by Riley Knight
It would be nice, for example, to have someone to talk to about this. Someone like Judah, for instance, but talking to his current whatever Judah was to him about his ex-boyfriend, surely that was not something that would generally be considered to be wise?
He would tell Judah about this, maybe, when he had made some sort of decision. Until then, he was on his own, and that was how it had pretty much always been, so he wasn’t sure why it was that it hurt so much to think about it that way.
Judah. Poor, confused Judah, who had to be thinking the worst right now. Or was Will overthinking this? He and Judah hadn’t solidified anything between them. They were just having fun, right? And Will knew that he wasn’t a barrel of laughs right now. Anyway, from what Stephen said, Judah was incredibly busy trying to get the Christmas play together.
No, there was really no need for him to get all egotistical. Judah probably wasn’t thinking about Will at all.
FIFTEEN
“I didn’t know that about Will Sanford,” Sheila was speaking in a deliberate whisper that was so quiet that no one further away than about fifty feet or so could possibly hear. Good thing that the choir practice was still going strong downstairs, and Judah only heard the words because he was coming up the stairs at the time.
“Now, Sheila,” one of the other church mothers, a woman who Judah should remember but didn’t, spoke up next. “You know that no one cares about the man being, you know, into other men.” Which might be the case, but she certainly still said it like it was a scandalous thing. How odd was that, for that to be the only reaction? Judah certainly wasn’t used to that being the case.
“You know I don’t give a darn about that,” Sheila protested, as Judah, knowing that he should announce himself, knowing that he was eavesdropping and that wasn’t really okay, nevertheless froze in place and held his breath so that he could hear better. They were talking about Will, after all. He found himself powerless to resist.
“Well then, why are you gossiping like this?” the other woman asked, though it had to be said that she sounded delighted that she was. No one, in Judah’s experience, was completely immune to the lure of having news to share. Women got teased for it a lot, but to Judah’s way of thinking, men were hardly innocent of doing the same thing.
And who was worse, the two women speaking to each other quietly, or him, who was listening in without their knowledge?
“I’m not surprised that he’s interested in men,” Sheila protested, keeping her voice pitched much lower than she usually did. “I sort of suspected it. He’s never shown even a lick of interest in a woman. But I was surprised to hear that he’s taken up with someone.”
Judah’s face flushed, and his stomach clenched in a way that was both delicious and horrifying to him. They knew. These two women, despite all of the efforts that Judah and Will had taken to keep their relationship secret, they had figured it out somehow.
“That’s just a rumor,” the conversation continued, and even though Judah couldn’t see it, he could almost visualize in his mind’s eye how a superior, nearly pitying smile would come onto Sheila’s face as he heard her speak again.
“It isn’t. My Gary saw them just two nights ago. Our own Will Sanford, out at a coffee shop with a man, bold as brass. It’s a damn shame.”
Wait. What? Judah put a hand on the cool concrete wall because otherwise, his knees might have gone out and he might just have pitched right down the staircase. He hadn’t been in any coffee shop with Will. Not two nights ago, certainly. Will had been distant, not particularly interested in spending time with Judah lately.
So what was going on here? Judah had been focused on how embarrassed he would be if this came out, and there had been the slight thrill of titillation through his whole body, a sort of intriguing thought process about what might happen if people had seen him and Will together. Was it possible that he might actually just be allowed to be who he was? That he and Will could, by some miracle, be open about being together?
But then, of course, there was that horrible, insidious question, which reared its head now, which he had always just shoved down before. Were he and Will together? He had thought maybe that they were, or could be, but what was he hearing now?
He must be misunderstanding. He had to be because the alternative was too hard to bear. And then Sheila and her friend just kept right on speaking, and it was worse and worse with every word that met his ears, hammering into his brain until he couldn’t hear anything else.
“Who was it?” the friend asked, and Sheila gave a pause, no doubt meant to be dramatic, in which Judah had to have a very quick, solemn talk with himself. He couldn’t, no matter how much he might be tempted, just race up the rest of the stairs, burst upon the startled women, and demand of Sheila the same question that her friend had just asked.
Really. He couldn’t. It would be a terrible idea.
“I don’t know,” Sheila finally admitted. “But my Gary said that they were awfully familiar with each other if you get my drift. Talking all close and intense, you know? I just think it’s a darn shame.”
“Why?” the other woman asked.
“Because. I always thought that our Will was carrying a bit of a torch for …”
Whatever she said next, whoever Sheila was going to say, Judah didn’t want to know about it anymore. He couldn’t handle this. The sheer range of emotions that he had gone through in about a minute and a half was just far too much for anyone to take.
“Excuse me, ladies,” Judah spoke deliberately and loudly as he walked up the rest of the stairs. They stopped chatting, just as he had known that they would, and he did his best to give them both an innocent smile like he hadn’t heard a word of what they were talking about.
“Pastor Judah,” Sheila finally said, and Judah nodded. Yes. Pastor Judah and that was crucial for him to understand. He couldn’t go around acting like an idiot about a man who may or may not have a thing for not one, but potentially two, other men.
