Merry Random Christmas Read online

  I pointed to the ceiling and swallowed half a bottle of water. Trevor tipped his chin up, drank, and then sprayed me as his eyes tracked what I was noting.

  “Jesus Christ, Trev? What the hell?” I grabbed a towel and began wiping myself. The water just beaded on my naked skin. Damn. I had more oil on me than my grandma’s Thanksgiving turkey.

  “Are we being set up for a reality television show, Joe? I mean, for real.” Trevor gestured at his g-string. I followed his hands, looking at his limp little ball of striped sadness.

  Between the two of us, he might have been taller, more tan, and he headlined the band, but I had the bigger package.

  “Quit comparing my junk with yours,” he said, as if he read my mind.

  “I don’t do that, dude,” I lied.

  He ignored me and returned his attention to his phone. “Damn. Seventy-three notifications. What the...oh, God!”

  “What?”

  “Grab your phone.”

  I searched my jacket. No phone.

  “It’s gone!”

  “Oh, no,” he groaned. “Darla’s in jail!”

  “JAIL?”

  “She’s been texting us for hours!” Trevor has always been a pretty mellow guy. Sometimes too mellow, unless he’s stealing peyote and chickens. He ran a shaking hand through his hair, those bright eyes widening with the dawning realization of his own words.

  “Why is she in jail?” I asked, patting down all my clothes. No phone. I came here with it. Where the fuck was my phone?

  Trevor fingered his glass screen. His face soured, like he smelled something bad, and then he thrust his screen in my face.

  “Why are you taking pictures of yourself on Instagram?”

  I opened my mouth to argue with him, but the evidence made me shut my mouth. He was right. My ass, covered in hanging paper money, was on display in the photo.

  “I can’t take that kind of picture of myself with my phone. My phone that I don’t have!” I snapped back.

  Trevor ignored me, grabbed his phone, and scrolled through various sections of his phone. “Fuck! She was arrested a few hours ago. Her newest text says she’s with your mother in Cambridge, trying to find us.”

  The world cracked in two. Hot lava and cold nitrogen poured into every molecule of my body at the same time.

  “Darla is with my mother?”

  “Yes.”

  “My mother. Joanne Ross? Tiny little thing filled with more Botox than blood? Puts diapers on chickens?”

  “Do you have another mother I don’t know about?”

  “Shut up.”

  Trevor squinted. “Darla’s last text is from about ten minutes ago. Said she’s in central Square and your mom bailed her out and—”

  “MY MOTHER BAILED MY GIRLFRIEND OUT OF JAIL?” I bum-rushed Trevor and crowded around him, pressing hard against his back to try to read the screen. We were spooning, except it wasn’t romantic.

  It was frantic.

  The bedroom door shot open, the hostess—Edie? Edna?—halting in her tracks when she saw us.

  “Oh. That explains so much,” she said, drawing out her words. Within a second three faces appeared over her shoulder, gawking. Then ten. Then too many.

  “Ooh, they’re into each other? I love male-male romance novels. This is like having one come to life!” someone called out.

  One of the women reached into her purse and pulled out a thick wad of dollars. “How much to watch you two go at it?” she shouted.

  “This is so much better than the M/M YouPorn channel!” another chirped.

  Soon the hostess was taking money from eight thousand hands, and held a stack of dollars bigger than my cock.

  Which meant it was substantial.

  This all happened in a matter of twenty seconds, during which I peeled myself off Trevor’s back, the slick viscosity of our well-oiled skin making the motion more sensual than I ever—ever—wanted to feel.

  With him.

  “We’re not gay,” Trevor protested, standing up and revealing a candy cane that begged to argue the opposite.

  All eyes tilted down to observe his crotch.

  “And the part of Pinocchio will be played by....” the hostess murmured.

  “I knew the stockings were hung on Christmas Eve, but it turns out lots of things are hung on this magical night,” someone else said with a low whistle.

  More cash started flying into the room.

  “Seriously not gay!” I shouted, adrenaline flooding my body. Darla was just sprung from jail, bailed out by my mom. Neither one of them knew where we were. Someone at this party had my phone and was posting pictures of me all over my own social media channels.

