Free Thyme (Naughty or Nice) by K. R. Foster

Thyme
     
     
    For the men and women who can’t be open
    about their love, even though they’re willing
    to die to protect my country.
     
     
    J ULIEN L AFAYETTE slammed the car door and headed up the walk toward his bungalow style house. The itchy feeling all over his skin had started three days ago, and it kept increasing as time passed. A normal person might visit the doctor, but Julien didn’t bother. He knew a prescription couldn’t solve the problem, whatever it was.
    His family had always possessed a sixth sense, for lack of a better term. They knew when something was coming, when change was upon them; they just couldn’t tell if the momentous news would be good or bad until it happened. Usually, it was bad. It wasn’t something he preferred to contemplate at the moment.
    He’d already lost so much…. What else could life take away from him? What else could he take away from himself? Fool. Julien snorted and shoved his hands in his jean pockets, fingers fiddling with his keys, beneath the warm Texas sun.
    It was cold for Dallas, but warmer than a Louisiana boy knew growing up. Hell, Christmas was less than a week away and there wasn’t a speck of snow on the ground. The city would probably grind to a halt—useless and broken—if it did snow, he thought with a sneer. He hadn’t seen snow with his own eyes in far too long, and kept telling himself that it didn’t matter.
    Snow meant snowballs. Snowball fights. Snowball battles with…. “It doesn’t matter,” he mumbled as he neared the porch. The words rang false, but he ignored the lie.
    A brown package outside his front door drew him up short. He picked it up and read the label: scratchy, scraggly handwriting and no return address. It was from his nana. His momma’s grandmother was known as “the witchdoctor” to many believers in New Orleans—his hometown. Nana had lived there her entire life, and she seemed to fix everything.
    Too bad she couldn’t fix what he’d…. Stop thinking about it!
    Julien shook his head viciously, tucked the package under his arm, and tugged his keys from his pocket. The jeans were well worn and cottony soft from the endless cycle of washes they had received. He unlocked the door, kicking it shut behind him, as was his habit, and then shoved the keys back in his pants.
    Walking past the living room and right into the kitchen, he breathed a sigh of relief. The itching had started to fade the moment he’d picked up the package. Nana’s otherworldly knowledge was scarily accurate at times, and no one in the family would dare go against anything she said.
    She might be “the witchdoctor” to people outside the family. But, inside the family, Nana was a goddess—all-knowing.
    A flash of red caught his eye, and Julien twisted the package around to see the word “Priority” in bold, red letters. He almost dropped it. For Nana to send something priority mail… this had to be…. He gulped, unable to finish the thought.
    Julien set the package down on the counter and reached over to pull a knife from the butcher’s block. It was stainless steel and as sharp as it had been when he’d bought the set four years ago. The knives, along with the bungalow, had been his gift to himself for getting his master’s in accounting.
    It was a poor consolation prize, since he certainly couldn’t have what he truly wanted.
    He spun the package so that the seams faced him and slit through the brown paper. Then, as if he was still a child and it was Christmas Day, he shredded the paper and let it spill onto the travertine floor. The box underneath wasn’t large, maybe six inches square. He cut through the overabundant amount of packing tape and ripped open the box.
    Nana had given him odd things in the past—an alligator toe key chain, candles that he had to burn immediately , and a note that read “Idiot boy”—but he didn’t want to contemplate that last one. It had been well deserved. Regardless, the ceramic teacup—pure