Forever & Ever

by Tere Michaels

  Or maybe it was all that red wine.

  Or maybe it was the thrill of their secret.

  “TECHNICALLY THIS is a walk of shame” greeted him when he entered Jim and Griffin’s enormous kitchen. Griffin sat at the table, a forkful of pancakes in one hand and a wicked grin on his face.

  “How do you figure?” Evan asked, taking stock of Jim, Matt, and Daisy in the remaining chairs, all in various states of eating.

  “Matt already tattled about your shenanigans,” he said sweetly. “And you’re wearing the same clothes!”

  “That’s a naughty sleepover,” Daisy offered. She patted her mouth with a napkin, then stood up to give Evan a hug. “Not a walk of shame.”

  “Thank you.” Evan patted her back, hoping it translated to hope you’re doing okay.

  She gave him a wink before sitting back down.

  Griffin puckered up, but Evan just patted the nest on his head before circling over to sit down next to Matt, who gave him loving eyes in between bites of bacon.

  “Morning.” Jim waved the coffee carafe in Evan’s direction. “I hope the facilities were to your liking.”

  “Your shower is a magical experience.” Evan accepted the carafe from Jim, then poured himself a cup filled right to the brim.

  “You don’t want to know how much it cost.” Griffin passed along a heaping platter of pancakes and scrambled eggs.

  A gentle tug on his pants leg and Evan peered under the table—where Sadie sat, dancing a purple monkey over everyone’s feet.

  “Hey, Sadie.”

  She waved the monkey in his general direction.

  When he came back up, he got a syrupy kiss on the cheek from Matt.

  “I love our lives, but we might consider moving up here permanently.”

  “Only if you want to have endless conversations about weddings and babies,” Griffin said, then froze, gaze darting to Daisy, who reached for the saltshaker.

  “I can feel you looking at me with your cartoon eyes,” she said calmly, focused on her plate of food. “I’m happy for you guys.” She looked up, her perfectly poised face punctuating her tone. “Truly. I mean, life goes on, right? After the year we’ve had, this little group needs only good news from now on.”

  Evan felt Matt pressed against him, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip. He watched Griffin’s expression melt into goofy happiness, and even stoic Jim cast a smile across the table. Under the table, Sadie babbled to herself.

  Only good news, even if it stayed between two lovers.

  TEN DAYS later Matt sat at his desk, considering turning the furnace on as he sipped his morning coffee. Quiet house, a stack of work to go over before his lunchtime conference call with Jim. A dozen phone calls to make. Contentment settled over him as he reached for his phone.

  A text appeared, from Evan.

  What are you doing Thursday, week after next?

  Matt glanced over at his wall calendar, then double-checked his laptop.

  Nothing. Why?

  The three little dots hovered for a few seconds.

  Let’s do it.

  A sex joke came to mind first, but a second later, Matt got it. He dropped his phone on the desktop as a frisson of delightful nerves sparked him to sit up straight. He took a moment to move his coffee cup three inches and straighten his laptop, then picked up his phone.

  Okay.

  Another long pause with those dancing dots.

  Great.

  Matt stared at the screen, a ridiculous smile pulling at his cheeks.

  Great.

  NOTHING HAD indicated today would birth a decision.

  Evan woke up, showered, checked his email, drank coffee, briefly complained about the chill in the air to Matt, then negotiated the traffic into the city. A normal Wednesday.

  His morning brief finished, Evan sat down at his desk with another cup of coffee, looked at the calendar, and thought, We should get married the week after next.

  He froze for a second, the cup halfway to his lips.

  The need for secrecy still felt right, the totem of “this is for us” lovingly curled inside his brain. All the pomp and circumstance around even his rushed wedding with Sherri amounted to pleasing her parents and her priest; at no point during the process did Evan think, I love her more now. He’d made his decision about her long before that moment, as he’d decided Matt was forever so long ago he couldn’t even pinpoint the time and place.

