Tangled Tuesday
Oh what a tangles web we
weave….
We all know how the rest
of it goes. Deception can destroy trust between characters and while it can
create for some great tension in a story, it can also be a real struggle to resolve
in a believable fashion depending on the level of betrayal and how rocky or
solid the relationship was before the big revelation.
There are also times when
characters engage in some seriously self-sacrificing behaviors, whether out of
necessity, or perceived necessity, they throw themselves on the hand grenade
without taking the time to consider the full scope of their actions and those
who are going to be affected. How many times have we read a story where one
character is absolutely furious with another character for putting themselves
in harms way and nearly getting killed in the process. No person, or character
for that matter, wants to be left behind knowing that the person that they
loved sacrificed themselves to save them without even giving them a chance to
come up with a better alternative.
Then there are those rare
times when a character is just too stubborn for their own good and the friends
and family members in their lives find themselves hatching plots for the
betterment of their loved ones. In these instances, the reveal is a pleasant
moment where the stubborn character is forced to admit that, yeah, they’d have
lost out on something amazing if it hadn’t been for their meddling family and
friends.
In one of the holiday stories I’m currently writing, there is a deception at play. I won’t spoil it by saying which category it falls in, but I will share a little snippet of the first meeting between Ryu and Hank. The book, A Daddy for Christmas: Ryu, features the delivery of a present, though in the case Ryu’s story, there is more than one present that will be delivered in time to be unwrapped by Christmas Day. Some may even be unwrapped beforehand, drawing out of the magic of the season in this low angst, steamy as I don't know what, Christmas Story. Stay tuned for the official cover reveal in just a few short weeks.
Preorder available: A Daddy for Christmas: Ryu
The last thing he expected to see when he snatched the door
open was a huge, festively decorated gift basket sitting there with brilliant brown
eyes in a tanned face staring up from out of all that packaging. The young man
they belonged to looked to be in his mid-twenties, with a slightly curling mop
of brown hair streaked through with gold peeking out from beneath a blue and
white beanie with snowmen all over it. There was even a shimmering Christmas
bow stuck to the top of his head.
“What the hell?” He muttered, peering around and seeing no
one else anywhere in the vicinity. “This is a joke, right?”
A pacifier poked from between full lips, a snowman adorning
that too. Something told Hank that beneath the wrapping paper that covered the
rest of him there would be other snowmen as well. It seemed to be the theme,
seeing as how the glittery wrapping paper depicted them too. Two small hoop earrings
adorned the young man’s ears, the glow from a nearby streetlight glinting off
of them.
In a different setting, he’d have been positively adorable,
exactly the type Hank would have sought out in the playroom at the club he used
to frequent. Here, unexpectedly crashing his otherwise peaceful night, he was
just a mystery.
“Who the fuck are you?” He asked, nudging the basket with
the toe of his slipper, “And who the hell put you up to this.”
The pacifier was the only thing that moved as the young man
sucked on it and stared up at him like he was waiting for Hank to do…what?
Bring him in? Like that was happening. For all he knew there was a gun beneath
all of that packaging, and this was someone’s cleaver attempt at finally
ridding the world of him.
Leaning heavily on his cane, he reached for the pacifier and
plucked it free, those brilliant eyes widening a little more as Hank scowled at
him and snapped, “Answer me!”
“I pressy,” the young man declared, then had the nerve to flash
him a bright, cheeky smile. “Merry Kissmas.”
Slapping a hand to his face, Hank groaned and shook his
head. If one of the boys down at the club had done this, they had to know he’d
kick their ass when he saw them. Of course, that would mean Hank would have to
end his self-imposed exile and go down there to deal with them, which might
have been the exact result they were hoping for with this little ploy, damn
them.
Hank shivered as a cold wind whipped past him, reminding him
that he was letting the heat out and he couldn’t afford to warm half the
neighborhood. It made the paper crinkle, too, or maybe it was the young man
shivering beneath it. Hank couldn’t imagine it to be very warm and hoped he was
at least wearing a couple layers beneath the thin paper, ‘cause he was going to
be out here a little bit longer while he got to the bottom of this mess. If
someone from the club had dropped him off here, well then they’d best get their
asses back over here and get him.
“You stay right there,” Hank said, wagging a finger at him.
“I’ll be right back.”
Cell phone. Cell phone. Where the hell had he put the damn
thing?
