Read One Bright Star for Free Online Page B

like they did.”
    “I remember that Christmas,” Evan said softly. He’d been hanging over the back of Dan’s armchair, but now he moved around to the front and pulled up an ottoman to sit on. He smiled at Dan, then spoke to the baby. “We had snow that year. You haven’t seen snow, yet… I think you’ll like it. But we don’t usually get much here. So we didn’t have any snow toys or anything, so we slid down the hill on big garbage bags.” The baby was watching him closely, and Evan gently lifted him out of Dan’s arms and carried him to the French doors overlooking the deck. “That hill, right there. It’s green now, but it was white then. And my daddy… my dad… he carried me up to the top on his shoulders and we sat on the same garbage bag, me between his legs, and we slid down the hill. Whoosh! ” He swooped RJ through the air, giving him a tiny taste of the exhilaration of the moment. “And then I made him carry me to the top and we did it again, and again, until we’d torn up a whole box of garbage bags… very bad for the environment, Mister Robert; you won’t do anything like that, right?”
    Dan turned the page of the album and found another picture, this one taken only a couple years earlier, with himself and Tat in the kitchen, both wearing Santa hats as they grilled pancakes and bacon. It had been the year Tat had come home with a crate full of fresh mangos bought for some ridiculously low price because they were almost over-ripe and the store had been planning to close for several days over Christmas. She’d been unable to resist the bargain, and then Dan had been unable to stand letting the fruit go to waste, so they’d eaten mango in everything . The picture showed the blender behind them, dripping with the mango puree that had gone into the pancakes, been used for smoothies, put in the stuffing; Robyn had ended up smearing some on her face, saying it was good for dry skin, and a whole new craze had begun. It had been a fun Christmas, but Dan hadn’t been able to eat mango again for over a year.
    He turned the page again and saw the whole gang gathered around the big table in the country kitchen, each person holding carving knives poised over a turkey. It had been the year of the turkey cook off. Dan had won “best overall”, even though he hadn’t taken first place in a single category…
    “This is a good house,” he said, and Evan turned around to look at him. “It shouldn’t be empty. I mean, you couldn’t sell the property, because of the barn, and because…” because it was the place Tat and Evan had grown up, the place they’d been with their parents, and Dan remembered how hard it had been to leave the farm in Kentucky, even after Justin was no longer there with him. “Well, you shouldn’t sell it. But Tat wants to live in the city. This is a good family home. A good place to raise a baby. Right?”
    Evan nodded cautiously. “I think so.”
    “And Jeff likes it, too, doesn’t he? He said he loved the light up on the hill; maybe he could build a studio up there, with lots of windows. Then he’d have his own space, if he needed it.”
    Another cautious nod. “That might work.”
    Dan shrugged. “We should talk to him about it. Maybe we don’t need to move.”
    “Okay.” Evan grinned. “I’d like that. I like it here.”
    “Yeah, I know. And I like it too.” Maybe it was one more sign of Dan’s growing dependence, but right then, he didn’t care. He was dependent. Not on Evan’s real estate, but on Evan himself. And Jeff, and the strange, wonderful partnership they’d found for themselves. If something went wrong between them, Dan would be out on the street, no home for himself or RJ, but that wasn’t the part that would be most frightening. Losing the practical benefits of being with Evan would be nothing compared to losing the man himself. “I really like those rings,” Dan said.
    Evan’s smile was sweet. “Jeff’s not wrong, though… they