Last Christmas - 3. Chapter 3

3

Snow was falling steadily as Frank sat in the shop working on the order for Chris. He had been lucky so far that most of his orders were for things he had molds for and could simply cast and paint at his leisure, but the order Chris had made required him to hand carve each piece. So far his order had been the biggest and the most time consuming order of the season. Frank knew not many people would order a chess set, but Chris had, and after seeing some of Frank’s different figures in the order book requested that Frank turn some of his larger pieces into the characters for the board.

Instead of the traditional black and white characters he was doing what he thought of as the red and white figures. On one side stood winter and the other was Christmas. There were a Snowman and Snowwoman as the Winter King and Queen. The Bishops were Jack Frost, the Knights were carved to look like moose, and the castles were snow forts. He worked making the pawns large snow balls. For the Christmas side Santa and Mrs. Clause were the Christmas King and Queen, while the Bishops were elves. For the Knights Frank was presently carving two reindeer. He planned to make the castles look like toy shops and the pawns were going to be red sacks made to hold the toys.

He planned to paint them all when he was done. He had never had an order where he was pretty much left to do everything as he wanted. It kept him excited and he worked the figures every day. The snowballs had been easy. Each one sat on a base which he intended to paint in blue. The red Santa bags hadn’t been much harder, although they weren’t all done, also having a base which he planned to paint green. The figures of Jack Frost both held a snow flake, and the elves each held a toy. So far everything was going well but after nearly three weeks, time was slipping away from him.

The tinkling of the bell on the door drew Frank’s attention. “Be right with you.”

“No rush.”

Frank looked over to find a rather attractive young man standing in his doorway looking at the Ark he had carved.

“Sorry, was working on one of the orders. How can I help you?”

“No problem. Sorry to pull you away from your work, but I was looking to see if my brother was here with you.”

“Brother?”

“Yes. Chris said he had ordered something for our father here and was spending a lot of time with the carver. I take it that would be you.”

The gentleman stepped forward and offered his hand.

“Um, yeah, I’m Frank.”

“Sorry, I’m Pere.”

Frank reached out and shook his hand, “Nice to meet you Pierre.”

The gentleman smiled slightly and looked amused.

Frank was afraid he had said something wrong, but then he looked at Pierre, wondering how Pierre and Chris were really related. Where Chris was tall and an obvious red head, Pierre was shorter with dark black hair and a slight French accent.

“I’m sorry, but Chris hasn’t stopped by today.”

Before Frank could say more, the door opened and yet another striking young man walked in.

“I guess he isn’t here.” The taller blond man walked over and stood beside Pierre.

Frank felt like there was a model convention in town and they were slowly showing up in his shop.

“No, Jules. He isn’t here.”

“I’m sorry to be so rude.” Jules walked over and shook Frank’s hand. “I’m another of Chris’s brothers. We have a rather large family.”

Frank listened to Jules speak, and could clearly tell there was an accent, but had no idea where he was from. Looking from one man to the other, he couldn’t see a trace of one in any of the others.

Pierre laughed.

“Um, sorry.” Frank realized he had been caught staring from Pierre to Jules while he pictured Chris in his mind. All of them looked to be of about the same age, but they looked nothing alike.

“Don’t be. Rarely does anyone outside of our family run into more than one of us at a time. I can see you trying to figure out how we could all be related.” Pierre stood smiling at Frank.

Frank blushed. “Sorry. Yeah, I was trying to see where I could match you all as brothers.”

Jules nodded as Pierre stepped forward to explain.

“We’re all family. You might say some of us are a bit like distant cousins, but we were all raised by Dad although we have all stayed in different parts of the world. So we don’t really look a lot alike, and we all have the accent of the country we are usually stationed in. You might say we have an intimate knowledge of our particular part of the world.”

Frank looked back and forth between the two men. They were polite, neatly dressed, but seemed to be as different as night and day, but now he figured they were all adopted.

“No problem.” Jules walked back to the door, opened it and let Pierre out. “If you happen to see our brother, would you let him know we are looking for him? We have some things to … discuss before our big night this year.”

“Um, sure. No problem,” Frank said quietly.

The two men nodded and walked outside the door. They paused for a moment to talk.

Frank couldn’t help but think all the men in the family seemed to be stunners. He watched through the front window as the two began walking away, and they were joined by a smaller Japanese man.

“What an odd family.”

Shaking his head, Frank headed back to his work bench and continued to carve the figures for Chris’ order.

It was only when his back began to let him know that the hours spent leaning over were not what was best for him that he stopped. He slowly stood up and began to stretch just as the bell tinkled to let him know another customer had arrived. He turned to the counter to find Chris leaning against it, sipping from his cup, while there was another cup of coffee sitting on the counter waiting for him.

“Well, hello to you.”

Chris smiled. “Hello to you too.”

