“THE BEACH?” Ryan said with a slight grin. “Are we having a Notebook moment, or what?”
Paul stopped grabbing the supplies from the trunk and looked over at his lover. “You. Promised.”
Ryan sighed as he slammed his door because he had indeed promised. It was their five-year anniversary, and Paul had wanted to do an actual “couple” thing. Which was a new thing for them, to say the least.
Making a zipping motion across his lips, he smiled and made his eyes as wide as possible.
“Better,” Paul answered as he went back to grabbing the secret supplies he had piled into the trunk before they left. “Grab this blanket for me.”
Ryan walked over and took the Michigan Wolverines blanket out of the trunk, noticing the small picnic basket Paul had in his hands. “Okay, so not The Notebook. From Here to Eternity?” he asked hopefully.
Paul slammed the trunk. “Promised!”
Ryan went back to not talking.
They had met their second year in college, under what at best would be considered suspect conditions. Ryan had been well into his third girlfriend of the year, jockeying for the fourth, when he met Paul at a fraternity mixer. Ryan prided himself on not giving off any gay vibes whatsoever.
Paul had clocked him within five minutes of conversation.
What had started out as mutual gratification sessions had slowly moved into a shadow relationship and then at some point morphed into an actual one. When Ryan had told his father he was gay, he thought the old man would literally die right there on the spot.
“You can’t be gay. You play football,” he had said, almost choking.
Which pretty much summed up Ryan’s dad’s view on the world.
Paul had been gay before he knew what the word meant. Always the boy on the playground with a boyfriend, more worried about his state of cleanliness than any three girls, with the mood swings of a whole theater of Twilight fans. He had taught himself how to act normal, even though he had no idea what that word meant. He had made himself athletic, aggressive, and very outgoing—everything one would picture in a young man.
Except, of course, the whole liking guys thing.
“This is good,” Paul said, stopping in the middle of the beach. It was nearing the end of the day, and all the tourists and beach flirts had gone home for the day. The only people left were straight guys running with their dogs, girls watching the guys running with their dogs, and the few real fans of a California sunset. “Put it down there,” he said to Ryan.
“Aye, aye, sir,” he snapped off sarcastically. When anyone met the two of them, they automatically assumed that Ryan was the “man” of the relationship, as if there were such a thing. A former jock, current personal trainer, and all-around sports nut, he was the very model of a modern-day heterosexual.
Except, of course, for the whole liking guys thing.
He had found a strength in Paul that surprised him. Instead of just a sex partner, he had found a friend, a partner, and more than that, an equal. He had found someone more than willing to take the wheel of their life and navigate while he caught a nap. The first time he fell asleep in Paul’s arms, he was able to let out a breath he hadn’t even known he was holding. It was the first night he knew he was in love.
After spreading out the blanket, Ryan patiently waited for the next part of Paul’s plan. “What now? We sit? We walk? We give the joggers a real show?” he said, waggling his eyebrows.
“It’s always sex with you, isn’t it?” Paul asked in exasperation.
“Hey, I was happily straight before I met you. Not my fault you can screw the straight out of a guy.” It was an old joke and one that could usually conjure a chuckle out of Paul, but not this time.
“Were you?” Paul asked, afraid to make eye contact. “Happily straight?”
Ryan shifted on one foot as he thought about it. “I don’t know about happily… but I identified as straight, yeah.” It was another familiar topic, but there was a seriousness about it this time that made Ryan’s chest seize up a little. “Why are you asking?”
Paul said nothing for several seconds. In fact, he said several nothings as he stared at the blanket. They had made love under and on this blanket in college more times than he cared to admit. It was more than just a cover; it was their sign—their totem, almost. They had made love on Ryan’s dorm floor on this blanket one cold November night after a particularly long after-game party. Life seemed so much easier then, all laid out ahead of them. It was easy then to just figure out what they were doing tomorrow. There was always another tomorrow, and another, and another.
He had followed Ryan out to California when they graduated. They had rented a house, shared a car; they simply extended what they shared in college to real life. And tomorrow had become today and then yesterday, and still… no talk.
