Frozen Heart Read online

  Walter turned and kissed him back, wrapping his arms around him. “It was perfect. Just like you.”

  Kelly didn’t miss a beat. He pulled back enough to ask again, “But are you all right? You seemed like…like you maybe were overwhelmed for a minute.”

  At least it had only shown for a minute, he supposed. Walter traced the line of Kelly’s cheek and pressed his forehead to his chin. “I’m fine.”

  So long as I’m with you, I’m fine.

  Chapter Four

  IN THE MORNING when they woke and Walter asked Kelly about going to see the movie, he nearly fell out of bed as Kelly only shrugged.

  “We’ll look up show times later.” Kelly ran his fingers suggestively up Walter’s arm. “Right now…don’t you think we have better things to do?”

  They had better things to do, it turned out, in bed, in the shower, and over the footstool while Tangled played in the living room—fucking to cartoons was the weirdest kink Walter never thought he’d have, but he was down with it.

  Fucking his fiancé to cartoons. Fiancé. The thought alone made Walter moan.

  Kelly liked the idea too. Walter had been the aggressor in bed, the shower, and the kitchen, but it was his ass tipped up over the footstool, Kelly’s cock buried deep as he leaned forward and nipped Walter’s ear. “You’re going to be my husband.”

  Moaning again, Walter grabbed the back of Kelly’s head and pushed his ass back into Kelly’s groin.

  When they were sated and sweaty and he had his breath back, Walter asked again about the movie. “I thought maybe we could do a nice dinner at French Meadow before. I checked with the chef, and she said she can make sure the food is Kelly friendly.” His fingers toyed lazily in Kelly’s hair. “Do you want 3-D or 2-D, though?”

  “Hmm. I can’t decide.” Kelly snuggled in against him. “Oh, let’s do 3-D. Why not.”

  Walter kissed him. “3-D it is.”

  While Kelly showered—alone this time—Walter bought the tickets with his phone, then made a reservation for dinner.

  Kelly seemed almost disinterested in the movie, too busy toying with his engagement ring or sliding his hands inside Walter’s pants as they made late breakfast which was, technically, their lunch. As the afternoon wore on, however, the imminent viewing of his long-anticipated movie worked its magic, and Kelly began to bounce and second-guess the film.

  “I hope the songs are better than Tangled. Not that they were bad exactly—I mean, the soundtrack was beautiful, but the songs themselves kind of let me down. They were mostly the same things reprised different ways. It doesn’t look like that will be the case with Frozen, but of course I can’t be sure until I’ve seen it.”

  Walter couldn’t quite stop his lips from quirking into a smile. “You haven’t broken down and listened to the song samples on the internet?”

  “Not once. And they’ve kept the trailers pretty clean from what I can tell too.” Kelly bounced a few times on the balls of his feet, his cheeks tingeing pink. “Oh my God, it’s finally here, isn’t it? I’m actually going to see Frozen.”

  By the time they were out to dinner, Kelly spoke at squirrel speed and at times reached a decibel level Walter suspected was only discernible by dogs. Walter didn’t mind. Mostly he listened, smiling as he thought about how he had a lifetime of Disney movie premieres with Kelly to look forward to.

  But if he’d thought Kelly was excited at dinner, his fiancé nearly melted down when Walter informed him in the parking lot they were watching Frozen at the Paragon in Rochester.

  “Isn’t that the fancy theater?” Kelly asked when he was able to use English again.

  “It is. And I bought us reserved seating.”

  Grabbing Walter’s coat, Kelly kissed him hard.

  Walter’s lip was still a bit bruised, in fact, as they went through the doors. They were early enough they could have lounged a bit at the bar, but Kelly could barely sit. Walter got them inside as soon as the doors were open, thinking at least the preshow ads would offer Kelly a kind of focusing Zen.

  They did manage to stave things off a bit, but even the previews themselves did little to calm Kelly down. When the screen went black, a cappella chanting started and the Disney logo emerged, however, Kelly went completely still, laser-focused on the screen.

  Walter settled in and prepared to experience the movie.

