by Josh Lanyon
“They’re nice.”
“I know they are. I picked them.” That was the family joke. I was adopted when I was sixteen months old. The story is my birthmother finally decided on Bill and Dana Finley when I tried to chew up their résumé.
Graham said awkwardly, “They…knew all about me.”
“You should have let me die out there on the prairie.”
I was kidding, of course. Graham was not. “Don’t.”
“No.” I sighed. “Anyway, yes, I did tell them about you. They keep hoping I’m going to settle down. Don’t worry. You don’t have to meet them. You’ve done more than enough.”
“I want to meet them.”
“Uh…”
“I want to meet them,” Graham repeated. His gaze was steady even as he stumbled over the words. “I want to… I want us to… I want to keep seeing you.”
My heart started to pound so hard I felt a little sick. “Listen, Graham. I don’t think — that is, I think you’re forgetting. You had a shock today too. And you’re mistaking that for something else.”
“No.” He was definite. “I was trying to tell you before you were stung. It got lost in…”
His overwhelming grief for Jase. I did understand that. Too well.
He expelled a long breath. “The words came out wrong. I’m not good at talking about this stuff.”
Who is? But I didn’t say that. I patted his hand, tried to assure him without having to dig up the words, that it was okay. I understood. Say no more.
Please, say no more.
But he did say more. In that choppy, uneven, occasionally cracked voice. Dry. Parched. Like he hadn’t had a sip of water in decades.
“I knew when you said that…about giving Jase back to me if you had the power.” His eyes never wavered from mine. “It was the truth. You meant it.”
“I…” I badly wanted to believe I’d meant it. I badly wanted to believe what he was telling me, what he seemed to be telling me.
“I’ve never been afraid like I was today. With Jase there wasn’t time to be afraid. It was all over before I knew anything about it. With you there was time to think of what we could have had, what I’d let slip away, and I knew…” his breath caught “I had made the biggest mistake of my life. Because I didn’t have the guts to take another chance. Because it didn’t seem right that I get to…go on. I get to fall in love again. Be happy. And…it’s…so fucking unfair. I know that sounds…that it’s liable to sound… But it’s not you, Wyatt. Except that you’re this great guy and sometimes I couldn’t seem to get past that.”
I didn’t say a word. I was pretty sure he was trying to say that he couldn’t help resenting that I was alive and Jase was not, and while maybe it was understandable he would feel that way, I knew I wouldn’t be able to forgive him. Even if he had saved my life.
Graham kept stumbling along in that earnest, pained way. “It almost made it worse because I was so sure I couldn’t care about anyone again, not like I felt about Jase, but then I met you. And it was so… It happened so naturally. Like it was meant to happen. I knew I could let go. Move on. And it felt wrong.”
“How could it be wrong?”
He countered, “How could I forget him so easily?”
“You haven’t forgotten him.” The intention was to say it gently, but it came out harsh. Hurt.
“But I could.” His face worked and here came the part that killed him, that he was ashamed of. “Not forget him. But let go. I want to. I want to move on. I want to love you. I can’t change anything that happened. I can’t fix anything. I didn’t get justice for Jase. But I still want to move on. I want you.”
I tried to swallow the lump in my throat. “You had me.”
“I know.”
The honesty of that made me laugh. Graham laughed too, a little uncertainly, and reached for me at the same time I reached for him. In that antiseptic atmosphere he smelled alive and real: woodsmoke and sunscreen and sunflowers —
The curtain rings scraped. We both retreated from our near-embrace as the doctor strode into the cubicle. “Sounds like someone is feeling a lot better.”
“Me? I’m fine.” In fact, what I mostly felt was exasperation at the worst timing in the world.
“I’m Dr. Geary.” Dr. Geary was short and boyish. He looked like he should have been sitting in a ninth grade biology class trying to drop frozen frogs down girls’ blouses.
“Don’t go anywhere,” I told Graham when he stood up. To Geary, I said, “I’m sure I’m okay now. When can I go home?”
The doctor ignored this, going unhurriedly through the ritual of blood pressure and heart rate. Graham moved to where he could get a better view of the sprinkler overhead. He studied it like it was a rare geode. I studied Graham.
When he’d finished his examination, Dr. Geary announced, “Good news. Provided you can stay with someone for the next twenty-four hours — just in case of relapse — we can see about turning you loose now.”
“He’s staying with me,” Graham spoke up.
“Relapse?” I echoed.
