Noah and Angel were childhood sweethearts and teenage lovers. With youth comes unrealistic ideas sometimes, and also bad choices. But just about the time they reach manhood, Noah’s demons pull them apart.<br><br>Seven years later, he gets a second chance when Angel returns to town. Hoping everything can be different, Noah sets out to remind him how wonderful their past was by secretly sending him thirteen gifts commemorating their happiest times, one on each day beginning December 11.<br><br>By Christmas Eve, Noah hasn’t heard a word back, and wonders if Angel even recognized the meaning of the offerings. When Angel does get in touch, he only remembers the bad things that drove them apart. Can Noah remind him how good they had it, too?

The Presents and the Past

“I should really be getting dressed.”


The toy’s rubber tires pulled at my body hair, but I didn’t care. Pocket, who now sat beside me, didn’t seem to like my heavy machinery engine noises, though—something between the vroom of a snowplow dune buggy and the sputter of a trumpeter—so I stopped.


“Uncle Bruce, he’s a digger, like you,” I told him. “Excavation…landscaping. He’s got a bunch of these. The real deal. Now, what guy doesn’t want to drive a backhoe or a front loader, huh? You’re a boy, Pocket. You know.”


“You’re a big boy. A big, big, big, big, big boy. Anyway, I was hanging out where Uncle Bruce keeps all his equipment. No one was watching us. Us…me and Angel. ‘Wanna go for a ride?’ I asked. ‘No way.’”


Pocket didn’t seem thrilled with my Angel voice either, which sounded more like Marge Simpson for some reason.


“Sorry. I’ll keep the rest to myself…only in my mind.”


Chapter 22