  Outside his office, Evan observed his precinct busy at work. Phones ringing, conversations and laughter, the serious expressions of men and women trying to protect. Serve. He tried to imagine the chaos that would descend if his and Matt’s marriage became a PR stunt.

  He put down the coffee, picked up the phone, and texted Matt.

  PLANNING A secret wedding meant lists in code (“Gorilla glue, newspaper” meant “Suits at cleaner’s and marriage license”) and slickly creative lies they plotted in bed with the lights out (“Can Jane’s mom drive you to soccer practice? I have a meeting downtown.”). Matt said something vague to Jim about an appointment, which proved unnecessary as his best friend and business partner had other things to worry about.

  “Jim’s preoccupied with making sperm, so we’re good there,” Matt reported, whispering into Evan’s ear as they were making dinner Sunday night. “They’re going to try and knock up Griffin’s sister that week.”

  Evan stopped stirring the Alfredo sauce, a grossed-out look on his face.

  Matt snickered.

  “Day off procured?”

  “Yeah.” Evan indicated the boiling pot of water with a tilt of his head.

  “We have the uh—newspaper to get this week.”

  Evan opened his mouth to answer, but Elizabeth strode into the kitchen, rubbing her hands together. “I am so hungry!” she declared.

  Matt swatted her with the dish towel. “Feel free to help. Maybe find something green in the fridge?”

  “A vegetable or just something you left in there too long?” Elizabeth said sweetly, getting another swat for her sass.

  With a wink, Matt chased Elizabeth around the kitchen twice before Evan remembered the boiling pasta and saved dinner.

  THE FIRST wrinkle in their plan came when Evan realized they needed a witness to get their license. Their procured two-hour block of time—to get to the Bronx courthouse, get the license, and get back to their respective jobs—left little time for debate. Who could they trust?

  “With our lives? I could reel off a list. With a secret? Zero. Not one of them,” Matt bitched as he got dressed, Evan on speakerphone as he drove to work.

  “Not even Jim?”

  Matt considered his best friend for a moment but dismissed it. Keeping a secret of that magnitude from Griffin would eat at his stomach lining, and while he might not say anything, the stern disapproving looks they’d get for eternity were not worth it.

  Before Matt could answer, Evan was replying to himself. “No, that wouldn’t be fair. I don’t want to ask him to keep secrets from Griffin.”

  “Good point. What about….” He trailed off. If Vic weren’t in Florida, he’d consider it, but they didn’t have time to get him up there. “Abe! Abe Klein!” Matt yelled suddenly, his shirt half-unbuttoned.

  “Your ex-partner?”

  “Yeah. It’s perfect. He doesn’t socialize with our sprawling group of busybodies, never crosses paths with them. And if we ask him not to share with Vic, he would keep his mouth shut.”

  “Hmmm.” Evan was quiet for a few seconds over the phone line. “Yeah, okay. That sounds perfect. Do you think he can make it on such short notice?”

  “I’ll call him, but generally speaking, he’s either at a Yankees game or sitting in a bar three doors down from his apartment. He can probably squeeze us in.”

  ABE KLEIN did not, in fact, have plans.

  “I’m glad to help you, Matthew, but you are playing chauffer if I’m keeping a secret.”

  The next day Matt picked him up, gunning the motor as his nerves ki
cked up and sweat began to form under his armpits. A dress shirt suddenly felt like a terrible idea. If this was his reaction to the license-getting, they’d have to hose him down for the actual marriage vows.

  Abe, in what Matt recognized as his funeral suit, shuffled to the car, cane in one hand and a dapper hat with an owl feather in the other.

  “We’re not shaking down some bar owners,” Matt said as a greeting when Abe settled into the passenger seat. “You look like an extra from The Sopranos.”

  “Hmph,” Abe answered, struggling a bit to get the seat belt on, his hat and cane stowed on the floor.

  Matt struggled himself—with not offering to help. Abe would probably shoot him.

