Page 127

She bleats her reply, and then for a while, there are no other sounds and my head is finally quiet.

For the first time in weeks, maybe months, I can hear myself think.

I know what I’m going to do.

Tonight, when the closing ceremony is done, the last stragglers have gone home, and the festival lights have been switched off, I’m going to go to Finn’s door with the mistletoe in my hand and everything I’ve been holding back for ten years right behind my teeth.

I’m going to tell him I don’t remember the last time I wanted anyone else. It wasn’t in the beginning when it was supposed to be casual, or in the middle when I was actively lying to myself, and definitely not in the last several years when I stopped being able to sleep well the night before I knew I was going to see him.

I’m going to tell him about the house I saw for sale on that street with all the Christmas lights.

It’s a small craftsman with a porch that runs the full length of the front and a yard that would fit a dog. I’ve looked at the listing photos so many times, and with each new visit to the website, my vision of the future becomes clearer.

I want to buy it for us because I want us to sit on the porch in the summer, hang lights along the eaves in November, and be part of the ridiculous, competitive, magical thing that the street does every Christmas. I want to have potlucks with the neighbors, know their names, and for them to know us as the guys who moved in and immediately got sucked into the Christmas lights war.

I’m going to tell him about the biggest secret of all. The one I didn’t even tell myself for years because I was too afraid of the consequences.

That I love him. That somewhere between the first day I looked at Finn and saw a man, the first hookup, and now, I fell in love.

I pull my phone out of my coat pocket to text him and tell him I’ll meet him at the closing ceremony and to wait for me, but the screen is black.

I press the home button. Nothing.

I stare at it stupidly for a second before remembering that when I returned to the farmhouse at close to three this morning, I was so tired and cold and thinking about Finn’s mouth that I dropped the phone on the nightstand and didn’t plug it in.

The wind picks up and cuts through my coat.

I have to get back.

I turn away from the lake and start walking. My legs are stiff and my feet feel like blocks of ice in my boots.

Gouta follows me, and it seems she might be feeling the cold too because she doesn’t try to push me back toward the trees.

I try to run through what I’m going to say to Finn when I see him.

I love you.

That’s the first thing. Everything else can come after.

Halfway back to the farmhouse, the thoughts that fill my mind are the stolen moments we’ve spent together since the first day of the festival.

Like last night. Finn on his knees in the shower in front of me with water sluicing over his shoulders. His mouth on my cock, his hands on my hips, my head thrown back against the tile as he commanded me to come.

He said it just like that. Quiet, filthy, direct.

I came with his name on my lips. He swallowed and looked up at me with his hair plastered to his forehead and his eyes half-closed, and I had to lean against the wall to remain upright.

Then I dropped to my knees and returned the favor.

I sucked him with my hand between his legs, one finger inside him, and he cursed in a voice I wanted to record and play back on a loop for the rest of my life. He came calling my name with his hand fisted in my hair.

I remember every single second. The way he tasted, the way his thighs shook, the way he pulled me up afterward and kissed me with his own release still on my tongue.

But then, after…

He got out of the shower first, handed me a towel without looking at me, and went into the bedroom to dry off. I stayed in the bathroom, and by the time I came out, he had sweatpants on and was making the bed.

I stood in the doorway of the bedroom and watched as his body language was telling me to leave, even when his actions moments before showed me he was hanging on to every single cell of my body.