“It can be a date,” he muttered from the bedroom, and my head swung toward him.

“What did you say?” I hated that it made my body feel like I’d just gotten off a rollercoaster.

“I said it can be a date if you want it to be.” He still stared at his phone hard.

I shook my head, smiling, and closed the door behind me. After I finished my shower, he wasn’t there. I padded my way to the kitchen, still wrapped in nothing but a towel, but he wasn’t there either. The apartment was big, too big for one person. I started peeking into rooms, looking for him. He couldn’t have gone out. I’d only spent ten minutes in the bathroom, and he looked tired and very much naked when I left him in bed.

Feeling wary, I got dressed before I started calling out his nickname around the house and dialing his number on my cell. Every call ended with his voicemail. What the hell was going on?

Finally, when I was about to give up and head back to my apartment, I spotted him behind the couch. On a plush silver rug, lying on the floor, fast asleep.

He was wearing his black briefs and nothing else, his thick lashes fanning his cheeks. He looked like a kid. A beautiful, lost, exhausted boy.

Oh, Vicious.

I wanted to help him into his bed. But I had a feeling he hadn’t told me the truth about his insomnia, and if I woke him up, he wouldn’t fall asleep again. I gathered blankets and pillows and covered him from head to toe. After I tucked him in, I hesitated, but the last thing I needed was for him to wake up and find me staring at him like a groupie while he slept.

Not that I didn’t want to. And that was an even bigger problem.

By the time I walked into my living room downstairs, it was three o’clock in the morning. The easel stared at me from across the room, a half-finished painting of a laughing woman with flowers in her hair, demanding my attention. Instead, I walked to my bedroom, pulled out an empty frame and a staple gun, and stretched a canvas before positioning it on the easel. I changed into my painting tee, tied my hair in an elastic, and stared at the white fabric.

And stared.

And stared.

And stared.

By the time I finally started working on it, it was morning. I didn’t stop painting until the early afternoon. I didn’t sleep. I didn’t eat. I barely breathed. And with every tick of the clock that passed without him around, I started thinking more and more about what we were. Who we were. He’d treated me horribly in the past, but right now…he brought color into my life.

Acrylic? Oil? It didn’t even matter. He always thought of himself as blackness, but the truth was, he injected so many different pigments into my existence.

To have dinner with him on Christmas Eve, it felt important somehow. Not so casual like the rest of the things we did.

Vicious was right. I was a liar.

Because I told myself I could do casual.

When there was nothing casual about what I felt for him. Not even one bit.

It was a hassle to go shopping on Christmas Eve, but I wanted to get him something. Anything, really.

Vicious was big on music, I remembered that from when we were teenagers. In fact, the only thing we’d seemed to have in common was our mutual love for punk rock and grunge. Maybe that’s why I smiled like a fool as I strutted my way from the record shop with a Sex Pistols album tucked under my forearm. I knew he was going to get the joke. Sid Vicious.

They actually had a few things in common. Their white skin against their black hair, their flippant attitude, and their zero-fucks-given approach. I just hoped Vic being Vicious didn’t make me his Nancy.

As I prepared the essential DVDs to watch after dinner (it wasn’t Christmas without It’s A Wonderful Life playing in the background as you struggled your way through a food coma), I thought about Vicious as a child. What Christmases must’ve been like for him. I didn’t have his money, or his power, but I did have a family who loved me. Who catered to my every emotional need when I was a kid.

I only celebrated one Christmas in Todos Santos, but I remembered his dad and Jo had spent it on a Caribbean vacation. He went to Trent’s on Christmas Eve, but I think he’d spent Christmas Day at home. Alone.

Even then, Vicious was too proud to be a charity case. But he wasn’t too proud to know what pain felt like, and it couldn’t have been easy for him to see us from across the property. Our laughter carried all the way to his house, surely. Mama and Daddy were loud on the rare occasions they had a few drinks, and

Christmas was when Rosie and I always had our Christmas carol contest. Our house was full, while his was empty. Same with our hearts.

Mine overflowed.

His echoed.

Oh, Vicious.

It took me an hour and a half to muster up the courage to go upstairs to the penthouse and knock on his door. Before that, I just sat in front of a table full of the yummy dishes I’d spent what was left of the afternoon preparing. I’d made mac and cheese, Cornish hens, a green bean casserole, and my mama’s cornbread dressing recipe. I’d even bought an eggnog cake. Nothing with mushrooms. Nothing with fish.

But he hadn’t arrived.

I sat in front of the table and waited like an idiot because I was too anxious to watch TV, but also too proud to go check on him. Then I remembered that last time I saw him, he was completely out of it, sleeping on the floor, and guilt washed through me. I should’ve stayed with him. I should’ve made sure he was all right.

On my way to his penthouse, in the elevator, I cleared my throat several times because I didn’t want my voice to break when I spoke to him. Somehow, I still didn’t want him to see how affected I was by him. I knocked on his door three times and rang the doorbell twice, but nothing happened. I turned around, about to walk away, when one of the building’s receptionists walked out of the elevator with a wrapped gift and flowers. She headed straight to his apartment door. A set of keys jingled between her fingers.

She greeted me with a polite smile. “Happy Holidays.”

“Thank the Lord you’re here.” I almost threw myself at her. “I think something’s wrong with him. Can you open the door? We need to see if he’s okay.”

“Who, Mr. Cole?” Her brow furrowed.

What?

“No.” My voice chilled significantly. “Vic…Mr. Spencer.”

“Oh. Him.” Her lips pinched as she pushed the key into the hole. “I saw Mr. Spencer leave very early this morning with a suitcase. He’s probably flying back to LA. He’s already stayed in Dean’s apartment for much longer than usual.”