Author's Note:
Hello, dearest readers! This is my entry for the
2024 Winter Holiday Contest
. I've always enjoyed the brother's-best-friend trope (though no idea why since I don't have a brother), and I've worked in a number of my favorite holiday traditions, like carol singing, mulled wine, and nostalgic decorations from childhood that feel like old friends. The title of this story is actually from the Christmas carol "O Little Town of Bethlehem," but I thought it also fit well for a story about years of love and longing finally reaching their culmination. As always, all characters engaging in sexual activity are over the age of eighteen. Wishing you all a season filled with joy and love, whatever holiday or occasion you happen to be celebrating.
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The Hopes and Fears of All the Years
I gazed at the grandfather clock ticking away quietly in the corner of the foyer for what felt like the hundredth time.
Ten minutes to seven.
Ten minutes until he was due to arrive.
Ten minutes until I'd see the man I loved for the first time in two and a half years.
Not that he knew I loved him. It was possible he'd never know.
I sighed at that thought. I'd known Ezekiel Abramson, Zeke, for almost my entire life and had loved him for most of it, pretty much since the moment I'd figured out that cooties weren't a real thing. He was my older brother Michael's best friend and had grown up four houses down on our quiet street in Fairfax, Virginia.
It was impossible not to love Zeke. He was the human embodiment of sunshine, a relentlessly positive and optimistic person who managed to find the good in every individual he met. Those who had the privilege of interacting with him universally agreed that they were better for having known him. He was kind and generous to a fault, and it had surprised no one when he'd decided to make a career out of helping others with USAID.
Lately, though, it seemed that his sunshine had dimmed. I couldn't blame him for that, not after what he'd been through.
Zeke had gotten a job with USAID's program in Iraq immediately after graduating from Georgetown University. He'd been excited to make a difference in a region that sorely needed the help, and even though it had been painful for me to be so far apart from him, I'd been happy he'd found a career so fulfilling.
Just over two years into his time there, the unthinkable had happened: a suicide bomber had targeted the village where he'd been working. Neither my brother nor I knew the exact details of the attack, but we knew the outcome: Zeke had suffered injuries to his face and had lost his right eye.
Once he'd healed, Zeke had been transferred to USAID's headquarters back in Washington, DC. He'd been there for three months, less than five miles away from my dorm at Georgetown, and I had yet to see him.
"Gracie, you're going to wear a hole in the floorboards if you don't stop pacing."
I whirled around to scowl at my brother, who was leaning against the banister of our parents' staircase and watching me. Michael, whom most people called Sully since our last name was Sullivan, had always been a bit of a tease. Catching my expression, however, he lifted his hands in apologetic surrender.
"I'm just... excited. And a little anxious," I admitted.
He sighed, running a hand through his messy blonde curls that were the same shade as mine. Though Sully didn't know about the depth of my feelings for Zeke, he knew that his best friend was important to me. "Yeah, I know. Honestly, I'm amazed you got him to agree to come to the Christmas party at all. He hasn't exactly been in the mood for socializing lately."
I nodded, very much aware of that fact. I'd been trying to convince Zeke to come out with my friends and me or even just drop by for a coffee ever since he'd returned to Washington, but he'd always found an excuse to stay home. He'd insisted he was too tired to join me for my twenty-first birthday in October and hadn't even wanted to celebrate his own twenty-fifth earlier in December. It had been hurtful at first, but when I'd moped about it to Sully, he'd assured me that it wasn't just me. Zeke was his best friend, and he'd only gotten to see him once since his return to help him move into his apartment. The man had become a hermit. We texted regularly, to be sure, but that was it.
I wasn't sure why he'd agreed to come to my parents' Christmas party after three months of hiding from the world. Perhaps he felt it was time. More likely, though, it was because of our conversation the previous weekend.
Please come, Zeke,
I'd begged him.
I miss you so much it hurts.
There had been a long pause while the three dots indicating that he was typing had flashed across my phone's screen.
Alright, alright,
he'd finally replied.
I'll come, but only because I can't stand the idea of you hurting.
"He's pretty self-conscious about his injuries," Sully pointed out, pulling me back to the present.
