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  He paused as the waitress took away the remains of their appetizers and set down their main courses: a complicated pasta dish for Oscar and steak for Uri. Everything looked and smelled delicious, but both of them waited to dig in.

  “Here’s the thing,” Uri said. “I’m a klutz. You’ve, uh, probably figured that out already.”

  “I had an inkling.”

  “I don’t want to risk destroying our relationship before we even have one. So let’s give us some time and space first, okay? Then, you know, by the next time I do something dumb you’ll already care about me too much to give up on me.”

  Oscar gnawed on his lip before answering. “I don’t think it’s going to take long to slide me into the forgiveness zone. I’ve been having a really nice day with you.”

  “Keep in mind what you might have to forgive. I burned down my house.”

  “That’s an exaggeration. You merely scorched it pretty good.” Oscar sighed and picked up his fork. “But anything good is worth waiting for. So I’ll wait.”

  Both relieved and disappointed, Uri cut into his steak.

  URI DID not sleep well in his hotel room. It was too warm no matter how much he adjusted the thermostat. And something somewhere was making a weird buzzing noise, like a tiny out-of-whack motor. The woman at the front desk gave him a pair of earplugs when he asked, which was fine until he started to insert one of them, fumbled, and dropped it onto the bathroom floor, where it rolled under the vanity. Although he tried to poke it out with a pen, he couldn’t retrieve it and was too embarrassed to ask for another pair.

  He tossed and turned, sometimes dropping into fitful sleep only to be awakened by dreams of huge flames or sloshing buckets of Cajun dipping sauce.

  Sitting bleary-eyed among his rumpled sheets, he decided in the morning that work was a lost cause. It was Friday anyway; might as well take a long weekend. So he showered, sent Oscar a good-morning text, received a nice reply, and headed for the nearest Starbucks. Once he was fully caffeinated, he girded his loins and headed to the mall for a few more wardrobe basics. He rarely enjoyed shopping, even in the best of times, and he avoided malls whenever possible. They gave him headaches. And with throngs of Christmas shoppers, he knew to expect the worst.

  It wasn’t as awful as he’d feared, in part because the shops had just opened. Later in the day, the parking lot would resemble one of those reality shows where only the strongest survived, and the stores’ racks and shelves would be postapocalyptic wastelands. This early, though, the atmosphere wasn’t too unbearable, even if every speaker in the building blasted a different carol and every toddler in Stanislaus County was having a meltdown in the aisles.

  Moving as efficiently as possible, Uri chose and purchased a couple of polo shirts and a few oxford button-downs, along with some chinos and another pair of jeans. Although his cheap sneakers were fine for casual wear, he bought a nicer pair of shoes for work.

  Arms laden with shopping bags, Uri found himself detouring to the men’s underwear section. He didn’t need to go there—he’d bought three packages of gray boxer briefs at Target. Yet there was his hand, reaching as if of its own accord for a pair of crimson micro thongs. He took them to the cash register, where an exhausted-looking clerk rang them up. “Do you want to sign up for our credit card? You’ll get a ten-percent discount.”

  Uri wondered how many times a day she had to repeat that. “No, thanks.”

  “Okay.” She handed him the bag and receipt. “Merry Christmas.”

  “You too.”

  Now that his mall errands were complete, maybe he could catch a nap in his hotel room. In which case, perhaps he should stop at a drugstore and buy a multipack of earplugs and, if he could find one in December, a table fan to help move some of the too-warm air in the room. He mulled over whether it might be feasible to fill a hot-water bottle with ice water.

  As he made his way through the department store aisles on his way to the parking lot, he came across the Christmas decorations, all steeply discounted at this late date. There were no jars of glitter to displace, but he took care to avoid the glass ornaments and delicate-looking crèches. He stayed away from the candles as well—too many bad associations. But then his gaze fell on a plastic sled, about the size of a loaf of bread. It was being pulled by four plastic unicorns, and Santa sat there, smiling, his usual red cap replaced by one with rainbow stripes.

  Uri was surprised to find such an item in Modesto, of all places, and spent a moment happily imagining a manager giggling away as he checked another item off his gay agenda.

