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The outside of Abby’s house, decorated with lights and dusted with snow, is like something off a Christmas card.

The inside is chaos.

Andrew and Neil must be the last ones to the party, or close to it, because more than a dozen college athletes are already packed into Abby’s open-concept kitchen when they arrive. Something smells on the verge of burning and two electric beaters are whirring at once.

So Andrew’s suffering begins.

Abby ushers Neil and Andrew inside wearing a Santa hat, a hideously pom-pommed sweater, and a smile. “I’m so glad you could make it,” she says over the noise.

As if Dan’s invitation were not headlined with the word “MANDATORY.”

As if Andrew would be here anyway, if Neil did not want to come.

“Thank you for having us,” Neil says, handing Abby the wooden spoon and plastic mixing bowl he and Andrew bought on the way here.

They were only summoned to Abby’s house an hour ago, when Dan sent a mass text to the team announcing that the final Friday practice of fall semester had been replaced with a cookie-baking party. Dan must have assumed — correctly — that with any advance notice, Andrew’s family would be in Columbia by now.

“What is this?” Neil had said, when Andrew greeted him after class by shoving his phone in Neil’s face. Which Andrew would not have to do if Neil ever checked his own damn phone.

“Your fault,” Andrew said. If Neil had not gotten all buddy-buddy with the upperclassmen last year, Andrew would not have Wilds forcing him to attend holiday functions.

“The theme of this party is dessert,” Neil said as he skimmed Andrew’s screen, then looked up. “How could you not be into it?”

Andrew summarized his long list of fairly obvious reasons in a single, scathing look, which Neil ignored in favor of asking,  “Do you think we need to bring anything?” — probably less out of politeness than his compulsive need to be properly armed for any unfamiliar situation.

“No,” Andrew said, because he was not about to provide tacit approval of Dan’s little surprise party by supplying equipment.

But Neil’s paranoia won out, hence the mixing bowl and spoon. The best Neil could come up with after hastily Googling “how to make cookies” on the drive to Target.

“Oh, um. Thank you, Neil,” Abby says, managing to look only politely bemused by Neil’s offering of cookware. “Why don’t you take these over to Allison? She’s about to start the gingerbread.” 

Orders in hand, Neil sets off toward the kitchen.

Abby turns to Andrew, who raises one eyebrow in a silent dare to assign him a task. But Abby only smiles and says, “We may actually have too many cooks in the kitchen right now,” just before something glass shatters behind her, followed by a flurry of apologies and a scramble to find a dustpan. Too experienced hosting Foxes to be fazed by anything short of a house fire, Abby doesn’t even blink. She simply gestures toward the living room and tells Andrew, “Perhaps you could keep David company?”

Andrew looks over at Wymack, slouched in an armchair beside the hearth, then down at the beginnings of a jigsaw puzzle on the coffee table in front of him.

“Is that new?” Andrew says, because he completed every single puzzle Abby owned over the summer, and Andrew’s memory ruins the challenge of doing the same one twice.

“Fresh out of the box,” Abby says, a too pleased, too knowing look on her face.

Andrew almost follows Neil into the kitchen, just to spite Abby for that expression. But he ultimately opts for the living room, to spite the part of himself that cares whether Abby Winfield knows he likes puzzles.

Andrew sits in the armchair across from Wymack and drags the coffee table toward his knees to start fishing out edge pieces. Wymack, whose only common ground with Andrew is how much he hates small talk, says “Andrew” in greeting and nothing else.

Every so often, Andrew catches Neil’s voice amidst the noise in the kitchen, which should ease, but somehow only worsens Andrew’s incessant urge to glance over at him. Andrew smothers the impulse. Neil does not need checking on. He is safe here, for more reasons than the many weapons that Andrew has hidden around Abby’s house during his summer stays. Besides that, Neil sounds happy.

Neil is a Penrose staircase of a person. Viewed on any one side — jaded loner, underdog dreamer, savage instigator, strategic peacemaker — a sensible whole. But put together, an apparent impossibility. Andrew spent most of last year turning Neil Josten around in his head, trying to make him make sense. But by now, Andrew has accepted that the only consistent thing about Neil is his constant self-contradiction. 

So Andrew is not surprised that Neil — whose knowledge of cooking is largely limited to the microwaves and hot plates he grew up using in motel rooms, and who seems to share Kevin’s view of food as merely fuel for Exy-related activity — is apparently having fun baking.

