Blame It On The Mistletoe, page 1
Thanks to my beta readers Jamie Fessenden and Kath Rothwell. Your suggestions made this story so much better.
As always, thanks to my husband for listening to my plotting and offering (almost always) helpful suggestions.
Cover by the fabulous Reese Dante.
From Dreamspinner Press
Superhero
Puzzle Me This
The Trouble With Tony (Sex in Seattle #1)
The Enlightenment of Daniel (Sex in Seattle #2)
A Prairie Dog’s Love Song
From Torquere Press
Before I Wake
From the m/m romance group on goodreads
The Lion and the Crow
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Cover Art
© 2013 Reese Dante
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Blame It On The Mistletoe
© 2013 Eli Easton
Published by Eli Easton
Pennsylvania, USA
First edition, Nov, 2013
eli@elieaston.com
www.elieaston.com
Table of Contents
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
Epilogue
1
“OH, look!” Fielding said. “They have a new latte flavor—‘Santa’s Death by Peppermint.’ I’m getting that.”
It was the second of December, and we were waiting in line at The Coffee Clatch. The campus coffee joint was bedecked and bedazzled with holiday spirit including colored mini-lights, tiny, fuzzy Santa hats on all the espresso machine handles, and displays of giant holiday cookies. Great. Fielding would be bouncing off the walls on a sugar high all month long.
“Do you have any idea how many calories are probably in that latte?” I asked. It was more or less a hypothetical question.
“Lots and lots,” Fielding answered enthusiastically. “Oooh! Cookies!-”
I was about to get more serious about my anti-sugar lecture when someone pressed into my back. By the feel of the soft curves along my spine, that someone was female. Normally that would have been a good thing, but I wasn’t seeing anyone at the moment, and I didn’t care to be groped in a coffee shop while trying to talk to my best friend. More to the point, before I’d had my morning pick-me-up. A little annoyed, I turned to see who it was.
A slim blonde in blue eye shadow and a tight pink sweater smiled up at me. She put her hand on my arm.
“Hey, Mick,” she gushed. “Long time no see.”
I recognized her, despite the lack of a perky red and white uniform. It was Regina, a Cornell football cheerleader. Had we ever messed around? I had to actually think about it. But no, we hadn’t. Regina had been into Dylan McDermont when I was on the team. But the appreciative look in her eyes made it clear that Dylan was now buried in the Cemetery of Abandoned Interests. Probably right next to subtlety.
“Hey, Regina. Uh… this is my housemate, Fielding.”
“Hello,” Fielding said.
Regina gave Fielding a quick once-over and a polite hello before she turned her attention back to lucky me.
“I can’t believe you quit the team!” Regina put on a cute little pout. “The girls were just chatting the other day about how much we miss seeing your fine ass out on the field.”
What do you say to something like that? Why yes, I do have a fine ass, thanks for noticing? or Maybe you and my ass can work out another arrangement?
I went with, “I decided I needed to focus on my studies.”
“Well, you are missed! I was hoping to get to know you better. In fact, the girls were just talking about you at dinner the other night. There seems to be a general consensus that…” Regina paused, looking coy. “…that you’re the best kisser on campus.”
A surprised huff escaped me. It sounded appropriately dubious.
“I was sort of hoping I’d get a chance to test that theory for myself.” Regina blushed prettily at her own boldness and slid her hand from my arm to my chest.
Man. As a freshman, I would have been all over that. I’d have been thanking my lucky stars, and my insides would have been auditioning for Riverdance. Regina was cute and enthusiastic, and that sweater showed off her C cups to perfection. But getting girls had never been an issue for me. I inherited dirty blond hair and blue eyes from my mom and a rough, somewhat lumpy face from my dad. I’d been told I looked like Daniel Craig. I didn’t get the appeal, but I wasn’t exactly sorry for it. Still, by my junior year of high school, getting girls became less of an issue than getting rid of them. And Regina was setting off big red warning lights in my head.
“Sorry, I’m seeing someone,” I said, giving Regina a regretful smile. “But it was really great running into you. Say hi to the other girls for me.”
The people in front of us moved, and we were up to place our order. Thank the god of awkward moments.
It was a decent enough day considering that it was December in Ithaca, New York, so we took our drinks outside and sat at the fountain. I had my usual hot green tea with soy milk. Fielding had ignored my warning and gotten his sweet Santa sludge. I’d learned to pick my battles, and I let go of this one. I was double-majoring in Nutrition and Physical Therapy, and I took healthy eating very seriously. But Fielding looked too happy for me to be a Scrooge about a little holiday treat.
“Why’d you tell Regina you were seeing someone?” Fielding asked, as soon as we sat down.
