If he’d just called Somerset and said that twenty-four hours ago, he thought unhelpfully, he could have saved them all a lot of trouble.
Somerset held the door open with one arm and waited for Dylan to walk past him. It was dark inside, and the smell of the fight lingered: sweat, blood, and spilled beer. Dylan started across the floor and then hesitated as Somerset closed the door behind him and cut off even the dim light from the street. He blinked into the darkness as he waited for his eyes to adjust.
Before they got a chance, Somerset turned on the lights. Brightness flooded the bar, and Dylan squinted and lifted his hand to cover his eyes.
“Lost and Found is behind the bar,” Somerset told him as he stripped off his coat and hung it up.
There was a grimly polite tone to his voice. It felt brittle.
Dylan muttered thanks and headed to the bar. There was an unlabeled bottle of something left out, a glass next to it. He didn’t ask as he stepped behind the counter.
The ground was sticky underfoot despite the rubber mats. He glanced along the shelves of booze and mixers until he clocked the big, yellow box labeled ‘PEOPLE’S SHIT’ kicked in crookedly under the till.
Dylan didn’t pray much. He didn’t believe in God, not really. Since he’d been wrong about Santa, though, he risked a little one as he headed for the box.
Please,he asked some vague idea of something well-intentioned up there,let me be right.
Wallets. The sparkly bra from the other night… no, two sparkly bras, so one of them was a spare. A couple of cheap clamshell phones. Even someone’s keys.
No watch.
A sickly feeling settled in Dylan’s stomach. What if hehadn’tdropped it here? He’d thought this was the last place he had it, but he could have been wrong. Maybe it had been left at the 7-Eleven he’d stopped at for a slushie on his way to work. Or someone had picked his pocket when they’d had a call at the Mall.
Shit.
Shit.
“Shit.”
Somerset rapped the wooden counter. When Dylan looked up, Somerset was leaning on the bar with a glass of something in one hand.
“I thought I’d—“
Dylan swallowed the explanation. It went down like undercooked cabbage, rough against the back of his throat. What was he going to say? That he’d thought he could fixeverything—and no, he couldn’t explain any of it—but he’d been wrong.
His grandfather hadn’t been forced to abandon Dylan by Otherworldy politics, his parents had just driven off the road, and Dylan was nobody special.
He clenched his hands on the edge of the box until the plastic dug into his palms.
He’d killed Christmas, and there was going to be no fixing it.
“I guess I left it somewhere else.” He straightened up. Habit made him brush himself off, even though he was still lightly covered in old stew grease. “I’m sorry I—“
Somerset grabbed his T-shirt and pulled him over the bar into a kiss. It was cold, the bite of fresh snow still on Somerset’s lips. Dylan leaned into it anyhow. On his tiptoes, stretched awkwardly over the bar as all his body heat slid away through his mouth, it didn’t matter.
He owed Somerset this.
Hewantedthis.
Dylan kissed back hungrily. After a moment, he didn’t feel the cold anymore. Not when he bit down on Somerset’s lip, hard enough to bruise, or Somerset’s tongue pushed into his mouth. It was like jumping into cold water. Once you were in over your head, you didn’t care anymore.
Eventually, though, you had to come up for air.
Somerset broke the kiss and leaned back. His lips were bruised and tender-looking, and his cheeks were flushed. He glanced over Dylan’s head and reached up to pluck a berry off the mistletoe hung there.
“It’s bad luck not to kiss someone under the mistletoe,” he said and brought his fingers together, smearing the white juice over his fingertips. “And I think we’ve got enough of that.”
It was hard to think through the frosted hunger that lingered in Dylan’s lips and stomach. It needled under his skin, sharp and insistent. He was still half-sprawled across the counter, the edge of it digging into his stomach.
