by Ella James
And then he's in my office.
“Sky?”
I turn from the window, drinking him in. He looks like a whole meal in a black suit with a pale blue dress shirt—its collar unbuttoned—and just a little stubble on his jaw and his, soft short hair. “Looking sharp,” I manage.
He smiles. “Edey’s in the nursery.”
"Come here," I murmur. Just one stride and he's in my arms.
"Hey, my Sky babe." He kisses my cheek and then inhales. Then he pulls back, smiling gently. "How ya doing?"
"I'm okay." But the words catch in my throat.
He rubs his palms down my upper arms and gives me a sad smile. "No you're not. You're nervous as hell, and you look tired."
"That's good," I say, sounding like Eeyore even to my own ears.
"Nobody else will know, except maybe Pearl. I can read you like a book, McD." He holds me closer. "Tell me what’s up." He kisses my hair, and I let myself relax against him.
He rubs my back. "I know you've gotta be having at least a kind of hard time. But you won't tell me. Bet I know why, too. You have some idea you should spare me from it. But you know what?" He's whispering in my ear. "Whatever you’re thinking right now, I can handle that shit. That's what I'm made for."
I swallow hard so I don't get red eyes before I go on air. "Made for picking me up?" I manage.
"And putting you back together.”
"I want to...be better. For you."
"I don't want you to be better." He hugs me tighter. "Just be Sky."
Then he walks me over to the couch. He takes a seat and urges me to lie with my head in his lap. He strokes my hair, and I close my eyes—for just a minute. "You're my favorite part of life, Sky. I just fucking love...everything about you. We're the perfect match. Both of us bring out the best in each other. I just want to be a place where you can rest. Like really rest. And talk if you want to. But if you don't, then you don't. I'm your Switzerland."
"You're not neutral," I murmur into his lap. "You're pro-Luke."
"In any format.” His hand strokes through my hair. “I don't have desires for how you'll act. All I want is to do life with you. Sometimes I've been a little worried, here or there, that you might...think it's too much. This thing with us. But I trust you. You're smart, you're kind. You're a good person, Sky babe. In a little while, you're gonna get up there and show these people who you are, like you do every week. I can't imagine how you open up to all these strangers like you do. And it's so real. It's like they know the same person I do."
I wrap my arms around his waist. " Maybe what they care about the most is all the stuff I'm not. Like bespoke suits and how I look and how I make them feel."
"You make them feel heard and accepted. You've never made these people feel abnormally important or universally right. I've watched almost all the footage of you. I watched in the church's archive, chronological order. I know what you've told them for at least the past three years. You've been honest with them about yourself, even. You never talked shit about gay rights. You kept it rainbow friendly even when the church wasn't affirming. I know you know your own numbers on that shit."
The church has always had gay members.
"Yeah," I manage.
"There is no one better for this than you. You're the one you need. I know it's a cliche, but you're the one you're waiting for, and you're the one they're waiting for. You're the right man for this moment, Sky babe. You're strong and honest and brave. You have an ability that's...not because of who your dad is. At least not superficially. Maybe it's in the genes." His hand strokes my hair again.
"This is what you're good at. Just the same as writers open themselves up for a book or actors make themselves into a role. You're doing something with your self. With who you are. You're making yourself available for consumption. Honestly, I guess it's just like an artist or a writer. You're an artist, and your art is teaching. Speaking. Showing them things they can't see with their eyes. Only when their eyes have your goggles on top of them. You're a teacher. In the purest form. You're...a visionary. And it doesn't matter that you're gay. You're not gonna tell them being gay is okay if it isn't. You would have quit if you believe you were going against your religion. It’s not wrong to love who you love. Our love isn't wrong, and you don't think it is. I know you don't. I can tell you don't."
"I don't," I whisper.
"All us humans are made of the same stuff. We have the same heart."