  Really, how could Uri resist? Especially at 75 percent off.

  He carried the sled to the nearest cashier—dropping his clothing bags twice in the process, but no harm done. “Can I get it gift wrapped?”

  The cashier, a grandmotherly type with glasses on a chain, nodded. “Of course, dear. Upstairs, right next to guest services. I think today one of the local animal-rescue groups is taking donations for their wrapping.”

  Perfect.

  Upstairs, Uri chose sparkly red-and-green paper depicting kittens and puppies playing under Christmas trees and a coordinating bow almost as big as his head. Getting everything to the car proved a challenge, but he managed it with no damage and considered that a triumph.

  Sitting behind the steering wheel, with the engine running and an air vent blowing marinara-scented fumes in his face, Uri gathered his courage and took out his phone.

  Will you have dinner with me Sunday?

  He didn’t even have a chance to feel anxiety before a reply arrived.

  LOL—I was going to ask you that. How about at my place? Home-cooked meal for Hanukkah?

  Warmth spread through Uri’s chest, and it had nothing to do with his car heater.

  I’d like that.

  URI SWUNG by the condo on Saturday to pick up his newly delivered laptop and noticed that Oscar’s car wasn’t there. He hoped Oscar hadn’t been forced to work on the weekend after taking a day off helping Uri get his life in order. Uri didn’t bother checking inside the charred remains of his own place; he just retrieved the delivery from the parcel locker next to the condo office.

  Setting up his new machine back at the hotel didn’t take much time, which left Uri with nothing much to do. If he’d been home, he might have spent the day tidying up, but that wasn’t much of a necessity here. He used the hotel’s fitness center instead and, after a shower, caught the new Star Wars movie downtown. Tobias had refused to watch anything involving sci-fi or superheroes, and on the few occasions when Uri had forced him to sit on the couch in front of any movie where technology played a major role, Tobias had ruined it by critiquing the accuracy of the science and equipment. In contrast, Uri remembered that during their shared brunch, Oscar had spent a good ten minutes talking about how his very first crush had been on Hugh Jackman in X-Men. That made Uri smile.

  He didn’t sleep well that night, but not because of the room temperature or weird noises. No, his problem was visions of Oscar dancing through his head. Good visions and most of them not even X-rated. Oscar laughing. That sweet, adorable blush. His fond expression when he spoke of his family, and his fierce one when the discussion turned to politics. His easy acceptance of Uri’s many idiosyncrasies. His willingness to jump right in and help a stranger. The way his ass filled out a pair of trousers….

  “Knock it off.” Uri’s voice sounded weird because of the earplugs, so he removed them and repeated it more sternly. “Knock it off. It’s much too soon to be so stuck on this guy. Even if he is almost perfect.” He’d jumped into a serious relationship with Tobias way too fast, and look where that had gotten him. Four years of steadily increasing unhappiness followed by a divorce, a job change, and a move to Modesto, for God’s sake. He should have learned his lesson.

  Except looking back on it, he couldn’t remember ever being this fascinated with Tobias. Sure, Uri had thought he was handsome and funny. And they’d had a good time together on weekends, when they’d go hiking
or take long drives along the coast. They’d shared a religion and got along well with each other’s families. Moving in together had made good economic sense, and marriage seemed like a logical next step. But Uri doubted Tobias had ever brought him real joy, and he guessed Tobias felt the same.

  But Oscar? Just thinking about him made Uri smile. Made him regret saying no to Oscar’s offer to stay at his place. Made him want to count the minutes until he saw him again.

  “Augh!” In a fit of pique, Uri threw the earplugs across the dark room. One of them made a thwink sound when it hit the whirling table fan, but at least it wasn’t heavy enough to knock anything over. And he had an entire box of replacement earplugs on the nightstand.

  As he sat on the edge of the mattress, too annoyed with himself to do anything else, a memory of his mother popped into his head. She’d been a dreamer, a good balance to Uri’s realist father. She made elaborate scrapbooks with photos of places she wanted to visit, home decorating schemes she longed to copy, and gardens she wished she could plant. She’d go to the library and check out fifteen or more books, far more than she would read before they were due. At the grocery store, she’d buy strange foods none of the family members had ever seen before, and she’d invent recipes to use them. Most of the results were inedible, but a few turned out spectacularly.

