Christmas with Danny Fit Read Free Page B

rest.
    “She’s not a nice person, but… my dad walked out on us, and she didn’t have anybody. I just”— edit edit edit —“reached a point Amy Lane

    Christmas With Danny Fit [18]

    where I needed my own life.” He shrugged. “I’ve got plenty in savings—I just….” Don’t know how normal people live. Never had enough imagination to think about a real life on my own. Was asleep, like a giant squishy possum until you looked at me with a basketball under your arm, and I woke up thinking I had to be a better man.
    “I just needed to get my grown-up on, I guess.”
    Jesse smiled, and it was brilliant. “My home life sucked too.
    You stuck around, you know, to make it better. That’s nice. I bailed. I’ve been living in shitty apartments since I graduated from high school. That’s why the assistant job—tech school got me out quicker, and I wanted to, you know, have a life and not just be in school.”
    Kit blanched. “How old are you?”
    “Twenty-three,” Jesse said through a full mouth, and Kit couldn’t decide whether to blow out a sigh of relief or not. “I worked for another firm for a couple of years but….” He shrugged as he let the sentence trail off. “They moved you from person to person, you know? Sort of assistant-by-slut, right? And I had enough moving as a kid. I just wanted to find a good boss, someone I could work for and have fun with and….”
    Inexplicably, Jesse blushed.
    Kit blinked, transfixed, but Jesse was looking down at the desk and couldn’t see how that one moment of embarrassment started a terrible hot/cold chain reaction of hope in Kit’s chest, like a BENGAY (or Jesse-might-be-gay) poultice around his heart.
    “I just wanted to make a connection, you know?” Jesse said at last, looking up, and Kit nodded, in that moment completely understanding. Their eyes met and caught, and Kit had some Amy Lane

    Christmas With Danny Fit [19]

    more trouble breathing. Christ—this was a kid, and Kit didn’t even know if he was gay.
    When he heard his own voice, he thought someone might have taken over his body.
    “I need to go shopping for cooking stuff this week, but I wanted to go to a movie on Friday. Anything good out?”
    The smile that bloomed across Jesse’s face made Kit glad he’d gotten up that morning. He’d been tempted to call in sick and nurse his aching muscles, and maybe watch Danny Fit videos until his cock was sore, but he’d decided that was too pathetic, even for him.
    “ The Fifth Element is playing at the UA—Friday night only.”
    Kit’s own smile was suddenly not hesitant at all. “Best.
    Movie. Ever.”
    Jesse shook his head, and his smile turned subtler and almost sly. “ Serenity. That was the Best. Movie. Ever.”
    The intimate and thrilling moment was over, and they were back talking about science fiction, and Kit was relieved. They would go to a movie as friends. They both seemed to need friends—it would be good. Kit could have Jesse as a friend and Danny Fit as a lover. The mathematical ease of that formula made Kit feel good all day.
    It wasn’t until Jesse was leaving that Kit realized people weren’t necessarily as neat and tidy as the figures he used to make his living.
    “Uhm, boss?”

    Amy Lane

    Christmas With Danny Fit [20]

    Kit looked up from his computer, and Jesse—who always seemed so natural and graceful—was actually fidgeting at the door. “Yeah?”
    “Uhm, what do I call you? I mean, it’s not the fifth grade—
    you’re not my teacher. But all I know you as is Mr. Allen. You go by Chris? Christopher? Topher?”
    “Topher?” Were there people actually named Topher?
    “There’s an actor that goes by that…. No, seriously. What do I call you?”
    He’d die—literally shrivel up and die like a salted slug if this beautiful young man ever called him “Christopher” in the same irritating smoker’s-gravel twang his mother used. “Kit,” he said.
    He didn’t know how not to make his voice go