The 12 Gays of Christmas: A Holiday Family Bakery Novel Read online

  “I didn’t feel like playing Sven to your Anna and Kristoff again.”

  “You went to the Arvasaille Halloween party yourself last year, as I recall. You were Sven here at the shop, but won a prize as Ellen’s Oscar selfie with yourself as Bradley Cooper at the parade. You worked all month on that thing… blowing up the picture, gluing it to cardboard.”

  “Cost me a fortune at Kinko’s.”

  “This year, not so much as a white sheet with holes for eyes. Where did fun Spenny go?”

  “Don’t start.” Spencer went into kitchen, pounding the swinging door hard to pass through it.

  “I screwed up.” Troy followed. “I’m sorry.”

  Slamming the pot on the stove to start the chocolate, Spencer couldn’t decide if he was more pissed at his brother for the sticker debacle or his comments.

  “My intentions were good, Spenny. I figured there would be a ton of homos at the parade who would want us to make them a gay wedding cake. Word would spread. We’d corner to market. You have to admit it was a good idea.”

  “It would have been awesome if we were pulling names out of a hat.” Spencer added a touch of salt to the cocoa. “Not so much if I have to give away five hundred cakes.” Spencer turned and glared. “Five hundred cakes!”

  “That would kind of suck,” Troy said.

  “You think? Okay.” Spencer stopped stirring to pace a little. “There aren’t five hundred people out there—thank God. Most of them are probably friends and family of the happy couples. So what if we have to do three cakes? Maybe four? Somehow, we’ll manage.”

  “There ya go, bro!” Troy patted Spencer’s back. “That’s the spirit.”

  By the end of the day, by the time all the couples had shown up waving rainbow stickers and jotting down their names, email addresses, and wedding dates and sites, the number of giveaway participants had ended up a little higher.

  “Twelve gay wedding cakes! Twelve free gay wedding cakes!”

  “Twelve is better than five hundred.” Troy’s smirk was grating.

  “I don’t care how many yule logs and Christmas cookies I sell, if I give away twelve free wedding cakes, I’ll be in the red until Christmas two thousand twenty-five!”

  “Just explain to them it was all a mistake,” Getty suggested. There to work on one of the lights in the main display case, he’d gotten wind of the giveaway disaster. “Make this one do it.” Getty took Troy by the elbow. “Who could get mad at that adorable mug?”

  “These two.” Troy nodded toward Isabelle, and then his brother. “On a daily basis. And you when I told you I’d knocked up your daughter.”

  “Troy!” Isabelle had beaten Spencer to the exclamation. The young man they both loved could be awfully crude.

  “I’ve gotten over it,” Getty told his would be son-in-law. “I’m looking forward to a grandchild now, and just want you two to be happy.” He touched his daughter’s cheek.

  “I can’t imagine disappointing any one of these couples,” Spencer said in defeat. “Most of them moved their wedding dates up, just in case the frigging state pulls the rug out from under them come January first.” He stopped for a deep breath. It felt like the first one he’d taken all day. “We’ll get it done. Somehow.”

  “Maybe we can hire extra help,” Troy suggested.

  “That would just eat into the profits even more.” Spencer sat. He let his head fall into his hands.

  “You okay?” Getty asked.

  “I guess.”

  “You sure?”

  Spencer stood when Getty touched his knee on the way back down to the floor in front of the case. “I’m fine.” He moved to the register and started cashing out the daily receipts. “It’ll all work out.”

  “We should go, daddy.” Isabelle crouched beside Getty and gave him a hug.

  “I can’t figure this out.” Getty shook his head with dismay. “I’ve tried everything I could. I even switched out the bulb five times. The light should come on. First thing tomorrow?” he asked, grunting as he rose.

  “Works for me,” Spencer told him.

  “Enjoy your dinner, babe.” Troy offered Isabelle a kiss, then watched her walk out to her father’s car. Spencer smiled, reminded of the phrase “Hate to see you go, like to watch you leave.” He felt the same about Getty. His smile quickly faded.