“What are we doing?” Paul asked finally, looking up at his lover.
“You’re asking me?” Ryan asked, flabbergasted. “Are you having a stroke? This was your idea! I have no idea what we’re doing at the beach.” He laughed.
“I’m not talking about the beach, dammit!” Paul snapped. This was not how this was supposed to go. “What are we doing?” he asked again, this time in a softer tone.
Ryan remained confused for a few seconds before his eyes widened in realization. “Oh! What are we doing?” He rubbed the back of his head as he seemed to think about it. “You mean that doing.”
“Forget it,” Paul said, dropping the picnic basket. Its contents tumbled out on the blanket. There were rocks, dozens and dozens of smooth rocks, each one the size of a child’s fist.
Ryan looked at them and then back to Paul. “Were you going to stone me out here? Because there are easier ways to get rid of me….”
Paul turned and began to stomp back to the car without a word.
“Whoa!” Ryan called out, running ahead of him. “You used to like my jokes,” he said, walking backward in front of him.
“This isn’t funny.” Paul fumed, not stopping.
“Okay, okay, okay, okay!” he said, putting his hands on Paul’s chest. “What’s with the rocks?” Paul slowed a bit. “Come on, I’m a dumb jock. I really don’t know!”
Paul stopped walking forward. “It’s stupid. Just forget it, all right?”
Ryan was not going to forget it. “Look, you’re having a diva moment.” Paul’s face hardened in anger as Ryan talked faster. “But I love my diva, you know that. But baby… use your words? Because I have problems reading my own thoughts, much less yours.” Paul said nothing. “Please?”
Paul sighed as he looked down at the beach. “If I tell you, then it will be weird, and it will be forcing a conversation you aren’t ready for, and I don’t….”
“Talk!” Ryan barked over him.
Paul stopped and took a deep sigh. “I was going to spell out ‘marry me’ with the rocks while you went and looked for driftwood.”
Ryan said nothing as he stared at him blankly.
“See? This is what I meant!” Paul tried to push past him. “I get it. We aren’t there yet. It’s not tomorrow!”
“With rocks?” Ryan asked in surprise. “Seriously, with actual rocks?”
Paul stopped and gave him a look. “Yeah, why? It’s romantic!”
“It’s stupid,” Ryan said, turning back toward the ocean. “Stupid rocks,” he mumbled.
“Oh, how would you have done it, big shot?” Paul asked, grabbing Ryan’s shoulder and turning him around.
In one motion Ryan turned, went to one knee, and opened a ring box with a platinum band. “I would have said ‘marry me,’ dummy.”
Paul froze in place, not even able to breathe.
“I may have been happily straight, but you make me ecstatically gay. Now say something before you pass out or something.”
All Paul could muster in response was “I hate you.”
Ryan took his hand and pulled it close. “Now, even I know that’s Paul for ‘I do.’” With careful deliberation R
yan slipped the ring on his fiancé’s hand.
Paul held the hand up, completely shocked at how much he loved this man.
Ryan stood up and put one arm around him as he pulled him in for a kiss. “But seriously, rocks? So lame.”
Paul looked out at the ocean as he realized… tomorrow was finally here.
A Gentle Shove of
Human Kindness
AMY LANE
Eric and TJ—weirdly enough, we haven’t really met. We’ve seen each other in elevators and functions, and waved and smiled, but we have too many people pulling us in opposite directions to even have had a proper conversation. But it doesn’t matter. A community is there when you need them to be—and I wanted to be there for you. I wish you health and kindness. I wish you time together, and love. I wish you angels.
WITNESS: THE Angel Gabriel.
The angel whose name means “hero of man.” The angel who is found among the battlefields of the righteous. The angel who has borne some of God’s gravest messages from the kingdom of heaven to the solid earth upon which man walks. The sword arm of God among the humans.
The angel voted “Heaven’s Biggest Prick” by his peers.
The angel currently getting yelled at by Abraxos and Camael, both of whom actually outranked the bastard and were in the process of thundering at him in voices so great, the heavens shook with transcendent, visible lightning bursts of sound.
