Jingle Balls – Part 6

Everyone in this story is 18+

Breakfast had been its own special circle of hell: Tate wearing Braden’s stretched-out church hoodie like a trophy, hickeys blooming on his neck, Mom and Aunt Lisa cooing about how “the boys are finally getting along so well” while Tate kept tilting his phone just enough for me to catch thirst-trap previews from Braden captioned shit like “miss that throat already.” I’d spent the whole meal pretending to be fascinated by my bacon while my brain screamed strictly protective-cousin things.

Afterward Aunt Lisa clapped her hands and declared that we boys were going to be useful today. She handed us a list that looked like divine punishment.

Tate glanced at it, then at me. “Well. At least we’re suffering together.”

I groaned. “Why are there twelve different cleaning tasks? Is she prepping for the Pope?”

“Holiday spirit,” he sang, looping trash-bag handles around his wrist. “Also she wants to make sure we’re not glued to our phones all day.”

“I was not planning on being glued to my phone.”

“Good. Then you can help me carry the Christmas bins from the garage.”

We spent almost an hour wrestling with the single most cursed string of lights ever manufactured. Tate kept draping it over my shoulders and calling me a Christmas tree. I shoved him into a box of decorations. He popped out wearing a Santa hat and asked if I’d sit on his lap and tell him what I wanted for Christmas.

I threw a plastic reindeer at his head.

Aunt Lisa wandered by, saw us rolling on the floor, muttered something about boys being feral, and left us to it.

Later we moved outside to hose off the patio furniture. Tate grabbed the hose first and immediately sprayed me. I shrieked like a boiling lobster. He doubled over laughing. I stole the hose and blasted him until the hoodie clung to his torso in a way that should be illegal.

“Great. Now I’m freezing and damp,” he groaned, peeling the fabric off his skin.

“Actions have consequences,” I said, trying not to stare at water dripping down his stomach.

We dragged everything inside where it was warm. Tate stripped off the soaked hoodie and wandered around shirtless, humming while he folded throws and reorganized drawers like a cheerful domestic menace. I wiped the kitchen counters so hard I nearly took the finish off, anything to avoid looking at abs that had no business being that defined on someone whose personality was 90% iced coffee and skincare.

“Braden’s picking me up later,” he said casually.

My stomach did something that was absolutely not jealousy. “Cool,” I answered, voice totally normal. “That guy’s kind of a tool, though. Just saying. As your cousin. Looking out for you.”

He laughed so hard he had to set the lights down. “He does cry after sex, actually. It’s adorable.”

I hated how much I hated that information.

Eventually he plopped down beside me on the living-room floor with a box of ornaments. His shoulder brushed mine every few seconds. We reached for the same glittery snowball at one point; fingers overlapped, neither of us moved, and his thumb traced the inside of my wrist for half a second before he pulled back grinning.

My phone stayed silent. His kept buzzing, another text from Braden, another little smirk.

Right as we finished hanging the last strand on the tree, Tate’s phone lit up with an actual message instead of a snap. He read it and pulled the fakest pout in existence. “Aww. Braden can’t make it. His mom found his browser history and grounded him until New Year’s.”

I tried and failed to hide the way my entire body lit up like the tree we’d just decorated. “That sucks,” I said, not meaning a single syllable. “Real bummer.”

Tate side-eyed me, grin slow and evil. “Yeah. Total tragedy. Guess you’re stuck with me all day now.”

Hours later we were on the couch, covered in glitter and pine needles, surrounded by perfectly wrapped fake presents. The moms had vanished into the kitchen with a fresh bottle of prosecco and the promise of “dinner eventually” (code for never). The living-room lights were off except for the tree glow.

Tate flopped sideways, dragged the giant fuzzy blanket off the backrest, and threw half of it over me without asking. “Body heat,” he declared. “Aunt Lisa keeps this place like a goddamn igloo.”

I could’ve scooted over. Could’ve said I was fine. Instead I grunted and let him steal seventy percent of the blanket because the tree lights were warm, the couch was soft, and I was too tired to keep the walls up for five fucking minutes.