“Seems to be my day for strange visits.”

“Oh,” Chris began to open his coat, “what do you consider a strange visit?”

“Well, I had two very different gentlemen stop by my shop today.”

Chris looked patiently at Frank while he took another sip of his coffee.

“They said they were your brothers.”

Chris seemed to choke for a moment. Then looking a bit wide eyed, he focused on Frank.

“Which ones? I have a number of brothers.”

“Pierre and I think he said his name was Jules. He was sort of tall and blond. They were joined by a Japanese looking gentleman when they left.”

Chris shook his head and then turned to look back out the front of the shop. “Shoot, even Hotei is here.”

“Problem?” Frank couldn’t help the note of curiosity that had crept into his voice.

“No, well, … sort of.”

Frank stood and looked at Chris waiting for more of an explanation.

“Sorry. Sort of a family issue. I am not doing exactly what was expected, and it has parts of my family upset.”

Frank nodded. He remembered all too well what it was like when he came out. His father had flipped, his mother blamed herself, and his brother just wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to be forgotten. It had taken a lot of talk and time till everyone finally came to their own peace. His father was never happy with it, his mother had accepted it, and his brother, Nick, didn’t care at all, and made sure Frank was part of his wedding when he had married Amanda. Hell, when the kids were born, Frank was their godfather. He had been lucky, but he’d seen friends who lost their family just because of them telling them the truth of who they were. Family was something that could be a blessing or a curse. He knew a family could be a difficult thing to get along with, especially if you didn’t follow what was expected of you, so he felt blessed with how his own coming out had happened.

“No worries.” Frank tried to smile and give Chris some comfort.

“So anyway,” Chris began, his eyes staring intensely into Frank’s, “how is the set coming along?”

Frank smiled and showed Chris what had been accomplished so far on the set. Winter was nearly complete but he was still finishing up pieces on the Christmas side.

“Wow. You really have been working hard on this. My father is going to love this.” Chris looked up and blushed. “Thank you so much for your hard work.”

“I’m enjoying it. I've never had someone request something like this before. It’s been fun coming up with the idea. I just hope you like the final product.”

“Frank?”

Frank looked up from his work to see Chris looking rather nervous.

“Something wrong?”

“Um, no. Just … would you like to go to dinner…with me… tonight?”

Frank watched as Chris shifted back and forth before him like a little kid. It brought a smile to his face. “I’d like that. What time would you like to go out?”

“I’ll pick you up here, around six?”

“Sounds good to me. I’ll be ready.”

Chris smiled and rubbed his hands together. His cheeks slowly reddened, the longer he looked at Frank.

“Um, well … I should let you get back to work. I will see you later.”

Frank watched as Chris nearly rushed through the door.

“Damn, he’s cute.” Frank shook his head and then turned to go back to the desk. He caught his reflection in the window and paused. He saw his old worn out shirt, torn blue jeans, and dark cane he had carved.

“I can’t go out wearing this, not with him.” Frank realized he hadn’t really worried about his appearance beyond making sure his clothes were clean. He noticed now that he was looking a bit ragged.

Frank walked over and flipped the open sign over so it read closed, locked the door, and headed toward the back of the store. He grabbed his coat off the hook, took his keys, and walked over to the men’s store down the road.

It was half an hour later that Frank walked back into his store with a bag under his arm. He had decided to treat himself to a new shirt, pants, and even new underwear. He set the alarm on his phone for five thirty, walked back out and opened the store, then went back to work on the toy store castle for the chess set.

Although he had reopened the store he didn’t end up with any more customers. It was a fairly quiet afternoon, and the closer it got to Christmas, the more people stopped in and just wanted the items he had already made. He just wished it would be more consistent. Catching a look at the clock, he noted it was already five twenty. Slowly he got up and flipped the sign over again and locked the door. Then he made his way back into the workshop area, closed the door, and began to change.

He made his way back up front just a few minutes before six, and as if by magic, Chris suddenly appeared right outside his door. Frank opened the door and let him in.

“You look half frozen.”

“It’s a bit cool out tonight, but not too bad.” Chris smiled widely. “I am out in the cold and the snow occasionally. So what are you in the mood for tonight?”

Frank looked at Chris and for a moment his mind went blank. Images of Chris in various stages of undress passed through his mind for a moment before he realized Chris meant where he wanted to go to dinner.

“I guess whatever you would like. I’m not that fussy an eater.” Frank blushed and tried to cover his embarrassment by turning to grab his cane.

“Well, how is the barbeque joint down the block?” Chris smiled and Frank was once again caught in the deep green of Chris’ eyes.

“Not too bad. We can walk there.”

“That sounds like a plan to me. Go get your coat.”

Frank grabbed his coat and let Chris out before him. All Frank could think to himself was that this was shaping up to be an interesting night.