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“This one! This one’s huge!”
“That’s what your mom said,” Kurt Kelly crowed suggestively, abandoning the tree he’d been looking at to push through the Christmas-tree-lot and meet his best friend and roommate, Ram Sweeney, who was standing proudly next to a huge pine.
Ram grinned and slapped Kurt’s hand with an offhand, “nice!” before turning back to his find. “So? What d’you think, man? Massive, right?”
Kurt nodded, tilting his head, almost impressed with Ram’s ability to locate the best tree in the lot so quickly. “It’s perfect, dude. It’s the perfect fucking tree.”
—
The pair trudged through the snow, dragging the tree behind them. It was snowing lightly, but not enough to make any sort of impact on their morale. Still, it was freezing, a mere 16 degrees. They were heading through the parking lot to Kurt’s classic red 1985 Ford F1-50 pickup truck. His dad had given it to him as a birthday gift when he turned sixteen. They hoisted their find into the bed of the truck, hoping with a fleeting thought of “well, it had better” that the tree would stay there successfully during their drive back to the freshman dorms.
Thankful he’d left the heater running in his truck, Kurt let himself warm up for a moment while Ram got into the passenger seat and cranked up the radio to the Christmas station. “Let’s go, dude.”
Kurt turned the key in the ignition and backed out of the lot, humming along. “You got the classy ornaments, right? The ones your dad gave you, the box?”
Ram nodded, tapping the dashboard to the music. “Yeah, and the ones we bought at Rink’s yesterday. They’re all on the coffee table, I think.”
—
They lugged their purchase up the stairs and down the hall to their dorm, where Kurt dropped his end of the tree to fish the key out of his jean pocket. Ram grunted with the weight of the tree as it fell, legs buckling as he let the tree crumple to the carpeted hallway floor. Kurt turned the lock and the door swung open. “Ram?”
He turned to glance down at his best friend, who was crouching next to the fallen tree. “Dude, why’d you drop the tree?”
Ram blinked, staring at him, about to defend himself, before he stopped. Kurt watch him hesitate, and then Ram pointed at the arch of the doorway. “Kurt.”
There, attached with what appeared to be haphazardly placed pieces of duct tape, hung a sprig of mistletoe from the crown molding of the doorframe. Kurt blinked. He’d put it there. He had intended it for when the rest of his buddies invited girls over, but had not really pondered the idea that Ram, too, would be walking under it.
“Of course you’d notice it, faggot,” Kurt sneered, dropping his almost willing demeanor for his usual arrogant overconfidence. “Help me get this tree in.”
If Ram had shown him any sort of disappointment, Kurt did not notice it. Instead, Ram stood from where he was crouching to hit his best friend in the shoulder and go, “I’m not gay, dude!” before leaning down to help pick the tree up.
Kurt grabbed it, dragging it into the dorm. They made it all the way to the window before attempting to prop it up. This is where their first challenge made itself known. The tree, though truly just as glorious and massive as they’d hoped it’d be, was much too tall for their little freshman dorm. As they lifted their pine-green prize, the tree not only scraped the ceiling horrifically, it remained bent when the tree was finally standing.
Kurt and Ram stepped back to stare at it.
“Do you think people will notice?” Ram piped up. Kurt jammed his hands in his pockets. Huh.
“No.”
They both fell silent for a second.
“Maybe.”
Ram exhaled. “Whatever. It’s a good tree.” Defending his catch, he took another step back, as if to see it in its full glory. Kurt turned and headed for the couch, where the ornaments were sitting beside on the coffee table like Ram had said. “Alright, man, guess we’d better get to decorating.”
Ram followed him to the table. “Shit, dude.” He lifted one of the ornaments from their case. “No hooks. We need to go get hooks.”
Kurt blinked at him. “What if we just kinda, like, shoved the ornaments in into the branches?” He leaned forward to grab one, as if to demonstrate.
Turning away from the box of ornaments, Ram furrowed his brow. “We can try. Or, we could just go get hooks. Come on, dude. Put it down.”
Kurt did as he was asked, jamming it back into the box. “Fine, man. I’ll go. You invite some girls over, or something.”
He grabbed his jacket, throwing it over his shoulders and heading for the door. As he opened it, he heard a note of “hey!” and then an “oomph” as Ram ran straight into him.
Kurt turned to glance at him. “What?”
“Your keys, man. You forgot your keys.” Ram waved the keys in front of Kurt, pressing them into his hand. Kurt almost closed his hand while Ram’s was still there, before freezing and glancing up again. Ram had, presumably, followed his gaze. They both stood stock-still.
“Why’d you even hang it up in the first place?” Ram muttered, voice almost distressed as he curled his hand around the keys he was still holding, and, by extension, Kurt’s hand as well.
“I thought.. y’know, girls.” Kurt did not pull his hand away.
“Uh-huh.”
Kurt glanced back up at the sprig, feeling a bit distraught about his decisions leading up to this moment. He didn’t have much time to think about them, though. Ram’s other hand—the one not actively pressing keys into Kurt’s palm—curled around the back of Kurt’s head and nestled in his hair. Kurt’s eyes darted from the mistletoe to meet Ram’s eyes. His eyes were pretty. A really bright blue. Kurt had never actually made this much eye contact with him before, at least not without dropping a slur and punching Ram in the arm. He was actively deciding whether his eyes were, like, genuinely blue, or a really pale gray, when Ram kissed him.
Ram kissed him.
Kurt was frozen. Ram kissed him. Ram, his best friend, Ram, his football buddy, his linebacker, his roommate, Ram Sweeney—Ram had kissed him.
Kurt was certain that he was supposed to be upset. Or distraught, at least. Or uncomfortable, or nervous, or sick to his stomach, or yelling, or pulling away and spewing slurs and offhand comments and beating the snot out of Ram. But he wasn’t, and he didn’t.
Kurt manned up.
Kurt kissed back.
The quarterback had always been certain Ram was the fruitier out of the two of them. He was definitely the stronger one, and the one who never consistently had a girlfriend. Kurt had pinned Ram as gayer because he always acted gayer, said gay shit, had made innuendos he definitely couldn’t have meant to. But Kurt had never been serious when he implied those things about Ram.
But he’d been right.
Ram was the gayer one.
Yet here Kurt was, kissing back, dropping the keys to make use of both his hands and curling his fist into Ram’s hair.
He did break away first, possibly to breathe. “You were always a fag,” he murmured, a smidgen breathy, and Ram hit his shoulder.
“Shut up, dude.”
Kurt seemed to realize himself, stepping back a bit. Ram’s face fell a little, noticeable confusion and perhaps some fear lighting itself in his eyes. Kurt swallowed. “I’ve got to, uh, pick up the hooks still,” he explained, attempting to make himself appear normal.
Ram nodded, picking up the keys and handing them to Kurt much faster than he had previously. “Yeah. You—you, uh, you do that.”
“Come with me, man.” Kurt offered him a smile, but a part of him was yelling to kick Ram out. A part of him still wanted to beat the shit out of Ram for even insinuating Kurt could have feelings for men at all, and furthermore his willingness to fight that part of him was already proof he was a little gay. “Doing shit is no fun without you.”
Ram’s eyes lit up. “Yeah?”
“Yeah, dude. Get your jacket.”