He tucked himself against my side like it was the most normal thing on earth, head almost on my shoulder, one leg hooking over mine under the blanket, personal space officially cancelled for the holidays. I told myself it was just logistics. Shared warmth. Purely practical. Two dudes. No big deal.

I lasted maybe thirty seconds of pretending to watch whatever Hallmark bullshit was on TV before I passed out.

The last thing I remember is Tate’s hair tickling my neck and his voice, sleepy-soft: “You’re warm, cous.”

◆◆◆

I woke up to Aunt Lisa’s delighted squeal and the flash of a camera.

“Oh my GOD, Diana, look at these two! They’re literally snuggling!”

Panic rebooted my brain. I was on my back, Tate half on top of me, face buried in my neck, one arm slung across my chest, fingers curled against my pec like he owned it. My traitor arm was wrapped around his waist, hand resting way too low on the small of his back, thumb practically touching the waistband of those evil little briefs. Our legs were tangled like we’d been slow-dancing in our sleep. The blanket had slipped to our thighs and the tree lights painted us red and green like a half cozy, half-perverted nativity scene.

Tate stirred, made a tiny content sound, and nuzzled closer before his eyes even opened.

Mom was already cooing. “This is going on the Christmas card. Brad finally bonding with his cousin. Lisa, zoom in on their little faces!”

Tate lifted his head just enough to blink at them, hair sticking up everywhere, lips swollen from sleep and gave the laziest, smuggest grin I’d ever seen. “Morning. We were just keeping warm.”

Aunt Lisa clutched her phone to her chest like she’d witnessed the birth of Jesus. “You two are the cutest! Don’t move, I need another one for the group chat!”

I tried to untangle myself without looking like I was fleeing a crime scene. My arm had gone numb where Tate had used it as a pillow. He finally rolled off me, slow and cat-like, stretching so the hoodie rode up and flashed stomach and the top of those briefs like he knew exactly what he was doing.

My dick decided right then that morning wood 2.0 was an excellent life choice.

I yanked the blanket higher and sat up fast. “We fell asleep. That’s all. Long day.”

The moms were still giggling over their phones, already sending the snuggle pics to everyone we’d ever met.

◆◆◆

The snuggle-pic fallout chased us all the way upstairs like a glitter bomb with separation anxiety. Mom kept blasting the family group chat with those photos, captions getting progressively more unhinged (“My heart can’t handle this cuteness!!!”) while Aunt Lisa spammed every emoji that involved hearts, tears, or praying hands. I was ready to yeet my phone into the snow and pretend I’d gone full Amish for the holidays.

We finally barricaded ourselves in the bedroom. Tate clicked the door shut, killed the big light, and the candy-cane strings flickered on, turning the whole room into some slutty North Pole fever dream. He peeled off Braden’s hoodie like it was nothing, tossed it into the corner, and stood there in those ridiculous little black briefs, stretching tall so every cut line of his torso caught the red glow and basically dared me to look.

I was already half-hard from the couch fiasco, the pics, the everything. Days of nonstop teasing had turned my balls into two bruised, overinflated water balloons ready to pop. One wrong move and I was going to embarrass myself right there on the carpet.

Tate glanced over, eyes dropping straight to the tent I wasn’t even pretending to hide anymore. “You look like you’re about to explode, cous,” he said, voice low and almost gentle, like he was offering me a lifeline instead of the final push off the cliff. “Offer still stands. Separate beds. No eye contact if you want. Just… handle it.”

My pride tried to rally. It lasted negative three seconds before it surrendered and waved a white flag made of pure desperation.

“Fine,” I relented, ripping my shirt over my head like it owed me money. “Whatever. Just turn around.”

He did, facing his bed, and the second those briefs slid down far enough I heard the soft sound of his fist starting slow. I shoved my sweats to mid-thigh, collapsed onto my mattress, and gripped my own Christmas traitor so hard my knuckles went white, lube be damned. I’d rawdog the fuck out of my meat at this point.

