Our December

Tangled in Light

Jared slowed to look at the house; along the edge of the roof, lights glowed in bright Christmas colors, curling colorful paths down the porch posts and along the railings. Candy canes lit in red and white marked the path to the front steps. The couple spent every Thanksgiving, and the day after, decorating. Worse than a kid, Alex wanted the maximum amount of time to enjoy the Christmas season. Pulling the truck into the driveway, Jared headed inside to find Alex.

Unlike the brightly lit exterior, the inside of the house was dark. Flipping on the kitchen light, Jared frowned. Alex usually didn't go off somewhere without letting Jared know where he'd be. They normally left work at the same time and came home to fix dinner together. If one of them left early he got elected to cook. No enticing smells came from the kitchen and the stove was cold.

Jared grinned. If Alex cooked the smells were more likely to be interesting than enticing. Not much of a chef, Jared tried to make sure Alex rarely left the office early alone. Despite his inept cooking ability, Alex always stuck to their agreement, but there no evidence showed he'd even been in the kitchen.

The only illumination in the living room came from the light of the Christmas tree. The huge tree spoke of Alex's influence as much as their light-trimmed roofline did. Most of their friends had pre-lit trees with beautiful coordinated decorations of silver and blue or red and gold, accentuating their professionally decorated homes. Jared wondered at their circle of friends sometimes; how they ended up there at all. No part of Alex and Jared's house had been professionally decorated. It was just home. They had a real tree, and not even a perfect example of a real tree; the branches weren't straight and it had a couple holes. Alex called it… personality.

"What's the point of having a real tree if people have to touch it to know it's real?" he always asked. It amused Jared and he became as fond of their eclectic tree as Alex. While other, normal people snoozed off Thanksgiving dinner, Alex and Jared searched for the tree with the right personality. They didn't come home until they had one in the back of the truck, all wrapped up in one of those green and red nets, looking like an alien fish they'd gone out and landed. They rearranged the living room to showcase it. It glittered with colored lights and tinsel and from its branches hung all the memorabilia from their childhoods as well as the ornaments they'd picked up over the last fourteen years of their relationship.

Fourteen years. Hard to believe this Christmas his boy turned thirty. Jared's memory of Alex, just turned sixteen, with snow in his hair, was as fresh as yesterday. Realizing he knew where Alex must be, Jared's grin turned fond. He looked out the sliding glass doors that led to the back yard and found Alex, up in the branches of the huge old oak that dominated the yard, twining white lights around the lower limbs. Jared watched for a few minutes, his eyes soft with love, before he went to start dinner.

* * * *

Alex struggled down the ladder, the leftover lights slung over his shoulder. He could have used them higher in the tree, but tradition demanded lighting only the bottom branches. He never knew why Jared used to hang lights on the tree behind his old house, tucked away in the back yard where not even the neighbors could see, but he always had and those lights had become a part of the magic of Christmas for Alex. On his way to the shed he glanced back at the house. Their first Christmas hadn't been here. Jared's cozy little bachelor home had become a thing of their past. This house, the one he designed, and Jared built, was theirs. Born in their hearts as a dream, and made real by the sweat of hard work. He'd been so young when they met, their first year filled with moments he never forgot, but one stood out from the rest. There had been a tree, and snow, and glittering lights, but most of all there had been Jared.


First Impressions

It was lunchtime, and the guys working for Jared perched on sawhorses, eating sandwiches out of their lunch buckets. They compared what they brought, trading back and forth. Jared's stomach rumbled, but he didn't have time to eat. The job was supposed to be straight forward, but the measurements were bad and had turned it into a nightmare. Instead of having lunch, Jared stood over the blueprints, working out how to fix the problem while sticking as close to the original designs as possible. Building cubbies for the college library was his biggest contract since taking over the company. After his father's unexpected death, Jared had no choice but to drop out of college and take the reins of his father's construction business.

JD Construction had a solid reputation in the community, one built on his father's strong work ethic and honest nature, but Jared struggled to establish a reputation of his own. He was young, barely twenty, and it didn't make any practical difference that his dad apprenticed him when he first showed interest at the age of eight. There were certificates he didn't have, and couldn't earn because of his age, that limited the jobs he could get. The past year had been hard, and he was frustrated that his first bid job turned out so complicated.

He blamed his inexperience for not recognizing the problems before he bid. It hadn't cost more money, yet, but he went home every night with a headache. The stress caused by working on campus didn't help. He didn't think it'd be so hard, but his father's dream had been for him to finish college and return home to work as his partner. Unlike some parent-child dreams, Jared was completely onboard. The fact things hadn't worked out that way was just a part of life. Still, it was difficult to face his loss every day when he came to the job. Jared was determined to one day go back to college and fulfill both their dreams. However, finishing this job came first and that meant figuring out how to make everything fit…

"That's just cool."

