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“Have all your presents?”
“Check.” Will hoists a large yellow tote bag over his shoulder with one hand and brushes his unruly hair back from his forehead with the other. “Book for Mom, game for Uncle Charlie, bottle of wine for Aunt Jill.”
Nico raises his eyebrow. “Think you’re forgetting someone.”
“Shit,” Will mutters. He drops the tote bag and falls to his knees to reach under the bed. A moment later, he emerges with a small package neatly wrapped in green paper. “Earrings for Grandma.”
He says it in the tone of voice one might say boiled peas for dinner or receipt from the gas station. Nico grins.
“Ready to face the demon?”
Will groans. “I’d genuinely rather face one of those for real right now.” But he retrieves the tote bag and grabs onto Nico’s arm. “Let’s go, I guess.”
Nico knows he’s at least excited to see his mother, even if he doesn’t show it. His grandmother? Another story. Nico discreetly pats his jacket pocket, where a gift of his own is hidden, unwrapped, because he has no idea how to do that. Then he whisks them into the shadows.
***
The same cars from Thanksgiving are parked on the curb as Will ascends the steps to his front door and knocks. Nico stays a few feet behind, on the grass, just to give himself a second or two of prep time before he’ll be inevitably swept up in a classic Naomi Solace hug. He’s only met her once before, but it’s already a tradition.
However, when the door opens, it isn’t Naomi but her brother standing in the entryway. He’s virtually her opposite in appearance—stout, beer-bellied, balding with traces of dark hair, though none of that is visible under his crooked Santa hat.
He smiles and spreads his arms, a Bud Light in one hand. “Hey! Look who it is!”
Will steps forward to accept his embrace, and he gets a rough couple of pats on the back. “Hi, Uncle Charlie. Merry Christmas.”
Charlie throws a wink at Nico over Will’s shoulder. “Great to see you, too, Nico.”
“Yeah, Merry Christmas,” Nico replies. He’s still not used to the whole warm-family-welcome thing, but he doesn’t dislike it.
“Your mother’s already going a little insane in here,” Charlie says with a pointed look to Will as he steps back. “Ma’s making a big stink about not having ham. But me and Naomi have never liked ham. It’s probably because of how Ma always overcooked it. So we have a turkey. And that’s somehow turned into a fight.”
“Classic Christmas Eve,” Will mutters, but he looks back at Nico with raised eyebrows and nods toward the entryway. “Let’s head in then, huh?”
Will looks stressed, and Nico wishes more than anything that he could hold his hand, squeeze it, and not let go. Well, at least he can do the first two, and so he did. It brings out a small smile, and then they follow Uncle Charlie into the kitchen.
Naomi is cutting onions, but that’s not the main reason her eyes fill with tears as she turns around.
“Will!” she cries, practically flinging herself at her son before she remembers the chef’s knife in her hand. She puts it down quickly and then throws her arms around his neck. “Honey, I’ve missed you so much. This house just isn’t the same around the holidays when it’s so empty.”
“Aw, Mom,” Will replies, muffled into her sweater, and Nico wonders if he’s going to cry, too. “We’ll stay for as long as we can, I promise.”
Maybe it’s the implication of we that makes Naomi let go of Will and turn to Nico.
“Nico!” she exclaims, and it’s the same exact voice, and goddamnit, Nico might cry. Even though he’s only met her once, a month ago, Naomi has been like a mother to him for far longer—sending him birthday gifts, wanting to talk to him when she calls or Iris-messages Will, and, of course, begging him to attend family holidays. Right before they headed back to New York after Thanksgiving, Naomi pulled him aside and assured him that he was more than welcome for Christmas. There is just one little problem—and she walks into the kitchen just as Naomi is hugging Nico, a vision in mauve.
“Grandma,” Will says, in about the same tone of excitement he uses when one of the Hermes kids break someone’s finger again. “It’s so nice to see you.”
But Grandma merely nods. “Well, of course, Will. And who might this young man be?”
Naomi rests a hand on Nico’s back and turns him toward the old lady like she’s showing him off. “Don’t you remember, Ma? This is Will’s friend Nico.”
Will coughs, almost certainly stifling a laugh.
Grandma stares him down with beady, dark eyes behind pink-rimmed glasses. “Ah, yes, the one from Thanksgiving. The Italian.” And she starts to turn away, walking with petite, slow steps toward the dining room, when she stops and faces Will again.
“Will, dear, where’s your girlfriend?”
Will coughs again, sounding strangled. “Excuse me?”
