Edd jumped when the door slammed and quickly wiped his eyes.

"Uh, how was your flight? And how did you even get in the damn building?!"

Kevin dropped his bag in the middle of the floor, kicked off his shoes, and tossed his coat on the dining room table.

"Terrible," he said coldly as he stood with his hands on his hips and stared Edd down. "And I have my ways."

"What do you want, Kevin?," Edd said just as coldly, as he crossed his arms across his chest, but Kevin could see that it was more in a comforting way than in any malice.

"YOU!"

"Kevin, be serious!," Edd said as he threw his arms in the air and the oven's timer dinged.

It was then that Kevin realized that Edd was baking. But this wasn't your usual holiday fare. This was I'm stressed and want to drown myself in chocolate baking.

Dark chocolate chip fudge cookies.

And considering that his neighbor was over, he needed someone to talk to about something.

More than once Kevin would stop by Edd's for whatever reason and see Nazz, Marie, or both girls on the ravenette's couch stuffing themselves with his cookies and trying to help him distress.

"I am being serious, Edd. You know we have something otherwise you wouldn't be wearing my hoodie and baking with your little friend on the couch."

He had said these same words to him the summer before senior year and Edd balked. The cookies got burnt and Marie gave Kevin his hoodie back two days later. When she asked why Edd had it, he sent her back to Edd. Edd didn't speak to him for nearly a month.

This time Edd looked him in the eye and asked, "How the fuck do you think we're supposed to work, Kevin?! Because we have never worked well before."

"Only because you didn't want to. How you gonna be out and hiding at the same time?"

"What the fuck are you talking about?," Edd asked in huff as he did his best to get his cookies off their baking tray and on the cooling rack without tearing them apart.

"Every guy you've ever dated had to reach these levels of perfection that you can't even live up to and then you get to complain about how nobody gets you when you break up. Ever think that it's because of you?!," Kevin asked as he leaned on the door frame to the kitchen, resisting the urge to take Edd in his arms and shake him til he got it.

"OF COURSE I HAVE!," Edd screamed at him. "Sure, I was a martyr before because it's scary being out, especially in a place like fucking Peach Creek, but you don't know what that's like because you've never lived it. And the one time I chance it all, he dropped me. No reason. Just gone. So excuse my trepidation that you want to be with me," he finished as he tossed the cookie tray into his sink.

"One, I wouldn't know how it felt to be like you because you wouldn't let me be," Kevin said as he held up a finger. "And two," he snarked as he waved both fingers in Edd's face, "that break up was some damn fucking karma. About damn time you know how it feels to put it all on the line and lose."

And Edd's face fell as realization of how what they had been doing for so long was affecting Kevin. So many chances to fix them and Kevin lost every time because Edd kept running away.

"E-Edd, I…I love you, and I can't keep playing these games with you. I gotta know, man."

"Know what?," Edd asked softly as he looked down at his hands.

"Why do you keep running back and forth like this?," Kevin asked as he pulled the ravenette in his arms. "Why won't you let me be the one, huh? And not just for Christmas, man. But…"

"Because…You…I…I just…," Edd's voice trailed off as tears ran down his cheeks.

"Edd, please. Give me a break for once. All I need is one. I swear –"

"I know," Edd whispered as he stood on tip toe and kissed the corner of his mouth. "But you have to understand, what we are isn't normal. This is gonna be hard."

"It's only as hard as you make it. And what the fuck is normal, dude? You're an Ed for crying out loud!"

"Oh, my God. Shut up," Edd grinned as he lightly pushed him away and grabbed a couple of cookies off the cooling rack and handed him one. "So where you are you staying?"

Edd cancelled the hotel reservation for him, but made him dinner to make up for the hit to his wallet. Pouting into Edd's chicken noodle soup was always a good way to feel better about something.

Over the next couple of days, they worked themselves out. Edd showed him the city and Kevin showed Edd who he could be to him and them. They made plans for Kevin to visit at least once a month and just play it by ear from here on out.

When New Year's Eve came, Kevin wouldn't let Edd out of babysitting Ava. They could stay in and watch the party on TV, Ang could celebrate her birthday with her husband and their other friends and neighbors while JT ran with his cousin's to Brooklyn for an overnight at Trevor's mom's.

"I'm keeping my word and so will you," Kevin told him when Ang and Trevor asked about his plans.

