Fall for You, page 10
“All yours.”
Bert and Ernie took the two seats to his left and giggled with each other about something that was probably only funny to them. A pang of hurt hit Patrick in the heart. He usually wasn’t one for couples costumes, but he was surrounded by him, save for Libby.
At least the couch he was sitting on was comfortable. He leaned back, rested his head on the plush cushion, and closed his eyes for a second. He let the pulsating music and smell of too many bodies in a confined space clear his mind of the one person he couldn’t stop thinking about.
Patrick thought he had fallen asleep and was now dreaming because when he opened his eyes, a ketchup bottle that looked familiar stood in front of him.
“Hey.” The ketchup bottle wore a familiar lazy smile that was all Spencer.
Patrick bolted upright. He was very much awake.
Spencer was here.
“Hi. Hello. What are you doing here?” Patrick asked.
“I was looking for a guy to be in a couples costume with me. Ketchup and mustard seems like a good idea.”
“You were looking to be in a couples costume?” Maybe this was a dream.
Spencer pulled the coffee table closer to sit. “Would you mind giving us a minute?” he asked Bert and Ernie, who obliged.
Spencer didn’t join him on the couch. He stayed in his place, staring right at Patrick, his eyes brimming with meaning and intensity. “I want to be in a couples costume with you, Patrick. And only you.”
“Last I checked, friends don’t do couples costumes.”
“Good, because I don’t want to be your friend.”
Patrick’s breath caught in his throat. There was no snark, no catch to Spencer’s statement.
“I like you, Patrick. I should’ve said that to you. I wanted to, but I...I’ve never done this before, felt this way about someone. What if you had said no? What if I suck at relationships?”
“I already suck at relationships.” Patrick scratched at the strap around his neck.
“No, you don’t. Your ex-boyfriend sucks at relationships. You were just collateral damage.”
“I don’t want to be collateral damage again. What if we mess it up and hurt each other?” Fear trembled inside Patrick. People always started relationships with the best of intentions. He worried that the pain he felt from the past would always be there in some way.
“Will it feel worse than how I feel without you? This has been the shittiest month of my life, having you across the hall and not seeing you.” Spencer rubbed his big hands over Patrick’s knees, scrambling all the thoughts in his head. His touch was better than any drug known to man. It made Patrick feel safe and warm.
“I thought...I thought once you got your cast off, you wouldn’t want to be with me.”
“Baby, I want to be with you so bad it hurts. And now that I have two functioning legs, there’s so much we can do together.”
“You don’t need me to help you commute anymore.”
“Yeah, I do. I can’t push through the masses at Belmont by myself.”
Patrick let out a laugh that filled up his lungs with pure joy. It was interrupted by the itching brought on by his costume’s neck strap.
Fuck it. He ripped the mustard nozzle off completely and let it fall to the floor as he crashed his lips against Spencer’s mouth. Spencer cupped his face, his hands a soothing balm, turning their kiss from amazing to fucking epic.
Were there people around them? Was there a party? Was there life outside this kiss? It was hard to say.
The second their lips parted, Patrick wanted more. And he would get more. After the pain of the past, he was ready for more.
“So what comes next?” Spencer asked in a low growl.
“Technically, once midnight hits, the pre-Christmas season begins.”
“Oooh, tell me more.”
“The pre-Christmas season goes from November first to Thanksgiving. Think of it as a soft launch to Christmas. You start listening to Christmas music here and there, maybe light a candle or two, casually frolic through a department store. See, the thing is, the Christmas season itself is magical, but it’s so short. Just one month. But you can’t have a Christmas tree up during Thanksgiving. That’s just insulting to pilgrims.”
Spencer snorted.
“So you soft launch it for most of Thanksgiving. But the Friday after? You put up your tree and fully decorate your home. You listen to Christmas music nonstop. Oh my God. Spencer, this could be my first white Christmas in years. And I’ll get to frolic through all the stores in the Loop and go see White Christmas the movie at the Music Box.”
“And ride the Holiday train.”
Patrick gasped and cupped his hands over his mouth. “Spencer. I forgot about the holiday train,” he whispered. A sense of melancholy washed over him thinking about how fast the season would go. Why couldn’t Christmas be at the end of January?
“I have a super important question: What’s your favorite Christmas candle scent?”
“That’s a tough one.” Patrick weighed the pros and cons of a tart cranberry smell or the classic cedar scent, which filled his home with the smell of a Christmas tree.
Spencer seemed to enjoy watching him wrestle with this dilemma. As long as he found Patrick’s crazy entertaining...
“Are you ready for all this?” Patrick asked.
Spencer gave him a kiss that made him light up like the freaking Rockefeller Center tree. “Oh hell yeah.”
November
The Day After Thanksgiving
a.k.a. The First Day of the Christmas Season
12
Spencer
Spencer felt lied to. Betrayed. His world turned upside down in ways he couldn’t have imagined. Did he even know the person standing in front of him?
