Two Boys Healing (Book Two)

5. Christmas Dinner-Part 1

"Will! Is everything ready? Is the turkey out of the oven yet?"

"Yeah!" Will called distractedly, standing in front of the bathroom mirror and trying to get his hair to lay flat. He pursed his lips, deciding to just rake his fingers through it and make it look as messy as possible.

It's not like I care, right?

He exhaled slowly. His mom knew that Ash and Tristan were coming, and she thought it was a welcome change from just calling Will's grandmother in the nursing home halfway across the world for a five-minute chat. Will and his grandmother weren't very close, and Barbara Jules didn't really have any love for her grandson, due to the fact that she saw him as an unplanned mistake. Will's mom had gotten pregnant with him when she was only eighteen, and his grandmother forever saw Will's dad as a man-whore (which was completely true) and Will as a flaw in the perfect ideal she'd had for Will's mom.

"Will! Come help me with the potatoes, will you?"

Will took deep breath and smoothed his shirt, then yelled. "COMING!" down to his mom, casting one last glance at the mirror before heading downstairs.

Ten minutes later, at 5 o'clock exactly and just as Will had finished setting the table, there was a hesitant knock on the door.

Will was there in a flash, but he stopped for a moment, smoothing down his shirt again and blowing out a breath, trying to control his pumping heart as he pulled the door open.

Ash stood there, hunching his shoulders against the cold, his nose and cheeks rosy from the temperature. He had a small box in his hands, which he held out to Will with a slight, awkward cough. "Um. I got you something..."

Will flushed slightly, taking the box and smiling. "Thanks. I got you something too...it's under the tree in the living room." He moved aside, and Ash stepped past him with a grateful smile.

Will's mom bustled out of the kitchen and shot Ash a bright grin. "Ash! It's so good to see you again!" She hugged him tightly, and Will stiffened slightly, waiting for Ash's reaction, but the smaller boy seemed to sink into Jessica's embrace.

Will relaxed, and then there was another knock on the door. Ash blinked, Jessica pulling back.

"Will, you get that, I need to get the gravy off the stove before it burns," she called, heading back into the kitchen.

"Who else is coming?" Ash asked.

"Just Tristan," Will said, pulling open the door. Tristan stood just outside the door, looking tall and overall awkward. Will smirked and stepped aside, and Tristan huffed a soft chuckle and headed past him, waving to Ash. 

"Hi," Ash said hesitantly.

"Hey," Tristan replied just as hesitantly, and Will coughed.

"Right. Well. Dinner's almost ready, but in the meantime--" Will made his way to the living room, where a tall, brightly lit Christmas tree stood proudly in the center of the room, showing off all the ornaments and lights glittering on the fake branches. Will reached under the tree and grabbed a small-ish box, handing it to Ash with a slight smile, then grabbing another and handing it to Tristan, who looked faintly surprised. "Merry Christmas," Will said with a grin, dropping onto the couch. "Don't open them yet, though. We have to play the present game first."

Ash blinked at him. "The what?"

Tristan seemed just as clueless. "I feel like you're making this up."

Will snorted. "I am. Sit down."

Ash sat immediately next to Will, then seemed surprised by what must have been a knee-jerk reaction, and Tristan took the seat on the other end of the couch, relaxing like he lived here, which was close enough to being true, as he was at Will's house more often than he was at his.

"Right. The rules of the game are simple. You have to guess what's in the box, and if you get it right, then you get to open it immediately. If you get it wrong, you have to go outside in nothing but a t-shirt and shorts for five minutes after dinner."

"What!" Ash exclaimed, his eyes widening. "But that's, like, impossible!"

"It's okay," Will said, amused. "You get three tries."

Tristan was smirking, shaking his box and holding it up to his ear. "This'll be easy. You're so predictable, Will."

Will snickered. "That's what you think."

Ash wrinkled his nose, seeming to become more and more comfortable being there as time passed. "Who's first?"

"I'll go first," Tristan announced with a chuckle. "I already now what it is. It's obviously a pair of socks. I saw you buy them at the mall the other day."

Will grinned and leaned back against the couch. "You mean the ones I'm giving to my mom?"

Tristan blinked, his brows shooting up. "What--! But you tried to hide them from me?"

Will grinned wider. "Exactly. Who's predictable now?"

Ash laughed, his face bright, the rosiness from the cold outside faded a little but leaving his cherubic face slightly flushed, his smile making his deep blue eyes crinkle in the corners.

"I have two more guesses, don't I?" Tristan said with a sigh. "Hm. Is it..." He held the box to his ear again and shook it. "God, I don't know. A bracelet?"

"Nope," Will snorted. "Why would I get you a bracelet?"

Tristan rolled his eyes. "I dunno. Why do you do any of the things you do?"

Will chuckled. "Fair enough. You have one more guess."

Ash laughed. "You seriously just made this game up?"

"Yep," Will replies proudly. "I never really had Christmases  like this growing up. This is a whole new thing for me."

Tristan snorted. "Same here."

Ash remained silent, his smile fading and his eyes going unfocused, as if he was trying her to remember something. Will hesitantly slid an arm around Ash's shoulders as a form of reassurance, and the other boy slowly leaned into him. Tristan watched them silently, then laughed a little. "One more try, hm?"

Will grinned, a warm feeling spreading in his chest as Ash leaned even closer to him.

"You're not gonna get it," Will snorted. 

Tristan laughed again. "Most of the time, that would be the case, but tonight, I'm feeling lucky." He smirked. "Is it a CD of Avatar?"

Will's jaw dropped. "No way. How did you guess that?!?"

"What's Avatar?" Ash asked curiously.

"It's a movie we watched a while back," Will answered distractedly, grinning and directing his next words to Tristan. "You knew the whole time, didn't you?" 

"Yeah," Tristan laughed. "Thanks, man."

Will chuckled. "Merry Christmas."

- - - - - - - - - -

Sorry this one took so long. Also, the bold isn't working for some reason, so just bear with me and these small, sad letters.

But yeah. I'm totally going AWOL for the next week, because we're going camping!!! Super excited about that, because I haven't been camping in FOREVER.

This chapter is part 1 of the next chapter...so yeah!!

I'll try to update and get the next part out soon!!

Q: Last camping trip and funnest part of it?

A: I went to this HUGE forest somewhere near the west part of Texas, like, six years ago, and I found a tiny baby turtle. :D