  And I had just rubbed up against Trevor’s ass and given him a hard on.

  Merry Fucking Christmas.

  “I’ll give all of you a kiss if you stop this crazy idea!” Trevor announced, covering his package with a pillow from the bed.

  “How about you kiss him and we pay you....” The hostess added the wad in her hands. “Three thousand, nine-hundred and twenty-three dollars.”

  “Plus this awesome new iPhone I found outside on the steps!” another person shouted, holding up my phone.

  “That’s mine!” I called out, walking across the room and reaching over the crowd to get it back.

  Hold on. Did someone just offer us nearly four thousand dollars for a single kiss?

  I looked at Trevor with the dispassionate once-over of a business man who did, in fact, have a price.

  He was kissable, I guess, if you’re into guys. For my half of four grand, I could slip him some tongue.

  She pulled her arm away like this was a game of monkey in the middle. “Not until we see a little kiss.”

  I planted one on the hostess, stalling for time. She slipped me some wine-flavored tongue. Aged wine. Fine, aged wine, like the kind my mom drinks.

  I winced.

  “STOP!” Trevor thundered, marching up behind me and pulling me away from the kiss.

  “Ooo, he’s jealous,” someone taunted.

  Something pushed against my hip. “Get your cock off of me,”I whispered through one side of my mouth.

  “I can’t help it. Biology!” Trevor hissed back. “Not my fault you rubbed up against me and made the blood go there.”

  “Think to shrink,” I commanded. Now was no time to argue.

  “What?”

  “Imagine my mom walking Mavis on a leash.”

  The hardness disappeared.

  “Thanks, man,” he said, gratitude infusing his words. “But eww. I won’t get hard for another week.”

  “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” the group chanted, frothy and excited by the prospect of some man-on-man action.

  We might share Darla, but we had never—not once—shared anything else more intimate than a moment of an arm brushed up against a leg, or an awkward look while figuring out logistics with six legs, six arms, two cocks, two luscious tits, and three mouths.

  I won’t lie. I have had my moments of wondering.

  But that’s it.

  Moments.

  Wondering.

  Not an actual re-enactment of Brokeback Mountain, twenty-first century Boston version.

  “We’re not gay!” Trevor and I shouted in unison.

  “Then pretend!” the hostess called back. “We’re up to four-thousand, four hundred bucks. Let’s make it an even five grand, ladies, and see if these boys will make it a menage. I’ll take bids on their third!”

  And with that, Trevor and I stopped arguing.

  Fuck integrity. Fuck Sam and Liam. Fuck the entertainment company.

  We grabbed our coats and left.

  Darla was somewhere out there, desperate and at her wits end.

  She had to be if she’d called my mother for help.

  Chapter Three

  Trevor

  As we dashed out of the house and shoved our way through more women, a flash of red metal in someone’s taloned hand caught my eye, and I retrieved Joe’
s phone. Our coats only fell to ass length, which didn’t stop the groping, but by the time we piled out into the frosty December night, we were at least covered in something other than peppermint oil, under-eye concealer, and money.

  “I feel like I just made it through the porno version of Tough Mudder,” Joe gasped.

  The distant sound of bell ringers with their ubiquitous red pots made the sharp, cold air seem even more surreal after the hot, stuffy apartment and the even hotter mess we’d just escaped.

  “What the fuck was that?” I choked out, flipping off my boots and struggling into my jeans. “Felt like a Monty Python skit combined with a James Deen porno short.” I grabbed an iron railing that was ice cold, covered in icicles, but that helped me get into my pants. Parts of the denim stuck to my skin. Funny. The oil should make this easy.

  “We’re way better looking than James Deen,” Joe scoffed. He was shrugging into his shirt and sweater, and we made quick time of getting completely dressed.

  And then the front door burst open, five women in various states of dress running down the steps.

  “Don’t go!” they begged. “Please! We’re sorry.”

  “Things got out of hand,” someone else shouted.

