Chapter 21: Chapter 21

‘Twas the week before Christmas—Okay, not funny, I told myself, but I was a nervous wreck, trying to think of ways to keep my lover out of the living room. I’d positioned the tree to block most of the view from the doorway, but if he walked even three steps into the room…

I called Vincent again.

“What is it this time, Theo?” He sounded cheerful though. There had been a couple of weeks during the late fall when the few times I’d run into him, he’d been terse, and if he hadn’t been Mark Vincent, I would have said almost stressed. “A friend’s mother was in a car accident, but she’s doing better now,” he’d told me when I asked him about it. I’d been surprised he’d answered me at all, so when his expression told me he’d prefer to have the matter dropped, I’d dropped it.