Andrew has completed the edges of the puzzle and started filling in the top-left corner when the doorbell rings. Abby answers it to reveal Jamie, Wymack’s newest goalie, on the doorstep. Given that Jamie has never spoken more than a few words to any Fox except Renee, Andrew knows before Abby gets out a greeting that she will send Jamie into the living room.

He is not wrong. Moments later, Jamie is folding her legs up beneath her on the couch, having chosen the cushion closer to Andrew than Wymack. Andrew expected this. So, it seems, did Wymack, who acknowledges Jamie with a nod before getting up with some grumbled excuse about needing another beer. Jamie’s eyes follow Wymack into the kitchen.

Apparently raised in and escaped from a religious cult, Jamie has an engrained wariness of older men to rival Neil’s. That is about all Andrew knows of her, courtesy of Renee’s intel and Andrew’s own observations. It is interesting enough to wonder about, but not enough of a threat to break into Wymack’s files about. No one has earned that dubious honor since Neil — who is now wearing an apron that reads “We whisk you a merry Christmas!” and has icing smeared on his cheek like a goddamn cartoon character.

Andrew looks away before he can imagine in too much detail licking it off.

He returns to the puzzle, which is shaping up to be a jumble of Christmas ornaments with similar enough colors and patterns to present a mild challenge. Abby chose well.

Jamie silently watches Andrew as he works. Andrew takes stock of himself, but finds that he does not care enough to tell her to stop. For one thing, he knows that Jamie’s attention is merely incidental, the way someone might watch a muted waiting-room television. For another, Andrew is not convinced that telling Jamie to fuck off would have any discernible effect on her behavior. Jamie is the only freshman who has never tried to start a conversation with Andrew, nor flinched away from him.

She is also, incidentally, the only freshman Andrew can stand.

Andrew has assembled nearly a quarter of the puzzle when Jamie leans forward, selects a piece from the unsorted pile, and slots it into place — then looks over to gauge Andrew’s reaction. Andrew weighs the risk of finishing the puzzle faster with Jamie’s help, thus being left with no excuse to avoid the kitchen, against the potential benefit of finishing the puzzle faster with Jamie’s help, thus having an excuse to leave.

Once he has made up his mind, Andrew scans the table for a piece he saw earlier that fits beside the one Jamie just placed. He picks it up and sets it down in front of her. Cautiously, Jamie puts the piece in its proper place, flicks one more glance at Andrew, then slides down onto her knees beside the table to separate the remaining unsorted pieces by color.

They have made decent progress when the doorbell rings again, and Abby ushers Renee inside. Jamie nearly stands up to meet Renee at the door. But Renee is already heading toward her fellow goalkeepers, shedding a scarf and beaming at them both as she comes.

“Hello, you two,” Renee says brightly. “This looks fun.”

Without waiting for the silence that she is likely to get from both of them in response, Renee focuses her attention on Jamie. “How was your final day of classes?”

“Fine,” Jamie says. “You’re late.” Not an accusation, but not not an accusation, either.

Renee’s smile is indulgent. “I am,” she says. Not an apology, but not not an apology, either. “They were short on volunteers at the food bank, so I stopped by after class. I wouldn’t miss this, though. I brought my mother’s snickerdoodle recipe, if you would like to help me.”

The “if” is a mere formality. Jamie is on her feet before Renee has finished talking and leads the way into the kitchen. Renee spares Andrew one last fond smile before following her pet freshman and leaving him alone.

Andrew is not alone for long, though. A few minutes later, Bee wanders over. Unlike Jamie, she is clearly intent on conversation, but she comes bearing eggnog, so Andrew allows the interruption.

“Hello, Andrew,” Bee says, handing him a glass and settling into the chair that Wymack vacated. “How are you?”

“I’m here, aren’t I,” Andrew says.

“I’m glad that you are,” Bee says.

Andrew almost scowls, but that would only give Bee the satisfaction of knowing that Andrew knows exactly how sincere she is.

“Any fun holiday plans?” Bee asks.

The official plan is to return to Columbia with Nicky, Aaron, and Neil. (Kevin will be spending Christmas with Wymack for the first time ever as father and son, which sounds just awkward enough to be excruciating rather than amusing, so Andrew is glad to have no part of it.) But Aaron has met all of Nicky’s suggestions for holiday activities with suspicious quiet rather than loud protest, which means that Aaron plans to spend break with Katelyn and hasn’t had the guts to tell them yet. Nicky, meanwhile, is unaware that he has a surprise visit from Erik inbound on Christmas Eve.

