Page 5 of His Christmas Love Song

“Of course, Ryan.”

“And the best part about it is there can’t possibly be anyone to set me up with in the middle of nowhere Vermont, right?”

Jesse’s laugh comes out stilted, but Ryan doesn’t seem to notice. “Right.”

THREE

Ryan only realizes he’s been asleep when the rental SUV comes to a stop. The stereo’s on low—Emmylou Harris—and he’s uncomfortably warm in his hoodie, but he knows it’s much colder outside. Or is it? He peers out the windshield. They’re parked in front of large building with a log facade. He’d expected to see drifts of snow outside, but the ground is bare.

He pulls his spine up straight, glances over at Jesse, who’s checking his phone. He’d feel bad about making Jesse drive the whole way except he knows how much Jesse likes to drive. He’s a better night driver than Ryan, too. It sometimes seems that Jesse’s better at everything than Ryan. Better at dealing with the stress of touring. Better at interacting with their fans. Better at making friends.

Better at life, in general.

Ryan has no idea where he’d be if he hadn’t met Jesse, if Jesse hadn’t looked at him with those big gray eyes that day in the hospital and made him promise. He hadn’t known at the time that promising Jesse he’d look at his songs would lead to the past six years of collaboration. That single day changed the course of his life forever. Some days, Ryan can’t even remember life before Jesse. Other days, he remembers, and his blood runs cold at the possibility of never meeting Jesse, of being too stubborn to let him into his life.

Life before Jesse had been all right. Ryan had managed. Life after Jesse was like someone had come into a dark, quiet room and flipped a switch, flooding Ryan’s world with color and sound. It hasn’t always been easy, but it’s miles better than any other option on the table, for Ryan anyway.

It didn’t start out that way. At first, Ryan thought he was just being used by an ambitious wannabe singer. Then he realized Jesse had talent and while his nice-guy routine wasn’t an act, he was smart enough to know you don’t get anywhere in the music industry if you don’t exploit your breaks. And Ryan was his break.

But somewhere along the way, it stopped being about debts owed and promises made. Jesse had been right, right from the beginning, back in the hospital when he said they’d be good together. He and Ryan complement each other. Jesse’s lyrics are catchy and universal, his melodies haunting and fun in turn. The quality of Ryan’s voice makes the lyrics more sophisticated; his bridges turn Jesse’s melodies into unforgettable songs. Hit songs.

He got used to Jesse, his big smile, his generous spirit, the way he holds a guitar like it’s an extension of his body. He’s grown to appreciate the way Jesse looks out for him. A first it felt strange to have someone ask if he’d eaten lunch, who pressed water bottles into his hand just when he was starting to feel thirsty, but Jesse simply took it upon himself to take care of him.

Ryan doesn’t hate it.

Life isn’t all about music for them, either. They’ve gotten to know each other’s families, their friends. Jesse took his first big check from the record company and put a down payment on a house less than a mile from Ryan’s on the outskirts of Nashville. Sometimes they go for a week without seeing each other, but rarely a day goes by they don’t at least text. Jesse has slowly and surely become the most important person in Ryan’s life.

Jesse’s a fantastic creative collaborator. He’s a level-headed business partner but he’s not afraid to think big. He’s Ryan’s best friend. He wishes he could be content with their work partnership and solid friendship alone. But as the years go by, it’s harder and harder to pretend to himself that this is all he wants.

This last year, it’s been impossible to deny that Ryan has fallen in love.

Loving Jesse is far too easy. Hell, half the people who meet him are in love with him inside of a minute. Ryan can’t even blame them—Jesse’s the whole package. Smart, kind, good looking as hell. He gets Ryan, too, knows when to push, when to give him space. No one in Ryan’s life has ever put Ryan first the way Jesse does. Of course Ryan loves Jesse.

But he’s in love with him, too. The true-blue kind of love the greats sing about, the kind he imagined he might write a song about someday, the kind he’d begun to doubt he’d ever experience for himself. Until he met Jesse.

Not that he fell right away. That kind of enduring love doesn’t hit you like a freight train in an instant, it builds and builds over countless days together, over a thousand shared jokes and a million smiles.

Jesse had smiled at him one day—Ryan couldn’t say which day exactly, because it was a day like a hundred before it. Jesse had smiled slow and easy like warm molasses, and Ryan had wanted to straddle his hips and lick his mouth to see if he tasted as sweet as his smile. He wanted to kiss him until their lips were chapped and they were breathing each other’s air. Somehow his friendly love for Jesse had merged with attraction with devastating results.

Ever since, he’s been painfully aware of all of the things he wants from Jesse—not just physical wants, though those are legion, but he has a bone-deep desire for the kind of intimacy they almost have together. It would be easy to delude himself that all of their casual touches and shared confidences on the road, in the recording studio, even shooting hoops in Jesse’s driveway, mean the same thing to both of them.

Ryan’s love for Jesse must be as obvious as a hot pink neon sign over his head. It’s too big of a love to keep from shining out of him. When you love someone as much as Ryan loves Jesse, it’s hard to hold it in.

But Jesse doesn’t know, or he wouldn’t be trying to set Ryan up with every available guy in the lower forty-eight. If he knows, that would just be cruel, and Jesse’s anything but cruel.

Jesse wants Ryan to be happy, and he thinks that means Ryan should be in a relationship. The more he tries to orchestrate Ryan’s next great romance, the more depressed Ryan gets. Because it’s hideously obvious that Jesse’s never going to feel the way Ryan does. And that makes him wonder if the rest of it— the touring, and the albums, and the projects they’ve talked about—isn’t going to keep working.

How long can Ryan pine away for his best friend before something gives—either Ryan’s resolve never to tell him, or his heart breaks one too many times to heal?

He wrote a song about it. Hell, he’s written a dozen. Jesse never seems to get that the unattainable love in the songs is him. He’s a smart guy, but in this one area he has a huge blind spot.

Ryan’s not sure if he’s happy about that or not. Maybe it would be easier if Jesse knew, if it was all out in the open. Then they could acknowledge it, Jesse could give him a consolatory hug, and they could move on. At least that way maybe Jesse would stop trying to hook him up. Or perhaps he would double his efforts out of guilt. Fuck. No, Ryan’s just going to have to keep his feelings to himself. Jesse will just go on being maddening, perfect Jesse. Ryan will go on loving him. Because not loving Jesse, well, that’s unthinkable.

At least he’s lived with it long enough to know how to act like it never once crossed his mind to find out how Jesse tastes.

From the cozy warmth of the passenger seat, he watches Jesse out of the corner of his eye, wondering if he should let him know he’s awake. Maybe he’s been waiting on Ryan before going into the lodge.

When Jesse scowls at his phone and taps at the screen impatiently, Ryan says, “Something wrong?”