  He’d intended to watch his fiancé too, but soon he was caught up in the spell of the show. By now he should have been accustomed to the fact that somehow watching kids’ movies with his lover would always melt his cynical heart, but it still shocked him.

  There was something about taking in the movie in a theater. He could not begin to guess when he’d last watched a Disney movie on the big screen or which one it was. Never had he even considered it as an adult.

  Never had he done so with Kelly. He wondered how it would be different.

  He realized he would see all the new Disney movies with Kelly now. Forever.

  Reaching over the armrest, he caught his fiancé’s hand.

  After squeezing it, Kelly lifted it to his lips for a kiss, then returned their hands to his thigh. He didn’t let go.

  Yes, Walter wanted to resist the corporate bullshit, but hell, it was magical, watching the pale-blue snowflakes float across the dark-blue screen as the haunting a cappella choir sang the opening bars. He jumped with Kelly when the 3-D saw abruptly cut through the ice, went aw over toddler Christophe along with his fiancé. Everything so far was what he’d expected.

  What he hadn’t counted on was that from the first song the lyrics would get under his skin. Beware the frozen heart. Why that made his skin tingle, he didn’t know. But it did.

  He was distracted from that sense of foreboding by the delightful Anna, who was a stand-in for Kelly Davidson if ever there was one. And he didn’t mind putting himself in Elsa’s shoes. Wasn’t he always trying to dazzle Kelly? True enough, these two were sisters, not lovers, but not everything about his relationship with Kelly was about sex. In fact, so little of it was.

  And then Elsa accidentally froze Anna’s heart, and Walter stopped breathing for a second.

  He was glad they were in a dark theater, glad Kelly hadn’t seen this before and was therefore caught up in the film’s thrall, because this was Walter’s first viewing of Tangled all over again. When the troll chief took away Anna’s memories and everyone colluded to make her forget Elsa’s powers, encouraged Elsa to doubt herself, to conceal her true nature and hide from the world…well, Walter wanted to leave the theater.

  Jesus H. Christ, how the fuck did these stupid cartoons keep doing this to him?

  As Elsa kept trying to shut Anna out and Anna kept trying to get in, Walter was wrecked by inches, understanding how much the snow queen’s story was his own. He’d done this exact thing to Kelly. Part of him kept trying to wall himself off the way Elsa did. When she wept silently in her room full of frost, unwilling to let her sister in after her parents’ death, Walter wept with her.

  God, but he understood.

  And yet as Anna celebrated her chance for a moment of joy and human contact on Coronation Day, Walter understood her feelings as well—and Kelly’s. Maybe he identified with Anna too, now, thanks to Kelly. Because Kelly had helped him. That’s what was different. Thank God for Kelly. This movie would follow the pattern, then, and Anna would save Elsa. Because Elsa was lucky to have her.

  When Anna fell for Prince Hans, Walter stifled a snort—there was Kelly’s college crush Mason, on queue. It was like their whole life was on screen now. If only he could find Rose and Williams. Maybe the trolls? Anyway. He was proud that Elsa saw right through that shyster, and kudos to Disney for acknowledging, finally, that you can’t marry a man you’ve just met. But when Anna and Elsa fought, it made Walter uncomfortable.

  Why do you shut the world out? What are you so afraid of?

  Lots of things, Anna. So, so many things.

  He ached for Elsa as she ran, but he couldn’t help urging
her forward, either. That castle was a prison. She needed to get out. He wished she would have taken Anna with her, though, and he kept waiting for Anna to follow her.

  It wasn’t good for Elsa to be alone. He’d grown enough to know that much.

  When Anna set off on horseback to find her sister, Walter clutched the armrest, ready to be unsteady until the sisters were together once again. He hoped it was soon.

  Then the piano opening to a song began, and his life changed.

  Later, “Let It Go” would become so overplayed even he would grow tired of it. But in the darkness of that theater, listening to Idina Menzel insist the cold never bothered her anyway as she stripped out of the binding shackles of her past and forged a beautiful new self…in that moment, the song was still fresh and new, and it was Walter’s.