  On one memorable occasion, Uri’s mother invited her sister, Uri’s aunt Judith, for one of these experimental meals—a casserole starring pickled watermelon rind. It had not been a success. Everyone took a few polite bites before Uri’s dad ordered pizza. As they waited for it to arrive, Aunt Judy turned to her sister with a frown. “Why do you waste time on things that’ll never work out?”

  Undaunted, Uri’s mother simply smiled. “Because once in a while, they might. I’d rather waste my life on wonderful possibilities than on boring certainties.” And she’d winked at Uri.

  Years later, when she’d grown very ill, Uri and his mother had reminisced often about some of her more dramatic mealtime fails. Uri treasured those moments of shared laughter. She’d also enjoyed leafing through her old scrapbooks, and never once did she seem to regret the effort she’d put into them. Even now that she was gone, Uri’s dad kept her scrapbooks in a place of honor on his bookshelves. Uri always spent hours looking through them during his visits.

  Alone in his hotel room, Uri sighed. Oscar was definitely a wonderful possibility. But if Uri allowed things between them to move too fast, would that turn into a disaster equivalent to the watermelon-rind casserole? No way to tell. But Uri knew exactly what his mother would advise.

  OSCAR HAD asked Uri to arrive by four thirty, which Uri thought was early for dinner, but he didn’t mind. He’d spent most of the day nervously pacing and bouncing around his hotel room, which really wasn’t big enough for such activities. At one point he’d tripped over a shoe and landed on his face, nearly braining himself on the corner of the desk. As it was, his ankle was a little swollen. He must have twisted it.

  But at 4:27 exactly, Uri—carrying a bottle of good wine and the wrapped unicorn sleigh—knocked on Oscar’s door. Uri was worried about the sleigh, actually. It was a stupid, impulsive gift; what if Oscar found it foolish and tacky? But as Uri was trying to decide whether to stash it in his car, the door opened.

  It was clear that Oscar had made an effort to dress up. He wore a fuzzy cobalt-blue sweater that Uri immediately wanted to stroke, and he’d tamed his dark hair into an impressive swoop. God, he was handsome.

  “Are you going to come in?” Oscar’s grin suggested that Uri might have been gaping for a while.

  Uri thrust the box and bottle inelegantly into Oscar’s hands and entered the condo. Weird. He’d spent only one evening, one night, and part of one day here, yet the place already felt oddly familiar. And not just because it was a mirror image of his own burned home. The charming photos on the walls, the bright trinkets on shelves, the comfortable furniture—it was as if Uri had been seeing them for years.

  Oscar set the wine on the coffee table but kept hold of the box. “You didn’t have to bring me a present.” Then he bounced on his toes. “But I’m glad you did. I love presents!”

  “It’s nothing. Just something silly.”

  “Best kind of present! Do I have to wait for Christmas to open it?” He batted his eyelashes pleadingly.

  “Nope. Consider it a Hanukkah gift. Or late housewarming.”

  Oscar tore into the paper with all the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old expecting a new gaming system. When he saw the image on the box, he whooped with delight. “Is this really what’s in there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That is the most amazing thing ever.” Oscar opened the box, removed the pieces, and spent several minutes arranging unicorns, sleigh, and Santa in front of the gas fireplace. He took a bunch of pictures while exclaiming how his mother and his sisters were going to love it.

  Then Oscar launched himself across the room and enveloped Uri in a bear hug. “Thank you. It’s perfect.” He gave Uri’s cheek a loud, smoochy kiss before letting go. “But it’s sundown, dude.”

  Before Uri could make sense of that—he was too busy swooning over the body contact—Oscar grabbed his hand and towed him into the kitchen. Something delicious-smelling bubbled away in a huge pot. A brisket, Uri suspected. On the stove sat a big frying pan and on the counter beside it, a bottle of vegetable oil and a paper towel-covered plate. Another part of the counter was piled with potatoes and a couple of onions.