“You use a fake tree?”
He stood over the box he just opened in the middle of Patrick’s apartment, unable to process the sight of fake evergreen limbs stuffed inside cardboard.
“What?” Patrick asked a few boxes over, unwrapping Christmas-themed trinkets.
“You, Mr. Holiday Hard-On, do not put up a real Christmas tree?”
“They’re too messy, and I never remember to water them.” Patrick waved off his outrage. It felt like a shocking disregard for his rigid holiday rules. “If I got a real tree, who would’ve had to help me schlepp it up three flights of stairs.”
“As your boyfriend, I would have done so proudly.”
“Where’s your tree, Spencer?” Patrick pointed a snowglobe at him accusingly.
Spencer see-sawed his head. “I have a little one that sits on the kitchen table.”
Patrick seized victory. He searched his apartment for rapidly dwindling counter space where he could position the snowglobe. Nearly every flat surface in the apartment was taken up with candles and Christmas paraphernalia. It would make it difficult for Spencer to take Patrick anywhere in the apartment like their first time. They’d just have to stick to the bed and couch like normal people.
“What do you think? Too cluttered?” Patrick asked of the arrangement of decor on the TV stand.
Was he looking at a TV stand or a shelf at Home Goods? Spencer could not tell.
“It looks perfect,” he said. It was a Christmas clutter, but a warm, homey one, and it made Patrick shine with excitement. Patrick was in his holiday element, and Spencer could watch him all day and night.
Each day of November had been better than the last. Being Patrick’s boyfriend was like a life filled only with holidays. They held hands on the walks to the El in the morning. Spencer still counted down the hours until he could see Patrick after work, only this time, he greeted him at the State/Lake El stop with a big, fat kiss. At night, they ordered takeout or cooked meals together. Patrick put together a Pinterest board of fall- and holiday-inspired meals to cook, like butternut squash soup and sourdough stuffing. Fortunately, winter volleyball had started up mid-month, which helped Spencer keep the holiday bloat at bay. (“Why is it called Winter Volleyball when it starts in November?” Patrick had asked.)
They traded off sleeping at each other’s apartments. He fell asleep with Patrick in his arms every night and woke up beside him every morning. His heart was full. Spencer did not know he could love mushiness as much as this. It didn’t feel mushy, though. They were building a strong foundation of a relationship that he believed could get them through anything life threw their way. It wasn’t mushy. It was rock solid.
And Patrick bent over a box made him rock hard.
“Hey Patrick, do they make Christmas lube?”
“You never know. You can find anything online.” Patrick wiggled his butt, taunting him. He pulled out two Christmas throw pillows that had matching red pickup trucks with Christmas trees hanging out the back.
Speaking of Christmas trees, they still had two boxes labeled ornaments. He pictured making love to Patrick on his living room rug that night, their sweaty bodies aglow from the lights of the tree and the candles lit around them, of which there would be plenty. His cock pressed impatiently against his fly.
Patrick remained bent over his boxes, his bubble butt sticking up in the air.
Who said they couldn’t have sex twice today?
Spencer knelt behind Patrick and kissed his neck, tasting his hot, salty skin. Patrick moaned in response - still the sexiest sound known to man in Spencer’s opinion. It scrambled his circuits and made him hungry for more. His hands traveled down Patrick’s torso to his jeans. Fortunately, Patrick wasn’t wearing a belt, allowing him to yank down his pants in one swift move, exposing his glorious ass and tight hole. The box of knicknacks Patrick leaned against rattled from the movement.
“Spencer, yes. Fuck me,” Patrick sputtered out when Spencer slapped his ass.
Spencer passed Patrick a fall pillow embroidered with a black cat and pumpkin that had yet to be packed. He pushed his head onto the pillow so Patrick’s body was bent up like a triangle, his ass fully in the air. Spencer licked his warm opening.
A muffled moan came from the pillow.
“You like that, Baby?”
Patrick let out a muffled moan of agreement.
Spencer tongued his hole, pressing inside him and let Patrick’s musk envelop him as his boyfriend quivered with need under his touch. God, he wanted to devour Patrick in a million different ways, wanted to be the one to make him lose control. Patrick was organized and strict when it came to celebrating holidays, but Spencer loved how under his touch, he could completely unravel.
Spencer whipped off his own sweater and shoved a free hand down his pants to stroke his achingly hard cock. He could’ve come right then and there, soaking his boxers.
“One moment.” He kissed Patrick’s head.
Spencer ran to the bedroom for supplies. He stripped off his pants, his thick cock jutting out from his stark naked body. When he returned to the living room, he found Patrick in the same position, but a red blanket with white trim fanning out underneath him. He looked over his shoulder, his clever grin warming Spencer’s heart.
“I found the tree skirt,” Patrick said.
“Is it kosher to mix holidays? Having sex with you on a tree skirt with your head on a fall pillow?”
“There are exceptions to every rule.”
