Page 20 of Santa of the Creek

He sighs. “Can I come in? Is there coffee?”

“I’ll make another pot.”

I shut the door with a thud, and stomp into the kitchen. Danny slumps into the chair while I refill the water in the coffeemaker and put the coffee grounds in the top. The coffee is dripping as I sit and face my brother. I know to a lot of people he’s the mayor, but, to me, he’s still my annoying older brother.

“The answer is still no,” I state.

“Dean—”

“Why are you all bothering me? You know I’ll say no.Youknow the reason why. Why are you doing this to me?” My voice rises as I ask the last question.

Danny fixes me with an expression, part kindness, part exasperation. “It’s time to let him rest, Dean.”

“You mean it’s been over twenty years. He doesn’t matter anymore.”

He leans forward. “You know I don’t mean that. It will always matter. But you must start living again, Danny. You can’t keep living a half-life.”

“I’m not.”

“You are and you know it.”

“Marty was my life.”

He had been my first love, my only love.

“It doesn’t mean to say you can’t have fun again,” my brother insists.

I notice he doesn’t say I can love again. He knows better.

“Marty died, and you stopped living, Dean. But it’s been too long. You have to live in the real world again.”

I resist the urge to whine, “I don’ wanna,” because it won’t help.

My lack of response makes him huff.

I get up to pour the coffee, doctor it with the creamer I keep in the refrigerator just for him, and hand him a cup.

Danny sighs. “I’m tired of half the town thinking I’m homophobic, and the other half cheering me for it.”

“Collier’s Creek isn’t like that,” I mumble.

I have my grumbles about Collier’s Creek, but compared to other small towns, it’s a paradise.

“A few residents are. Thankfully in the minority.”

“There are a town full of men who could be Santa. Why hassle me?” I ask.

“Because there’s a town full of people wanting you to live again.”

That’s not the answer I expect, and I just stare at him. “What?”

He huffs out a breath. “Come on, little brother. Put on the suit and paste on a smile for four weeks. You volunteer everywhere. They all know you. If the Creekers want anyone to play Santa, it’s you.”

I doubt that, but he’s right about the volunteering.

“The suit is shredded,” I say. “At least the pants are. They didn’t survive the hospital.”

Like that was going to work as an excuse.