  “I’m yours all holiday season, bro,” Troy promised after. “I’ll help any way I can, when not macking on my woman.”

  “Help? Who needs help?” Spencer slammed the register drawer. “Twelve three to five tier individually designed and decorated masterpieces in less than thirty days, pile on baking the regular fare plus all the Christmas extras, add shopping, decorating, cooking… Lucky for me, I got no one to mack on. I can be right here, elbow-deep in batter and buttercream twenty-four seven,” Spencer scoffed. “If you’ll excuse the pun, this holiday season, giveaway and all, should be a piece of cake.”

  Chapter 2

  The seventh young pair to sit across from Spencer at his desk off to one side in the front of the bakery looked like a couple of models from CollegeJocksDoIt.com. Both were muscular and handsome, one a tall blond football type in a tank top, the other a shorter brunette with a swimmer’s build shown off by a painted on Abercrombie and Fitch faded T-shirt. They’d agreed on something very traditional, according to Joe Quarterback. “We are a very old fashioned, very conservative couple.”

  Then they tongue kissed—and not for the first time—right there, out in the open, with half a dozen customers milling about and Getty still working on the light in the glass-front cabinet. By the time they pulled away from one another, the dark-haired one’s lips were bigger than Kylie Kardashian’s from all the suction.

  “All vanilla,” the blond one said. His name was Rex Main, which sounded an awful lot like his first pet and the street he grew up on to Spencer. “White cake, butter cream, vanilla filling…” He wore khaki shorts with a long drawstring that had flapped about as he’d walked in, drawing immediate attention to his rather prominent crotch area. The other one, Charlie, played with it while they continued to chat. By the time they were finished, Spencer would have sworn the thin braided cord was erect. He was.

  “Damn!” Getty said.

  Spencer turned the door sign to closed behind Rex’s fine ass and spun the plastic hand on the cardboard clock to the 2. He was more than ready for a lunch break. “What?”

  “Rex and Charlie remind me of us a few years back. Me… the short blond madly in love with tall, dark handsome jock… you.”

  With Getty right beside him, Spencer realized it wasn’t the cute, young hunks’ drawstring play that had him hard now. “That was a long time ago. Things are—” Getty’s lips were on his before he could finish the thought.

  “Let’s go upstairs.”

  Getty had no problem stating his wishes. He never really had. It was his lack of follow-through that created most the problems between them—in the past and now. Spencer put all that aside, though, and led his high school lover up the back steps to the apartment. “Troy won’t be back for a while.” He bent down slightly to steal another kiss. Apparently Getty was expecting something else, like maybe Spencer going all the way down on his knees, because he thrust his crotch forward and reached for his zipper.

  “Kissing,” Getty said sheepishly. “Sorry. I didn’t think we had time for that.”

  “Whatever.” Spencer smiled. It was a little bit funny, and then he took his sweater and white T-shirt off over his head all at once, because it was also true—there wasn’t much time.

  “Mmm.” Getty just stood there and looked, apparently no longer in the mood to rush.

  “What? Hurry up.”

  “I don’t get to see you like this often enough.”

  Filled with a combination of sexual and general frustration, Spencer took down his corduroys and maroon undershorts the same way, as Getty’s finger lingered on his hairy chest. “There you go. Get an eyeful.” He even flexed his erection for effect
, hoping Getty’s hand would move down toward it.

  “Don’t be angry.”

  Had he sounded angry? “Sorry.” Spencer admitted he had.

  “Come here.” It was as if time stopped—not just on the clock, but the calendar as well, as Getty took Spencer in his arms and breathed in deeply, his nose and mouth in Spencer’s neck, his hands in the small of his back. “I’m sorry too,” Getty said. “I wish we could do this every day.” He spoke against Spencer’s skin, and it drove Spencer mad. “I wish we had never stopped.”

  “But we can’t… because we did.” Spencer gently pulled away. He walked to the bedroom, stepping out of his pants and underwear along the way. “Are you coming?” When he paused at the doorway, Getty was still where he’d left him.

  “No.” Getty turned.

