Page 47 of The Lipstick Flip

And maybe it was the lights. Or something. Because now my eyes were funny. I was still looking at the back of his head, at the texture of short hair, at the pale line of his neck that looked like moonlight.

“You have to open yours,” he said. He plucked one of the gifts out from under the tree without hesitating and handed it to me. Unlike the present I’d brought, Noah’s wasn’t in a gift bag. He’d wrapped it, and he’d used good paper—thick, a deep red, every crease crisp. A green velvet ribbon was tied in a perfect bow. The gift was about the size of a shoebox, but square instead of rectangular.

“You got me something?” I said, which came a little late because yeah, I was already holding it.

“Well, I thought you might need it.”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

Noah rolled his eyes, and he made a big deal out of playing with the necklace.

“All right,” I said. And for some reason, I was nervous. The paper felt waxy under my fingers, and the only thing I could think was that I was probably going to give myself a paper cut when I tried to open it.

“Come on.” Noah did a little drumbeat on his knees. “Howie!”

I opened it. And I managed not to get a paper cut.

It looked like a wallet—one of those minimalist ones that only hold credit cards. But when I turned it over, it held a stack of business cards. I pulled the top one out. The paper was thick—which I knew meant expensive—and printed on it in simple type were the words SECOND CHANCE HOMES and below that HOWARD CARTWRIGHT, with my work email and phone number.

“Do you like the font?” Noah asked. “I wasn’t sure—”

“It’s perfect.” I was still staring at it. So I made myself say, “This is great. Thank you.”

“I thought, maybe at the house tour, you’d want to give some out.” A tiny smile raised the corner of Noah’s mouth. “I also got you a hat and a few T-shirts with Second Chance Homes on them.”

“Noah.”

“It’s your brand, Howie.” The smile got bigger. “Plus it’s free advertising every time somebody checks you out.”

“You shouldn’t have done this.”

He made a sound like I was being silly. “It’s a few business cards, Howie. It’s nothing.”

But it didn’t feel like it was nothing.

The music changed to Sinatra, “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” That had always been one of Noah’s favorites. I’d grown up listening to Elvis’s version; my mom had loved that one. Or maybe that was the wrong word. But I remembered her putting it on around Christmas time. Dad was gone again. And she was drinking more. Drinking herself to sleep in a chair. Drinking from the time she woke up. It had been playing the night I’d smelled something burning. Her hair was on fire; the cigarette had rolled out of her mouth. And the weirdest thing was that even though he couldn’t help anymore, Ralph was the one I screamed for.

Noah was watching me, and it was like I was waking up, like—for a moment—I had to remember how to breathe again. Something flickered across his face. Or maybe it was just a shadow. And then he said, “It’s late. You’re tired.”

I nodded. Because I was tired.

He got to his feet. I followed.

“Thank you,” Noah said.

“Thank you,” I said. “For the cards. For everything. And for dinner and—” The list made me sound like an idiot, so I said, “It was a nice night.”

He smiled, and it was the saddest thing I’d ever seen, but he only said, “Merry Christmas, Howie.”

I wasn’t sure who moved first, but he was stretching up to hug me, and I was reaching out like I might do some dumbshit thing like pat his arm. Instead, my arms slid around his waist, and he hooked his hands behind my neck. His face was pressed into my chest, and his breath was soft and warm through the sweater.

The song changed again. Bing Crosby, “White Christmas.” And I don’t why. Maybe because everything seemed right: the music, the darkened living room, the good meal, the easy conversation, the gifts, the snow glowing on the other side of the glass. Maybe because it was Christmas Eve. Maybe because it was Noah. Whatever the reason, I slid my hands to his hips, and we started to dance.

There had been times Mom dragged us to church. When we were living with my grandparents. When Dad was gone, and gone meant prison. The church wasn’t anything special—a Lutheran congregation where the average age was in the fifties. But they had a few kids, and they did a youth program, and it gave my grandparents somewhere to send us when my mom was gone, and gone meant a bar, or a friend’s, or the back seat of some stranger’s car. And one night at that youth program, the pastor had taught us to waltz. Ralph and me and two girls who were cousins and a couple of years older than us. The pastor said Ralph was a natural. Dad picked us up. Showed up out of the blue in a Cutlass with one door that wouldn’t open. What have I got here? Like he was joking, but his eyes weren’t joking. A couple of fairies?

It wasn’t waltzing, anyway. Noah and I just moved a little, rocking with the beat; you could hardly call it dancing at all. He was pressed against me, face still buried in my chest, hands looping around my neck like he was hanging on. But he followed my lead. His hips still fit into my cupped palms. My fingers curled around his ass—not tight, but not nothing either.

The song changed, but we didn’t.