"I know." I sit up, so I can wrap my arms around him. "I just need to try to show them that. And if it doesn't work, if they can't see, I'm going to go," I whisper. "I won't have our love degraded by a bunch of willful ignorance and constant questions and bully behavior like what happened at the burger place last week."
"If it doesn't work, you'll have given them everything you can. And we can move to...anywhere we want to."
"Would you ship the sculptures overseas?" I ask V.
He smiles. "Sky, I think it's gonna work." He says it gently. And his face is gentle. As is his hand cupping my nape. "I think this will be just fine. But if it isn't, if you don't want it, then yeah. I'll ship them wherever."
I wrap myself around him and just smell him. Vance. The keeper of my heart. The master of my little human universe. For me, he's the embodiment of love. He helps me see God. That's what love does. It helps us see beyond our animal instincts, our petty human limitations, and it helps us elevate.
Vance hugs me, and I hug him harder. "Thank you. You're my lifeline, you know. You're the way I see God."
He frames my face with his hands, kisses my cheeks and my forehead and my eyes. "I'll be your protector, okay?"
"You're always the hero of our story, Vanny."
"We're co-stars as the hero. We're gonna build something epic with what we have. I can feel it,” he says.
I haven't told him much about my plans that involve making Evermore a haven for people who don’t have other places to go—especially queer people. But I know what he’ll say when I do. I tell him just a little bit, and he hugs me hard.
"That's what I want." He kisses my temple. "I just want to see what we can do together. And when we're old" —he laughs softly— "hopefully we die together," he says in a low rasp. "Do you think that's fucked up?"
I laugh, almost shocked, but also... "No. I don’t want to live without you either. But I've resisted that siren call a long time, Vanny. So you better hope there's a pandemic virus for us, or a meteor or something."
He kisses my mouth gently, and when he leans his head back, I'm relieved to see he's smiling. "It's okay if we don’t go at exactly the same time. I gotta die first, though."
"My Rayne..." I kiss his jaw. "Who knew you were such a morose boy?"
He runs his hands into my hair, tugging as his hooded eyes seem to almost glow with love. "That's not how it is, McD." His voice sounds hoarse. His mouth looks so soft. "I just know what I need."
I run my tongue over his lower lip, give him a tender kiss, and then hug him against me. "I don't know why I get to be that. But I'm glad I do."
We sit there for a long time holding each other.
Rayne murmurs into my shoulder. "I've got your back, Sky. You're gonna get up there, and you're gonna do this. No one's better than you."
I lift my head off him so I can look into his eyes. Just looking at his face makes me feel better. Like a hit of some drug.
"When it's over, we'll go hold our baby,” he says.
I shut my eyes.
"You're stressed about that, too?” he guesses. “Don't be stressed. There's a lot of babies, Sky babe. If we can't keep this one, we'll just get another one from somewhere."
I can't help a soft laugh. "It's that simple?"
"Oh yeah," he says, winking. "It's that simple."
I think of Vance running through an orphanage, scooping up baby after baby, holding them all like he held Eden when he first found her in the box, and I get a good, long laugh out of it.
"You're..."
; "Impractical?” he says. “And optimistic?" He tilts his head and smiles so beautifully that it hurts my chest.
"Yes,” I say. “You're both of those."
There's a knock on my door. "It's time for your makeup, Pastor."
"Knock em dead," Vance says as we stand together, still wrapped in each other.
I widen my eyes, chastising and hopefully comical, and he laughs. "Slain in the spirit."
That makes me laugh, too.
"I'll do my best, Rayne."
He kisses my lips as we get to the door. "I love you."
"I love you more." One more hard hug, and I'm out.
I'm out as hell. I'm walking down the hall with the pre-production team and not a single note in my pocket, and I feel Vance's eyes on my back like a warm hug.
I'm out, and I'm about to go on live TV and tell the world.