He checked the coffee table, the kitchen counter, the top of
the fridge and the glass dish beside the door before he found that it had
slipped down into the depths of his chair. One of these times he was going to
be forced to dismantle the damned thing to get it out. It was a good thing he’d
transferred the number into his contacts when he’d replaced the phone he’d
broken earlier in the year, or he’d have been forced to call one of the friends
he was currently ghosting. As it was, there was the risk of one of them
answering the phone and peppering him with questions before giving him the
answers he was after.
Fortunately for him, it was an unfamiliar voice answered. “Velvet
Illusions, how may I direct your call?”
“Put Callahan on the phone.”
“Yes sir, right away.”
He heard the click of the call transferring and drummed his
fingertips on the glossy wood of the coffee table while he waited for Cal to
answer.
“Velvet Illusions, Callahan speaking.”
“You should know me well enough by now to know that I hate
surprises,” Hank growled the moment Cal stopped speaking.
“Who is this?”
“Who the fuck do you think!” Hank snapped.
“If I knew that I wouldn’t be asking.”
“It’s Hank, damnit, now send someone over here to retrieve
the little package you all dumped on my doorstep.”
“Hank…shit, I don’t remember seeing your name on the list.
Hang on, let me figure out what’s going on.”
He heard papers rustling in the background, muttering, then
Cal speaking to someone else, asking them to find Donovan for him.
“Look, Hank, I’m not sure what happened,” Callahan said when
he got back on the phone. “And I can’t find the fuckin’ spreadsheet to try and
figure out what went wrong!”
He roared the last part, clearly frustrated with whichever poor
soul was acting as his assistant this week. It was a well-known fact that the
turnover rate for that position was quite high, as Cal had some pretty exacting
standards.
“What does the card say?” Callahan asked after several more
moments of rummaging around and clearly producing nothing.
“Card? What card?”
“The one attached to the basket! How else did you know we
were the ones to send it to you?”
“I didn’t see any card! I took one look at the boy all
wrapped up on my porch and assumed it had to be one of you fuckers. Hang on,
let me go outside and check.”
“Outside? Hank, it’s fuckin’ freezing out there you asshole!
Bring him in for fuck’s sake.”
“Well, now that I know there isn’t a gun waiting for me
under all of that wrapping paper, I will.”
“For fuck’s sake, paranoid much?”
“You should know that by now,” Hank muttered and tossed the
phone on the couch so he could go find this card they were talking about. With
his bum knee, there was no way he was going to be able to lift that basket, so
the boy better be willing to climb out of it, or on the porch he’d remain.
The boy in the basket was right where Hank had left him,
only there was no question that he was shivering now and looked quite sad and
confused, though his eyes brightened when they landed on Hank and he attempted
another smile, despite the way his lips quivered. The light flakes that had
been falling when he’d first answered the door had grown thicker and heavier
too, the wind whipping a blizzard of them in a swirl across his porch.
“Come on, I need you to get up out of there unless you’d
like to freeze to death,” Hank said, crooking his finger at him.
“Unwrappy?”
Groaning, Hank muttered a litany of curses beneath his
breath as he reached for one of the elaborately tied ribbons.
“Yeah, yeah, unwrappy,” Hank muttered, struggling to manage
it and the cane. Finally, he just tore at the paper until enough of it fell
away that he’d revealed the young man was, in fact, sitting there in a snowman onesie
with a polar bear stuffy held in his hands. He found the card too, tucked
alongside him in the basket. Sealed with purple wax, it bore the elegant VI
logo of the club.
“Come on then,” Hank said once the young man was free. He
climbed to his feet unsteadily, clinging to that bear and shivering as he
shambled through the entryway. Hank snatched a throw blanket off the back of
the couch and chucked it his way before opening the card and perusing the
contents.
Here’s a Little something to make your holidays brighter.
His name is Ryu. I trust he’ll bring you plenty of merriment and joy.
Pax
“The card says the gift is from Pax, and that his name is
Ryu.”
“Awe, he’s a sweetheart. New to the club too. I hope Pax
chose a good match for him.”
“You mean you don’t know who he was supposed to be going
to?”
“This whole ‘gift basket’ idea was Donovan’s baby,” Cal
explained. “He got the littles to sign up and assigned the daycare crew the
task of gifting them to the Daddies they felt would be the best fit out of
those who signed up to receive one. Call it matchmaking meets secret santa.
Personally, I’m withholding judgement until after the holidays when I can see
how many placements actually take.”
Something clattered in the background, followed by the sound
of a file cabinet being slammed shut.
“Damnit, it wasn’t in there either,” Cal muttered.
“Check your laptop, for fuck’s sake.”
“I would if I hadn’t forgotten the password again,” Cal
grumbled.
No comments:
Post a Comment