Included in Silver Publishing's 2010 25 Days of Christmas Anthology.

 Shit. The apartment was as hot as a friggin' furnace. Jake sighed, stamped the snow off his shoes before removing them, hung up his coat and headed for the thermostat.

"Leave it." The barked order came at him as his hand hovered over the switch. A muttered, "please" followed as an afterthought.

Jake turned around. The normally neat apartment suddenly seemed smaller thanks to the size of the man occupying one end of the IKEA sofa, an open bottle of Corona clutched in his large hand. Tanned, taut and terrific were three adjectives that had sprung to mind when this apparition arrived on the doorstep before he left for Harvard that morning.

Sam, Jake's roommate, had warned him Zack was coming. In fact, he'd heard nothing else for several days. How the guy he'd met when visiting Australia on the Gay Cruise was coming to visit him for the Christmas holiday. How much he was looking forward to seeing Zack again. How funny Zack was. Yadda yadda.

Jake had kept silent. He should be happy for Sam. As far as he knew, Sam hadn't been with anyone since his last lover walked out in a huff three weeks ago. Not that Jake had been sorry to see the back of the little bitch. He wasn't sure which had been worse, having to hear his squeals as Sam nailed him again and again on the couch, in the bedroom or wherever they could find to fuck, or the snide comments he'd made about Jake being a nerd and not getting any himself.

Seemed like Sam had better fish to fry anyway given the six-foot hunk of muscle that had drawled a smiling G'day when he arrived after a thirty-hour journey. All he'd been interested in was the bed. "Bloody jet lag," he'd complained, vowing the cattle on their way to the abattoirs were better off than he had been, cooped up in economy, or dozing off on the hard terminal seats, waiting for connections.