A Winter Symphony_ A Christmas Novella - Tiffany Reisz Page 0,3

bouncers at The 8th Circle.

Guy ODed outside on the sidewalk. Ambulance on the way. Orders?

One of ours? Kingsley replied. If the man were a member of the club, he would head over there right away.

Never seen him before.

Kingsley told Leo to keep watch over the man, to keep him warm until the authorities arrived. And he should try to keep everyone inside the club until the police and EMTs were gone.

These calls were coming more and more often—poor souls overdosing in the bathrooms of his clubs, in the alleys behind them. Opioids were almost always the culprit. It seemed like a lifetime ago he’d found Griffin Fiske passed out drunk on the floor of one of his clubs. A more innocent time. Booze and coke were child’s play compared to the au courant drugs people were on these days.

Kingsley knew these calls would keep coming. And people would keep showing up at his door, expecting an invitation into the non-stop orgy that had been his life for so many years.

When he said the party was over, he’d meant it.

But how did you un-invite an entire city to a party they’d thought would never end?

Second Movement

December Adagio

Adagio:

At a slow tempo.

Chapter Three

When Søren called, Kingsley answered. Even when the call was nothing more than an invitation to dinner.

In the late afternoon of a bright mid-December day, Kingsley drove himself to Wakefield. He parked the black BMW he used for private trips in the church’s parking lot. As he walked to the sanctuary, he gazed up at the church. Bathed in the watery light of a winter sun, it looked like a Currier & Ives calendar. Perfectly picturesque. Pure New England. Before going inside to find Søren, Kingsley glanced around, taking in the scene, committing it to memory.

Usually, Kingsley looked forward to his nights with Søren with a sense of anticipation bordering on feverishness. Not today. It wasn’t going to be easy being with his lover and not telling him the momentous decision he’d made. Six weeks ago, he’d asked himself how he could un-invite the whole city from the party that had been his life. Now he knew the answer.

If the party won’t leave, you leave the party.

He had no plans to tell anyone what he had decided—not Søren, not Juliette, not anyone—until after the holidays. He didn’t want to ruin Christmas, not after all they’d been through this year. Kingsley walked on toward the church.

Two enormous wreaths of greenery tied with red bows hung on the great double doors of Sacred Heart Catholic Church. He went inside, where he heard voices coming from the sanctuary. Sounded like an argument. One male voice, unmistakably Søren’s. A younger woman’s voice—not Nora’s.

Kingsley poked his head through the doors and saw Søren sitting at the bench of the church’s grand piano with a young woman—Maxine, who used to play soccer with them on Sacred Heart’s intramural church league team. She was college-aged now, with short dark hair and an athlete’s compact build. For some reason, she was thrusting her left hand out at Søren and pointing at it.

“One hard whack,” she was saying. “That’s all I ask.”

Catholics were getting stranger all the time.

“What’s going on?” Kingsley asked as he came to stand by Maxine. She turned to face him, gasped at the sight of him, and threw herself into his arms.

“King!” she yelled in delight.

“Missed you, too,” he said, returning the embrace with affection.

She pulled back, but left her hands on his shoulders and gently shook him. “You’re having a baby!”

“Not exactly,” Kingsley said. “I’ve outsourced that part to Juliette.”

“I’m so happy for you.” Maxine shook him again. She really was a very sturdy girl. Kingsley’s brain bounced around his skull like a pinball until she let him go.

“I’m very happy for me, too,” he said. “Or will be when the concussion subsides.”

Søren was watching this whole show with an expression of barely concealed amusement. He shook his handsome blond head, turned back to his piano, and played a few notes.

Maxine grinned, showing all her teeth. “Could you do me a favor, King?”

“Sexual?”

“Not today,” she said. “Can you please tell Father S to hit me as hard as he can with a Bible?”

“No, no, no,” Søren said, punctuating the no’s with three descending notes on his piano.

“Why do you want him to hit you with a Bible?” Kingsley asked. “Other than the obvious.”

“I have a tumor,” she said, wincing.

“A what?”

“Maxine is exaggerating,” Søren said. “She has a small ganglion cyst in her hand that requires