We didn’t say a word. Just the rustle of sheets and two separate rhythms that somehow synced up perfectly anyway, Tate matching my pace like he had a direct line to my nervous system. I buried my face in the pillow to muffle the little desperate sounds I couldn’t stop, hips already rocking into my fist, everything building so fast it made my head spin. The relief was insane, waves of it crashing over me with every stroke, balls tightening, spine tingling, right there, right fucking there—

BAM BAM BAM.

The door damn near flew off the hinges.

“IT’S TIME FOR THE ANNUAL CHRISTMAS-EVE-EVE PAJAMA PARADE AND MIDNIGHT COOKIE DECORATING TRADITION!” Aunt Lisa bellowed, full Chardonnay warrior mode, bursting in wearing a complete reindeer onesie with a light-up nose that blinked red like a police siren. Mom was right behind her in an identical one, both waving two more onesies like they were storming the beach at Normandy.

“GET YOUR CUTE LITTLE BUTTS DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW, BOYS! NO EXCUSES! WE HAVE SPRINKLES AND EGGNOG AND ZERO PATIENCE!”

I froze with my hand still wrapped around my dick, orgasm literally parked at the gate, engines revving, nowhere to go.

Tate’s head snapped up, eyes comically wide for once, but he recovered faster, like he’d practiced this exact disaster in the mirror.

Aunt Lisa marched straight in, phone flashing pics before I could even compute. “Oh my LORD, look at you two being all cozy in the dark! These are going straight to the fridge AND the group chat!”

I made a noise that was half walrus, half war crime. My dick throbbed in pure fury under the luckily thick duvet, denied at the absolute worst possible moment.

Mom tossed a onesie at my head. It landed with the antlers flopping over my eyes. “Come on, honey! You used to beg for this tradition when you were little!”

What the fuck is wrong with this family and their fucked-up traditions? Midnight cookie decorating? Pajama parade? Who raised these people, deranged elves on bath salts?

Tate sat up, somehow already composed, and caught his onesie mid-air. “Give us literally two minutes, Mom,” he said, sweet as pie, voice only cracking once. “We’ll be right down. Promise.”

The moms finally herded themselves out, clomping down the stairs in their hoof slippers, singing “Jingle Bells” off-key at the top of their lungs.

The door clicked shut.

I stared at the ceiling, hand still stuck to my dick like it had been super-glued there, balls screaming so loud I was surprised the moms hadn’t heard.

Tate looked over, hair wild, lips bitten red from holding back laughter, and then he lost it. Full evil cackle, face in his pillow so he wouldn’t wake the dead.

“Shut the fuck up,” I wheezed.

He rolled onto his back, still laughing. “Merry fucking Christmas, cous.”

He hopped up, grabbed his onesie, and started pulling it on while humming this stupid little tune under his breath, some bouncy made-up jingle that sounded suspiciously like the original but way filthier:

“Jingle balls, jingle balls, Brad’s balls are about to blow… all the way, what the hey, right on Aunt Lisa’s cookies, ho ho ho…”

I threw my pillow at his head. He ducked, still humming, zipped up his reindeer suit, and did a little twirl so the antlers flopped.

I yanked on the stupid reindeer onesie, antlers flopping, dick trapped against my stomach by plush fabric like the universe’s cruelest chastity belt. We trudged downstairs to frost cookies shaped like snowmen while my balls plotted mutiny.

By the time we crawled back to bed at two a.m., I was so blue-balled I swear if Grandma had shuffled in and offered I’d have considered it for half a second just to end the suffering.

I lay there in the dark, staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars Aunt Lisa had stuck on the ceiling sometime in 2008, listening to Tate’s breathing even out beside me.

Tomorrow was Christmas Eve.

If I didn’t drain my balls soon, I was going to burst, every nerve raw and screaming for it. I meant to fist my length right there and pound out the pressure until my brain went blank, but the day’s weight crashed down harder. My eyes slammed shut, the room spinning out.

Sleep yanked me under mid-thought. Just before the blackout hit, a tired smirk pulled at my lips. Whatever clusterfuck tomorrow was bringing, it could wait. The ache stayed trapped low in my gut, heavy and impatient, ready to ruin me the second I woke up.