Inwardly, I sighed. I’d had a feeling I wouldn’t get out of that encounter unscathed. “It’s called a little white lie, Bud. The truth would have been rude: I’m not interested, buzz off.”
“Ah! I see.” Fielding smirked. “Away with thee, thou silver-tongued succubus.”
I laughed. “Piss off, oh ye of the cleavage-which-shall-not-be-touched.”
Fielding chuckled, a low hearty rumble that made me grin. My science geek housemate hadn’t grown up with a lot of laughter. But Fielding laughed now. He did a lot of things now that he hadn’t when we’d first moved in together. I felt pretty damn good about that, peppermint lattes notwithstanding.
“But why should her cleavage not be touched?”
I shrugged. “Been there. Done that. Have the T-shirt.”
Fielding blinked at me, a frown of confusion on his brow. “You slept with her? But she said she wanted to test the theory about your—”
Damn. Fielding missed nothing.
“I didn’t sleep with her. Girls like her.” And really, having a thing with three members of the Cornell football cheerleading squad was more than enough for any man. More than that, and I’d seriously have to seek counseling.
Fielding still looked puzzled. “So when you say ‘I’m seeing someone,’ and you really aren’t, is that the equivalent of saying ‘Let’s just be friends’? That’s the common brush-off, isn’t it?”
He said it with a bit of a blush, like maybe he’d heard that once or twice before, himself. And, wow, that kind of made me feel like a heel for what I’d just done to Regina.
“I guess. So, um, anyway, you have a late lab tonight?” I asked, artfully changing the subject.
“It’s Tuesday,” Fielding said dryly, as if I should have his schedule memorized. I did, but any port in a storm.
“Right. There are still two servings of that chicken casserole you like in the freezer. So I’ll plan on dinner around seven, then. Okay?”
I tried to catch Fielding’s eyes to get a confirmation of that, or at least a sign that he’d heard me. It was not unusual for the things I said to go in one ear, get lost in the vast contortions of Fielding’s massive intellect, and never make it to central processing. But Fielding wasn’t gazing off into space, mind on some physics problem or another. No, he was looking at me. More specifically, Fielding was looking at my mouth. He was intently looking at my mouth, a frown of concentration furrowing his brow. He sucked on his bottom lip.
Christ. Something hot rolled over in my stomach. It felt like uneasiness that maybe shared a condo wall with terror. And maybe arousal lived a couple of doors down. It was not a good feeling. I took a hasty drink of green tea, trying to hide my mouth from Fielding’s gaze. It also kept me from screaming like a little girl.
Covering up my mouth seemed to work, because Fielding broke off staring at it and met my gaze instead. There was a light in his eyes that I didn’t care for at all. When Fielding’s eyes said Eureka!, civilizations crumbled and gods wept.
“Bye,” Fielding said abruptly. He pulled on his backpack and hurried away, head down.
2
FIELDING Monroe. You have to have a substantial personality to pull off a name like that. And he does. Fielding is my best friend, all around genius, the weirdest person I know—in a good way—and also my one and only housemate. But it almost didn’t happen, thanks to Fielding’s mother.
So I jumped at the chance to lease Connor’s place. It was a bit scary when I signed the contract, though. My parents do what they can to help, but my dad is a real estate agent and my mom’s a nurse. I have a younger sister too. So my folks couldn’t afford to put me through Cornell. I worked two jobs, got student loans, and… housemates. With two housemates, living in Connor’s old house would be only a little more expensive than staying in the dorms.
But I hadn’t thought about how hard it would be to find good housemates. I’d avoided telling any of my football friends about it since that would sort of negate the whole point. Advertising on bulletin boards had thus far brought in party hounds, bad financial risks, and douchebags. One guy said up front that he might be ‘ever so slightly late’ on the rent from time to time, as if I could afford to carry him. Another had come in with three of his massive buddies, and they talked about what great parties they could have there. And two had been girls, even though I’d specifically put male only on the notices.
Reading comprehension, people. It’s sad, really.
By that afternoon, I was getting pretty freaked out about the situation. I was thinking about the prospect of living on Costco beans and rice all year when there was a knock on the front door. I opened it, and an older woman entered the house. She had a notebook in one hand and a purse dangling off the wrist of the other. She wore a pained expression that said she had low expectations of finding anything she liked on the premises. She appeared to be in her forties, thin, and rather nun-ish looking, even without the wimple.
“I’m Mrs. Monroe.” She held out the arm with a dangling purse for a limp press of flesh. “I’m here about the room.”
I sighed. “Sorry, but I’m looking for a student. A male student.”
She shot me a withering look as if I’d managed to disprove Darwin’s theory single-handedly. “It’s not for me, it’s for my son.”
“Oh.”