“You mentioned her at Thanksgiving, said you would bring her home for Christmas, no?”
Nico elbows him discreetly, because yes, that did happen at Thanksgiving, and yes, they had completely forgotten about it. And Will is the world’s worst liar, and they had only about five seconds to come up with a believable story.
“Oh,” Will croaks, and then he clears his throat. “Um. Yeah. We…broke up.”
Nico has to bite the inside of his mouth to stop himself from laughing.
“Well, isn’t that sad,” Grandma says. “When did this happen?”
“Um. A, uh, few weeks ago.”
“Shh, Ma,” Naomi interrupts. “He doesn’t want to talk about it.”
Grandma raises her hands in surrender. “Well, I’m sorry for asking. Will, dear, if you want, I can set you up with this nice girl from my church. I think she’d be just your type.”
“Grandma, you live two hours away. And I’m studying in New York right now.”
“You kids these days never let distance stop you, now—I know about the FaceTimes and Instagrams and all that. She’s really such a nice girl.”
“Ma.” Naomi’s voice is dangerously close to rising. “Will and Nico are going to help me finish the roasted vegetables—why don’t you go find a seat? I think Charlie and Jill are already at the table.”
Even in all her obliviousness, she seems to understand Naomi’s words as an order rather than a suggestion and leaves the room, though she mutters something inaudible to herself on her way out.
Will collapses against the counter, the back of his head hitting the cabinets with a thudand his hands covering his eyes.
“Why,” he groans. “Why does she have to be like this?”
Naomi picks up the knife again and promptly beheads a green pepper with a little bit more force than necessary. “I really almost uninvited her. But I’m too nice, and I didn’t want to start a whole thing. She has nowhere else to go. But after this whole turkey debacle, I’m seriously reconsidering.”
“Turkey is way better than ham, for the record,” Will says.
“Thank you,” Naomi replies. “Now, get over here and grab some knives and cutting boards; I’m putting you boys to work.”
***
Once the vegetables are in the oven—and after an intense round of rock, paper, scissors—Nico is sent to scope out the dining room.
His task is to find out who is sitting where so he and Will can decide on the best possible seating arrangement for themselves, but when Uncle Charlie spots him poking his head around the corner, he’s waved over and has no choice but to sit down. He ends up at one end of the table—directly across from the old lady herself, who’s conversing quietly with Aunt Jill. He avoids eye contact and angles his chair toward Charlie instead, who gives him a sloppy pat on the back with the hand that isn’t holding his wine glass.
“Nico! How’s it going, man?”
Oh, great, he’s already drunk. This will be fun.
“I’m alright, how was your drive?”
“Not bad, not bad, you know. How about your flight?”
Right. Charlie doesn’t exactly know about the whole shadow-travel thing. He thinks they got here in an Uber from the airport.
“Well, you know. The usual.”
He waves a hand in front of his face. “Ah, alright, enough with the boring stuff. What I really wanna know is what you first thought of Will when you met ‘em. Gimme all the juicy details while he’s not here.”
Nico glances at the two women sitting beside them. They appear to be deeply engaged in conversation, but he lowers his voice anyway. As far as Grandma knows, he’s just Will’s “friend from school.”
“Well, uh…we were teenagers.” He recalls the rundown Will gave him before Thanksgiving—his family, aside from his mom, of course, thinks he went to a year-round boarding school in New York and now goes to college there (which isn’t technically a lie, considering Will has been commuting to classes in the city between infirmary shifts). “We were both pretty awkward. I mean, at least I was. I thought he was weirdly clingy and didn’t understand why he liked me. But he was…really nice. You know, cared about people who he didn’t always need to care about.”
“That’s Will for ya,” Charlie says with a short laugh. “Kid wouldn’t hurt a fly, I tell ya.”
Nico had actually seen him hurt many flies—he had better reflexes than even Nico with a rolled-up magazine, and he despised anything that dare disturb his homework—but he decides not to mention it.
“So who asked who out?” Charlie asks, and Nico casts a panicked look in Grandma’s direction—drunk Charlie is not so careful with his volume. He clears his throat and leans a little closer before answering.
“Uh. Well. It just sort of…happened. Neither of us really said anything.”
“What d’you mean?”
“We were sitting on the beach one night. Long Island Sound. We were quiet, just kind of looking at rocks and seashells and the sunset. We had gotten into a fight earlier. We fought a lot back then. I—I don’t even remember what it was about.” Of course he remembers. “But it was dumb, and I had run away to the beach, and he found me there and just sat next to me. A few minutes later, we kissed.” He shrugs, hoping the story is sufficient.
