I Brake for Christmas

By Michael P. Thomas

Unassuming music major Brent Callahan has the crush of a lifetime on frat boy George Cortner. When the opportunity to offer George a ride home for the holidays crops up, Brent has to dig deep for the nerve to seize it. He’d been planning on hanging around campus for Christmas, but George doesn’t need to know that.

They’re on the road before Brent’s even sure he’ll be able to keep his hands to himself with George in such close quarters. Not that George has asked him to ...

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Dec 2, 2017
• ISBN: 9781634865227

Michael P. Thomas

Michael P. Thomas is a former flight attendant whose mid-life career change to 911 operator has shown him that the widespread fear of sharing and receiving love is a real emergency. He writes to spread love and encourage others to do likewise. And a little bit to scare the gay-haters. For more information, visit facebook.com/GoReadMichaelPThomas.

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I Brake for Christmas

By Michael P. Thomas

Published by JMS Books LLC

Visit jms-books.com for more information.

Copyright 2017 Michael P. Thomas

ISBN 9781634865227

Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

All rights reserved.

WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published in the United States of America.

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I Brake for Christmas

By Michael P. Thomas

December 23, 1991

I’m still not accustomed to the whole shorts-and-T-shirts-the-day-before-Christmas thing. I’m from Colorado. Okay, not every Christmas Eve is dusted with quiet white snow—I’m from Boulder, not the lid of a collectible fruitcake tin—but Christmas definitely happens in the winter. At the very least you need a sweatshirt. Growing up, I couldn’t even keep track of my flip-flops from one summer to the next; I usually had to buy a new pair in May. Now flip-flops feel like dress shoes—I only bother with them when I go to class or the Commons, and only then ‘cause they make me.

Of course, when most people ask me where I’m from, the answer they’re fishing for is Vietnam. But I was a baby when I was brought here. I don’t remember Vietnam, I don’t speak Vietnamese, I never knew my birth parents. I was raised on Scooby Doo and Capri Sun the same as all my other American friends were. Colorado is Home, and until I started at Inland Empire University last year, it never occurred to me that people might string Christmas lights from palm trees or roast chestnuts in tank tops.

Not that I’m complaining. When George Cortner shuffles into the Commons in his tank top and flip-flops the day before Christmas Eve, I’m downright grateful for the California culture that brings the world those squat, fuzzy legs in those snug, above-the-knee shorts year-round. Built like a big, blond teddy bear, all of five-foot-six with shot-putting shoulders, he lugs the Freshman Fifteen—along with a more recent Sophomore Ten-or-So—around in a juicy spare tire, and the bump and bounce of his pronounced quad muscles under all that sun-kissed thigh meat has me hypnotized: I watch him mosey around the side of the dining hall and grab an orange plastic tray.

As usual, he loads it up—a butt that big’s not full of helium, even if it does hover impressively high. We’re not great friends, and we’re certainly not in the habit of sharing a table in the Commons, but he is the last tenor in the row on the third step up in concert choir, and I’m the first bass. By sheer luck of the numbers, he’s my warm-up backrub partner when we all turn to the person on our left, and then again when we shift to the right. So we know each other on a small-talk basis, and this close to the holiday, the Commons isn’t exactly full to bursting; I’m sure he plunks his tray down across from mine at least partly because it would just look rude to sit on the other side of the empty room.

May I? he asks. As if I don’t lay awake nights fantasizing about pretty much this exact moment. With any luck, this means he hasn’t noticed I’ve broken into a sweat like I’m in a sauna.

Sure, I say, even as he’s plopping down.

Brent, right?

Right. I grin, way too happy to discover that someone I’ve stood next to three days a week for the last three months knows my name.

George, he says, pointing to himself with a Ranch-tipped French fry before popping it into his mouth.

I remember, I say with a nod, eliciting a grin from his peach-fuzzed mug. Hi. I have probably two more bites of my nightly Cap’n Crunch, otherwise my tray is empty. Do we know each other well enough for me to keep sitting here after I’m obviously finished? And do what, watch him eat his huge heap of fries? Just how small can two dudes really talk before all the perspiration gets awkward?

Small talk—I seize on a generic exchange we had during choir backrubs a week or so ago and say, I’m surprised to see you here.

‘Cause I look like a guy who misses out on a lot of meals? He throws in a wink.

I chuckle self-consciously. I’m five-ten and wouldn’t weigh a