His job, his calling, it came with responsibilities, and part of that was not to make a complete idiot of himself. So he kept his smile bland and professional, something that he had a lot of practice with. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been keeping a pretty intense secret already, not like he hadn’t done so for years.
He didn’t think that either of them suspected anything. Either way, they certainly couldn’t prove it. That was all that really mattered, that he wasn’t going to spur on the rumor mill too much with his odd behavior.
Though he had wanted to grab Sheila by her shoulders and shake her until she told him everything that she knew. And then call Will and demand answers from him. What did Judah mean to him, if anything?
Alone in his office, he stared around at the familiar furnishings, though his eyes honestly barely saw any of them. This was his fault, all his fault, and he wasn’t going to try to claim otherwise.
He was the idiot who had let himself fall for Will, though he’d had no sign at all that it was returned, though he knew that there were far too many barriers between them. And he was the idiot who was going to have to deal with the broken heart now, all by himself.
SIXTEEN
Watching Stephen, Will had never quite been able to be sure. Should he tell him about Jack, about his other father? Will had always had a close eye on his son, and he had seen how he suffered because of only having one parent. Will had done his best to fill the roles of both, but one man could only do so much.
Even a year ago, Will probably would have taken the risk. Jack had seemed sincere enough, and it was probably pretty arrogant to assume that Jack wanted something more from Will than friendship. Will had, after all, made it pretty clear that that wasn’t going to happen, and he was more than capable of continuing to do so.
But this wasn’t last year. It was now. And Stephen had friends, was involved in the church, and generally seemed to be doing much better than he had been for quite a while. He had put down roots in this sleepy little town and seemed less generally d
iscontent than he had been before.
And nowhere did he seem happier than in the church. Although Will could try to deny it, it was undoubtedly true. And Will couldn’t even say that he wasn’t the same way, not because of the church itself but because of who was there.
For a while now, he had allowed Sheila to do as she so obviously wanted and pick Stephen up from choir practice. Her boy Jesse and Stephen were pretty much inseparable, and they enjoyed the extra time together. Plus it meant that Will could try to deny to himself what he already knew to be true. He wanted to be around Judah.
Maybe that was why he had quietly snuck in at the end of the choir practice, sitting in utter silence close to the door. They were practicing in the main part of the church, the sanctuary, Will was almost certain that Jack had called it. The part with the alter, and all of the pews.
It had been since Jack had last insisted that Will had been in a place like this, and he frowned slightly as he glanced around. It wasn’t his thing. He was a man of science. And yet, he couldn’t deny that there was something peaceful about this place. Even given the ruckus in the front, where Stephen was trying to wrangle a horde of kids of all ages, even given the noise and the laughing and the little snatches of song, it was sort of nice, sort of restful, just to sit here.
Judah’s presence was all through this place. Maybe that was it. Whatever it was, Will leaned back and let out a sigh, and as his eyes drifted from his son to Judah, who was sitting nearby with a small, fond little smile on his face as he looked at Stephen, the knots in his shoulders relaxed just a little bit.
Judah adored Stephen. Will could see it. He’d had, from time to time, someone who claimed to be interested in Stephen, but it had always sat poorly with Will because it had so obviously been a way of trying to get at Will. Most notably, Will could still remember a particularly assertive teacher that Stephen had had a few years ago, one who had claimed that she needed extra meetings with Will to discuss Stephen, although Stephen had been doing fine in class and hadn’t been creating any problems.
It had stopped when the woman had outright asked him out, and luckily, Will had been able to tell her the truth. He was gay, and when he bluntly laid that out for her, the meetings had stopped. There had been a few others, too, who had thought they could use a relationship with the son to get to the father.
Judah wasn’t like that. He didn’t even know that Will was there, and yet he was smiling at Stephen, encouraging him with raised eyebrows when the teenager looked over at him. In their own way, Judah and Stephen had a relationship just as strong as Will and Judah did, maybe stronger, since neither of them seemed to need to struggle to define it.
“Shit,” Will whispered, and then he was a little bit amused with himself, not only for actually cursing in a church but also for feeling guilty about it, after. But it seemed appropriate, because right there, watching his lover looking out after Will’s son, Will felt a strange chill deep inside the pit of him, one which had gripped his stomach for a long time, so long that it had become normal to him, start to ease up. Maybe even to melt a little bit.
Judah looked at Stephen the way a father would. And Stephen had never been so happy.
The practice broke up, and Will shook his head slightly, amused. It was, what, seven weeks to Christmas? Six and a half, actually, to be more accurate. And in that time, Judah was going to try to wrangle this group of children into something resembling a play. They definitely had their work cut out for them. The youth choir had been joined by what had to be every child over the age of five anywhere in the area.
Parents streamed forward to pick up their kids, and Will got up and joined the flow. As he did, he caught the startled glimpse of gray-blue eyes, like a diamond flash as they scanned him. At that moment, Judah became aware of him, and Will flushed a little and hoped that no one other than Judah was watching.
