“I’ve just started putting out dessert,” Anna said when we came home, stopping in the doorway to smile at us.

I debated running up to my room to change trousers, but didn’t bother. My jacket had taken most of the rain, after all, so my trousers was only slightly damp.

“Are we opening presents while we eat?” I asked, eager to get both dessert and presents over with.

It didn’t take long. It was only the four of us, after all, and Dad and I only had each other. Anna had received presents from her kids too, but that was that.

After we sat around watching TV. Dad, who usually only watched the news, all night long, was talked into putting on some romantic comedy by Anna.

“This isn’t a movie for the rest of us,” Dad grumbled, but he didn’t switch the channel back to the news.

“It’ll be good for all three of you to watch something like this,” Anna teased. “Maybe you can all pick up some tips for the ladies, huh?”

I didn’t want any tips. I wanted to go to bed—the same bed as the man I usually shared a bed with. Well, fuck it all. “Christian and I are together.”

The silence those words brought were heavy.

“What?” Anna blinked at me.

Dad simply stared.

And Christian sat stiff next to me.

I let out the breath I’d been holding after I dropped the bomb. “Christian and I are together,” I repeated, slower this time and in a lower tone of voice. Why the fuck I was sharing it at all was beyond me, except… well, bed. “We’ve been together a while. That’s why we still live together. And that’s why we won’t meet anyone and why we don’t need any tips for the ladies.” That was the most I’d ever spoken to Anna in one turn, come to think of it.

Her lips, which had parted in surprise, now pressed together. Her gaze shot to Christian, who nodded to confirm her unvoiced question. “Together? You two? But…” She turned to Dad. “Johan?”

Dad was scowling more than ever. I stared back, showing him I wasn’t afraid or ashamed, that I wasn’t going to back down.

“Christian?” Anna turned to him instead now. “Surely this is a joke? Right?”

“I wouldn’t joke about something like this!” I threw a scowl at her now too, then directed it back at Dad.

There was a short, tense silence after that… and then Dad broke our eye contact to look at Christian too. “I sent my son up to Svalbard thinking you’d look after him and help him out. If I’d known this—”

“Then what?” I challenged, leaning forward slightly. “What would you have done if you’d known? Forbidden me to leave? To take the job? You couldn’t have done that even if you wanted, Dad. It’s my life and I make the decisions, not you. I decide what I want to do with it and you can count yourself lucky if I decide to share with you what’s going on.”

Dad’s eyes had darkened to the point they looked black. “He’s a decade older than you!”

“Nine years actually,” I pointed out.

“Same fucking difference!” Dad stood now, fists clenching. “He’s older than you and should know better.”

“Better than what?” I rose too so I could be on eye-level with him instead of having him loom over me. “Better than what, Dad? Than to find someone you get along with, someone you like to be around, someone you love?”

“Love? Is that what you think this is? You’ve barely been there a year!”

“A year’s more than enough time to figure out if I’m in love or not. Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you introduce me to Anna after you’d been seeing each other for only a few months?” He had no right standing there and be such a hypocrite. Not simply because I was in a relationship with another man. If Christian had been a woman, he wouldn’t have minded. “I’m old enough to know the difference between love and infatuation.”

We’d never said it out loud, not properly, neither of us. But I did love him—and he loved me, and Dad wasn’t going to belittle that. I didn’t like to talk about my love-life, not to Dad or anyone, but I was damn well going to defend it to the end of time.

I glanced over my shoulder at Christian, who still sat on the sofa. His gaze was on me, green eyes bright with worry over the escalating situation—and probably also with sympathy, because I’d hoped Dad would take it better than this. He probably wanted to help too, but he didn’t know how—didn’t know how to calm Dad down. And was there really anything that could calm Dad down when he got angry? He’d likely fly even more off the handle if Christian got involved now.

“Johan—” Anna tried.

“Stay out of it.” He made a cutting motion through the air towards her.

“But Johan—”

“I said stay out of it!”

Anna wisely shut up. She still looked stunned, like she had when I’d started this mess.

“You should follow your own damn order,” I got out through clenched teeth.

“What?” Dad’s voice held a clear warning.

“To stay out of it.” I kept my voice low, not wanting to resort to shouting. “It’s my life. Stop forcing your opinions on me. I only told you so we wouldn’t have to listen to all the well-meaning bullshit about meeting nice women to settle down with. And so we don’t have to stay in separate rooms anymore, because that’s frankly ridiculous. I may have informed you of this—but you don’t have a say in it. I’m not going to stop being with him simply because you don’t agree we should be together.”

Dad’s face was getting decidedly red. “You are not staying in the same room. Not under my roof. This is my home, my rules.”

“Fine.” If this was how he wanted to play it… “Then consider this our last night here. Tomorrow we’ll go stay with Varg.”

I expected him to press the issue, to shout some more at me, but he only clenched his fists, walked out of the room, and slammed the door after him like a big baby throwing a temper-tantrum.

The silence in the room was deafening.

“We hadn’t expected this,” Anna said in a low voice.

“You think I did?” Christian’s voice was exasperated. “We didn’t set out for it, you know. It simply… happened.”

Happened, all right. Lots of sex had happened—and then suddenly it had become more. No one had been more surprised than me—and maybe Christian, considering he had viewed himself as straight most of his life.

“I don’t know. You never said anything about liking guys…”

“That’s because I didn’t. Not before him.” He looked at me—our gazes met and held. Truth be told, I hadn’t been interested in another guy before him either. I’d been curious about what it would be like to be with a guy, yeah, and had fantasised about it… but I’d never gone and fancied another man before.

“This has come as a shock, you get that, right?” Anna wouldn’t look at him. Instead she addressed her knees.

“Yeah.” Christian sighed.

“And we don’t understand.”

“What’s to understand?” I demanded, still keyed up after my argument with Dad and his exit. “It’s not for you to understand. This is between us. I told you out of common courtesy—but I fucking regret it now.”

Anna swallowed.

“You’re not okay with it,” I continued. “Fine. We’ll be out of your hair tomorrow. And until he changes his attitude, I don’t want to hear from him.” I pointed at the closed door Dad had escaped behind.

“Your dad’s old-fashioned. What if he never accepts it?” Her eyes had gone wide.

“Then that’s it.” I crossed my arms defiantly. It wasn’t like I’d had such a good relationship with my dad to begin with. Not talking to him anymore at all would hardly be a loss. “I can’t stop living my life because my dad’s a total git. I refuse to do that.” I’d always lived my life the way I wanted and just never told him much. He didn’t know me at all, really, and he’d never bothered to try.

Anna licked her lips nervously, glancing between Christian and I.

“I’m going to bed,” I announced, tired of everything and still irritable about Dad.

How would this have turned out if Mum was still alive? But of course I’d never find out, because she wasn’t. She was gone and Anna was here and Dad was a miserable old sod.

“See you in the morning,” Christian said, giving a half-wave.

I nodded and left the room, leaving the door open instead of slamming it shut like Dad had done.

Well, that went to shit. But what else had I expected really? I knew my dad well enough to know what he was like.

Of course, the next day, I found out Varg had got engaged. So at least someone had had a good Christmas he could look back on with fond memories.

Hopefully Christian and I would have our own next year.