I pulled him closer. I wrapped my arms around him and held on. I felt the warmth of being someone's person for the first time in my life.
The mug on my shelf at home was going to stay right where it was.
19
Abbott
Light filtered through the window, the warm October light of a Chicago morning coming through curtains I hadn't bothered to close. It fell across Jamie Hayes, who was asleep on his stomach with his face turned toward me.
I'd been watching him sleep for eleven minutes.
This was different from the hotel room. In the hotel room, watching Jamie sleep had been something I had to do covertly—a stolen observation that I put away and tried not to examine. This morning, lying on my side with the sheets around my waist and the apartment quiet around us, I could watch him sleep—the attention that I had spent years directing at this man, finally without the filter of pretending it was something else.
He was beautiful this morning. The rumpled, honest version of Jamie Hayes that nobody got to see, just a man sleeping in a bed that wasn't his, in an apartment he'd shown up to last night to say the two words that changed everything.
Don't go.
I traced the line of his shoulder with my eyes. The left one, the one that got tight—I'd kissed it last night after tracking its tension for three years. His skin was warm in the sunlight. I could see the fine details now allowed me—the small scar on his right forearm from a skate blade, the density of muscle across his back, the way his hair fell across his forehead when he wasn't pushing it back.
He stirred, opening one eye.
"You're watching me," he said, his voice rough with sleep.
"I'm always watching you."
"I know." He smiled. It was a slow, unguarded smile. "I've always known."
He reached for me. His hand found my hip under the sheet and he pulled me closer. We lay there, face to face in the morning light. I let myself look at him.
"How long?" he asked quietly. It wasn't the first time he'd asked—he'd asked last night in the dark, but this morning, the question was different.
I considered. "Do you want the real answer?"
"I want the real everything." His finger traced a lazy circle on my skin.
"The first year I knew something was different. The second year I accepted it. By the third year I'd stopped counting and started just—being in it. Living with it the way you live with gravity. It was there. I worked around it."
"That was three years ago."
"At least." I put my hand on his jaw and turned his face so I could see his expression in the light, without shadows. "When did you know?"
He closed his eyes. "I didn't—not consciously. I knew I couldn't put your mug away. I knew your car being three spots from mine made me feel something I didn't examine. I knew carrides with you were the only place I felt quiet. But I didn't really get it, if that makes sense."
"And now?"
"Now I know." He opened his eyes. "Now I'm here."
He kissed me, without the urgency of last night. This was different. Last night had been the dam breaking, years of tension releasing in a rush. This morning, it was the unhurried exploration of two people who had all the time in the world.
I took care of him. That was the only way to describe it. I knew his left shoulder was tight, so I worked it with my hands until I felt the muscles release. He made a low, involuntary sound, the release of a man who had never been touched by someone who knew exactly where he held his tension.
"How do you know how to do that?" he asked, half question, half accusation.
"I told you. I've been watching."
"And taking notes, apparently."
"Comprehensive notes."