23
Vance
God, my stomach's in a fucking knot. Luke is standing maybe ten feet out in front of me, behind a curtain wall that separates him from the amphitheater’s large stage. I can see the mic box attached to his belt in the back, creating a lump under his jacket. I can see the way his left hand flexes at his side—his fist not really clenching but just curling nervously. He shifts his weight. His right hand, which holds the black mic that he uses onstage every time, must be flexing, too, because there's tension in his triceps.
I watch as his shoulders rise and fall, and then his head bows. He rolls his bulky shoulders like they’re aching.
I think I'm learning the musical cues. The song they play while people get into their seats is almost over. Then it's over, and he bows his head one more time, quickly, and he's stepping forward onto the bright stage. The burgundy curtains flutter around him, and the staff here in the wings around me falls quiet.
Pearl steps over to me, putting her hand on my shoulder, and I shut my eyes for a second, sending up a prayer of my own.
Let them be gentle with him.
Then Luke's voice is everywhere, booming through every speaker. He says, "Hi there everybody" in that rich, full, upbeat-sounding baritone of his—the timbre somehow just a little boyish, charming, always sounding like he's smiling, like he likes you. Like the talk is just between the two of you.
"How's it going?" he says. There's a brief pause, and a small screen in the corner of the backstage shows him pacing, the way he always does. His head is down. He lifts it. "I'll just tell you now...this one feels a little awkward. I'm pretty good at this. I don't get rattled, really. But this time's a little different, yeah?"
I can't help smiling when he says that—“yeah?”; it's something I say a lot.
"We're here to talk about the Lord, but I'm taking more questions this time. I know for some of you, you're also here to talk about me. To ask me questions about something that's, for too long, been seen as off-limits and taboo—and not in the cool or edgy way. Taboo in the solemn way. Taboo in the way sometimes it feels like only we Christians can take something off the table and just call it ‘done’. Homosexual is almost a bad word in the church, right?"
My heart flips as I hear a murmur—both through the sound system and, as a smaller whisper, through my own ears.
"Homosexual...that brings to mind that old-school fire and brimstone stuff. When I was a kid—" There's a brief pause—so brief that I bet almost no one notices; just me and Pearl, who squeezes my shoulder again. "When I was a kid and you heard 'homosexual'…it was a word that was synonymous with condemnation. You didn't even have to say more than that. If you were a Christian, you knew homosexuality was wrong. It was a sin, right? Because that's what the Bible said."
There's another murmur—and it makes me cold to think that someone in the audience just whispered, "Yes," and meant it.
But Luke's voice keeps steady.
"And you know...here's the way that organizations work. Including 'the church.' People look to leadership for answers, because most of you don't have time or energy to go all through the Bible analyzing every verse yourself and reading history of the original text and things like that. Those things aren't your job, and while some people do it—some of us really like those deep dives—many others don't. So, leadership. ‘What does the pastor say? What does the priest say? What does the pope say? What does the rabbi or the imam say?’
“And here's the thing: Some of us...we're doing a lot of thinking. We're reading everything for ourselves and deciding what we think. But even in church leadership positions, everybody's not the same. Kind of like doctors. You've got the ones who are all nerdy—ones like me—who are reading journals and papers and research on a Saturday afternoon because they love it. That’s a hobby for them.
"And then you've got the ones who just don't really like to do those sorts of things. They finished medical school, they might do their required continuing education, but they're not about reading every study, every paper, every little shred of something that comes up on a given topic. Unless they're a specialist. But that's not the point. The point is...sometimes even we don't know. Like let's say you're in forestry, in management. There's going to be some magazines that talk about your industry. And if you're not a researcher, you probably take your cues about your field—the field of forestry—from research publications. Which is okay. Nothing wrong with that.
