Christmas Homecoming

By L. A. Witt

August 1939. Roger Miller and Jack O'Brien have been close since childhood. By the time they realize there's more between them than friendship, Jack is leaving their sleepy Iowa town for college. But they console themselves knowing he'll be home for Christmas. Right?

It is Christmas before they see each other again, but that Christmas comes six years and a world war later. Aged, beaten, and shaken by combat, they're not the boys they were back then, but their feelings for each other are stronger than ever.

Neither know the words to say everything they've carried since that peacetime summer kiss, though. Even as they stand in the same room, there's a thousand miles between them.

But maybe that's some distance the little angel in Roger's rucksack can cross.

This 24,000 word novella is part of the multi-author Christmas Angel series, and can be read as a standalone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: GallagherWitt
• Release date: May 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9781642300352

L. A. Witt

L.A. Witt is the author of Back Piece. She is a M/M romance writer who has finally been released from the purgatorial corn maze of Omaha, Nebraska, and now spends her time on the southwestern coast of Spain. In between wondering how she didn’t lose her mind in Omaha, she explores the country with her husband, several clairvoyant hamsters, and an ever-growing herd of rabid plot bunnies.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Roger

August 1939

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This place won’t be the same without you around.

My best friend, Jack O’Brien, smiled at me as we strolled down the long dirt road that would take us from town to our houses. His hands were in the pockets of his dusty trousers, the brim of his cap shading his eyes from the late summer sun. I won’t be gone forever.

Four years is a long time.

Yeah. It is. He let his elbow brush mine. But you’ll be so busy you won’t even notice.

I laughed halfheartedly. I’m pretty sure I’ll notice.

He glanced at me, and he started to say something, but then didn’t. I was glad, because I had a feeling I knew what he was about to say.

"You’re gonna be married soon."

I stared down at the dirt at our feet. I didn’t know if I would be or not. Everyone in town had been pushing for me and Daisy Morton to get married, and she always got this hopeful look in her eyes whenever someone mentioned it. Me, I got a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach that a man probably wasn’t supposed to get when he thought about marrying the nicest girl in town.

We continued through the dusty heat, and finally made it to the woods. We both sighed with relief as the road took us out of the bright sunlight and into the shade.

Where do you think you’ll go? I asked. After college?

Jack shrugged, staring at the ground like I’d been doing a moment ago. Wherever there’s work, I guess.

There wasn’t much work in this town. Hadn’t been in years. We hadn’t even felt the crash in ’29 because things had already been tough here. If not for the newspapers, I doubt we would have known about it at all.

So all I could hear in Jack’s words was: I don’t think I’m coming back.

As we kept walking, the silence between us as uncomfortable as it was unusual, I couldn’t think of what to say. How to tell him I wanted to go with him. There was nothing for me here except my parents’ farm, and Lord knew if that would still be standing in a few years. I didn’t imagine there was much for me in the city either, but Jack would be there, and that seemed like enough.

I didn’t say it, though. The train would take Jack away tomorrow, and I wouldn’t be going with him, and that was final. What did it matter if none of this seemed right?

We walked on, and we still didn’t talk. The quiet made me itchy. I wasn’t used to it. Not with Jack. We talked so much we drove our folks and friends crazy. But ever since we’d met up at the carnival this morning, things had been different. I couldn’t figure out what to say. I couldn’t even look at him without getting this ache in my chest. I was afraid to say anything because I was sure all that would come out was "don’t leave or let me come with you."

Up ahead on the left was a well-worn trail that went deep into the woods. How many times had we gone tromping down that trail over the years? There were berries you could pick and eat—and a few we’d figured out real quick you shouldn’t—and if you followed the trail far enough, there was a swimming hole. Jack told me a while back he’d had his first kiss down there. Tenth grade with Dottie McAllister. My first kiss had been with Daisy a couple of months ago, on a dare in front of all of our friends. I liked to think Jack’s was more fun than mine.

It was hard to believe that time was over. Not the embarrassing first kisses, but our days of jogging down that path, vines whipping at our bare shins and both of us whooping and shouting with our friends before we cannonballed into the swimming hole with the leeches. Betting Jimmy Davenport he couldn’t hold his breath longer than I could. Tossing in coins and diving to find them, even though the pond was usually too deep and murky. Tying ropes to branches and swinging so we could sail through the air before splashing into the water, and still doing it after Bobby Harwood swung too far and broke his arm. Smoking stolen cigarettes and drinking stolen liquor and batting away mosquitoes.

I would miss those days—mosquito bites, leeches, broken arms and all.

And more than that, I’d miss the friend who’d been there for all the most amazing adventures.

I’d always known there would come a time when we’d drift apart and turn into memories. My dad told stories about his childhood friends, and even if he got a little melancholy now and then, he didn’t seem sad that those days were behind him. He had a family, and he had friends here in town, and he seemed happy like that. I’d always known that would be me someday too. Jack would be someone I talked about with a smile, just like I talked about David Sullivan, who’d moved to the city with his family five years ago. Sure, we all missed David, but life had gone on and so had we.

That would happen after Jack was gone too. I didn’t know when or how, but it would.

As we closed in on the overgrown entrance to that little side trail, Jack slowed. Then he stopped. I watched him, and he stared at the grass-lined trailhead for a moment. When he finally turned my way, he had that smile that always meant we were about to do something crazy. Usually something that got our hides tanned once our folks found out. Worth it. Always worth it.

No one’s expecting us for a while. He gestured at the trail. Want go down to the swimming hole?

I blinked. What?

Come on. The grin widened as if he knew I could never say no to him. Go jump in the water. Cool off. Have a swim for old time’s sake?

It sounded crazy. Two grown men spending an afternoon in a swimming hole?

It sounded crazy and… irresistible.

So I grinned back and nodded toward the trail.

Jack went first, breaking into a run as soon as he was off the road, and I stayed on his heels. All the way down the winding trail, across the gully where we used to catch frogs, past the tree where Jack and Dottie had carved their names two days before they’d broken up, and into the clearing that would be littered with maple leaves in a few weeks.

At the center of the clearing was the swimming hole—a pond about ten yards across and so deep in places we’d never actually been to its bottom. The rope we used to swing on still hung from a tree branch, half-covered in moss as it swayed in the warm wind.

Sometimes there were kids and people our age, but almost everyone was in town for the carnival, so there wasn’t a soul in sight. We had the whole place all to ourselves.

A ways up from the water’s edge, we quickly stripped down to our drawers. Then we exchanged glances, ran, and cannonballed into the swimming hole.

The shock of the cold water