Which means that Andrew’s holiday plans are effectively Neil. But since all of Andrew’s plans are effectively Neil, these are hardly holiday-specific.

“No,” Andrew says.

“I’ll be spending Christmas with my sister in New Hampshire,” Bee says, like Andrew asked. “She still lives in the same small town where we grew up. I can’t wait to take her boys to the holiday parade we went to as kids.”

Andrew knows this game well — the one where Bee shares something about herself to compel Andrew to do the same. But the question to naturally follow that statement is so inane that Andrew can hardly believe Bee is about to ask it until she does:

“Will you be upholding any holiday traditions this year?”

The obvious answer is no. The only holiday "traditions" Andrew has ever participated in were forced upon him by Nicky, in Nicky’s effort to impose as much normalcy on their family as possible during Andrew and Aaron’s final years of high school.

But Bee must know this — and it occurs to Andrew that perhaps Bee, guessing who Andrew would have around for the holiday, is angling for insight into Neil instead. Andrew would not put it past her; behind that polite façade, Bee has a certain shrewdness about how to gather intel on reluctant parties. She and Andrew never would have worked, otherwise.

Neil, as it happens, has even less experience with holiday traditions than Andrew does. Andrew could have guessed that, based on his knowledge of Mary Hatford alone. But when Nicky was stupid enough to ask Neil whether he celebrated Christmas as a child, Neil just shrugged and said, “Not really. My father's work kept him pretty busy around Christmas.”

Andrew could have rolled his eyes at the melodrama of that, but then Neil probably would have pointed out what time of year Andrew took care of Tilda — and worse, he would have a point.

That was a good Christmas. But Andrew isn’t looking to make vehicular homicide a tradition unless he has to.

“Did you come over here for a reason?” Andrew says, instead of answering Bee’s question, since he can see no answer that would not give away something about Neil.

Bee smiles her acceptance of Andrew’s deflection. “As a matter of fact, I did,” she says. “I found something interesting on my desk yesterday.”

“Did you,” Andrew says.

“I did,” Bee confirms. “Do you know what it was?”

“I am on the edge of my seat,” Andrew deadpans.

“It was a little blown-glass octopus.”

Andrew sips his eggnog and says nothing.

“It was interesting,” Bee continues, “because I had just mentioned to one of my patients the previous week how much I would like to add an octopus to my collection.”

“Your threshold for what qualifies as ‘interesting’ is abysmally low,” Andrew tells her.

“Perhaps,” Bee says, unbothered. “But it was such a thoughtful gesture, I wanted to thank whoever was responsible.”

“Pity you’ll never know who it was,” Andrew says, “since the security at your office is also abysmally low.”

“Yes,” Bee says, and sips her eggnog. “Pity.”

Andrew looks away. It is just coincidence that his eyes happen to land on Neil — who happens to be looking right back, from where he stands at the kitchen island between Matt and Dan. Andrew wonders whether Neil has been watching him since Bee came over, but dismisses the idea. Neil may not trust Bee, but he trusts that Andrew trusts her. Neil must want something else, then, although he is not likely to come over while Bee is here.

Bee clears her throat, and Andrew looks back just in time to catch her looking away from Neil. “I think I’ll go make some hot chocolate,” she says, despite the nearly full glass of eggnog in her hand. “Would you care for any?”

“Don’t ask questions you already know the answers to,” Andrew says, which makes Bee smile before going to join Abby in the kitchen.

However often Andrew tells Neil he is an idiot for stonewalling Bee, when it is clear that Neil needs a therapist like a totaled car needs a tow truck, it is probably to Andrew’s benefit that Neil won’t come near her unless contractually obligated. Andrew is loathe to think what the two most perceptive people he knows would discuss behind closed doors.

Almost as soon as Bee has entered the kitchen fray, Neil extricates himself from it — and his ridiculous apron — to approach Andrew with what appears to be a cookie.

“Here,” Neil says, handing Andrew what turns out to be a gingerbread man — although only by the loosest of definitions. Neil obviously tried to frost the cookie while it was still hot, because several colors of frosting run together across the top and down the sides in a grotesque melt.

“This is an abomination,” Andrew says, taking the gingerbread man.

“Yeah,” Neil says with no shame. “Do me a favor and destroy the evidence.”

That, Andrew can do. Neil has applied so much icing that the result is overwhelmingly sweet, but lucky for Neil, that is Andrew’s favorite flavor.