Jared looked up at what had become a familiar sight. A couple of teenage boys stared at the framework. They weren't old enough to be college students, but they had a habit of stopping by to see how things were going. Their interest didn't surprise Jared. He remembered how he felt as a kid watching construction work. It was such a mystery how things went together. He grinned, waving them over.

"I'm Jared," Jared offered his hand and the taller boy shook it confidently, introducing himself as Clark, the dean's son. The smaller, dark haired teenager was Alex, with no apparent affiliation. "It's lunch time, so it's okay if you want to look around. Just don't touch anything." Clark grinned and went to explore the skeleton maze. Alex hung back, his expression serious as he studied Jared silently. Jared gave a half smile and returned to work. Undisturbed by his lack of response, Alex stepped beside him. He stared at the papers then looked at the unfinished project.

"It doesn't make much sense," he said quietly, looking back down at the plans, "How can you tell what you are doing?" Jared flipped to a picture of the completed project.

"It's not hard once you get used to it," he said. "Look, this is what we are doing now… umm… that section there," he pointed to a section of unfinished wall, "is this," he indicated a place on the plans. "And it's going to be this." He flipped back to the finished picture. Alex chewed his lip while staring at the pictures.

"Are you gay?" he asked without warning. He kept his gaze fixed on the plans. "What are those numbers?" Startled, Jared glanced sideways at the boy. Alex avoided his gaze. Jared refocused on the papers, but his mouth curved up in a slight smile.

"I am, are you?" he asked bemused.

Alex glanced sideways at him. "Yeah," Alex admitted, voice pitched so low Jared almost didn't hear him.

"Figured. You ask everyone you meet that question? Or did I win the lottery and no one told me," Jared teased.

Alex blushed."It's Clark, he's nosy, and he's trying to figure out how being gay works. We Googled some gay facial recognition stuff after we left the other day. I said you were gay, and he didn't think so." Clearly uncomfortable, Alex's shoulders tensed and he shifted his feet.

"Pretty brave to just ask." Jared was amused.

"He dared me." The confession made Jared laugh and they relaxed.

"So, are those the measurements?" Alex asked.

"Yeah, they're supposed to tell us what we're doing." Jared frowned at the once precise drawings now covered with his notations and corrections. Alex nodded but it was obvious that wasn't what held his interest. He gave Jared another sideways look. He couldn't be more than fifteen; dangerous territory for the direction the conversation seemed headed. Nevertheless, acting as if talking about being gay was wrong didn't sit well with Jared.

"It's… scary," Alex muttered in a dead on analysis of his situation. It wasn't an easy confession, and none of it seemed like the kind of conversation someone would have with a stranger, but Jared thought it might be easier for Alex that way.

"Yeah, it is. Very scary."

Alex met his eyes. "You know what I mean?"

He seemed surprised. His gaze locked with Jared's holding a desperation that gave Jared a vivid flashback to his own burgeoning sexuality. Realizing how different you are from everyone you know was terrifying, and at fifteen, even worse.

"I know exactly what you mean. It'll be okay." Jared glanced at his watch before calling over his shoulder, "Back to work." His two-man crew put up their lunch boxes and headed back to their jobs.

"You don't seem scared." The boy observed.

Jared shrugged. "I'm not, anymore."

Alex glanced back at the plans. "I didn't know construction workers had to be so smart. That's a lot of math."

"You aren't kidding. It gives me a headache."

"I like math. I'm really good at it." Alex looked back to where they were building. "That's wrong over there, isn't it? It won't fit that way."

Jared felt surprised by the boy's swift analysis of the problem. "Yeah, that's right, any idea what we should do?" he asked with a wiry grin.

Alex barked out a laugh. "No clue, dude, but I could learn to do that, except mine would work."

Jared enjoyed Alex's enthusiasm, but they noticed Clark headed back in their direction and Alex stepped away.

"Really, okay?" he asked with a sudden return to their previous topic, his eyes searching Jared's face for reassurance.

Jared grinned with a confidence he didn't always feel. "Really," he promised.

Alex didn't look convinced, but Clark was ready to go. He slapped at the back of Alex's head on his way by. Alex swatted back, moving with him towards the door. He paused there, glancing back at Jared with a grin before hurrying after his friend. Jared's heart stuttered and his mouth went dry.

My God, a man could lose his mind to a smile like that. For half a second, he allowed himself the hopeless wish to be fifteen again. The boy's smile haunted him. It turned Alex's pleasant but average face into something of remarkable beauty. Jared knew it was ridiculous. The smile of a boy he didn't know shouldn't affect him so much.

He'd never thought of twenty as being old before. Sighing, his practical nature regained control and Jared put Alex out of his mind and went back to work.