I'll Be Home...

by Tate James

Alfie in dark blue scrubs with tatted up arms, a dark beard that looked soft and silky, and bedroom eyes definitely achieved the divine.

A choked sob stuck in my throat and my eyes misted over. The cookies were shaped like trees, but they weren’t decorated for Christmas. There was icing done in the shape of flowers. There was a little note next to it that read: For the not-Christmas tourist. I sniffled. They were the prettiest cookies ever. I ate all four of them.

The room was cold. My clothes were soaked in cat piss. I was staying in what felt like a literal gingerbread house in the Christmas town from hell

A girl never forgot her first love, and in my case, I had three. That shit stuck on the mind and soul for eternity.

“I never liked your stubbornness, Bad Weather. It was always a terrible sign that you were going to do the hardest, damndest things, and if we weren’t really careful, we wouldn’t be there to keep you safe.”

“You want to stay. You want to do this job. I don’t like it, I don’t have to like it. But you will do it our way. You will let us look after you. And you will do as you’re told.” “Or what?” Fuck me, if I was going to play with Frost, I was definitely getting burned. “I’ll lock this gorgeous ass up, and make sure you stay out of trouble.” The thing was, he was dead serious. “I’m tempted to do it right now. Alf and Nick are too damn far down memory lane to realize what you need.”

“You’re holding a grudge? Over fucking what, Nicholas Klores? What the hell do the three of you have to hold a grudge over when you all left me? Not the other way around. You. Left. Me. You all swore you’d protect me no matter what, and the second you could, you disappeared. Took off out of Northland and never looked back. Every single one of you. You. Left. Me. If anyone gets to hold a grudge here? It’s me.”

Nick scoffed. “We were never just friends, Rayne. You were—are—the sun of our solar system.”

“I like you, Frost Jackson,” I repeated. He rumbled a sexy sound. “Well, I love you, Rayne Dear. Always have and never stopped.” He kissed me again, stealing all the air from my lungs and coherent thought from my head, then released me abruptly.

Christmas memories are meant to be cherished, passed down in families, and pulled out each new season to decorate our present with relics of the past in hope for the future. But for some, Christmas brings up haunting memories that are tattooed onto our very identities…

He wet his lips and drew a breath. “I love you, Rayne Dear. I’m in love with you, and I think I have been since we were twelve. It never went away, it never got weaker, and I only realized how intense it was when I saw you again that day. I love you so fucking much.”