What’s your Christmas wish? Is it snow, an office crush recognizing you, or a secret midnight escape to the local teddy bear workshop?
These stories, plus more Christmas magic, are in the M/M collection, Holidays in Rainbow. Diversity, inclusion, and second chances are the main themes here, where each story takes place either during the month of December, at a holiday party, or in the dream-like space between Christmas and New Year’s. Some tales are steamy while others are sweet, but each is meant to make the holiday season a little less lonely and more special for those who celebrate even in the smallest of ways.
Contains the stories Bad Secret Santa, Mistletoe and YouTube, Snow for You, The Cost of Doing Business, and The Midnight Bear Express.
EXCERPT FROM "Mistletoe and YouTube"
"Are you ready now?" he asks as Matt cracks a can of Coke. Matt swallows a few huge gulps and then shakes his head, as if he has just woken up from a daze. He sees his boyfriend from across the room, and though Aiden is still visibly annoyed, Matt smiles at him.
"Yeah, thanks for waiting." He walks over to the bed and lays down on it. His attention is still not on Aiden and his new loading YouTube video.
"Come on, Matt," he whines.
Matt laughs and then props his body up on his elbows. "What? We have all night! Finals are over and there is still a few more days before we have to leave."
"Technically less than forty-eight hours now," Aiden sighs, reiterating the dorm room’s policy for Christmas break. Two days after a student’s last exam, they are expected to pack up and be whisked away so that the college can shut down and clean.
"Shh." Matt waves a hand in the air dismissively. "You worry so much."
Aiden rolls his eyes and then goes to check his email instead. His mom is complaining about the weather and before even finishing the unnecessary diatribe about blizzards, clicks away from it. This is not how he wants to spend the next less than forty-eight hours. He's been on YouTube, and not YouPorn or any other place like that, because he wanted to wait for Matt to finish his exams. Those precious forty-eight hours are supposed to be for real sex, not the kind through a computer. And lots of it. Can he really be any more explicit than that?
Aiden opens the video clip in his other tab and sighs.
"Come on, Matt. Humour me for a moment?" Aiden says, and Matt finally listens. Whether or not it's because he's finally satisfied, or because he hears the slight waving tension in Aiden's voice, he's not quite sure. They've only been together for six months and are still trying to figure out the whole nuances of the relationship.
Matt pulls up a spare chair and places an arm around Aiden, who presses play. Already he feels his cheeks go red with embarrassment. Damn his English major sentimental self, he thinks. He feels far too exposed showing this romantic side of himself. It's bad enough he likes dicks, but he really doesn't have to act gay, does he? Oh well, he thinks. Matt is probably aware of all this romantic stuff anyway, and if not, he will be soon.
Matt is focused in on the video the same way he focuses in on everything else -- from Angry Birds to his biology textbook -- with a furrowed brow and his hands raised into an inverted V under his chin. Aiden always used to think this was adorable, but now the standard impenetrable stare confuses him.
The video is a simple one. It's ridiculous, really, and Aiden knows it. It's this fake survey that is being given by a guy and a girl. Both are really cute and Aiden's type, really, so maybe that's what drew him initially. They are going around and asking people a few random questions about the holidays. Do you put up Christmas lights? Drink eggnog? But these are just buffers and meant to throw people off. The real question is about mistletoe.