“It’s rare but sometimes patients have what we call a biphasic reaction. I’m going to give you prescriptions for Benadryl, prednisone and an EpiPen. You’ll want to carry that last one from now on.” The doctor cheerfully rattled off the rest of his mildly alarming information and retreated once again behind the blue wall.
“Relapse,” I repeated.
The curtain swung gently to a standstill. I looked at Graham. He solemnly looked back at me. “Are you sure about this?” I didn’t mean having me as a houseguest for the next twenty-four hours. I couldn’t help thinking one of us was probably making a big mistake. If he’d taken me into his arms — but, no, the moment seemed to be lost.
Instead he nodded. As declarations went, it left something to be desired. Of course I could make the next move. I’d made plenty of them before.
I started to sit up. The curtain rings slid again and the nurse was back with a sheaf of papers for me to sign. It was too late for either of us to back out. Assuming one of us wanted to.
The house on Startouch Drive felt warm and welcoming when we walked in. The sun was setting and the rooms were filled with amber light.
“Are you hungry?” Graham asked.
“Probably. It’s hard to tell with all these antihistamines bouncing around my system. I’m mostly tired.” Tired down to my DNA. But I didn’t need sleep. And I didn’t need food. I didn’t even need to hear again that Graham wanted to give us another chance. Well, I did, but Graham wasn’t much for words at the best of times. What I needed was Graham. Not even sex. Just his arms around me. Just the simple reassurance of a hug. I wanted him to hold me like he meant it.
I looked up and he was watching me in that steady, calm way. “Why don’t you jump into bed, and I’ll bring you something on a tray.”
“Nah. I’m tired but I’m too pumped up to sleep.”
“We don’t have to sleep.” Suddenly he was smiling, his face relaxed, looking younger than he’d looked in all the time I’d known him.
I found myself helplessly smiling back. When he looked at me like that, it was easy to believe that this was real, that it was going to work out.
I walked into the bedroom. The final crepuscular rays of sun lanced through the skylight and illuminated the bed. I pulled off my T-shirt, stepped out of my jeans. They’d cleaned me up in the emergency room, but I needed a shower. Maybe I was more tired than I’d realized though, because I thought to hell with it, crawled into bed and pulled up the covers. I stared up into the funnel of light, watching the dust motes dance in the air.
“You okay?” Graham asked from the doorway.
I sat up. “Yeah. Only I…”
“Me too.” He left the doorway and sat down on the bed, and all at once it was easy again, natural to put my arms around him, feel his arms around me. He needed a shower too — and a shave. I was smiling as our mouths brushed gently. The smiles evaporated in hungry fervor. Unsteady mo
uths exploring flushed skin, trembling eyelashes, before latching on once more in shivery, sweet kisses. The familiar heat coiled inside me, tingling all the way from the soles of my feet to the ends of my hair.
I could feel Graham’s heart pounding against my own, feel the unevenness of his breath and the tremor of his hands.
When we finally broke the kiss, his eyes glittered. “It’s okay,” I said. “It’ll be okay. It’s not as complicated as it seems.”
“Does it seem complicated to you? It seems simple to me.”
I reached out to brush the tears at the edge of his eyes. The wet glittered on my thumb tip. “Are you still scared?”
“No. Are you?”
“No.” Maybe a little. I had something to lose again — and I didn’t think I could survive losing it twice
He smiled his wry smile, the funny little grin I’d fallen in love with. “I’ll fix us something to eat, and then we can talk.”
“We don’t have to talk.”
“Not a long conversation,” Graham agreed. “I want to say I love you. How’s that?”
“Perfect.”
I was still smiling as he kissed me a final time and headed back to the kitchen.
I stared up at the darkening skies. The stars would appear soon, first a faint and milky glow, then a hard, adamantine glitter, burning steadily through the night. It would be a good night. Maybe the first of many.
I could hear Graham in the other room, comfortable, familiar sounds of dishes and running water. I could hear the birds in the trees saying good-night to each other. And somewhere down the hillside I could hear the buzz of a motorcycle like an angry bee growing fainter and fainter with the miles.
About the Author
A distinct voice in gay fiction, multi-award-winning author JOSH LANYON has been writing gay mystery, adventure and romance for over a decade. In addition to numerous short stories, novellas, and novels, Josh is the author of the critically acclaimed Adrien English series, including The Hell You Say, winner of the 2006 USABookNews awards for GLBT Fiction. Josh is an Eppie Award winner and a three-time Lambda Literary Award finalist.
Find other Josh Lanyon titles at www.joshlanyon.com
Thank you for buying this book. It is only because readers like you continue purchase fiction that writers can still afford to write.
~ Josh Lanyon ~
