Dell’s mind flashed to Luca. He continued to keep his eyes on the damn road.
“Anyway, I’m talking a whole lot.”
“It’s okay,” Dell said. “I want to know.” But Mae closed herself into another silence. Until Dell encouraged, “So Jesus passed away only a few months after him? Was that a surprise, too?”
Mae sighed.
“Yeah, definitely a surprise, but slower. He suddenly had pneumonia, and then he was in the hospital, and then…” She shook her head, trailed off.
“I can never decide if it’s romantic or just sad,” Dell said eventually. “When a couple goes like that.”
“Jesus definitely thought it was romantic. Sometimes, in those last days, it almost felt like he?—”
Mae’s voice cut off, suddenly choked with emotion. She took a second to gather herself, and Dell wondered if he had pushed too hard. His fingers twitched on the wheel, yearning to touch her.
Her voice was smaller when she continued.
“It felt like he wanted to go. Like he’d willed his body to get sick on purpose. And it pissed me off. Even though I know it’s not logical, that he didn’t actually have control over his organ failure, but anyway. I might,mightbe inclined to agree with the romance part if they weren’t both way too young.”
“How old were they?”
“Mid-sixties.”
Dell winced so hard he almost swerved off the road.
“Yeah. Sixties feels ancient when you’re young, but from the view of your forties, it feels like fucking tomorrow.”
Dell let out a gust of air. “Yeah.”
“But Jesus was so into his faith that he was so…at peace with it. Alexei, too, even though Alexei was probably as close to Jesus and Steve as anyone. He has this whole fucked up family that disowned him for being gay, so Jesus and Steve became like…parental figures to him. I know they always spent every Sunday together, after church. But even though them both dying within four fucking months of each other was like losing his parentsagain,Ben said that Alexei felt at peace because…he got to say goodbye, on his own terms, and I am telling you a lot of personal shit about Alexei that’s probably violating some boundaries but he won’t tell you anything about himself on his own because he’s a super quiet dreamboat and I am now realizing that I amsuperjealous of his processing abilities.”
Mae took a deep breath before crossing her arms over her chest. She turned her head, staring out the window, and Dell felt a perhaps inappropriate level of affectionate amusement. Being that they were discussing the death of two men. But yet?—
“Makes a bitch want to believe in God,” Mae said, and Dell let out a short guffaw of laughter before attempting to smother it with his palm.
“Liv goes to church, you know,” he said after a moment. Mae looked at him in surprise. “Every Sunday. Sings in the choir.”
Mae’s jaw gaped open at that.
“No fucking way.”
Dell grinned. “Yup.” He shrugged. “According to her, she’s not truly that religious, but it’s the church her family’s always gone to, and she likes the community.”
“Huh.” Mae faced forward again. After a moment, she said, “Damn, Liv isgoodat being a small town queer.”
Dell’s grin dropped, his brow furrowing.
“You make it sound like it’s a vocation or something.”
“I don’t know.” Mae returned to staring out the passenger side window. “It feels like it is, sometimes. To me.”
Dell didn’t agree in the slightest—a person was just a person, no matter who they were or where they chose to live—but he wasn’t in the mood to argue, to break whatever fragile thing had draped across their laps and made Mae open up. He knew Mae might not believe him about this philosophy, anyway, what with his view of outsiders. Or what she perceived that view to be, anyway. But it wasn’t really about where a person was from. It was about trust. Dell had simply learned to not have much of it.
“Jesus had this line,” Mae said some minutes later, “that he’d use with new clients at the center. He called himselfa bit more fabulous than the original, but don’t tell Him I said that.”
Dell smiled. “He sounds like a fun guy.”
Mae was quiet for too long before she simply said, “Yeah.”