Charlie places his free hand over his heart. “Well, isn’t that just sweet as all hell.” He gazes in the direction of the kitchen. “You know, I remember when Will wasn’t even as tall as this table, and Naomi used to drop him off at my house, when I was still living with Ma, to get babysat, and he’d show up in these red mud boots and this ridiculous yellow jacket, even when it wasn’t raining—”
Just then, Will emerges from the doorway, and he claps his hands together, giving his uncle a pointed glare. “Okay, everyone. Dinner is about to be served. Nico, a little help with the trays?”
Nico follows him back into the kitchen, and as soon as they’re out of earshot of the dining room, Nico leans in to whisper in his ear.
“You were listening to all of that, weren’t you?”
Will’s shoulders shake from holding back laughter, and Nico punches him lightly. “Hell yeah, I was. You thought I was nice?” He blinks at him with ridiculous doe eyes.
“Did you miss the part where I called you clingy?”
Will slides a finger down his face, a fake tear, before turning to grab a ceramic dish full of steaming hot vegetables. “Just for that, you carry this.”
Nico takes it easily. “Not even heavy, Sunshine.”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“Be nice, Will,” Naomi chides, passing by them with the turkey. “And grab the sweet potatoes.”
With a huff, Will picks up the bowl and a serving spoon.
Nico snickers. “She likes me better.”
When they return to the dining room, Naomi sits at the head of the table, and Will and Nico take the spots across from Charlie and Jill. Will ends up next to his grandmother, and Nico’s not surprised that he edges his chair a few inches closer to him. What does surprise him is the hand that rests on his leg. It’s a little bold for Will when she’s sitting right there, but he supposes it’s subtle enough. And he isn’t complaining about the touch of comfort it gives him, because even though he’s had dinner with this family once before, he’s still getting used to the whole ordeal.
When Will’s fingers start drumming against his jeans, though, he realizes that Will might be the more anxious one. He covers Will’s hand with his own and squeezes it gently. They lock eyes for a moment and Will sends him a grateful smile.
Thankfully, dinner table conversation stays away from Will and Nico’s love lives—probably because of Naomi’s harsh words to her mother in the kitchen—and focuses mainly on Charlie and Jill’s recent trip to Iceland. Nico learns that Jill is an environmental biologist studying the effect of recent volcanic activity on wildlife, and Charlie enjoys hitting the bars even when the sun sets in the early afternoon. He laughs at their jokes and smiles at Jill’s puffin photos and it feels like something close to family.
He’s never had anything like this—aside from his friends, of course; nothing could ever top the monthly dinner and movie nights at Percy and Annabeth’s—and he wishes he could express to Will at that moment just how much it means to him to be invited.
Later, he thinks, and his mind wanders to the inside pocket of his jacket, hung on the back of the chair.
After they finish eating, they retreat to the living room. With not enough chairs and couches for six people (unless someone were to sit on someone else’s lap, which unfortunately is not an option, as much as Nico knows Will would like it to be), Will offers up the last free chair to Nico and sits on the carpet at his feet. Not so subtly this time, he leans against Nico’s knee and toys with the cuff of his jeans. He’s practically wrapped around him like a blanket, and while Nico doesn’t mind, of course, he casts worried glances over to Grandma, who sits almost motionless in the corner, a resting judgmental look permanently etched on her face, but doesn’t seem to pay any particular heed to her grandson and his “friend.”
While the others are discussing some recent extended-family drama, Nico takes the opportunity to tap Will on the shoulder and nod towards the other room. He seems to get the message and follows Nico to the kitchen. He takes Will’s hands in his own.
“Hey. What’s going on?”
Unsurprisingly, Will understands. “I know,” he says with a sigh.
“You weren’t like this at Thanksgiving,” Nico says. “In fact, you seemed pretty insistent that it would be a bad idea if she found out. But now you’re kind of all over me, so I’m getting mixed signals here.”
Will hangs his head. “I know. I’m sorry.”
Nico exhales gently, relieving some of the tension from his grip on Will’s hands. His breath toys with a strand of hair on Will’s forehead. “I want to help you in whatever way I can. Whatever your decision is, I’ll respect it.”
“This is why you’re the best,” Will mumbles. He sighs again, and he rubs circles into the side of Nico’s hand with his thumb. “I love you. And I want everybody to know that.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. And I didn’t want her to know that because I didn’t want to start a fight, offend her, or whatever. But after the way she was talking to my mom, I mean…it made me realize that pleasing everybody is just impossible, isn’t it?”
