskey. Nothing like Christmas with the family to keep you half-soused the entire time.

They tapped their glass together before drinking.

“So,” Brigit said, rolling her glass between her hands. “You and Joey?”

Liam sighed and leaned forward to bang his head on the table. He’d learned a long, long time ago there was no point in lying or even stretching the truth around his Nana. She had supernatural lie-detecting abilities from raising seven kids and God only knew how many grandchildren.

She patted his head. “Stop. You’re going to dent the table.”

Liam had come out to his family as bisexual almost ten years ago, mostly in solidarity with Sophia when she came out as a lesbian. That had been a fun time for everyone, but the families had worked through it. When Natalie came out a few years later, it barely made a stir.

But Liam’s bisexuality had always been more theoretical than real for his family. He hadn’t lived at home for years before he’d come out, and he’d never brought a guy home. Hell, he’d never bought a girl home. Michelle was the only one his family had even met, and that was because she’d grown up in the same neighborhood.

And God only knew what was going on with Joey. Until tonight, Liam hadn’t known Joey was even into guys at all.

“Don’t tell anyone, Nana. It’s just…it’s nothing.”

She downed another slug of whiskey. “Well, that’s a load of horseshit if I’ve heard one. And I’ve heard plenty. I could see the way you were looking at each other all night. Well, that boy has always looked at you like that. Followed you around like a puppy. But this time, you were looking back.”

“Fucking hell, Nana. I was having a real shit day. This morning I thought I was going to get engaged. Then that shit with Michelle and fucking Nico. And I’m old and I’m never going to play pro-hockey again. And Joey…” Liam leaned back against the hard kitchen chair and stretched his arms out, letting them drop with a deep exhale. “He was just so there, and just so Joey. I couldn’t resist.”

Brigid studied his face for a long time, tilting her head to the right like she always did when she was thinking.

Liam finished his whiskey and poured himself another. What the fuck. He was going to feel like hell tomorrow no matter what. In for a penny, in for a pound. He held the bottle out to his grandmother, and when she nodded, poured her another healthy slug. She was eighty-five, so as far as Liam was concerned, she could do whatever the hell she wanted.

“You know what I think, Billy-boy?” She was the only one who called him that. Oh, where have you been, Billy Boy, Billy Boy? she would sing to him. Liam was the only one who had inherited her beautiful singing voice, and she’d taught him to harmonize when he was a wee lad.

“What do you think?”

“I think life is too goddamn short to waste time. Do what makes you happy. Do who makes you happy.”

Liam snorted into his whiskey. “I’ll drink to that. Sláinte!” To your health.

“Sláinte agad-sa.”

“I thought you were going to tell me to get my head out of my ass, buckle down and work hard.”

“I’ve never had to tell you that. You love hockey. And when you’re doing what you love, no one has to tell you to work hard.”

Light footsteps padded past the door, and they held their breath as they waited to see if someone was coming in the kitchen. When the footsteps continued down the hall, they both exhaled.

“I figure we got a few minutes before the horde comes in,” Brigit said. “Once one kid wakes up to go to the bathroom, the rest follow. And then they’re hungry, blah, blah. Can’t keep ‘em down on Christmas. You know how it is.”

“Yeah, I remember. Good times.”

“The best. So, you and Joey?”

Liam struggled to find a way to explain something even he didn’t understand yet. It didn’t matter. “It’s nothing, Nan. This is just a one-time thing. An aberration.”

Brigit nodded understandingly. “So, it’s just sex? A friends with benefits arrangement like me and Enzo?”

Liam groaned. “Gross, Nana. I don’t want to know about that. I’m going to try and forget I ever saw what I saw And, no. I’m not … and not with in an…anything with Joey. I mean, it’s Joey, you know? I can’t be in a…a relationship with him. It’s almost incestuous.”

Nana rolled her eyes. “First of all, no it’s not. Secondly, you never loved that girl. You liked her. She’s a good girl, and she fit this slot you had in your life.”

“You’re the third person today to tell me that. Including Michelle. No one could have said anything sooner?”

“You wouldn’t have heard us.”

Liam started to object, but Brigit held up a hand to stop him.

“I’ve seen it a million times, Liam. You know how many people get married because they think it’s what they should do? And the time is right for it, they’ve crossed X or Y off their list and now ‘get married and start a family’ is up next in the rotation, and the person they are with is okay, it’s good. A fucking lot. Probably most, if people are honest.”

“That seems kind of cynical, don’t you think?”

“Shut up and listen. So, you marry because it’s what you do. And it sometimes it works. There are worse reasons for marrying. But sometimes it doesn’t. I’ve seen you with Michelle a lot over the years, and you never once looked at her the way you’ve been looking at Joey all night.”

Fucking hell. His family was insane. Liam groaned. “Nana, you’re reading way too much into this. I’m done. I’m not going to date anyone again for a long, long time. If ever.”

Brigit got up from the table, went to the fridge, and started pulling out the containers of leftovers that had barely been in long enough to get cold. “I agree you need some time alone. It’s a good idea.”

She held out a hodgepodge stack of repurposed butter containers and cookie tins. Liam took them from her and put them on the counter.

When he turned to get the next load, Brigit surprised him by reaching out and holding onto his face with both hands. She wasn’t one for casual touches.

“Listen to me,” she said intensely. “I love you all so much. The whole damn clan of you, my kids, my grandkids. All those crazy Lucianos.”

She thumped her fist against her chest, almost like it hurt her how much she loved them. “It’s this fierce burn, and I would move mountains for you if they needed to be moved. And so would your mother and your father, and Joey’s mother and father. So don’t feel alone, okay? If there’s one thing in this world an O’Reilly never is, it’s alone.”

As if on cue, they heard the sounds of small feet trying and failing to sneak through the room. The door opened, and Joey came in, leading a crowd of kids like he was the freaking Pied Piper.

He was freshly showered, smelling like a million bucks and when his eyes met Liam’s, he smiled like the sun coming out.

Fucking fuckity fuck.

Liam leaned back against the counter, hand over his mouth trying to cover the smile he couldn’t hold back. Fucking Joey. From the very subtle way his Nana rolled her eyes at him, he wasn’t hiding anything.

Brigit flapped a dishtowel at the horde, herding them into something related to a line. “Okay, okay, ye wee terrors. Form an orderly mob, and we’ll see if we can’t get some food in ye.” She always played up the Irish for the kids, accent broadening to something she remembered from her mother. “It’s been almost a whole two hours since you ate, you poor wee bairns.”

Before she fed the kids, though, she poured a glass of whiskey and handed it to Joey. “Here you go, young Joseph. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, Nana.”

“Merry Christmas,” Liam echoed. They shared a three-way toast, and then Joey and Liam, claiming age before beauty, shoved themselves to the front of the line.