  “I figured I’d dress up for such a momentous occasion. Matthew Haight, legendary tomcat, officially taken off the market.”

  “I’ve been off the market for years. Where have you been?”

  “The bleachers at Yankee Stadium.”

  THEY CHATTED about sports and the weather and the mayor being a bonehead. For a moment Matt felt like he was driving a time machine back to his homicide days with Abe.

  “The more things change, the more they stay the same,” Matt muttered, half to himself, earning a bark of laughter from Abe.

  “You takin’ my lines?”

  “I thought I read that in a fortune cookie.”

  Just a few blocks away from the courthouse, Matt began swallowing repeatedly and tapping out a furious beat on the steering wheel. He felt Abe’s amused gaze on him but kept staring straight ahead as a cop attempted to direct traffic around emergency manhole cover work. The road rage was palpable.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Stupid traffic,” he added.

  “Evan meetin’ us there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You okay?”

  Matt turned his head enough to shoot Abe a look. “Asked and answered.”

  “Just trying to be a good witness,” Abe said with a smirk. “Want to make sure you aren’t having second thoughts about this.”

  Matt opened his mouth, then closed it. “I don’t even have first thoughts on it,” he said finally. “Never expected this—any of it. Now I’m… I’m freaking out a little.”

  The confession made him sweat even more.

  “Hmmm,” Abe murmured. His tone had definitely shifted. “Well, we got some time as it’s clearly this guy’s first day directing traffic.” On cue, a truck driver leaned out of his white panel truck and began screaming. “You want to get married?”

  “I thought I was already married. So what about a piece of paper makes things different?” The line from Princess Bride echoed in his head. Marriage is what brings us together today. A slightly hysterical laugh got stuck in his throat.

  Together to do what?

  Be together forever? Love each other? Raise the kids together? Pay bills, buy groceries, bitch about plumbing, and argue over who had to rake the leaves?

  They’d been doing that, successfully, for years.

  So why now? Why this?

  He said as much to Abe, who hummed again in response.

  “I’ve got two divorces under my belt, so take this with a shaker of salt,” he said. “But what you’re talking about is the everyday stuff. You make a commitment, you deal with the consequences. Not just in marriage—having kids, having a career, owning a house. All of it is saying, ‘All right, I accept the responsibility for this.’” Abe looked out the window. “But… you don’t want a car anymore, you sell it. You don’t want to be married, you split up. Even kids—well, you know as well as I do how many of them get left behind.”

  “This is not helping my state of mind,” Matt sighed, resting his head against the steering wheel. The background music of horns and cursing seemed apropos.

  “The reason you stay,” Abe plowed on, “is a higher reason for being there. You make a commitment for more than just responsibility. You make a… a vow. That even when the responsibility is too damn much, you take a breath and you keep going. Because you cherish it. Because you can’t think of another place you’d rather be or another person you’d rather be doing it with.”

  Matt stewed in this for a moment, lifting his head to watch the first car at the head of their mini jam peeling out in the other oncoming lane at the wildly waving behest of the traffic cop.

  “I’ve never felt about a car the way I feel about Evan,” he said finally as Abe guffawed next to him. “And that speech would be a thing of beauty if it wasn’t for the divorce rate.”

  “I know. I contributed twice. But then again, I didn’t marry for the right reasons either time.”

  “So right person, right reasons. Commitment and responsibility and cherishing and the long haul,” Matt read off, half-sarcastically. “A lot of balls in the air.”

  “A lot of balls to bother with,” Abe laughed. “All I’m saying is—you two have a good thing. You proved you can push through a dozen or so walls of bullshit to be together. Now you’re just putting a seal on it. A badge of honor.”

  Matt put the car back in Drive as the furious truck driver finally got his window to move, flipping off the cop as he did. He remembered another badge he cherished, one he lost. Taking another one felt like tempting fate.

  But. This was Evan.

  “I want to get married because I cherish my responsibility and there’s no place I’d rather be. And Evan is not a car,” Matt said quietly as he turned the steering wheel.

