Page 123 of Men of Fort Dale: The Complete Series

Growing up, holidays were odd and not always great.

He tried not to make a big deal of being one of those foster home kids, but he couldn’t deny it had affected him.

Matt hadn’t known what family meant until Team Maelstrom.

Sure, they had taken a while to bond, but every personality clash and argument had been worth it.

As a team, they spent just about every holiday and birthday together.

Either in the field or on their time off, the team was rarely separated for celebrations.

For people like Aidan and Matt, who didn’t have relatives to visit, it meant they always had family.

And when push came to shove, they would join a team member for their family celebrations.

He had been hoping to celebrate Christmas with his old team.

Fishing his keys out, he managed a casual tone. “Can’t say I’m surprised. Though you should probably let Ricardo know, he asked if I’d heard from you guys about the holidays when I talked to him the other day.”

“Yeah, we figured we’d call you first. That way, we know Nick will hear about it. Ricardo is next on the list if the bastard bothers to answer his phone,” Aidan grumbled.

Matt laughed, opening the door to his apartment. “Aww, is someone feeling a little neglected?”

“No,” Aidan grumped.

“He’s pouting,” Sean informed him.

“I am not.”

“Are too.”

Matt flipped on the hallway light, smiling as red, green, and blue lights spilled across the floor and ceiling.

The rest of the house also came to life, created on a system he’d spent a week setting up at the beginning of the month.

The small tree in the tiny living room lit up, and the music box he’d set up began to play a carol.

Over the years, he’d collected quite a few Christmas decorations and was always trying to find a way to decorate better than the year before.

It required bigger storage boxes, but that didn’t matter.

The blowup Santa on the porch outside the living room’s sliding glass door, the strings of lights all over the place, the stockings he’d hung from the entertainment system, and the figurines and statues he’d lined the apartment with were all worth it.

“Well, it sucks we won’t spend Christmas together,” Matt said, tossing his keys onto the red tablecloth with green trim draped over his dining room table. “But you guys had better call on Christmas.”

“You bet your ass we’ll call. We just wanted you to know in case you have to make other plans,” Aidan told him.

“Mm, yeah, sounds like I’ll be seeing what the base Christmas party looks like,” Matt said.

“Yeah,” Aidan said with a slight hint of mischief. “Maybe you can take Nick as your plus one.”

“It’s hardly a plus one when he’ll have an invite,” Matt said with a roll of his eyes.

“I was just thinking of the principle of the thing.”

“That makes zero sense.”

“Sure it does if you think hard about it.”

Matt opened his mouth to argue, thought better of it, and let out a long-suffering sigh.

The rest of the team, even Clint, when he’d been alive, had joked about how close he and Nick were.

Never mind that, as far as the rest of the world was concerned, they were both straight men who had no interest in one another.

In Matt’s case, save for one little incident of drunken shenanigans before shipping out for boot camp, it was true.

He didn’t understand why Nick hadn’t opened up to the rest of the team as ‘sorta bi.’ Even after years of friendship, Matt still wasn’t sure how far that went.

He did know he’d never seen his friend date another man, though he knew Nick hadn’t avoided sexual contact with them on the odd occasion.

It still struck him as odd that Nick had never brought it up. With their two friends and former team leaders in a relationship, there was no way anyone would have a problem with it. Hell, he was pretty sure even he wouldn’t know if he hadn’t literally stumbled upon the truth years ago.

“Well, I’ll let Nick know, but you guys should still call him,” Matt told them, dropping his bags on the counter.

“Well, yeah, we’ll shoot him a message so we don’t interrupt his super important base party meetings,” Aidan said with a snicker.

“God, don’t. He’s been grumbling about garlands and twinkling lights under his breath when he thinks I’m not in earshot,” Matt said.

“Which means you’ve been visiting his apartment,” Sean said wryly.

Matt scowled. “You guys can tease all you want, but just because you’re Scrooges doesn’t mean I have to be.”

“He says as if it doesn’t look like a Christmas store exploded in his apartment,” Aidan muttered.

“You haven’t even seen my apartment!”

“We don’t have to,” Sean piped up.

“It’s almost like we know you,” Aidan added.

Matt scowled. “And on that note, it’s been good talking to you guys, but would you look at that? Something’s on fire.”

Sean laughed. “We do need to get back to it. So you go add even more decorations, and we’ll talk to you later.”

“Boy, do I look forward to our next conversation,” Matt grumbled.

“Yeah, we love you too, bud,” Aidan called.

Matt sighed. “And I miss you both like Europe misses the plague.”

It took another couple of minutes of verbal sparring, mainly involving Aidan trying to be witty, before Matt finally got off the phone.

By the time the conversation was all said and done, he was left scowling at his bag of Christmas decorations and the microwavable burrito he’d grabbed from the store.

With a sigh, he tried to ignore the ache in his chest in the shape of his absent teammates and pulled out his phone.

He knew Nick was busy, but he sent a quick message.

It popped up on the screen, right below Nick’s last message, asking when the base had gotten enough gay men on it to need so much mistletoe.

Matt still wasn’t sure what that was about, but he’d find out later.

Humming a carol, he tucked the phone away and unbagged his latest purchases. His apartment door was positively aching for a big, gaudy wreath.