That angel.
“You ignored a prayer aimed right at you!” Abraxos thundered. The clouds behind the first angel of heaven turned a dirty, tarnished gold and then faded to a grimy pewter. Abraxos favored the appearance of a narrow aristocratic face with hair whooshing from his temples like a garden of flame. Oldest angel, indeed. Oldest showoff was more like it. Gabriel tended to roll his eyes whenever Abraxos turned in profile and ranted in earnest, because Abraxos wasn’t looking at him when he did that, was he?
“You could have turned that battle—” Camael tried, but Camael was a smaller fish. He gave out angelic powers and was very cognizant of the duty. As a result, he bore himself very humbly, because that sort of duty would frighten even Gabriel. His projected angelic “body” was slight and small, and the “wings” that revealed his power and his moods in their color and grandeur tended to nest closely next to his shoulders, and they frequently were the color of the underside of a thrush’s wing. Sort of a dirty off-white, really, no pearly glow included. His hair was the same sort of brown.
But while the other angels saw Camael’s humbleness as a sign of humility, Gabriel saw it the way men would see it: as a weakness, ready to be exploited.
“It was barely a skirmish!” he muttered between his teeth.
“It doesn’t matter. The men dead—on either side—didn’t need to die. And the battle will lead to a government breakdown, which may lead to a war—” Camael wrung his long, artistic, angelic hands and straightened his unrumpled robes. “Do you not see—”
“Do I not see?” Gabriel snorted. “Do I not see? For millennia, I have done nothing but see—see them destroy each other like sewer rats chewing their own intestines. That’s what I’ve seen! Snarling, biting, fighting, vicious, angry—”
“Unhappy, tortured,” Abraxos intoned, and Camael surprised them both.
Drawing himself up to his full height—and then growing in proportion to his passion and his rage—he unfurled his wings, which spanned decades and leagues, glaringly, blindingly gold.
“Kind, gentle, great of heart, courageous, and brilliant,” he boomed, and the heavens behind him thundered every great primary color, both tints and hues, capping off with a showered glory of gold. “They are the pride of the heavens, and the reason for the Son and the crowning achievement of God’s creations, and you will be respectful.”
Gabriel watched the light show in amazement. He’d heard this crap before, and he assumed the older angels believed as he did: propaganda for the angelic masses, and what they told the lesser angels who controlled things like chickens and oak trees in order to make them happy for their tiny, miserable existences.
“You believe that?” he asked, half-laughing, half-incredulous.
The outrage on Camael’s face was his only warning.
Camael clapped his hands, and all the heavens deafened. They were hovering over South America during nighttime, and every light in the continent blew a fuse—the humans would be blaming that incident on sunspots for the next ten years.
Gabriel felt himself shrinking, becoming less, the terrible glory of his smiting sword diminishing, tucking itself into his vest pocket, becoming a pen. His angelic robes disappeared, and he was left in the most basic human clothing—jeans, a T-shirt, and a hooded sweatshirt, all shades of blue and white, and all organic cotton, right down to the undergarments he could suddenly feel on his also suddenly male genitalia.
As the bright lights of Camael’s rage faded, Gabriel wrinkled his nose against the acrid smell of his new surroundings and squinted against the dark-paneled interior.
“I’m in a Starbucks?” he said, overwhelmed by the mundane. He searched his mind restlessly and was given access to a very limited scope of his usual angelic powers of direction. “I’m in a Starbucks in some sort of strip-mall city in Northern California.” The name popped into his head, and he rolled his eyes. “Really? Citrus Heights?” He looked out the window and saw the cracked pavement of a large thoroughfare and a Toys“R”Us that had been built during the 1950s. “There’s not an orange tree in sight.”
Camael cackled at his elbow, and Gabriel turned his full glare on his companion.