Nico chuckles. “Yeah, it is.”
“So I think I want to tell her.”
He nods. “Okay. Now?”
Will shrugs. “Better do it sooner, or I might chicken out.”
Nico smirks. “Your accent’s coming out again.”
With a laugh, Will leans their foreheads together. “Well, honey, so am I.”
***
Maybe they take an extra minute or two to return to the living room. Maybe ten.
When they do, Will stops at the entryway and clears his throat. For a brief moment, a couple of heads dart in their direction, but then Uncle Charlie is standing up from the couch and tapping a fork against his empty wine glass (since when did he bring a fork into the living room?).
“Oh, good, everyone’s here,” he says. “I have an important announcement to make.”
Naomi shoots Will an apologetic look like she knows exactly what he had planned. Everyone else’s eyes are on Charlie as he spreads his hands with a grin.
“We’re having a baby!” he exclaims.
Immediately, his wife rises from her seat and hugs him, both laughing with glee, and Naomi joins in, practically leaping off the couch to throw her arms around her brother and sister-in-law.
Grandma doesn’t join them—instead, she folds her hands together over her knee, but there’s a hint of a smile on her face, which looks strangely uncanny. “Well, it’s about time,” she says. Nico figures it’s probably a good thing that the happy couple doesn’t seem to hear her.
After a few seconds, Will echoes the congratulatory cheers, running over to hug both his aunt and uncle. They’re still chattering with Naomi about all the details as he returns to Nico’s side, a mixed look of relief and melancholy on his face.
“Guess it’s not the best time,” he mutters.
***
Later that night, after everyone has gone to bed, they lie side-by-side in Will’s childhood room, staring at the ceiling lined with old Christmas lights and the small stuffed rabbit Will tosses into the air.
“What d’you think she’ll say?” he asks as he catches it against his chest.
Nico shrugs, his shoulder brushing up against Will’s. “Dunno.”
“Hope she’s being taking her heart medicine.” He throws it again. “Don’t want it to be the thing that gets her.”
Nico elbows him as he catches the rabbit. “Fortunately, we’ve got a trained doctor in the vicinity.”
“You’re right. She really should accept me for who I am if I’m the one who’s got her life in my hands.”
Through his joking, Nico can sense how Will really does care about his grandmother, despite her general unlikeable air. After all, she’s family, and demigods like themselves don’t always get too much of that.
“Hey,” he says. “Do you mind if I give you your gift tonight? I don’t wanna wait ’til tomorrow morning.”
Will throws and catches the rabbit one more time before setting it back on his bedside table. “Go for it,” he says with a warm smile.
Nico leans over the side of the bed and reaches for his jacket, which had been cast onto the floor alongside his sneakers and jeans. He clasps his hand around the object in its pocket and keeps it hidden until his fingers brush against Will’s.
“Here.” He lets it fall into Will’s palm and watches as he holds it up under the dim lights.
Will’s mouth falls open, his face awash in a muted gold. The spark of recognition appears in his eyes and sends them darting over, then curving upwards in a grin.
“Oh my gods, Nico. Is this—”
“Yeah,” he says. “From the beach. That night.”
“Five years ago?”
“Precisely.”
Will laughs softly and turns the shell between his fingers. It’s white with stripes of darker purples and blues, though the colors are hardly visible under the warm lights. “I thought I knew it right away. It’s, like, a perfectly shaped shell. You don’t see too many of those.”
“And that’s why I kept it,” Nico says. “After you pointed it out to me.”
“Where have you been keeping it this whole time?”
“I only found it recently,” he explains. “It was in my old aviator jacket.”
“The one Jason got for you right after the war?”
“Yeah. Remember how he brought it into the infirmary while you were stitching up my arms?”
“Of course. ‘Did I come at a bad time?’” Will’s impression of Jason isn’t quite spot-on, but it captures what’s important, and Nico closes his eyes in laughter. In retrospect, the memory isn’t even that funny, but it’s something they will always look back on as absurdly mundane in the midst of chaos.
“I was cleaning out some old stuff from my cabin,” Nico continues. “It was stuffed in the back of a drawer. Thankfully this was still intact.” He reaches over and runs the tip of his index finger along the ridge of the shell—something he had done so many times that night, when he first picked it up, and something he had done so many times during the past few weeks since it has been back in his possession.