“Having fun?” Andrew says, trying for sarcasm. But sarcasm is difficult to pull off when you have a mouth full of cookie and a genuine interest in the answer.

Neil only shrugs, but his smile gives him away. “I’ve never made cookies before,” he says, with the kind of wonder that Neil often expresses when participating in some banal activity for the first time, like a wide-eyed tourist encountering a foreign culture.

“Really,” Andrew says, licking away a bit of icing that has dripped down onto his hand. “I couldn’t tell.”

“Shut up,” Neil says, reaching over to steal Andrew’s eggnog. Andrew assumes Neil has mistaken it for milk, and is proven correct when Neil scrunches up his face at the heavy sweetness of the drink. “That’s terrible.”

“You’re terrible,” Andrew says, reclaiming his drink and watching Neil settle on the floor in front of his chair. Andrew knows what Neil is not-asking for, and would not normally give it to him with so many potential onlookers, but fuck it. Andrew is in a giving mood. Tis the season, or whatever. So Andrew sets his glass down on the table and combs the fingers of his free hand through Neil’s hair, careful of the tangles, while he surveys the puzzle.

Neil tips his head back into Andrew’s hand and closes his eyes. “Matt and Dan invited us to go Christmas shopping with them this weekend,” he says, which means they invited Neil, and now Neil is inviting Andrew. “If you want to come.”

Andrew does not buy Christmas presents. He can only imagine the exhausting levels of sentimentality and shock that he would have to endure from Nicky and Aaron, respectively, if Andrew ever attempted to give them gifts. Kevin, meanwhile, has only ever wanted — no, demanded one thing from Andrew, and Andrew does not give in to demands on principle. As for Neil…

Gift-giving is its own kind of language, and buying a present for Neil would admit too much, no matter what it was.

“I do not need to get anything,” Andrew says.

Neil shrugs without opening his eyes. “You could come along just because.”

“Just because, huh,” Andrew says, with extra care to control his tone, because this is one of the few things about Neil Josten that still has the power to shock Andrew — how Neil just… wants Andrew. Not for anything. But just to be there.

Last winter, Andrew would have understood this invitation as part of Neil’s scheme to turn the Foxes into a semi-functioning team. Neil had set about building bridges between Andrew’s family and the upperclassman like a diplomat forging alliances, all as a means to the end of Exy — a motivation that Andrew may not have particularly liked or respected, but at least understood. Yet here Neil is now, with no need to play mediator between Andrew and the rest of the team anymore, still asking for Andrew’s company just because. 

It reminds Andrew of Bee's response when Andrew told her — as he had told Neil — that Neil was not his answer:

“Just because he is not your destination does not mean he cannot be your closest travel companion.”

The mere memory of that sentimentality makes Andrew, on instinct, want to shove Neil away. But Andrew compromises with himself by simply removing his hand from Neil’s hair and saying, “Go on your own. I reached my limit for Fox company about five minutes after we walked in.”

Neil turns around to prop his chin on Andrew’s knee. “Do you want to leave?”

“Oh, Neil,” Andrew says, combing the hair back from Neil’s forehead just because. “Funny how you think that’s an option.”

“Why not?” Neil says. “The invite just said we had to show up.”

“And you honestly think they would willingly let us go after — ” Andrew checks his phone. “ — less than half an hour?”

Andrew would rather work on this puzzle in relative peace for the next two hours than endure the ten minutes of complaining and cajoling that would inevitably follow Neil and Andrew trying to leave now.

“Sure,” Neil says, with an easy confidence that has Andrew, against his will, intrigued. “I bet I could have Abby happily sending us on our way in less than five minutes.”

“You bet me?” Andrew says.

Neil rolls his eyes. “It’s a figure of speech.”

“You’re no fun.”

“Never claimed to be,” Neil says. “Do we have a deal?”

“You haven’t given me any terms,” Andrew says.

“I’ll get us out of here in the next five minutes,” Neil says, “if…”

Neil presses his lips together, pretending to think, but Andrew can tell he already knows what he wants.

“Spit it out, Neil.”

“If we can stop somewhere on the way home.”

With Neil, “somewhere” can only be the court. But, figuring he can just leave Neil there if he wants to practice so badly, Andrew says, “Fine.”

Neil grins and gets to his feet. “Watch this.”

Andrew pointedly does not, returning to his puzzle and his eggnog while Neil disappears to pull off whatever anti-party trick he has up his sleeve.