"You know I'd never comment on them," I assured him. "Zeke is basically family, and I'd never intentionally do anything to hurt him."
He sighed. "It's not you I'm worried about, Grace. It's everyone else."
With that, he wandered back into the kitchen, following the smell of our mother's Christmas cookies baking in the oven. Some of our parents' guests had arrived early and were already sipping spiked eggnog and chatting noisily in the living room. Perhaps I should have joined them, but I couldn't tear myself away from my unofficial watch post.
I glanced at the clock again before wandering over to the front door to gaze out of its small windows at our front porch, the very spot I'd last seen Zeke in person...
Two and a Half Years Prior
It was a lovely morning in late June. I'd recently graduated from high school and was gearing up for a summer of fun with my friends before starting my freshman year at Georgetown in the fall. I sat at my kitchen table, enjoying a bagel, when a knock sounded at the front door.
Confused, I got up to answer it. My parents and brother were out for the day, and I wasn't expecting anyone to drop by. When I opened the door, my heart skipped a beat. It always did when I saw him.
"Hi, Zeke," I greeted him.
He gave me a lopsided grin. "Hey, Gracie."
I took a moment to look him over, knowing he'd be leaving soon for Iraq and I'd be deprived of the opportunity for an extended period. As always, his six-foot-two frame towered over me, clad that day in jeans and a Van Halen t-shirt. His deep brown eyes, the kindest I'd ever seen, gazed at me fondly. There'd been a notable change in his appearance, though.
"What's with the hair?" I asked, jerking my chin up at him. "Did you join a cult or something?"
He chuckled at my joke, but I noticed a blush rising in his cheeks as he ran a hand nervously over his freshly clipped locks. His thick dark hair was normally a couple of inches long and messy, and I'd have been lying if I said I hadn't imagined what it would feel like to sink my fingers into it while Zeke sank something else into me over and over again.
"I figured Iraq would be hot and I wouldn't have a chance to get my hair cut regularly, so I just asked for a quarter inch all over."
I didn't much care for the style, but even so, Zeke was still by far the most beautiful person I'd ever known. As Shakespeare observed, "love is not love that alters when it alteration finds." Zeke could do literally anything with his hair - or any other part of his body, for that matter - and I'd still be in love with him.
He seemed relieved when I smiled at him, as though my opinion mattered a great deal more to him than I thought it would.
"Well, you're still a cutie-pie in my book," I told him, my tone just playful enough that the sentiment could be mistaken for being platonic.
He stared intensely at me then, almost as though he were searching for something in my expression or trying to find the answer to a particularly difficult question.
I shifted uncomfortably under his gaze before the silence became too much for me to bear. "Sully's out visiting his girlfriend," I told him, figuring he'd come over looking for my brother.
"I know," he replied. "We went out for drinks last night. I actually came by because I wanted to see you before I left. I fly out this evening."
Manic butterflies began flapping wildly inside me. The notion that Zeke had wanted to see me specifically filled my mind with all sorts of foolish hopes and fantasies that I had to work very, very hard to quash.
"I'm going to miss you, Grace," he continued, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. "I'm going to miss you a lot. I know you probably just think of me as Sully's best friend, but I've always considered you a close friend as well."
A wistful smile spread across my lips. "We are friends, Zeke, I promise. Close friends. And I'm going to miss you a lot, too."
Smiling warmly, he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me in close. I hugged him back, relishing the warmth of his body against mine. Holding him felt so right, so natural; I wanted to bottle that feeling and keep it with me forever. Since he was nearly a foot taller than me, my head rested against his chest as we embraced and I could hear the steady, soothing rhythm of his heart. I imagined what it would feel like to lie in bed with him each night, listening to that sound as I drifted off to sleep.
All too soon, he pulled away. His deep brown eyes were filled with a sad longing that startled me, and I got the distinct impression that he was holding something back emotionally.
"I have to go," he sighed. "I need to finish packing and take care of some things."
I choked back the tears I could feel gathering in the corners of my eyes. "Please write to me, Zeke. I want to hear about all the great work you're doing and all the people you're helping."