The three older kids, Stephen, Ruby, and Jesse, were standing close together, looking a little bit like islands in a sea of smaller children who flowed around them. Someone brushed against Will from behind, and Ben nodded his apologies to Will as he passed him.
“Dad!” Stephen pulled away from his friends and came over to him, which made Will smile a little bit. He had been deliberately trying to let Stephen go a little bit, to have more freedom, and it seemed to be paying off. There had been a time not so long ago when Stephen had seemed more resigned when he saw him than happy.
There was movement to the side of him, and somehow, without even knowing how he knew, Will was aware that it was Judah. Something in him seemed attuned to the beautiful young minister, like the hairs on that side of the body stood on end or something. Whatever it was, it was driving him to distraction.
“I’ll see you on Sunday,” Ben was saying to Judah, his arm slung casually around the girl. Will wasn’t quite sure what the relationship there was. Ben acted like her father, but she didn’t call him that. The family bonds, as far as Will had ever been able to figure out, were actually between Ruby and Ben’s husband Isaac, though even there Will wasn’t sure about the rest of the story.
Still, Ben seemed to be doing the job of father to that girl, and that was good enough for him.
“Hey, Stephen!”
Ruby’s elbow poked into Stephen’s side, and she looked at him meaningfully, in a way that Will might not understand but which filled him with foreboding nevertheless. It was justified, as he figured out about ten seconds later.
“Uh, Dad, do you think we could maybe go to church this Sunday, too?”
The boy glanced at Ruby as he spoke, and in that glance, Will saw a lot. The kid had a crush on her, which was as clear as day, and she obviously returned it. They were almost at the age where they might start dating if their affection carried on.
More than that, though, it got quite a bit more complicated. Behind Ruby, Jesse stood, and there was a strange look on his face that Will understood just a little bit too well. He had felt that unhappy smile tug down the corners of his own lips. The boy next door, Will remembered, had been deeply fascinating to Will, and that had been one of the first signs that Will had had that he just wasn’t into girls.
He remembered when the boy, he didn’t even remember his name now although he remembered his merry black eyes, had brought home a girl for the first time. He had watched, jealousy snapping along his nerves and clenching at his stomach, as they made out in the backyard.
How he had felt back then, that was how Jesse was feeling now, but his eyes weren’t fixed on Ruby. No, he was very obviously looking at Stephen, at his best friend, and Will’s heart broke for the poor boy. Will knew from experience that he had a hard road ahead of him.
But that wasn’t the whole issue, of course. Stephen was there, asking him to go to church in front of half the town, and this was exactly what Will had been afraid of when he’d given permission for Stephen to be involved in the church. Sheila, Ben, all of the children and a lot of the parents, they were all staring at him with varying levels of attention.
Judah was looking. Will was able to tell, even though he couldn’t let himself look into that pretty face, or he might just lose it.
“You’re certainly welcome,” Judah spoke, and Will refused to let his eyes even dart over to the other man. Not for a second. He felt like he was walking on a thin line indeed, and even one foot off could spell utter disaster.
“You can go, if you want, Stephen,” Will finally said, though he honestly hadn’t wanted even that before. But even he had to acknowledge that he couldn’t control his son’s spiritual feelings. He might have wanted different things for him, but then, Judah was a deeply religious man and that hadn’t turned out so badly for him. “Come on, kiddo. It’s late.”
It was like Will’s words released some sort of spell that had been held over everyone in the church. People started to leave, and beside him, Will felt Judah withdraw. It was only then that he realized that he had completely ignored Judah’s invitation, but then, what the hell else was he even supposed to
do? When he dared finally to sneak a look over, he saw that it was Judah, now, who wouldn’t meet Will’s eyes.
He’d gone too far, hadn’t he? In his panic, he was driving Judah away more than ever, and things had been awkward enough with this whole Jack thing, too. But it was complicated. What else could he do?
Still, Will found himself in the ridiculous position of trying to catch Judah’s eye as Will and Stephen left the church. But Judah never looked up, focused on cleaning up the front of the church with more attention that the task seemed to deserve.
Was Judah just done with this whole thing? Part of Will had hoped that, once everything with Jack was settled, he and Judah could nail down what this thing was a little bit. Judah’s position in this town, and Judah’s own hang-ups, meant that it would have to be a secret, he supposed, even if he hated it, but that didn’t mean that it couldn’t be more defined.
Now that Judah wasn’t looking at him at all, Will found himself wishing that he would. Wishing that this could work out, that they could have a second chance. But until this thing with Jack was settled, he had no idea how he was going to make that work. So he did the only thing that he could think of to do, and he left the church, with his much-subdued son trailing along in his wake.
SEVENTEEN
It seemed like everyone and their dog knew about this thing with Will and his mystery man. Like everyone was talking about it, and on the one hand, he found it very interesting that no one seemed to be horrified that Will was seeing another man. That wasn’t their objection at all.
Judah had seen more than he had expected in this small town. More tolerance, more openness, more acceptance. He had looked out into his congregation and had seen Ben and Isaac. And this week, Judah had also seen Sam and Gunner, sitting there, just as welcome as everyone else was.