Without asking permission, Mrs. Monroe pushed past me to look over the kitchen and the living room. Her face remained blank and yet strangely judgmental. “Which bedroom would be his?”
I figured I’d just show her around and get it over with. So I led her down a hallway and opened a door on the bigger of the two spare rooms. It had a double bed and small dresser that had come with the house. She walked in, looked around, opened the accordion doors to the closet, and sniffed.
I sniffed. I didn’t smell anything.
I turned my back on her, indulged in rolling my eyes, and went back into the living room. I plopped down on a chair and picked up a magazine. I heard her rummaging around in the drawers in the shared bathroom—drawers that held my toothbrush and razor and stuff. I gritted my teeth. I had a box of condoms too, but they were in my bedroom closet. I suddenly wished I’d put them in the bathroom, maybe with some nipple clamps and fuzzy handcuffs. I’d never owned such things, but I suddenly wished I did.
I was smiling at the mental image of Mrs. Monroe running in terror when she walked back into the living room.
I put down the magazine, expecting to show her out, but Mrs. Monroe sat down in a chair near the sofa. She brushed some invisible crumbs off the arm, then settled herself as if she planned to stay awhile. She put her purse on the floor and poised a pencil over that notepad of hers.
“Your name?” she asked perfunctorily.
I stared at her. “Mick Colman.”
She wrote it down. “And how many people would be living here besides yourself and my son, Mick?”
“Uh… I have two rooms for rent.”
She looked me over from head to toe as if assessing my moral fiber or perhaps looking for signs of a communicable disease. She seemed to reach a decision. “My son, Fielding, is a very special boy. He’s highly intelligent but a little absentminded. I can’t have him in a house where there’s partying—alcohol, drugs, things of that nature. His studies come first, always. He needs a place with peace and quiet.”
My first instinct was to show her to the door right then. Any guy whose mother called him ‘a very special boy’ had to be truly scary. On the other hand, a housemate who did nothing but study all the time sounded pretty sweet about now.
“Well, Mrs. Monroe, I’m not a member of the religious right or a teetotaler. But I’m studying nutrition, so I don’t believe in wrecking my body with a lot of crap. And that includes drugs.”
“Excellent!” Mrs. Monroe made an excited notation in her notebook. “And sex? Do you have a steady girlfriend who’ll be sharing the space? Not that I expect you to be a monk, but I don’t want Fielding exposed to scantily clad women in the bathroom or loud sex noises night after night. He needs his rest.”
I realized my mouth was hanging open. I closed it with a snap. “I, uh, don’t plan to have girls here, no.”
That was the new master plan anyway. To avoid the situation I’d had in the dorms I planned to keep my new habitat very, very secret. So when I hooked up with girls I’d have to insist on theirs or my car. Come to think of it, that was an ideal scenario for my future housemate.
Of course, Mrs. Monroe didn’t need to know any of that. But my answer seemed to make her happy enough because she gave me a conspiratorial smile. “Perfect! We’ll take both rooms, of course. Fielding can use one of them as a study. God knows, the fewer housemates the better.”
“Wait. You mean—”
She typed in a text on her phone. “And we’ll pay for a land line. I need to be able to reach my son at all times, and he never remembers to charge his cell. Now. How much of a deposit do you require?” She pulled a checkbook from her purse and sat waiting.
“Hang on. You’re telling me you’ll pay for both rooms? That’s twelve-hundred a month!”
“Oh, it’s not my money,” Mrs. Monroe said with an amused huff. “It’s my ex’s. He’s the one insisting that Fielding move away to college this year. Get a life of his own. Fine. If that’s the way he has to have it, he can damn well pay for decent housing.”
“But I—”
Mrs. Monroe waved her hand at me. “Don’t worry. Fielding’s pater is a Wall Street banker. He’ll set up automatic deposit, and he’s never late. Take it from me. I’ve been getting child support from him for years.”
My protests stuttered to a halt. Seriously?
Man, that was tempting. Two for the price of one. I’d only have to share the kitchen and that small bathroom with one other person, a guy who did nothing but study. And from the sound of it, I wouldn’t have to worry about the rent ever being late.
But then I took another good look at Mrs. Monroe. She was staring at me impatiently, and… no. If Mrs. Monroe were part of the package, it wasn’t worth it. I didn’t want some high-handed control freak poking into my business night and day, stopping by constantly, checking the bathroom with a white glove, glowering over the beer in the fridge. Nope. No spank you. I’d rather go back to living on campus. Hell, I’d rather go back to living in my parents’ basement in Pennsylvania. At least my mother wasn’t that fussy.
I forced a fake smile. “Great. You can, um, leave your contact info. I’ll get back to you with a decision. I have a lot of other appointments today, so—”