  How many times, how many ways had he done this? Exactly this—not always elegantly, not always successfully, but this, this was Walter Lucas’s calling card. New day, new self, new declaration of independence. It doesn’t bother me. You can’t touch me. I’m glorious and badass and perfectly safe.

  Here alone in my tower of ice and snow.

  Walter covered his mouth with his hand, trying for the umpteenth time in this damned movie to find his breath.

  Kelly gently removed it, pulled it to his own lips, and kissed it before twining their arms and linking their fingers.

  Thankfully there was the breather of comic relief and sidebar plot until the two sisters reunited in the palace. Walter was eager for them to meet again, but he was nervous too, because it was too soon for them to reunite. Elsa was still saying troubling things like, “I should be alone here, where I can’t hurt anyone.” And “I’m just trying to protect you.”

  Jesus, did they have some kind of machine that crawled into his head while he slept?

  And then there was Anna/Kelly. “You don’t have to live in fear…I’ll be right here.”

  Listen to her, Elsa. She’s right. You have to let Anna save you. It’s the only way.

  Except what was this shit, with Elsa shooting even more ice into Anna’s heart? Wasn’t it Anna who had to melt Elsa’s frozen heart? What the hell was Disney doing?

  Walter decided he was glad the Prince Hans in his and Kelly’s life had only faded away, not captured Walter and imprisoned him in a cell. He’d known, obviously, it was Christophe who was supposed to help her, not Hans, but he hadn’t seen the twist with the prince coming, hadn’t known he was quite so dark he’d let Anna die.

  Disney, what the fuck?

  During the entire scene on the frozen fjord, Walter gripped Kelly’s hand like it was a lifeline. He couldn’t see the endgame for this anymore, except that obviously somehow Christophe was going to show up at the right moment and save Anna. But what about poor Elsa? Who was going to save her? They weren’t going to sacrifice her, were they? The whole time Hans was gaslighting her, Walter felt as if he’d had some of that ice shot through him too.

  This wasn’t right. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to go.

  When Anna stopped running toward Christophe, Walter saw it coming, but he didn’t want to believe it. As Anna put up her hand, when she started to turn blue, he started crying before his cartoon doppelganger did. Part of him knew they wouldn’t let it stand this way, but it still upset him. He’d fused his fiancé with this damn girl, and now…

  Then Anna began to melt…and even before Walter’s head understood, his heart did. Because his was thawing too.

  “Love can melt a frozen heart,” the sisters declared to each other, but Walter’s heart whispered something different to him.

  It’s not that Anna saved Elsa. It’s that the sisters saved each other. That they loved each other.

  Walter drew a deep breath and let it out. It wasn’t ragged, not this time.

  Not very much.

  Kelly rubbed his thumb reassuringly against Walter’s. He didn’t say anything, but then, he didn’t need to.

  When the credits rolled, they sat quietly in their seats. Walter knew without asking they would stay through the end. He wanted more time to soak, to process what he’d just seen. Kelly seemed to feel the same way.

  Eventually, though, it was Kelly who broke the silence.

  “Who knew we were going to see our own courtship played on the big screen tonight? Except for the fact that they’re sisters, obviously.”

  “Well, and my superpowers are decidedly more subtle.” Walter smiled and drew their still-joined hands up so he could press a kiss to Kelly’s knuckles. “I would put some serious money on Elsa being a lesbian, if that helps.”

  Kelly looked thoughtful. “Huh. You know, I’d have to agree with you there.”

  Walter didn’t want to plumb any heavier emotions in the movie theater, but he had big plans to get soppy with his fiancé once they were alone at home. He nudged Kelly with his knee. “So. Did the songs live up to what you wanted them to be?”

  “Oh.” Kelly’s eyes slowly closed for a moment before he opened them again. “Oh, yes. I mean—‘Let It Go,’ obviously, but the rest were good too. Everything. I loved all of it. I mean—the message, the animation…” He let out a ragged sigh. “It’s far too early to say for sure. But…Tangled is a little in danger as my favorite.”