It comes as a surprise, then, when the noise of the party is interrupted by a sound that vividly, violently jerks Andrew back to nights of withdrawal, curled over the toilet or, once, the pavement of an exit ramp outside Columbia.

Andrew is crossing the room to Abby’s hall bath before he consciously registers standing, stepping in front of Dan’s concerned expression and pushing open the cracked bathroom door to reveal Neil’s hunched form on the tile floor.

“Oh my god, Neil,” Dan says over Andrew’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Neil says, looking only vaguely sheepish as Andrew flushes the toilet and wets a washcloth at the sink. “Probably just ate too many cookies, or something.”

Like Neil has ever voluntarily eaten a cookie in his life.

But, as usual, Andrew is apparently the only one with an eye for the obvious.

“I’ll go get Abby,” Dan says, and pushes through the few Foxes that have gathered outside the bathroom door before Andrew kicks it shut behind him and crouches in front of Neil to wipe his face.

“What the fuck, Josten.”

Neil grins against the washcloth. “Pretty handy, right?”

“Why do you even know how to do that.”

“Poison me once, shame on you,” Neil says sagely. “Poison me twice…”

“You are unbelievable,” Andrew says, and has never meant anything more. “And disgusting. Don’t think I’m kissing you before you brush your teeth.”

“You planned on kissing me?” Neil says, with a slanted smile.

“Shut up.”

Neil just smirks and opens the cabinet under the sink to pull out a bottle of mouthwash. It is too convenient to think that Neil did not already know it was there — the same way, Andrew assumes, that Neil knows every single exit out of Abby’s house.

Neil takes a swig of mouthwash, swishes it around, and spits it into the toilet. When Andrew has flushed it away and Neil has wiped his mouth on the unused side of the washcloth, Andrew lays two fingers on Neil’s jaw to get his attention.

“Never do this again,” Andrew says.

Neil frowns. “Why not?”

Andrew sighs at the honest confusion in Neil’s eyes. In some ways, Neil’s severe lack of self-preservation is even more difficult to manage than Andrew’s penchant for self-harm. Andrew never had to be told that slicing himself open was an unhealthy habit. Neil, meanwhile, requires an explanation for things like why he should eat three meals a day, or ice his injuries, or, apparently, not make himself sick on a whim.

But because Abby’s bathroom floor is no place for that conversation, Andrew simply tells Neil, “Because I said so.”

Neil, seeming to recognize that explanation for the placeholder it is, nods.

Neil does his “I’m fine” song and dance again when Abby knocks on the bathroom door a minute later, after which he is all but pushed out of Abby’s house. There seems to be no question that Andrew will be going with him, which is too convenient to be bothered by.

On their way out the door, while Neil is being fretted over by upperclassmen and lectured by Abby to call if he needs anything, Andrew takes a Tupperware full of cookies from Renee and a pair of unfamiliar gloves from the pile of winter clothing in the foyer, because Neil has lost his again and Andrew is definitely going to need a cigarette on the roof when they get home.

Neil is quick to remind Andrew that they’re running an errand first.

“Drive to the court,” Neil says, as soon as they get in the car.

Andrew sighs. “So predictable.”

“Not for practice,” Neil says. “I, uh, forgot something there.”

“Your lies are getting worse,” Andrew tells him, starting up the car and turning on the heat full blast.

“Or maybe you’re getting better at spotting them,” Neil suggests.

Andrew sees through the flattery to the implication of intimacy and says nothing.

“Fine,” Neil says. “I want to show you something at the stadium.”

Andrew arches an eyebrow.

“It’s a surprise,” Neil says.

Andrew, on the whole, hates surprises. But Neil, on the whole, is the first pleasant surprise of Andrew’s life. Besides, a deal is a deal. So Andrew drives to the damn stadium.

Andrew has not been to the Foxhole Court for anything but a practice or a game in a while. With Riko out of the picture, Andrew trusts Kevin and Neil to deprive themselves of sleep on their own time. But today, for once, Neil seems genuinely disinterested in the court as he leads Andrew down the hall, past the door to the lounge and locker rooms, to another marked “stairwell.” Andrew has only ever used it once, during his freshman year, when he made a sweep of the entire building to familiarize himself with the territory. But Andrew has not forgotten that this is the only staircase with roof access.

Sure enough, Neil leads Andrew up four flights of stairs and pauses on the final landing to pull a key from his pocket.

