Page 81 of Santa of the Creek

“I said we don’t know how long forever is, but you have my heart. And you can’t push me away. I’m right here, next to you. I have your back, Dean. I’m your friend as well as your love.”

His declaration takes my breath away. He won’t make false promises. He gives me what I needed to hear. Did he mean it?

“Stop it,” he scolds me gently. ‘I can see what you’re thinking.”

“You read minds now?”

“Only yours, sweetheart.”

He kisses me, chasing away my fears and worries. Even though I’m scared of the future, of loss for a second time, I know if it happened, I’d live. I survived the worst pain once; I can do it again. But in the meantime, I lean into his kiss and let him show me just how much he loves me, and I return it.

“Look, Daddy, Santa is kissing a man under the fairy tree.”

Once upon a time I would have run at the sound of the little girl’s excited shout. I think the whole world heard her. But I stay in Echo’s arms, and we laugh softly against each other’s mouth.

“Aw, that’s nice, Katie. His husband must have decided to join him from the North Pole.”

“Santa doesn’t have a husband,” Katie declares, still at full volume.

“Honey, our Santa can be with whoever makes him happy.”

I know who that is, and I want the ground to open and swallow us whole, but Echo puts his forehead on my shoulder,shaking with laughter. “I fucking love Collier’s Creek,” he mutters. “We’re never living anywhere else.”

I think about that for a moment as snowflakes start falling from the night sky. Once upon a time I wanted to run from this small town where everyone knows my business and get lost in the anonymity of the big city. Now here I am, wearing a Santa suit under the Christmas tree in the Market Square, in the arms of another small-town boy who loves me.

“We’re home,” I agree, and Echo kisses me again.

THE END