  Why that made Walter’s heart turn over, he couldn’t say, but turn over it did. There in the theater, families and children milling about them, Walter looked at the man who’d agreed to marry him, and fell in love all over again: with Kelly’s innocence, his optimism, and the steadfastness and tenderness which, like Anna leading Elsa, taught Walter how to believe in love.

  They saved each other.

  Let’s save each other every day, forever, Kelly.

  With a heavy, happy sigh, Kelly sank back in his reclining seat. “I have to tell you, I’m completely torn between wanting to rush out and buy the soundtrack and several action figures or begging you to sit through another screening right here, right now.”

  Reaching into his inside coat pocket, Walter withdrew the CD soundtrack and tickets for the nine thirty 2-D show he’d stashed there, then pulled out his phone to check the time. “I’m pretty sure there’s a Toys ’R’ Us down the street from here. Since these seats are reserved too, we have time to go raid the shelves.”

  Kelly put the CD and tickets in Walter’s lap. Then he took Walter’s face in his hands and kissed him, slow, sweet, and lingering. When he came up for air, Kelly stared down at Walter with wonder and affection.

  “Walter Lucas, you’re going to marry me. And you’re getting epically laid as soon as we get home.”

  Why did that make Walter grin softly, like a lovelorn sap? He touched Kelly’s lip with his thumb. “I love you, Kelly.”

  “I love you too.” After another hard kiss that probably would have gotten them in trouble if all the families hadn’t filed out of the theater already, Kelly rose, holding out his hand. “Okay, let’s go find that store. Because I already know the playset I want. And I’m getting you an Elsa doll of your own, so just shut up and let me get it for you.”

  Grinning, Walter rose and followed his husband-to-be out of the theater, into their own happily ever after.

  About the Author

  Heidi Cullinan has always enjoyed a good love story, provided it has a happy ending. Proud to be from the first Midwestern state with full marriage equality, Heidi is a vocal advocate for LGBT rights. She writes positive-outcome romances for LGBT characters struggling against insurmountable odds because she believes there’s no such thing as too much happy ever after. When Heidi isn’t writing, she enjoys cooking, reading, playing with her cats, and watching anime, with or without her family. Find out more about Heidi at heidicullinan.com.

  Did you enjoy this book?

  If you did, please consider leaving a review online or recommending it to a friend. There’s absolutely nothing that helps an author more than a reader’s enthusiasm. Your word of mouth is greatly appreciated and helps me sell more books, which helps me write mor
e books.

  MORE BOOKS IN THE LOVE LESSONS SERIES

  Love Lessons (also available in audio and German)

  When Kelly arrives at Hope University, he realizes finding his Prince Charming isn’t easy. Worst of all, he’s landed the charming, handsome, gay campus Casanova as a roommate, whose bed might as well be equipped with a revolving door. Walter thinks everyone is better off having as much fun as possible…except his shy, sad little roommate is seriously screwing up his worldview. As Walter lures Kelly out of his shell, he discovers love is a crash course. To make the grade, he’ll have to overcome his own private fear that love was never meant to last.

  Fever Pitch (also available in audio and German)

  Aaron Seavers isn’t excited about going to college until he meets (and makes out with) Giles Mulder at a graduation party. But Giles isn’t so happy when Aaron turns up at his college, bringing dark memories of their hometown with him. Just when they begin to successfully navigate an undergraduate relationship, Aaron’s parents and a campus tragedy threaten to bring their bright crescendo to a shattering end.

  Lonely Hearts (also available in audio and German)

  Until now, Baz’s friends have kept his painful past at bay. But as college ends, loneliness drives him to hook up with emotionally orphaned Elijah Prince, and the aftershocks crack his armor, and Elijah’s.

  Short Stay

  Baz and Elijah, looking to escape a pressure-filled New Year’s Eve party in Chicago, run away with Walter and Kelly to Las Vegas. But they accidentally packed their troubles in the Tesla, and it’s clear what happens in Vegas isn’t going to stay there. With the help of new friends and old, Baz and Elijah face—and confess—their fears together…and have a whole new set of adventures.

  Rebel Heart (coming 2017)

  Other books by Heidi Cullinan