  “Your choice.” Spencer wondered why he’d thought this time would be different. “I’ve got to finish either way.” As Spencer closed the bedroom door behind him, he tried to ignore the burning emotion in his gut and his eyes. If only it was just about sex.

  Returning to the shop was slightly awkward afterwards. It always was. Spencer pointlessly stalled as long as he could stand to, but he knew damned well Getty wouldn’t leave, no matter how embarrassing things might get, until that frigging light was fixed.

  Best friends since before kindergarten, they had grown up playing with the same Legos, Tonka trucks, and Spencer’s favorite playthings of all, realistic-looking plastic food and his Easy-Bake Oven—two toys that go well together, as Spencer quickly discovered. They had messed around, hooked up, and experimented during high school. Then, just after Spencer revealed his deepest feelings and a desire for something more meaningful—a plan for the future—Getty revealed Kirstin was pregnant.

  “Any luck?” Spencer asked, swallowing his pride as he reentered the shop.

  “Not yet. You?” Getty actually blushed. “Sorry. That sort of slipped out.” He was squatting like a catcher, and his faded jeans contoured to every curve, front and rear. No. Luck hadn’t come, and neither had Spencer. Had he been in sight of the current visual, he was certain he would have.

  Kirstin and Getty had decided to marry. Maybe their parents had decided it for them. Spencer hadn’t been privy to any actual discussions. Naïve, filled with that euphoria high school graduates get, where they think they can take on the world, he had offered up the Pollyanna-esque idea that the three of them raise the baby together. The notion was restated the night Isabelle was born. They’d be a new sort of family, one a few years ahead of its time. Though Getty and Kirstin had wittingly and lovingly agreed to it all, as time went on, the couple found themselves settling into a more traditional way of life, and Spencer found himself odd man out. He went off to his second year of college and rarely came home. The trio drifted apart, as many high school friends did, and until very recently, Spencer and Getty had only seen one another a couple times a year.

  “I started thinking about how much work I had to do, and that put a damper on things.”

  The next pair arrived for their consultation shortly after the shop reopened. They were an older pair, at least late fifties by Spencer’s calculations.

  “I’m Karl, and this is John.”

  They were both very well dressed, in blazers and button down shirts. One had a teal pocket square; the other one’s was fuchsia.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” Spencer said.

  “We’ve been planning this for years. And I suppose we might have done it long ago, had we just moved. But why should we?” John asked.

  “Why should we?” Karl forcefully repeated.

  “Now we can do it right here. We actually love this state, most things about it.”

  “We’ve known each other all our lives.” Karl added. “No one else would have either one of us now, so we’re stuck with each other.” The look the pair exchanged signified neither felt the least bit bad about that. It made Spencer think of what may have been with Getty.

  “I love him,” John said simply. “I always have.”

  Spencer knew that feeling. “I’m sorry you had to come all the way back up this way for a second consult. I just couldn’t fit them all in the one day.”

  “Not a problem.” John smiled. “The bakery closer to home actually refused us.”

  “You’re kidding.” Spencer found that hard to believe, though only for a second.

  “He’s not,” Karl replied. “It didn’t make national news like a certain pizza place in Indiana, but it happened.”

  “Well, I’m thrilled to have the chance to make things right.”

  “Are you sure?” Karl asked.

  “Yes. Of course. Why?”

  The pair looked at each other. “It’s just that…,” Karl began.

  “You’ll be doing twelve cakes.” John picked up for him. “That seems like a lot. We were wondering if there was some sort of…”

  “Mix up.” They played verbal doubles’ tennis. Karl finished the point. “Like, there was only supposed to be one cake, but somehow you’ve been accidentally roped into a dozen.”

  “Oh.” Spencer didn’t know how to respond.

  “I told you,” John said to Karl.

  “And I told him if a mistake was made, it was the young, cutie up front.” Karl nodded toward Troy, who, just back from a delivery, was currently attempting to balance a French boule on one finger like a basketball. “Obviously, handsomeness runs in the Holiday family.”

  Spencer felt the heat crawl up his neck.