  “Not tellin’ you what to do, but those are some nice vows.”

  “Those are terrible vows.”

  Abe shrugged. “Two divorces.”

  EVAN HID in the bathroom of the Bronx courthouse, waiting for Matt’s text that they had arrived.

  He had no dealings up this far, but you never knew what cops or lawyers were making a special trip to testify or take a meeting. Clerks, messengers, secretaries—hell, in his worst nightmares, he’d run into Helena and Shane, who suddenly decided to have lunch up here.

  Which was insane, but still.

  His window of two hours felt as tight as his collar. He’d purposely come in over the weekend, clearly visible at his desk as he slogged through stacks of files. His second-in-command insisted he come in late on Monday morning, and Evan went through his usual routine of protest before giving in.

  A pretty good acting job, if he did say so himself.

  He stood in a stall for almost twenty minutes, praying no one spent much time in here or noticed a guy nervously tapping his foot.

  Evan clung to that word—mine, because this was his, all his, and he didn’t want to share—and tried to hush his practical side, which just had one question. Why?

  All the subterfuge for what?

  More than a quarter of a century ago, Evan and a pregnant Sherri had walked into city hall for a license with Ellie and Sherri’s cousin Nina at their side—Ellie to cheer them on and Nina because Ellie was too young to be their witness. They were rushed, everyone taking a break from school and jobs, buried under the pressure of Sherri’s mother’s exhausting pace to get the wedding done before Sherri’s belly started to show.

  “We should have gone to Vegas,” Sherri had bitched, eating saltines out of her purse to keep from throwing up while they waited.

  “You should have used condoms,” Nina said under her breath, which made Ellie break into giggles.

  Evan pulled Sherri against him, rubbing her back as they watched throngs of couples line up to get their licenses. “I love you,” he whispered in her ear. “That’s the only thing that matters.”

  I love you. That’s the only thing that matters.

  Evan rested his head against the stall door, a smile breaking across his face.

  Mine.

  Finally a text pinged.

  Meet us in the lobby.

  Evan took a deep breath, exiting the stall. He washed his hands calmly, then shared a long stare in the mirror with his reflection.

  ABE GAVE Evan a backslapping hug when they met up, with an extra
whack of his cane as he pulled away.

  “If you need a best man, I can be bought,” he whispered, clearly delighted by the subterfuge.

  Evan controlled his first impulse—to look around and see if anyone heard.

  Matt reached down to squeeze Evan’s hand, then moved to let go, but Evan held on tight. “We’ll keep that in mind,” he said. “But are we talking a bottle of scotch or a trip to Hawaii?”

  “Yes,” Abe deadpanned before cracking up at his own humor.

  “As we are on a schedule,” Matt interrupted, “let’s get upstairs and do this. No clue what the line is like.”

  Abe smirked as he shuffled over to the elevator.

  “Hey,” Matt said as they followed. Evan knocked their shoulders together. “You doing all right?”

  “I’m good. Just realizing I am out of practice being undercover. I just hid in a bathroom stall for twenty minutes.”

  “You’re lucky no one thought you were trolling the men’s room for sex.”

  Evan stepped into the elevator; he felt his eyes go wide with panic.

  Abe continued to laugh, pressing their floor number with his cane.

  THE SENSE of calm settling over Matt began to evaporate when the elevator doors opened, letting them out in the hallway with the clerk’s office. He’d been so caught up in Evan’s reactions, he completely missed his own concerns.

  Matt knew a lot of people—and people knew him. He and Evan had just months before been in the local papers due to Tripp Ingersoll’s splashy and dramatic arrest. Evan was the first out gay captain in the NYPD. Matt’s infamy seemed to have run its course, but still. People were going to see them, the gossip train would start, and that would be the end of their secret.

  Not to mention, when their friends and family found out they hid this? Hell. To. Pay.

  He clutched Evan’s hand a little tighter as they set off down the hallway—only to be blocked by Abe’s cane.