  “Guess what you’re going to help me make!” Oscar announced.

  Uri licked his lips at the idea. Latkes. Tobias had refused to eat them because they were “unhealthy,” so Uri hadn’t had them in several years. But he raised his eyebrows. “Do you really think assigning me a pan full of hot oil is a great idea?”

  “You help grate. I fry.”

  Fair enough. Uri headed toward the sink to wash his hands, but Oscar stopped him. “Not yet.” He bent to pull something from one of the lower cabinets.

  Uri couldn’t see what Oscar had retrieved until it was sitting on the counter, and even then its identity was somewhat mysterious. Plastic, blue, with a smiling face in the center and nine plastic pieces sticking up on top. “A… menorah?”

  Oscar beamed. “Uh-huh.”

  “You own a menorah?”

  “No, you own a menorah. It’s a gift. And look!” He pressed a button in the back. The middle light—the shamash—glowed, and the thing began a tinny version of the dreidel song. “Minimal fire risk! But I guess you’re supposed to say a prayer first, right?”

  Stunned, Uri simply nodded. His astonishment ramped up another couple of notches when Oscar pulled a book out of a drawer and the volume proved to be a Jewish prayer book. Oscar had marked the Hanukkah section with a holiday-themed bookmark.

  “Where did you find all this?” Uri asked, knowing it couldn’t have been in Modesto.

  “Berkeley.”

  Uri stared as if he’d never heard of the place. “Berkeley?”

  “Yeah. I was going to go yesterday, but good thing I checked the hours first because duh! Of course they’re closed Saturdays. I went this morning instead.”

  “You drove to Berkeley to get Hanukkah stuff for me.” That was ninety miles each way, and Bay Area traffic could be challenging even on a Sunday.

  “I did. I thought it might be important for you to celebrate your holiday properly.”

  Hoo boy. Uri let out a shaky breath. “I got your sleigh at the mall in Modesto. And I was there anyway.”

  Oscar grasped Uri’s hand in both of his. “It’s not a competition. You got me something totally awesome. My very first indoor Christmas decoration, in fact. And you thought about me even when you’ve got so many of your own issues swirling around. And you’re here now, which makes me incredibly happy.” He kissed Uri’s knuckles. “That’s what makes a good friendship—or closer relationship. You enjoy the other person’s company. You back them up when they need it. You think of ways to make
them happy.”

  “You’re making me happy.” Which was a little ironic, because Uri’s eyes stung with tears.

  “Ditto. So light the candles. I’m starved.”

  Using his rusty Hebrew-reading skills from his days as a Bar Mitzvah boy, Uri read the prayers. When he got to the tongue-twister parts, the echoes of his father’s voice helped him get the words right. Then he pressed the button on the menorah twice, illuminating the shamash and one more candle. He hummed along with the dreidel song.

  It was a lot of fun to make latkes together. Uri scraped his knuckles on the grater and cried over the onion, and he didn’t care about either because he was laughing so hard at Oscar’s stories about his sisters.

  Afterward they both ended up eating so much they could only slump on the couch and groan.

  “I have dessert too,” Oscar said after a while.

  Uri looked at him incredulously. “Seriously?”

  “Jelly donuts. That’s the thing for Hanukkah, right?”

  “Yeah, sufganiyot. Although honestly, anything fried in oil is fair game. This holiday is not kind to the arteries.”

  Oscar clapped a hand over his own chest. “But it is good for the heart. Thanks for letting me spend my first Hanukkah with you.”

  “Thanks for keeping me from spending it alone.” Uri reached over to hold Oscar’s hand. Sex was nice, but so was this kind of touch, uncomplicated and sincere.

  Oscar had turned on his gas fireplace, and now the flames danced merrily behind Santa and his unicorns. The entire condo still smelled of brisket and fried potatoes. Mexican pop music played softly on the sound system, and Oscar’s grip was warm and solid.

  “Christmas is in three days,” Uri said. “Do you have plans?”

  God, when Oscar looked like that—sweetly hopeful—Uri would give anything to make his dreams come true.