  “No, lady,” Joe snapped. “My thing got in too many hands!”

  I gritted my teeth. We had already blown this for Sam and Liam. Hopefully, their boss would still pay us so we could pay them.

  “I’m so sorry,” said the hostess. “Really. We just ask that you not report us.”

  “Report—what?” Joe’s mouth flew open in surprise, a burst of fog pouring out in the chilly night air.

  “Report us. We’re a group of church organists who decided to have a little fun on Christmas Eve, after we performed all our evening services, and...”

  Church organists?

  “You’re adept at handling organs all right,” Joe mumbled.

  I shook my head slightly. “Did you say church organists? Like, you play hymns on Sunday mornings?”

  “A few of us brought our mothers to this party. Some of us do the organ thing part-time while we finish degrees in music. There’s even an opera singer or two in there,” one of the younger women said.

  “I know I hit a high note once or twice when people handled my organ,” I said, starting to laugh. Being clothed and away from prying hands made the situation seem more absurd, and less powerful.

  Joe shot me a death glare. “None of this is funny.”

  “All of this is funny,” I countered.

  “Having our girlfriend in jail isn’t funny.”

  The group gasped.

  “Your girlfriend is in jail?” one of them asked me.

  “Our girlfriend,” Joe corrected her.

  “You share?” Murmurs burbled through the group, and then the hostess peered at Joe, studying him carefully. The air changed, electrified with the whispered intensity of ladies who needed some external excitement and were getting more than they expected.

  “Wait a minute! I know you,” said the oldest of the group, a woman I’d seen with her hands all over Joe’s ass earlier this evening.

  “Oh, dear!” she shouted. “You’re Joanne Ross’s son. The boy from that video with the gerbil!”

  I smothered a grin.

  “And you’re the boy who helped save his life!” she said, looking at me with a glowing countenance that just made Joe turn a deeper shade of purple.

  “Here,” she insisted, shoving the giant stack of money into my hands. “This is for your girlfriend. Whatever she did, I’m sure you’ll need help. And we certainly would never expect you two to have live sex for money!”

  “Sure we would!” someone else protested.

  I dropped some of the dollar bills on the ground. Joe scrambled over and picked them up, cocking one eyebrow and giving me a look that said, Do we dare take it?

  Either that, or Can we get more out of them?

  Knowing Joe, it was the latter.

  “We could lose our jobs if this little party made its way online. Please don’t twat us,” the hostess begged.

  Joe snickered.

  “Tweet,” I corrected. “Don’t worry. Twitter is passé. People only use it to try to sell stuff now, or track sports stuff. Nothing important actually happens there. And we won’t out you. But someone did post pictures of Joe while he was stripping, and those are all over Instagram.”

  “What’s Instagram?” someone asked. I looked. Over forty. Knew it.

  “But they’re only of him, right?” the hostess asked, frowning and pointing at Joe. “None of us were on camera. No one took a picture of our faces.”

  “Plenty of pics of my ass, but none of your faces,” Joe answered.

  Relief poured through the crowd.

  I reached for the hostess and dipped her back for a kiss, imitating Liam when he was on stage and playing the crowd. The kiss was sweet, the woman laughing the whole time.

  Joe shoved the bills in his pockets and in under a minute, we’d kissed every single one of them and let them take selfies with us.

  And with that, we ran into the night to catch the train, off to find Darla.

  We boarded the train to Cambridge and I settled in to read all my notifications.

  Bzzz.

  Where the fuck are you two? Darla texted.

  I handed Joe his phone, his face lighting up at the sight. He struggled to keep all the cash in his pockets and not draw the attention of two drunk, pee-scented dudes eyeing us with yellowed corneas and expressions that put me on notice.

  In Davis Square. On our way to you. Where are you? I replied.

  In hell, she answered.

  Still with Joanne? I typed.

  You guessed? she answered.

  Well, hell...you know. I hope you’re okay, I texted back.

  And then she never answered.

  Ten minutes after her last text, Joe turned to me with a grim look.

  “I’m pretty sure I know where she is.”

