His Adam’s apple bobbed sharply. “I… I can’t talk about this, okay? Now, let’s change the subject. How are your parents? How’s Ben? Pete and Becca must be five by now. How are they finding life in Europe?”
I stared at him. “If you know about Ben’s job taking him to Europe, then you know exactly how old they are. And they’re all fine. Well…” My stomach clenched.What are you hiding from me? Is it so awful that you can’t share it?Not that he was the only one hiding things.
His brows knitted. “There seems to be some doubt in your mind.”
I should have known I couldn’t hide it.
“My mom… is going through some stuff. Health issues.”
He widened his eyes. “But she’s okay?”
“Yes. At least, I think so. She keeps telling me she’s got decades left. Which is great, because she’s only sixty-six.” Although I was beginning to wonder why she repeated this every time I saw her. “As for my dad… He’s the same as always. Both of them still drop hints.”
“What kind of hints?”
I smiled. “‘Have you tried some of those dating groups?’ ‘What about speed dating?’ ‘Ever thought of going on a cruise?’ They even tried to set me up with their doctor, when they discovered he was gay.”
“And? How did that go?”
I grinned. “He’s thirty-eight. How do you think it went?”
“I take it your taste in men hasn’t changed? Then I get it. We’ll say no more. So why are you here and not at your parents’ place?”
I smiled. “You went there, didn’t you? You know it’s empty.”
“I might have checked there first.”
“Mom and Dad are spending Christmas in Europe with Ben, Layla, and the kids. It was all Mom talked about for months.”
He tilted his head. “Has there been anyone since we last met?”
I bit my lip. “You ask that same question every year, you know.”
“I just want you to be happy.” He met my gaze. “I worry about you.”
It was an opening not to be ignored.
“Funny, because I worry about you too.”
“Why would you do that?”
I arched my eyebrows. “You need to ask that? You’re a man with secrets, and I can’t help but be concerned. I only get to see you one night a year. What if what I see on that night is a smokescreen? What if you spend the other three hundred sixty-four days in utter torment?”
He stared at me. “Has anyone ever told you that you suffer from an overactive imagination? And don’t think I missed the fact you didn’t answermyquestion.”
I said nothing for a moment, but sipped my whiskey, letting it warm me. I couldn’t tell him the truth, could I?
No man I’d met could hold a candle to the man in the red suit.
Finally I sighed. “There’s no one. At least, no one who’s stayed for more than a few weeks. I’ve become resigned to being a bachelor. Well… a bachelor with benefits.” And that was as much detail as I was prepared to share.
Hewasn’t about to share details of his sex life with Mrs. Claus, right?
Except that thought led me down an unexpected path.
Does Santa still have sex?
It felt almost sacrilegious to think about Santa in the throes of passion, something akin to thinking about one’s parents having sex. Although… I shuddered to even contemplate such a cringeworthy event, but as for fantasizing about what lay beneath that red suit?