“That doesn’t look like it belongs to you,” Andrew says, as Neil unlocks the door.

“One of the perks of night practice,” Neil says, opening the door for Andrew and following him out into the cold, “is getting to know the graveyard-shift custodian.”

“Well enough that he loans you his keys?” Andrew says skeptically.

“Well enough that he lets his guard down around me.”

“You are a menace,” Andrew says, and Neil smiles like it’s the greatest compliment he has ever received.

Andrew jams his hands into his pockets and walks to the edge of the roof. Unlike the drop-off at Fox Tower, this one has a railing. Andrew leans against it to look out at the pinkish-orange sunset reflecting off the lake on the south side of campus. Andrew knew this roof would have a better view than the one at Fox Tower.

When Andrew turns around, Neil is holding out the key.

Andrew stares at it silently, refusing to believe what Neil is implying.

“It’s for you,” Neil says unnecessarily.

“Why would you think I want that.”  

“Because you told me you did.”

Andrew didn’t. What Andrew told Neil, months ago, was that he would have broken the lock to get up here, if the stadium were not so public that the roof was unlikely to remain private for long. It was an offhand remark that Andrew has not thought about since.

He should have known that Neil would.

Andrew has spent many cigarettes musing on the irony that Neil — who tried so hard for so long to be as forgettable as possible — has entrusted himself to Andrew — who is guaranteed to remember everything. But perhaps even more ironic is how much Neil remembers about Andrew in return, no eidetic memory necessary.

“Your friend isn’t going to notice that his key is missing?” Andrew says.

“This is a copy.”

Andrew leans back against the railing. “What do you want for it?”

“Nothing,” Neil says. “Do you not know how gifts work?”

“Neil,” Andrew warns.

“Nothing,” Neil repeats. “I don’t need anything from you.”

“And I need something from you?” Andrew retorts.

Neil sighs. “Think of it as repayment, if you have to.”

“For?”

“For the first gifts I ever got.”

Andrew has to rifle through his memories of everything he has ever purchased for Neil to figure out what he's talking about. “The clothing?”

Neil looks pleased that Andrew remembers, even though of course he does.

“Those weren’t gifts,” Andrew says, “they were — ” Andrew almost uses the word “charity,” but has a brief flash of the hurt that would cross Neil’s face and instead goes with, “necessities.”

“But you already knew I had money by then,” Neil says, a little smug.

“I also knew that most five-year-olds have a better sense of how to dress,” Andrew snaps.

“You just care more about fashion than I do,” Neil says.

“It is not about wearing clothes that are fashionable,” Andrew says. “It is about wearing ones that fit.” 

Neil rolls his eyes and holds out the key more insistently. “Just take it.”

“Not until you tell me what you want for it.”

Neil chews his lip — a dead giveaway that there is something. Perhaps even something he had in his back pocket, in case Andrew demanded it.

“Neil,” Andrew prompts.

“Okay,” Neil relents. “I guess there is one thing that I — but it’s way bigger than a key. It wouldn’t be a fair trade.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Andrew says, because no one has a worse gauge of what is appropriate to ask of other people than Neil does. “Tell me.”

Neil hesitates, then sighs again. “Matt invited me to come to New York for break.”

“Okay,” Andrew says, not sure what that has to do with him — except that fate has evidently conspired to make Andrew’s earlier statement to Bee more honest than he expected. Now Andrew truly has no Christmas plans at all.

“Yeah,” Neil says, “and apparently Matt and his mom always go to Times Square for New Year’s Eve. Which would be cool, since my mom and I went when we were living in Queens.”

Of course the one holiday with sentimental value to Neil, who has spent so much of his life shedding identities like snake skin, would be the one dedicated to new beginnings.

“Your mother let you attend a high-profile event like that?” Andrew says.

“No better camouflage than a crowd,” Neil says with a shrug. “And it’s not like we ever got close enough to the front to be caught on camera. Nicky got me thinking, this is probably the one holiday tradition from when I was a kid that I could still, you know, do.”

Andrew does not bother pointing out that doing something once is the literal opposite of a tradition. “What do you want, Neil?”

“I want to go,” Neil says, “but…”

But Neil did not survive Binghamton and everything that came after unscathed. Andrew can see the tightness around Neil’s eyes now as he just imagines being squeezed in among so many people — the anxious way Neil tugs at his sleeves and shifts his weight from one foot to the other.

“You want me to talk to Boyd,” Andrew guesses, because as much as Neil struggles telling the upperclassmen no, Andrew relishes it.