  Chapter Four

  Joe

  “Told you,” I said, nudging Trevor as we walked through the door at Jeddy’s Diner. Darla was alone, sitting at a booth, her phone face-down on the scarred tabletop, about as useless as Trevor’s hard-on at the party half an hour ago.

  “I can’t believe she’s here.” We walked in the door and Darla looked up, her eyes lifting but chin staying down, jaw set with a kind of grim determination that made my stomach twist a little.

  Whatever we’d been through these past few hours, it had paled in comparison to Darla’s experiences.

  A cup of coffee, still steaming, sat in front of her, with a second coffee on the other side of the booth. Two water glasses. Trev and I shared a look of questioning, but right now was not the time to drill her.

  “You found me,” she said, dejected and forlorn. Darla’s head hung low, her hair limp and a few pieces dirty at the ends. She was wearing a coat I didn’t recognize, open and unzipped. It was covered in paint splotches and had the frayed look of a hand-me-down. Underneath I saw red suspenders over her shoulders and a dingy, rust-stained white silk shirt. If we were back at our apartment right now, I’d strip her naked, throw away every stitch of clothing and make her take a shower until the hot water ran out.

  I looked under the booth. Unlaced construction boots, the color of a golden retriever puppy, flopped on the ground next to her bare feet.

  “We found you,” Trevor said, his voice filled with a nervous questioning. If I spoke, I’d sound the same. We both frowned, then stayed silent. Darla would have to take the lead here. Too many questions swirled through my mind, and I was still trying to recover from the bizarre reality of that church organist strip-a-thon.

  “About time. Where in the hell have you been?” Her voice sounded well-used, like she’d been at a football game, screaming for the home team. Yet her volume was low. Energy depleted. A part of me chilled with a kind of fear and concern I don’t think I’ve ever felt before in my life. This wasn’t our normal, exub
erant, louder-by-a-notch-than-normal Darla.

  “Humping the elves at the North Pole?” said a voice from behind us. If zombies could talk, this is what they’d sound like. I pivoted to find myself face to face with a thousand-year-old raisin.

  “Thanks, Madge,” Darla muttered as the old waitress threw down a plate of fried food and some kind of chocolate pie, plus a peppermint ice cream sundae.

  “Get you boys anything?” Madge leaned toward me and sniffed. “You already smell like a candy cane sundae.” She sniffed again, then pointed to the parfait dish. The skin on her face crumpled like a paper bag balled up in your hand right before you pitch it in the trash. Madge shook her head and turned her attention to Trevor.

  “Just more of whatever Darla’s having,” Trevor muttered, bending down to sit across from her. Madge shrugged and high-tailed it to the kitchen, typing on some electronic device that looked like a smartphone with a stylus.

  “There you are!” screeched a new voice.

  I didn’t turn around. I didn’t have to. I knew who that was. I arched one eyebrow and caught Darla’s eye.

  “Your mom’s here with me,” she said drolly.

  “I noticed.”

  Hands pressed into my shoulders, her strength surprising.

  “Hi, Mom,”

  “’Hi, Mom?’ ‘Hi, Mom?’ I see your naked ass plastered all over the Internet and all you can say is ‘Hi, Mom?’”

  I still didn’t want to turn around.

  “I should say,” she added, her voice dripping with sarcasm, “I see your naked ass plastered all over the Internet again. Joey, do you have any idea how expensive that Internet reputation manager was? We just scrubbed all the search results for your name on Google. You can finally search for Joe Ross and not get that damn video of you with the gerbil clinging to your...with Darla’s breasts hanging out the window...with Trevor’s naked chest—”

  “Jesus, lady, cut the fucking apron strings,” Madge cracked as she delivered a pot of coffee and two more mugs.

  Mom’s hands on my shoulders turned into talons.

  “Excuse me?” If a surgeon’s scalpel had a voice, it would be my mom’s.

  Now I really didn’t want to turn around.

  Darla’s head lifted slowly, the corners of her mouth rising up in a grin. Her eyes flashed with the kind of eagerness I’d seen in those green, glowing pools of sweetness only when something big is about to happen.