  “That one’s awfully congenial too,” John said. “But I’m not certain he knows a knish from a cannoli. The day we left our contact information I ordered a Bavarian cream doughnut and he gave me a Boston Cream.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  “No need to apologize for chocolate,” Karl offered.

  Spencer smiled. He really liked the pair. “Well,” he said. “Even if all of that is true, I’d love to make your cake for you now. Let’s figure out precisely what you want.”

  The consultation went off without a hitch. John and Karl tried several samples and agreed on nearly everything right away. It was a true pleasure. The last couple of the day, on the other hand, turned out to be anything but. They showed up seconds before closing, forty-five minutes after their scheduled appointment. Spencer had taken an immediate dislike to the verbose, snooty lawyer the morning after Thanksgiving. He was even more distraught now, upon meeting the fiancé.

  “I did it, Spencer! I found my Mr. Right!”

  “Maybe we should look at some lighter options,” Stefan suggested, leafing through a digital album of Spencer’s previous creations five minutes in. “You are a bit thick in the middle, Kev. Five more pounds and the wedding is off.”

  Mr. Right seemed all wrong for Kevin—Wonder Woman from jury duty. Spencer wanted to tell him so immediately.

  “I was thinking of a pair of grooms’ cakes as well.” Kevin spoke rather meekly in front of Stefan, not at all like the gregarious, happy guy Spencer knew from court.

  “You were thinking?” Stefan asked. “How novel.”

  “It’s been a whirlwind,” Kevin said. Though he seemed to ignore the job, his smile was quite sad.

  “What did you have in mind?” Spencer directed the question at him. Still, Stefan was the one who answered.

  “Something representative of who we are… what we do.”

  Spencer pictured a braying jackass sculpted out of crispy treats and fondant. “You mentioned you were a writer, Kevin?”

  “He stays at home,” Stefan supplied. “Maybe a vacuum cleaner. Not that he’s picked one up since he moved in two weeks ago.” The jerk sniggered, but Kevin looked quite uncomfortable.

  “Yes. I write,” he said quietly.

  “Have you been published?” Spencer asked excitedly, his smile wide and genuine.

  “Yes. Travel adventures.”

  “Romance novels,” Stefan amended. “The lowest form of literature there is.”

  Spencer
sketched a beautiful open book within seconds. “What’s your latest title?”

  “Tidings of Comfort and Troy,” Kevin said, to which Stefan actually rolled his evil, black eyes.

  “A Christmas book.” Spencer wrote in the title and turned the notebook toward Kevin.

  “Yes. It comes out day after tomorrow. And that’s awesome!”

  “I’ll make you a cake just for that!” One more thing to take on, it was the last thing Spencer needed, but he suddenly wanted to lavish as much attention on poor Kevin as he could. “Surely you’ll be having a release party.”

  “For an ebook?” Stefan was bound and determined to dampen any enthusiasm his partner felt.

  “Sure. Why not?” Spencer asked.

  “Thank you,” Kevin said. “That would be awesome. How much?”

  “My guess would be another inch to the length of your belt.”

  “My gift,” Spencer said, offering a sideways glance at the prickly barrister. “Put your wallet away.”

  Kevin agreed to the gift, and when the couple finally took off, after several more insults aimed at him and a few toward Spencer’s work, Spencer had to shake off the anger and take some calming breaths.

  “Holy shit!” He wasn’t the only one. Troy curled and flexed his fingers, as if they’d been balled into fists the whole time. “I wanted to punch that guy in the face!”

  “They draft a law banning that douchebag from marrying, I’ll carry a sign of support for the ordinance all the way to Washington. Just don’t lump the rest of us in with him!”

  “Amen, bro.”

  Spencer headed for the kitchen to start Kevin’s book cake. He looked at the clock above the huge oven. “Shit.” He cursed at it. The damned consultations took longer than actual baking. He was way behind on the day, let alone the twelve wedding cakes.

  “You and Getty should get married.”

  Spencer nearly dropped the entire fifty pound back of flour into the giant mixing bowl. He hadn’t heard Troy follow him in—“What?”—and wondered if his face was as red as it felt.