“I want you to come with me,” Neil says, and — what.

“To New York,” Andrew says, just to confirm.

Neil nods. “I would buy your ticket.”

Andrew squints at him. “Do you not know how gifts work?”

“I figured the gift would be you voluntarily getting on a plane,” Neil says.

“To chaperone you to Times Square,” Andrew says.

Neil ducks his chin slightly and shrugs again, and Andrew’s stomach floods with an unexpectedly strong surge of protectiveness.

Andrew has long gotten over calling this protectiveness what it is. It is only reasonable to be protective of Neil, who so often needs protecting — from himself as much as anyone else.

“Like I would let you venture into a crowd of that size on your own,” Andrew says, and is rewarded with the tentative smile that sneaks onto Neil’s face.

“Imagine the trouble I could get into,” Neil says.

“I shudder to think,” Andrew says flatly.

Neil’s smile gets the better of him, and he holds out the key to Andrew again. “So we have a deal?”

Andrew takes the key, turns it over in his hand, and gives it back to Neil. “Make yourself a copy,” he says. “I’m not going to open the door for you all the damn time.”

Neil puts the key back in his pocket and rubs his palms briskly against the thighs of his jeans to generate warmth. Andrew pulls the stolen gloves from his own pocket and tosses them at Neil.

“Are these Jack’s?” Neil says, looking the gloves over.

“Maybe,” Andrew says, unconcerned.

Neil, equally unconcerned, puts them on. “Thank you.”

Andrew dismisses that with a flick of his fingers and withdraws a pack of cigarettes to light one. Neil, like a flame-seeking moth, sidles closer to the smoke.

“So,” Neil says, “we’re going to spend Christmas together.”

“We were already going to do that,” Andrew says.

“Yeah, but sort of by default,” Neil says. “Now we’re doing it on purpose.”

Andrew would argue that spending time together by default is far more significant than doing it on purpose. But Andrew is not in the mood to argue. Also, Andrew has no intention of disclosing exactly how significant it would have been to spend Christmas in Columbia. Andrew does not think Neil has any real concept of how significant most things about him are to Andrew, and Andrew plans to keep it that way.

“I think it’ll be fun,” Neil says, seemingly just to fill the silence. Neil and silences have never gotten along.

“Will it,” Andrew says without inflection — although the fidgety feeling that Andrew is doing his best to ignore might be something like anticipation.

“Sure,” Neil says. “There’s the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Plaza, skating at Bryant Park, lights at the botanical garden…”

Andrew would bet his new roof key that this is the exact pitch Boyd gave Neil when inviting him. “I already said yes, Neil.”

“Yeah,” Neil says, with one of his quieter smiles. “You did.”

Andrew tolerates that expression for three seconds before saying, “Staring.”

Neil shrugs, unbothered.

Andrew has been subjected to several different kinds of stares from Neil before. Some of them critical — like Andrew is the math problem that needs solving. Others appreciative — not always like Neil is checking Andrew out, per se, but rather looking just for the pleasure of noticing things about Andrew. This one is more contented. A just because kind of stare. Eye contact for the sake of closeness. And Andrew will never admit it outside the privacy of his own mind, but sometimes, eye contact with Neil feels closer than skin contact — exposing in a way that makes Andrew feel more completely bare than nakedness ever could.

“Stop,” Andrew says, struggling to quell the unforgivable squirming in the pit of his stomach.

“Make me,” Neil challenges, eyes glittering.

Andrew knows what Neil expects in response to that. Neil expects Andrew to tug him closer, or perhaps push him back against the railing, and capture Neil’s lips in a kiss, biting the smirk off Neil’s mouth and smirking in return when all of Neil’s smart-ass remarks dissolve into soft, breathy moans.

Tempting. But predictable. And Neil already has far too much confidence that he has Andrew all figured out. So Andrew says, “Would you take another truth on credit?”

That wipes the affection off Neil’s face. His expression turns serious, eyes intent on Andrew as he nods.

Andrew takes a drag on his cigarette just to hold Neil in suspense before saying, “That roof key is the only worthwhile Christmas gift I have ever gotten.” Then, like a kill shot, he adds, “Thank you.”

Neil could not look more severely thrown off-balance if Andrew had finally made good on his promise to push Neil off a roof. “W-what?”

“You heard,” Andrew says.

“I… did,” Neil says, although his tone suggests he is not at all sure that he did. “You’ve just — you’ve never said that before.”

