Claimed for Christmas

Chapter Three

Something is making a god awful sound, ughhh! What is making that noise at this ungodly hour of the morning on a Sunday?

My hand searches blindly along the edge of my bed and over the night stand that sits beside me, feeling around for the reason I’m not still dreaming about a faceless hunk straddling a chair whilst I grease him with baby oil all over his magnificent . . . .

The ringing stops and I sigh with relief, my hand falling back onto the mattress as I snuggle down into my covers again, now where were me my oil covered s*x beast?

The image of Mr faceless swims back into my mind, his tanned muscles flexing as he winks at me, He pushes up, out of the chair, his hands going to his pants, fixed at the sides with poppers, playing with the waist band, before . . . the annoying sound starts once again as my eyes fly open, my lips curling into a disgruntled scowl, damn it!

I roll over again, groping along the top of my side table, until my fingers curl around the small rectangle of my cell phone. Picking it up, I blindly swipe at the screen with my thumb until the noise stops before pressing it to my ear.

‘Hello?’ I mumble, leaning back against the pillows, eyes shut tightly as I try to rouse myself.

‘Elijah? Hello? Is that you?’ the distant sound of a female voice calls back faintly, forcing me to pry my eyes open and look at the phone that I now realise I’m holding upside down.

My bleary eyes squint at the screen as I turn it around, the name printed across the top becoming legible as it comes into focus. My eyes widen as I read it, sitting up with a jerk my back slamming into the headboard behind me, as I hold the cell away from me like an undetonated bomb. S.hit! S.hit, s.hit, s.hit!

‘Elijah?’ the voice calls out again a little more firmly.

Grimacing, I reluctantly press the cell back to my ear, forcing some semblance of excitement into my voice as I reply.

‘Mom! What a nice surprise, what can I do for you this early on a Sunday?’ I ask, trying not to sound too sarky but unable to stop myself from reminding her that its . . . I pull back the cell again, muttering an expletive under my breath, six thirty am!? What the . . .

‘What you can do for me, is tell me why you have not replied to my messages nor answered any of my calls over the last two weeks’ my mother’s voice retorts from the other end.

I cringe, dammit, I was hoping she’d come in a little softer, but I should have known better, I’ve been successfully dodging her attempts to talk to me for the last fortnight.

I knew she’d catch up to me somehow, no one avoids Delia Coltrane forever, but I was hopeful I could get a few more days, just long enough that what she wants would be impossible for me to do . . .

‘Mom, I’ve been working’ I start reluctantly, huffing out a breath as my head falls back against the headboard.

‘Oh really Elijah, I’m so shocked, because it’s not like that’s the same excuse you give every time pin you down or anything’ my mother replies tartly. ‘This is my son, the one that is always too busy to talk to his own mother who by the way hasn’t seen him in four years and even then I had to come to travel to him! By plane! With my sciatica!’

‘Mom, you don’t have sciatica’ I sigh, rubbing my eyes with my thumb and forefinger.

‘I might have’ my mother huffs, ‘how would you know? You’ve been missing for half of your adult life.’

I roll my eyes as she continues to rant at me, ‘your brother makes the journey to see me every single week without fail you know, but my youngest? Barely even a phone call on my birthday.’

‘Elliott lives three blocks away Mom’ I remind her, sighing again, she’s really going to town with the guilt trip today, ‘and you look after his kids every Friday, so of course you see him every week.’

‘I’d look after your children if you ever got around to having some’ my mother retorts.

‘I’m gay mother’ I groan loudly, ‘we can’t make babies, remember? Plus, I l live in a completely different state so you wouldn’t be able to care for them even if they did miraculously exist.’

‘Well, who’s fault is that?’ she demands, ‘you didn’t have to leave Littleford and move a plane ride away! And there is such a thing as a surrogate Elijah, you and the man you fall in love with could have children that way, do you even have a man? You aren’t getting any younger’ she adds as though it’s an afterthought.

‘No Mom, I don’t have a one true love hidden in my closet,’ I snort at the unintentional joke, but my mother doesn’t join me.

‘Maybe if you came home once in a while you’d find someone’ she replies, ‘there are plenty of nice young men here in Littleford, we have a new neighbour . . older fellow, lives with his grandson . . he looks like he might be your type.’

‘Mom! I do not need your help finding a guy, please stop! Do you even know if he’s gay?’ I ask despairingly.

‘Well no, but he always dresses very nicely’ she mutters uncertainly, ‘oh! If you came home, I could bake a pie, you could take it over or something . . .’

I chuckle, ‘You need to stop watching the hallmark channel mom,’ I tell her affectionately. ‘As much as you hope it might happen, I am afraid that I am never going to walk out of a quirky bookstore in Littleford town, slip on some black ice and fall straight into the arms of the perfect man for me, gazing up into his perfect blue eyes as snowflakes settle on our jackets. Things like that don’t really happen in real life’ I add under my breath, ‘true love doesn’t exist, at least not for people like me, we’re OK for right now, but we’re not destined for romantic love stories, the past doesn’t lie.’