Page 14 of Don't Shoot Me Santa

“I’d need to talk it over with my partner. This isn’t something I can take on without thinking carefully. I’m retired and…well, these things affect him too.”

“Of course. I’ll text through my contact details. But so you’re aware, the scene is time sensitive. If you wanted to view it personally, it should be sooner rather than later.”

“The body’s still at the scene?”

“For now. We’re transferring him shortly, but we’ve held off for the moment to preserve staging. You’d have to move quickly.”

He ended the call and let the phone rest in his palm. The room felt colder than before, and he turned his chair, gazing out at the grey sea beyond the hedgerow, where the clouds dragged low across the sky. He thought of Aaron. Somewhere out there. Working through his own trauma day by day and how they’d fought like hell to be where they were now, doused in trust and love.

He wouldn’t risk that lightly.

But still, his brain kept circling back.

Why a Santa suit? Why a tree? Why now?

He shut his eyes.

And waited for the questions to quiet.

They didn’t.

His phone buzzed with a text, and he opened it thinking it would be the detective’s details. It wasn’t. It was Aaron. Sending through multiple messages one after the other.

How the duck am I meant to touch myself out in the ducking open? Wank off to the gulls is it?

Prick.

Which milk? Real milk or semi?

I’ve got a fucking semi.

Wanker.

Kenny snorted, the sound punching unexpectedly through the stillness. God, he loved him. And that was the problem. Because loving Aaron meanteverychoice had consequences now.

Even the ones he hadn’t made yet.

chapter three

My Favourite Things

Chaos was far more enthusiastic about the beach walk than Aaron was.

Which, fair enough, Chaos hadn’t spent the last three nights sleeping with a pillow between his legs because his boyfriend had a praise kink, an edging complex, and absolutely no fucking shame.

Still, Aaron tried to enjoy it. This was the stretch of coastline he loved most. The part that made all the chaos (no pun intended) worth it. His favourite place in the world was right here, watching his ridiculous mutt lollop through the surf, tongue out, ears flapping, kicking up shingle and barking at nothing in particular.

Okay.Secondfavourite place.

First was Kenny’s mouth.

Which he wasn’t allowed in right then.

Fucking hell.

He adjusted his Dryrobe, pulled his bobble hat down lower, and trudged forward in his wellies with all the festive cheer of a man personally wronged by the weather and his own libido.

There was something about being denied sex that made him crave it like a junkie. He thought about it constantly. Obsessively. Even out here in the freezing arse-end of December, with salt wind in his teeth and seaweed flapping around his ankles. He’d survived dry spells before. Years of them, actually. But that had been different.