Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 68293 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68293 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
“Sure, sweetie.”
Adam kissed Wes one more time.
“I’ll meet you in the kitchen,” Wes said, running his fingers through the hair at Adam’s nape.
Wes settled the kale on Gus’ windowsill, adjusting the blinds to make sure it would get enough sun. It was a western-facing window, but maybe he’d bring a clip-on plant light over tomorrow if it didn’t seem like the winter sun was enough.
Gus’ room was a tornado of bits and pieces of things she’d clearly taken apart, or found, or taken off of other appliances. She had a screwdriver, a pair of needle-nose pliers, and a spool of floral wire next to a pile of rivets in a drawer, and everywhere were books, flopped open on their spines and flagged with bits of torn paper as bookmarks. Wes felt like he’d wandered back in time to his own childhood bedroom—although that had been ruthlessly ordered once a week by the cleaning lady his parents employed. In between, though, Wes collected piles of this and that to experiment with, and consulted books for guidance.
He truly didn’t mean to snoop. He was just curious if he could get a sense of what she might be making.
On her desk lay an unfinished letter, written in Gus’ chaotic scrawl.
I know you don’t exist, it said, but just in case you do, will you make Wes stay? Daddy and me are so happy now and I want us to be a family.
The letter was addressed to Nicholas Santa Claus.
Wes froze, awash in conflicting emotions. First and most superficial: fear. The fear that someone needing him would end up the way it had the last time, when his father had needed him. With their relationship in tatters and Wes guilty and miserable.
But when he dug a little deeper there was also hope. That maybe this time, being needed didn’t mean doing something he didn’t want, but participating in something he did. He adored Gus. And his feelings for Adam grew stronger every hour they spent together.
He took deep breaths through his nose and blew them out his mouth, and slowly, the fear dissipated. He reread the letter and focused on the hope.
Daddy and me are so happy now. So happy.
So was Wes. And if Gus and Adam were happy and so was he...then...
Wes walked into the kitchen where Gus and Adam stood at the kitchen table. Backs to Wes, their blond hair similarly messy, they had their arms around each other and were concentrating on something on the table.
Wes was filled with such overwhelming affection that he felt his nose tickle and his eyes prick with tears. He put a hand on each of their shoulders and peered over their heads. On the table was...something made out of dough.
“Is that, um...what is that?”
“It’s a Christmas monster!” Gus said gleefully.
Adam smiled up at him.
“It eats Christmas lights and then it glows, just like my plant. See?”
She pointed and Wes could vaguely make out a blob that might’ve been fairy lights around what might’ve been the midsection of the creature.
“Got it,” Wes said.
“It’ll be better when I frost it,” Gus assured him.
Over the next two hours they cut out dozens of shapes—Gus had eschewed the cookie cutters immediately, claiming that snowflakes and reindeer were boring, and Wes was inclined to agree with her. They made monsters that ate Christmas trees and Christmas trees that ate monsters. Santa Clauses that were half lizard and half human and tarantula elves. (Adam shuddered at them even in dough form.)
As the cookies baked, they tinted frosting with food coloring and Adam spooned it into plastic bags he cut the tips off of to make piping bags. “I saw it on Pinterest,” he explained, and Gus started chatting before Wes could ask what Pinterest was.
To get them the colors they wanted, the frosting ended up a bit runny, so when Wes tried to use green frosting to outline the tree his monster was eating, it mixed with the red frosting he’d used to frost the monster, resulting in a gloppy brown mess that looked less like a monster and more like what you might do if you saw one.
Adam’s and Gus’ didn’t look much better—in fact, truth be told, Adam’s looked much worse—but no one cared. Adam had put on Christmas music and while outside the snow was coming down in freezing gusts, the kitchen was oven warm and cheery, all of them laughing as Gus launched a monster attack where one of her tree-eating monsters became a tree-eating-monster eater and demolished Wes’ tree-eating monster, smashing both to a sugary paste that she scooped up and ate with her fingers.
“Monsters are so yummy,” she said an hour later, tongue, teeth, and lips an unearthly blue-green color from the dye in the frosting. She was tired and crashing from the sugar, so Adam got a peanut butter sandwich in her and then put her to bed, claiming that the food coloring would come off on its own eventually.