Rainbow Shorts ( my LGBT Short Story Collection)

A Christmas Encounter

(Author's Note - Written for Bad Boys and Ugly Sweaters contest by @RomanceSparks. Word count 1975)

Cal leant against the wall, sipping his drink and watching, waiting for his opportunity. The party was warming up nicely, full of people who were getting into the Christmas spirit. Their hosts had decorated the room with a Christmas tree in the corner—real pine, not plastic—which filled the room with fresh scent, and colourful streamers hung from the ceiling. The mulled wine punch was a huge hit, in more ways than one, Cal smiled to himself—sipping cautiously—and the volume was rising by the minute. Soon, he thought. He could already feel his pulse rising in anticipation.

Cal scanned the room again, his eyes hooded to disguise his interest. He paused for a moment, his gaze caught by one man who looked as if he might still be sober. His brown hair was cut short against his head and his black pants and white shirt made him look as if he'd come straight from the office. Only the black leather jacket suggested he'd come out to a party. Cal let his eyes linger for a moment. Mmm.

Reluctantly, he pulled his eyes away and continued scanning the room. Everything looked normal, nothing out of the ordinary. Almost time to make his move.

He let his eyes drift back to the man who'd caught his fancy.

Damn! He was looking right at Cal, a slight smile on his face.

Hastily, Cal dropped his eyes and took a sip of his drink. Was the stranger really smiling at Cal? Or was he amused by his jumper? He'd chosen it so carefully for tonight, to match the nerdish image he was trying to project. Advertised as the ugliest Christmas jumper on the market, it featured an image of Spock from Star Trek, wearing a red Santa hat, with the caption "Trek the Halls" in large print across the front. The best thing about it from Cal's point of view was that everyone was so bemused by the jumper, no-one looked very hard at his face.

Was that gorgeous man really checking him out? Damn, but this timing sucked! On any other night he would have approached the stranger with a smile and seen where things went from there, but tonight... he had a job to do. He couldn't afford to attract anyone's attention, let alone their interest.

Ducking his head in feigned awkwardness, Cal began to edge around the room, heading for the bathroom. If he was going to do the job, it had to be now or never. He pushed his way through the crowd and went into the passage. There was the bathroom at the end, easily identified by the cute sign saying "This Is It!" He leant against the wall for a moment waiting for the current occupant to leave, and took the opportunity to check that no-one was watching him.

A young woman came out of the bathroom and smiled briefly at the picture on his jumper before heading back to the party. He went inside, took off the jumper and turned it inside out revealing a black lining. He put it back on and left the bathroom, now looking like half the other men at the party in a dark top and jeans.

His luck was in—the passage was empty. Quick as a flash, he was round the corner at the end of the passage, heading upstairs to the bedroom on the first floor. His heart was pounding as he wrapped a large handkerchief around his hand and pulled out the centre drawer in the dressing-table. He reckoned ninety per cent of women kept their jewellery in the centre drawer and he wasn't wrong tonight. Running an expert eye over the contents of the box, Cal selected a heavy gold chain which looked like it would be hard to identify with any certainty. Not only that, it would slide easily into his pocket without bulging as a necklace would do.

He had just slid the chain—wrapped neatly in his handkerchief—into his pocket, when he heard footsteps outside.

"Hullo? Are you up here?" The low tones came from outside the door. Cal's first instinct was to go out the window, even though it was locked and on the first floor, but then he had second thoughts. The voice sounded curious rather than angry. Perhaps there was some way he could salvage this.