As a human, Camael wore a simple brown suit, cut a little big around his tiny, birdlike frame. He also wore—and even Gabriel knew these were out of style—a fedora hat over his thinning brown hair. As a human, he appeared to be in his later years. Gabriel looked at the backs of his own hands, which were strong and blue veined with elastic skin. He ran his fingers through his hair and gave his body a mental rundown. As he’d thought, he was a hale man in his early thirties.
“I hope at least my eyes are blue,” he said suddenly, and Camael cackled again.
“Vanity, Gabriel? I’m stunned.”
Gabriel was very conscious that he was being punished, but he couldn’t help himself. “All of the Bible stories say they’re blue,” he whispered, almost to himself. And suddenly he knew that they were. “Thank you,” he mumbled and then sank down into a seat at an empty table, where he rested his chin on his hands.
“You’re welcome, Gabriel,” Camael murmured softly. “You’re not, you know.”
“Not what?”
“Not being punished.”
Gabriel turned to him skeptically. “You could have fooled me! I mean, why not Alaska? At least they have semi-intelligent wildlife.” He watched with resignation as an overweight woman with brightly dyed red hair came in, closed her eyes and inhaled, and then walked up to the barista. Gabriel placed a bet with himself that she was going to order a venti chocolate-caramel something with a four-hundred-calorie cookie.
She walked up instead and asked for one of those clear liquid drinks with lime and took it gratefully. Well, he thought dully, people could surprise you.
“They can,” Camael said. “And that’s why you’re here.”
Gabriel looked outside, where he watched a very young mother in cheap elastic jeans and high plastic platforms push her crying child in a stroller. Neither of them were wearing jackets in the February chill, and the woman was talking on a cell phone at her ear while chewing her gum. Gabriel looked back at Camael, depressed.
“That didn’t surprise me at all,” he said with absolute sincerity. He closed his eyes and reached out with his powers. Sure enough, in the little bank of apartments behind the strip mall, he could sense a wife beating, two child beatings, three drug transactions, several hidden weapons, and a large sum of bloodstained money hidden under a narrow bed frame. “In fact,” he said sadly, looking back at Camael, “nothing here is any different than I expecte
d.”
“Well,” Camael said with a shrug, “if you look for those things, then you will find those things. And you have been schooled to look for nothing else. I understand that, Gabriel. You’re our warrior—and everything you see is a bloodstained sword. But just because that’s all you see doesn’t mean that’s all there is.”
Camael took a drink from the heavy brown ceramic mug in his hands and closed his eyes in appreciation. Gabriel noticed that down here, in the human world, the normally nervous, burden-laden angel appeared a lot more relaxed. It was almost like the humility of the form suited him, Gabriel thought sourly. Wonderful.
“What am I supposed to see here?” he asked, even though he knew it was futile.
Camael laughed dryly. “You don’t need to eat, but I suggest you do. Don’t forget to relieve yourself should that be the case. You can’t fly, but nothing can hurt you. Your body is strong, young, and hearty—you can walk or run anywhere you need to. If you need money, it shall appear in your pockets. You don’t need a place to sleep—simply sit still wherever you wish to hole up during the night, and you will become watchful, dormant, and invisible to most humans until you’re refreshed and ready to start your day. You may interact with them, but try not to interfere—and beyond that? Well, I’ll see you in a week.”
“A week!” Gabriel protested. “You’ll see me in a week? Who’s going to watch my post? Hear the prayers meant for me? Aid in the righteous battles?”
Camael shrugged. “Abraxos, I suppose. He was getting damned above himself too—you think you’re the only one who gets to switch gears for a while?” The little angel smiled, and the expression was surprisingly gentle. “Now, don’t worry, Gabriel. All you need to do is observe, have a few conversations, and report back. You’re a smart boy—and I’ve never doubted you mean well. Just, you know….” Camael’s hands fluttered, but not in an anxious way. Instead they floated out from his birdlike body in a gesture that seemed to encompass much grander things than this tiny Starbucks in a strip mall in a really boring, low-rent suburb. “Enjoy being human,” Camael said after that little floaty gesture. “Just enjoy it, Gabriel. There is much to sustain your soul here.”
Grand Adventures Page 41