He had been watching JT since he moved in about four years ago, but now that he was old enough to enjoy shenanigans with his cousins, Ava was the only one who got snacks and cuddles with Uncle Dee before crashing out around 9PM. Edd would let the TV run quietly in the background while he did some work and talked to friends around the country either online or off.

Kevin was always curious about his plans, but he never thought they were so quiet.

"Oh, I did go out when I lived in Cali and Chicago, but not so much here. I mean, I did it once, and once is enough," Edd said when Ava toddled into the apartment; blanket and doll under her arm, looking for fruit snacks.

"You should take him next year," Trevor said as he tapped on his phone and handed Kevin the diaper bag Ang packed for the evening.

A worried look crossed Edd's face and Kevin just played it off with a we'll see.

Trevor cocked a brow at them both and shook his head as he walked away, a few ideas playing in his head. The writer had a couple of popular TV shows on the air and knew that art imitated life more often than life imitated art. The trope playing in Edd's apartment would win he and his wife an Emmy if they played their cards right and Ang was a master card player.

The night passed uneventfully, but Edd didn't pull out his laptop to work like he usually did. Instead, he cuddled on the couch with Kevin, snacks, wine and beer, and Ryan Seacrest.

"I miss Dick," he sighed as the countdown began and Kevin just stared at him.

"I mean, he was a good host," Edd shrugged as he pulled him in for their first, but certainly not their last New Year's kiss.

"And so are you," Kevin growled at him as he carried him to bed.

The next morning, Ang rolled out of bed as best as her round belly would let her.

"Where are you going?," Trevor muttered sleepily as he tried to tug her back into bed.

"To pee," she replied and rolled her eyes at her husband's snicker.

"You said you wanted another one," Trevor said before burrowing himself under the blankets again.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm gonna get Ava, too, okay?"

"Mhm."

Ang tousled his hair and went to the bathroom before slipping out to get her daughter. She let herself into Edd's apartment with the key he gave her after he first moved in and they became friends.

Ava was sleeping in the playpen that she gave Edd when JT was just a toddler, but before she got her, she headed down the hall to Edd's bedroom to let him know she was picking the child up.

The door was cracked and what she saw inside the room made her heart soar and her writer's mind go on full tilt.

Edd was cuddled under Kevin's arm, but both of Kevin's arms were wrapped tightly around him, his face in Kevin's strong chest.

Many times when he would watch her kids or she came over to grab a K-Cup for her Keurig, she would find him in an awkward cuddle with his boyfriend du jour. Always with Edd doing the cuddling and the boyfriend with maybe an arm wrapped around him or being the little spoon, even though they should have been the big spoon.

One too many times she saw a guy leaving in a hurry and Edd holding a pillow instead.

But not this time.

She knew Edd's feelings for Kevin but understood his fear of starting something with the man. Kevin wasn't out. Not even after their breakup. And yet, he let Edd know how much he wanted to be with him.

Having her own experiences with are we or aren't we, what are you type of relationships, she told him to just give the guy a chance because if he was willing to be in a public relationship with him, he didn't mind being labeled.

And she knew labels.

Her longtime girlfriend became her fiancé, then her husband.

She was an author of two LBGT fiction series with a huge following and three TV shows on two different networks.

Every television season was filled with questions of how to tell the stories of one of America's most diverse populations in a way that didn't fetishize them. Sometimes she got it right, sometimes she got it wrong. But she kept at it.

And she kept telling Edd every time he went home for Christmas to give the boy who stole his heart a chance, just like HBO and CBS gave her.

"I'll think about it when Netflix calls you."

She stopped by to tell him the news that Netflix wanted to turn her latest book into a miniseries the day Kevin showed up.

And seeing Kevin with him did more than just give her ideas about how to really throw some drama at her HBO show about a crew of friends from a small town in middle America growing up, it gave her hope that Edd was finally letting himself be treated like he always wanted to be.

With love.

Real love.

She quickly turned on her heel, tiptoed to the playpen, and picked Ava up. As she shushed her whining child, she grinned.

"Mommy?"

Curious, hazy with sleep, hazel eyes peered into her own brown ones.

"Mommy has ideas," she giggled and Ava groaned before settling back on her shoulder to sleep.

Ang zipped out of Edd's apartment and back to her own, put Ava back to bed, poured herself a glass of orange juice and headed to her study to plot.

She won the Emmy and Kevin proposed in Time's Square the next New Year's Eve.

He would play Santa for Ava and JT, and then their own children and grandchildren, too.

But he'd always be Edd's Santa Daddy.