“I love it.” Will leans closer and presses a kiss to his nose. “I love you.” Then he sighs. “I don’t think my gift for you is as good.”
“Good,” Nico says. “Yours have always been better. Let me win, for once.”
Will slaps him lightly on the arm. “Shut up.” But it dissolves into a yawn. “Can I give it to you in the morning? Before we go out to the living room, though.”
“Sure.” Nico notices he’s having a hard time keeping his eyes open. “Tired?”
Will moves closer, pulling the sheets and comforter with him, and his head lands on Nico’s chest. “Very. Gods, I love my family, but they’re fucking exhausting.”
***
Nico wakes up to an incessant hammering on his skull.
Actually, it’s just someone banging on the door, yelling at them to wake up, because it’s nine a.m. and Christmas, and they’re all waiting to exchange gifts. Nico hears Will’s groan before he can let out his own, and soon enough his boyfriend is wrangling his way around his midsection and yawning against his bare shoulder.
“What happened to you being a morning person?” Nico mutters.
“I’m too comfy,” Will says. “Let’s go back to sleep.”
They don’t get to do this a lot, to be fair. They still live at Camp Half-Blood, and for the most part, rules are rules.
“We can come back here later,” Nico says, despite how the thought of getting up physically pains him. “We’ll open gifts and then sneak away.”
There’s another shout, this time from a bit further down the hallway. It’s definitely Uncle Charlie.
Eventually, they force themselves to sit up, place their feet on the floor, and put some sweatshirts on. They each cast one longing look at the rumpled sheets and pillows before making their way out to the living room. Nico is sure to run his hands through both of their hair in an attempt to make them look less like they were up to anything suspicious and more like they were perfectly innocent twenty-one-year-old pals who woke up in the same bedroom on Christmas morning. If anyone notices they swapped hoodies, no one says a word. It’s hard to say which belongs to each of them these days, anyway.
With an exchange of good mornings and merry Christmases, They return to the same seats as the night before, Will once again resigning himself to the carpet. He doesn’t seem to mind. But when his eyes land on something under the tree, Nico sees his shoulders suddenly tense.
When he’s sure no one’s paying attention, as Naomi passes wrapped boxes around, he taps Will on the shoulder and leans down to whisper in his ear. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s your gift,” Will mutters. “Remember how I meant to give it to you before we got out here?”
“Yeah?”
“That’s because it’s…well. It’s a lot better if it’s just the two of us.”
Nico feels his face flush. “Will, I swear to all that is holy, if you—”
“No!” he exclaims in a hushed voice. His face is equally, if not more, red. “Gods, no. Get your mind out of the gutter. It’s cute, I swear. It’s just, like…couple-y.”
“Oh. So just not great in front of Grandma.”
“Exactly. So what do I do?”
Nico shrugs. “Well, you said you wanted her to know, now, so—”
“What are you boys whispering about?”
Speak of the devil, and she shall appear.
“Oh, nothing!” Will says in the forced cheery voice he uses after someone’s knocked over a tray of organized medical equipment and he tells them it’s fine. “Just the amazing gifts I picked out.”
“Right, does everyone have a gift to start with?” Naomi asks, hands on her hips in front of the tree. Her eyes land on him. “Oh! Nico! There are a couple for you here, too, of course.” She bends down again and picks up a small, rectangular package, and Nico recognizes the wrapping paper. “Here, open this one first.”
He knows it’s Will’s before he reads the tag, which bears his name in familiar handwriting, accentuated with a dumb little smiley sun doodled in black Sharpie. When Naomi sits down again and gives everyone a count of three to open their gifts, Nico looks to Will, holding a box of his own, for affirmation. When he receives a nod and a small smile, he is slow in tearing the paper, as if opening it more meticulously and quietly will prevent any potential disaster.
But Naomi, in her unfortunate obliviousness, asks everyone to hold their gifts up, and he’s forced to finish unwrapping.
It’s a photo frame. A small, simple one, medium-brown wood, but he can tell it’s handcrafted, likely with the help of some Hephaestus kids, judging by the small engraving in the bottom right corner—the date the photo was taken along with a little sun that matches the Sharpie one (Will must think he’s so clever). But there’s a photo, too, of course—a really pretty one that he had forgotten had been taken. Will and himself, standing on the beach, their arms around each other, facing the sunset. It’s at a bit of an awkward angle, probably because Cecil was the photographer with one of those throwaway cameras he had somehow gotten his hands on, and he remembers they were laughing because Lou Ellen told them to pose like they were about to kiss (which they did, because they were). They’re merely a silhouette; the only color is in the sky and reflected on the surface of the ocean, but it’s so obvious just from the frozen-in-time mannerisms alone that it’s the two of them.