"The point I'm making—and I'm rambling a little here—but it's that there's not really many people in any industry who are doing most of the thinking on their own, most of the leg work that promotes decision-making on their own. And then among the ones who are, what they come out and say is going to end up censored. Not by anything nefarious, but just more by what's kosher for the day. Let's just say that I thought some passages in the Bible indicated aliens were going to arrive to mark the End Times. Let me be clear: I do not think that." He gives a soft chuckle. "But if I did, do you think I would feel okay to stroll out onto the stage here and say that? No. I wouldn't. Now, in sixteen years after we see some extraterrestrial life or something like that, maybe I'm feeling more safe to share that thought out loud.
"But people, even leaders, edit their statements and public commentary based on what they think is okay. Nobody wants to be that person other people think is ‘way out there’ and unrelatable. Even as a little kid…you see a three-year-old, and if their mom or dad or teacher isn't understanding what they're trying to say, that kid will cry and experience disappointment and some upset. We adults are not that different. Everybody longs to be understood. So, we censor ourselves. Self-censorship, to be sure what we do say resonates with others.
"There were people in the church," he says, now speaking a pace more slowly, "who have thought for a long time that homosexuality is not a sin." There's a beat of silence, almost too long. "Yeah. I know, right? Not everyone in the church believes that being gay...or bi...or trans...or pan...is a sin. In fact, you would be surprised to know how many people don't. But you know what? Those people are often in the closet." He says those three words with somber, quiet force.
"When something's 'bad', nobody wants to be the one connected to it. Not even the messenger. You ever heard that phrase don't shoot the messenger? Well, people do. They blame the messenger. So, you're a straight pastor, you could get taken down, you could lose your job, for saying you've read all the things, you’ve done the research legwork, and you think maybe it's not such a bad thing after all to be attracted to a person with the same physical hardware as what you've got. Maybe the bodies we're in don't matter so much when it comes to who to love. Or even who we are."
There's another silence, and I hold my breath as he gives them a moment to digest.
"Maybe what matters is our hearts,” Luke continues, “and what's happening in there. You can be a good woman and love another woman. Because that's just who you find yourself more drawn to. Maybe—like some other things in the Bible, such as some dietary recommendations or other things reflecting the norms of that day—rules for who to love are actually kind of arbitrary.”
If the cro
wd seemed quiet, they go pin-drop silent right there, as Luke steps out on a thin limb, casting a degree of question on their holy book.
“I think if you are someone who believes that every word of the Bible is not just sacred, but also one hundred percent accurate as currently interpreted, you're probably not a member of this church. Because I don't believe that. And I've preached sermons for a long while that reflect that belief—that the book itself can be sacred, can be holy, without everything it says being something that applies to every person.
"Do you eat pork? Wear polyester? Do you have tattoos…‘cuttings in your flesh’ or ‘printed marks’ on your skin? What about being divorced? Those are things the Bible says are not okay. And frankly, no one's dying if they give up pork. It's not dangerous to give up pork. No one's hurt if we all give up pork. I mean, your feelings might be hurt. You might be crying for that bacon." I can see his smile on the small screen. "But you're not going to be hurt. In your heart. In your soul. It's not going to make you sad or lonely or feel like you can't go on with life. For giving up pork.
“But still, even though there are no big consequences to giving up pork….many of us choose not to give up pork. And the reason why is that bacon is incredible. And ham is awesome. I eat ham at Christmas with that glaze on it. Cinnamon glaze. It's good stuff. So we keep eating ham. And we keep divorcing when that seems right. And we get tattoos. And I'm not condemning these things. By the way. I think these things are part of life.
"What matters to me, is that you love the Lord. And that we seek the truth. And that we practice kindness, to ourselves and others, and we believe in the story of Jesus and the power that has. And that we open ourselves up to knowing that this life—in these bodies—isn't what our final destination looks like. This whole world is temporary. Our time here is fleeting. We know that. All that matters is that we love each other. And ourselves. And that's a thing, my friends. I've tried to talk about it here for a while. Loving ourselves is important. When we don't have love for ourselves, it's hard to feel it for anybody else. Love and gratitude. Appreciation. Gentleness. A spirit of forgiveness and generosity.