Fuck the rules. Spencer was so horny for his boyfriend he couldn’t see straight. He slipped on the condom, slicked then up, and disappeared his cock into Patrick’s sweet ass.
Patrick gasped beneath him. He was still getting used to taking all of Spencer, but he seemed to love the challenge.
“You okay?” Spencer asked.
“Yes. Want it so bad,” Patrick said into the pillow before pushing it aside and propping himself on his hands in a classic doggy style position.
Spencer rubbed his hands all over Patrick’s back as he fucked him, the sound of skin on skin filling the apartment. Would things always be this great? Spencer believed so. Each day was a new high, a new way that his heart expanded to let Patrick in.
He felt Patrick clench around his cock. Need pulsated under his skin. Spencer pulled him up straight so his chest was flush against Patrick’s back. He dragged his fingers through Patrick’s hair, then down his pert nose, over his soft lips, and down to his neck pulsing with heat, memorizing each part with his hand.
“Patrick” he whispered against his ear.
His boyfriend stroked himself wildly, his cock red and engorged, his head falling back onto his shoulder, his body barely able to stay upright, his cheeks tightening on Spencer’s dick.
Patrick choked for air, desperate and shaking. Every time he watched Patrick completely lose it on the verge of exploding, Spencer became more intrigued by the idea of bottoming one of these days. Maybe for Christmas.
Patrick grabbed Spencer’s hand and squeezed it against his chest as spurts of hot come shot across the hardwood floor. It sent Spencer over the edge, unloading into his condom seconds later.
As he caught his breath, Patrick collapsed onto the tree skirt. Spencer climbed on top of him and pecked his lips softly, the glow of the waning winter sun lighting Patrick green eyes aglow.
“I can’t believe you came without any candles lit.” Spencer cocked an eyebrow at him.
“I…” Patrick filled his lungs with a big gulp of air. “I need a minute to catch my breath, and then I’ll have a witty retort for you.”
No retort was needed. They sprawled out on the tree skirt, taking in the silence together.
After getting showered and dressed, and taking the tree skirt down to the laundry room, they resumed decorating for Christmas and packing up fall.
Spencer picked up two boxes of fall decor stacked in the corner of the living room and brought them into the bedroom, where they’d go underneath Patrick’s bed until August. A wave of melancholy hit him as he shoved them under the bed. He remembered carrying these stinking boxes up three flights of stairs in the heart of summer, not knowing what he was getting himself into with his new neighbor. Fall had brought them together. Well, fall, a broken foot, and blazing hot sexual chemistry.
Fall was over, just as fast as it had begun. Spencer pulled the boxes out and opened them. He stared into the abyss of autumnal decor.
Was he sad to see fall go?
Maybe.
Patrick once said that fall was a season built on nostalgia, and despite their rough patch in October, this had been a fall for the ages for Spencer.
He smiled and gave the candles and knickknacks a grateful nod. Thanks for bringing us together.
Spencer wondered where they’d be next August. Wherever it was, as long as he was with Patrick, everything would be all right.
He popped open the lid of Pumpkin Apple. It had been burned down to a thin layer of blackened wax. He inhaled what remained of its scent. He could smell faint whiffs of spiced sweetness that filled his soul with warm memories.
“I’m thinking of making you a shirt with a picture of Jake Gyllenhaal from Brokeback Mountain that says ‘I wish I knew how to quit fall.’” Patrick stood in the doorway.
Spencer wondered what he must’ve looked like. On his knees hunched over a box overflowing with fall stuff while smelling a candle.
He was Patrick.
“I’m just making sure these boxes are packed well, so they don’t get too dusty.”
“Sure. Okay. Let’s go with that,” Patrick said.
Spencer shook his head. “What have you done to me?”
Patrick shrugged, playing dumb and innocent.
In that moment, Spencer found his answer. Patrick had done something to him. He had opened him up, made him feel whole and a part of something special. It hit him like a ton of mason jars.
He stood up and cupped Patrick’s face in his hands. He was both terrified and incredibly confident.
“Patrick, I love you.”
Patrick’s green eyes sparkled at him. No snarky comeback, no jokes.
“I love you, too.”
Their lips met with a quiet fire. Spencer saw stars.
“Are you ready to put up the Christmas tree?” Patrick asked.
“You mean the fake Christmas tree?”
He was. He couldn’t wait to celebrate Christmas with Patrick. He couldn’t wait to watch Patrick realize just how awful Chicago winters were. He couldn’t wait to go on bike rides with him in the spring. He couldn’t wait to have Patrick rooting him on at volleyball games next summer. He couldn’t wait for Patrick to become a bundle of excitement once the countdown to fall began again. He couldn’t wait for any of it. He had infinite moments to look forward to with Patrick.
Spencer closed the fall boxes, slid them under the bed, and followed the man he loved into the next season.
THE END
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Also by A.J. Truman
My Browerton University series follows witty college boys falling into bed and falling in love, usually in that order. Each book can be read as a standalone, so jump in anywhere!