“You say it enough for both of us,” Andrew says.

Neil ignores that. “Why now?”

Andrew shrugs. “Just because.”

Neil looks unsatisfied by that answer, but doesn’t question it. Instead he asks, “Say it again?” Like he genuinely does need reassurance that he did not imagine it.

Andrew considers denying him, but is too curious whether repetition will make the novelty wear off. “Thank you,” he says, the words no easier to get out a second time, but well worth Neil’s unmitigated awe.

It makes Andrew wonder what else he could stomach saying to put that expression back on Neil’s face.

“You’re… welcome,” Neil says, the uncertainty in his voice reminding Andrew that for someone who thanks everyone around him so often, Neil does not actually have much experience being thanked in return.

It is an imbalance that Andrew decides he could stand to even out, for the sake of symmetry.

But right now, Andrew has other priorities. Satisfied that he can still wield the element of surprise when he wants to, Andrew kills the glow of his cigarette against the railing and steps into Neil’s space. “Yes or no?”

Neil nods somewhat distractedly, still apparently buffering in his attempt to process Andrew’s gratitude, but Andrew’s fingertips on Neil’s jaw bring him to focus. Andrew stops just short of kissing Neil, allowing their breath to form a private pocket of warmth as he commits Neil’s face in this moment — as he has in so many other similar moments — to the vault of his memory.

“It’s a yes, Andrew,” Neil murmurs.

“Impatient,” Andrew observes, taking the time to stroke his thumb across Neil’s bottom lip.

“For you? Always,” Neil says, expression verging on fondness again — until Andrew frames Neil’s face in his hands and pulls Neil in for a kiss.

Neil’s mouth is a searing contrast to the December cold, suffusing Andrew with vicious warmth that spreads down to the tips of his fingers as they trace the familiar scarring on Neil’s face. When Neil’s hands come up to rest in their default position on Andrew’s shoulders, Andrew moves them down to his hips, knowing Neil’s hold will stay exactly where he has placed it. And when Andrew tilts his head to deepen the kiss, the soft sound that Neil makes in response sends a bright buzz of pleasure curling through Andrew like an electric filament.

The kiss slow, so unlike the hurried way Andrew used to kiss Neil. Back when Andrew first started letting himself have this, touching Neil seemed almost like flooring it down an unfamiliar street in the dark, so certain that at any moment, he was about to pitch off a cliff — a furious fatalism that only spurred Andrew to chase the thrill of Neil harder and arrive at the horrible, inevitable end of him sooner. But by now, Neil has proven himself to be anything but temporary. And so Andrew allows himself this more leisurely pace, bumping the cold tip of Neil’s nose with his own, tracing the shell of Neil’s ear with his thumb, and, when Andrew draws back, resting his forehead against Neil’s for the simple satisfaction of keeping him close.

Neil brings his gloved hands up to cover Andrew’s over his own cheeks. “You’re always so warm,” he says.

“You just run cold.”

“Lucky that I have you then.”

“Luck has nothing to do with it,” Andrew says. Everything about them is hard-won.

“Interesting that you don’t deny the part where I said I have you,” Neil says, because he lives to make Andrew’s life difficult.

“Why do I put up with you,” Andrew wonders aloud.

“Because apparently I give the best Christmas gifts?”

“Must be the free trips to New York,” Andrew muses.

Neil’s exhale is amused. “I’ll take it,” he says. “For what it’s worth, you coming to New York is the best Christmas gift I’ve ever gotten, too.”

“That is worth very little,” Andrew says, “considering you have spent most of your previous Christmases in mortal peril. But thank you.”

Again, the words seem to have a short-circuiting effect on Neil, who blinks rapidly and shakes his head as if to reset himself before giving an uneasy sort of laugh. “Are you going to keep doing that?”

“I don’t know,” Andrew says, brushing his thumbs idly across Neil’s cheekbones. “Is it going to keep fucking with your head?”

“Probably,” Neil admits.

“Then probably,” Andrew says, and Neil lets out another laugh — this one easy and bright and unfairly, maddeningly pretty.

“And you call me a menace,” Neil says, grinning. “No one else would put up with you.”

That is absolutely, one hundred percent true, but Neil says it like a joke — which is exactly why Neil is absolutely, one hundred percent the only person who could ever put up with Andrew.

“Lucky that I have you then,” Andrew says, and, before Neil can comment on the irony of that statement, cuts him off with another kiss.