Brett McGuire watched the light snowfall out the window of his sister Rachel's car as she explained the Christmas itinerary to their parents. "So for Christmas Eve we're invited over for dinner at the Matthews' house, and we can go to Mass after if you feel like you need to go to church."
"The Matthews are Jack's roommate's family?" Mr. McGuire confirmed.
"Right and then Christmas Day we'll go ice skating…"
"I don't know how to ice-skate," Mrs. McGuire objected.
"Well, maybe the four of us can do something else, but it's an important tradition for Jack and Shawn."
"And going to church isn't?"
"I'd like to try ice skating," Brett interjected, having seen the opportunity to get out of going to church.
Rachel was beginning to think that Jack was right to be nervous about meeting her parents. At least this meeting would be on her turf; her Dad's plan to preserve her virginity in high school had been to sit on the porch polishing his shotgun whenever a date came to pick her up – and it had worked.
"After that Mom can help me in the kitchen and then Chet's coming for Christmas Dinner."
"Who's Chet?"
Rachel sighed. She hadn't been looking forward to answering this question. "Chet is Jack's biological father."
"Oh, the drunkard."
"Well, he just joined AA and Jack's hoping to patch things up. It's a very difficult thing for all of them, and I'm just trying to be supportive."
Mr. McGuire harrumphed but didn't say anything more.
When they got to the apartment, Shawn and Jack helped them unload their luggage. Fortunately, Mr. McGuire didn't say anything about Shawn's recently acquired cartilage piercing. Brett thought it looked cool.
They dumped Brett's suitcase in Rachel's living room, where he'd be sleeping on the couch, and started unloading his parents' things in the room that Eric had vacated for them.
Brett looked up to see an oversized poster of a young man with a disturbingly intense look on his face.
"Who's that?"
Shawn sighed. "That's Eric, he said he was going to take this down." Brett couldn't help admiring Shawn from behind as he stretched to pull the poster down.
Once they'd had dinner and Mr. McGuire had finished intimidating Jack for the night everyone went to bed, leaving Brett and Rachel alone in her apartment. Brett was glad for the privacy, since Rachel was the only person he'd told he was gay.
"So Shawn's cute," he said as she got a glass of water from the fridge.
Rachel took a drink. "You're barking up the wrong tree. One, he's three years older than you, and two he's 100 percent straight."
"Hey, a boy can dream."
Rachel laughed, "we've got to get Mom and Dad to let you come up for the summer."