So he holds it up without saying anything when Naomi asks, and he sees her eyes widen along with her brother’s.
But the first voice is Grandma’s.
“Why, that’s a pretty frame,” she says, still oddly motionless in her chair. “That would look nice on a desk.”
In front of him, Will nods slowly, as if he’s struggling to process her blank expression.
“Do you have a nice photograph to put in it?” she asks.
And all the breath Nico had been holding leaves his mouth in a surprised laugh. He shares a brief glance with Will. It’s up to him, now, if he wants to say anything.
“Grandma,” he says, and Nico can sense his own breathlessness. “Um. That’s not just one of those pictures of strangers that come with the frame.”
“Oh, really?” she says, and she leans forward a bit in her chair, squinting across the room through her pink-rimmed glasses. “I must need a new prescription. Well, then, is this a picture one of you took? I can’t see who it is.”
Nico can feel Will’s growing frustration. It’s like slowly tearing off a band-aid.
He puts a hand on Nico’s knee. “Grandma, it’s us. Me and Nico.”
She’s still squinting, and Nico wonders what she thinks she’s seeing. It should be large enough and clear enough for her to get the idea.
“Oh,” she says after a moment, breaking the hush that had fallen over the room. “I see.”
Will blinks. “You see what, Grandma?”
Her stare turns to Will, squinting at him like he, too, is a picture she can’t make out. “William, dear, I’m not as blind as a bat. I knew since the two of you were holding hands under the dinner table last night that there’s a reason your girlfriend broke up with you.”
Nico nearly chokes. He covers his mouth with his fist and pretends he’s having a coughing fit.
“Oh.” Will’s voice comes out with a croak. “Um. And you…?”
Grandma waves a hand in front of her pink spectacles. “Oh, Will, dear, what do you take me for? I want to an all-girls college in the sixties, for goodness’ sake.”
Because Will is staring at his grandmother in shock, Nico meets Naomi’s eyes, which convey something along the lines of um, okay, what the fuck is happening.
“Oh,” is all Will can manage again.
Then she gestures in Nico’s direction, though it’s more as if he’s a statue in a museum. “And at least he’s Catholic. I told you, I can put up with Catholic.”
He decides now is maybe not the best time to mention he hasn’t been to a church in about eighty-five years. And he’s actually a part-time ritual leader for pagan funeral rites and has his own room in the palace of Hades. One thing at a time.
And then, just like that, Christmas morning returns to something resembling normalcy. Will opens gifts from his family, including some obnoxiously bright white sneakers he’s way too excited to wear, and Nico even gets one from Naomi, a dark green beanie, to in her words “add a little color to his wardrobe.” And Will’s grandmother doesn’t say anything else to them, and it’s unclear exactly how she understands them, but she seems to understand enough that Will feels comfortable climbing into Nico’s chair and sharing it with him, his annoyingly long legs slung over the armrest, for the rest of the affair.
A few hours later, when the others have decided it’s time for breakfast, they slip off to Will’s room again as planned. As soon as the door is closed behind them, Will leans back against it, dissolving into laughter. Nico simply watches, his smile growing.
“I did it,” Will manages eventually. “And it was so incredibly awkward. But then it was fine.”
“You did it.”
“And Grandma did something in the sixties that I do not need a mental image of.” He extends his arms. “C’mere.”
And Nico has no choice but to collapse into them.
“Ouch,” Will mutters, squished between Nico and the door. “You’re crushing me.”
“You asked for it.”
“Since when did you get so goddamn tall?”
“Still growing, I think,” Nico replies. “My doctor said so.”
Will sighs, muffled against his neck. “I guess your doctor shouldn’t complain.”
“No, he shouldn’t.” And he presses a kiss to the side of Will’s head. “Hey, that was a great gift. You implied last night that it sucked. Now I’m mad, because I thought I outdid you for once.”
“I can think of a few other things you can outdo me in, if you want.”
“Ew, you’re disgusting, shut up.”
“You like it.”
“They’re literally having breakfast in the next room over, Will. Think of your poor grandmother.”
Will groans. “I did not want to be thinking about my grandmother, thanks.”
Nico laughs, and he can tell by the warmth in his chest that Will can feel it. “Merry Christmas, Will.”
He gets a flick to the side of his head, but he catches the hand and intertwines it with his own.
“Merry Christmas, Nico.”