“I don’t want to go to bed,” said Pete. He glanced at the clock over the white stove. “Even if it is midnight.”
Dale’s gaze was as warm and steady as it ever had been, but there was a question in them now, low beneath the blue of those eyes, rising up like a creature freed, at long last, from a vast depth.
“Then let’s sit for a while.”
Dale stood up, and when Pete stood up and wobbled, Dale was right at his side, a strong warm arm around his waist, a broad chest to support him, slow steps to take him to the couch, which was set in front of a slow-burning fire of orange embers, coal-black logs, the pop of blue and cherry flaring from time to time.
“This your place?” asked Pete as he looked around the fire-shadowed room, which seemed to be the great room in an old farmhouse that had been updated to be a little more modern, but still cozy. The walls were painted some soft color, and the floor beneath his feet was warm. “Heated floors?”
“Yeah.” Dale laughed, his head going back, the way it always used to when he thought something was funny. “I don’t mind heading out in freezing temperatures to feed cattle or to break up ice in the water troughs, but I have never liked coming home to a cold house.”
He looked right at Pete as his laugh settled into a smile and casually, quite casually, he flung his arm along the back of thecouch, right behind Pete’s head. And then Dale was still, watchful, waiting as though for a signal from Pete.
Maybe it was the medicine, kicking in, making his head feel like it was swimming in a vat of cotton wool. Or maybe it was the fire in the stone fireplace, sending tendrils of warmth into the room as though inviting Pete to sink beneath that warmth and rest forever and ever. Or maybe it was Dale himself, a steady presence, a warm body so close to his that if Pete melted into it and disappeared, that would be a fine ending to a life half-lived and choices made in fear.
Or maybe it was simply time to say the truth out loud and face what might follow.
He took a breath and froze, expecting that his rattling cough would rear its ugly head, but the medicine had kicked in well and truly now, and the cough abated before it even began.
That’s when he curled into Dale’s side, into that warmth and steady tide of love and affection that he’d always felt coming from Dale. Slid his arm around Dale’s back, as he’d often done when they were kids, half-wrestling, half goofing around, playing at affection and then darting away again.
He was doing what they always did, especially when they were hanging around with other guys at ball games in early summer, at the skateboard park down by the rec center, at the Dairy Queen–everywhere. They simply pretended it was nothing other than what it was, pretended it was just guys being guys, and not a bone-deep, soul-imprinting love.
This time, he did not pretend.
“Dale,” he said, half-choking on the well of feelings that rose up inside of him as he buried his face into the curve of Dale’s flannel-clad shoulder. Gripping folds of soft shirt in hard, claw-like fingers. “I missed you. Every minute of every day.”
He wanted to cry when both of Dale’s arms came around him, folded him close against Dale’s strong chest, one hand coming up to cradle the back of his head.
“Me too.”
Pete could hear the ache in Dale’s voice, as though his throat had grown too thick to say more than he had.
But behind those two words was more–everything that had always shone out of Dale’s blue eyes. Affection. Acceptance. Forgiveness. Love. Most of all love, all of it. Every bit of it. As though the words they’d never said to each other had been packed carefully away, staying safe over the years, held for just this moment to be spoken. Only it was too much, too much to be said aloud, at least not yet, not just yet.
He felt the rasp of Dale’s beardgrowth scratch along the side of his face, and then a kiss, warm, plush lips tenderly pressed to his temple. Pausing, a start of hesitation from Dale’s body as if he feared he’d done too much, risked too much. Loved too much.
“Dale.” Pete whispered the name against Dale’s strong neck, curled his head down to brush his forehead to the hard muscle, then swept a kiss to Dale’s collarbone where it rose amidst a rumple of flannel shirt. “I’ve missed you,” he said, almost a whisper. “Over and over, I missed you, and now I’ve come back, but my life’s a mess and I’ve got kids and I don’t know–”
“Of course,” said Dale, not hesitating to say it when Pete paused. “You’ll stay with me. You and the girls. Starting from now. I can’t wait to get to know them, and I can’t wait for it all to be like I imagined it–”
“You imagined it?” Pete looked up, touched a hand to Dale’s jaw. His fingers trailed Dale’s mouth, his lower lip, tickling the tips of his fingers around the corner of that mouth that was starting to curve into a slow smile.
“Yeah.” Dale’s voice was low and quiet, and the word yeah was said with such certainty that the force of it sank into Pete’s whole body. The room was starting to swim around him, but he could feel Dale’s warmth, the hardness of bone along his jaw,the scratch of beardgrowth, the whisper of a kiss to his fingers. “Just like this. A farm. A small herd of very good cattle–”
“Gelbvieh cattle,” said Pete, interrupting.
“You remembered,” said Dale, pleased wonder in his voice.
“Of course I did,” said Pete. “Tell me what else you imagined.”
“A little white farmhouse, complete with an old fashioned windmill drawing up water from a pure, clear well.” Dale paused and cleared his throat, his solid arm around Pete like a beautiful proud angel. “And a family around a farmhouse table. Which I don’t have–” Dale stopped again and then gestured to the kitchen counter and the two barstools placed along its length. “Hadn’t needed one, seeing as it was just me I was cooking for. But now–”
Pete squinted where Dale had gestured, but either the room was too dark or he was too doped up to be able to focus, for all he could see was Dale’s face, the profile of his jaw, the darkness beyond his arms.
“Now, I’m going to need to buy one or build it–”
“You could build us a table?” Pete asked, not allowing himself to question that what Dale was talking about was anything other than a true marriage proposal.
