“No,” I said, shaking my head hard, finally getting closer. “Easton, that’s the thing, what’s not possible is for me to do any of this alone. I’m not in control of any of this. This is not just my fight, to keep doing this I have to be whole. I need a partner and I need an ally.” I took a chance and, one by one, placed the boxes on the floor and moved until we were just inches apart, so close I could feel his warmth. “I need you. You’re not just enough, you’re everything I want.” I was gasping for breath at this point. I felt like I’d put everything on the line.
“I can’t keep getting gutted, Patrice. I can’t.” Even as he said it he pushed closer, but this time I would not leave him hanging. Never again would I let him think that he was in this alone.
“I talked to Priscilla.” His eyebrows shot up at that, his face completely surprised.
“What, again?”
I almost smiled at the how put off he was that his friend didn’t spill the beans.
“Yes, I called her and she told me that I had to stop cheating myself out of joy. That I was letting my baggage not only have my past, but I was letting it rob me now. I don’t want to keep cheating myself.”
He closed his eyes and I counted, holding my breath, one, two, three.
When those green eyes were on me again, they were joined by a hint of a smile.
“You can come inside.” I felt a jolt in my chest like my heart had gotten a jump-start. I tried to look for anger or resentment, but there was nothing, just that same hopeful smile that Easton always seemed to be able to give me, even when I was sure I didn’t deserve it. “These boxes are for Ari’s move.”
Of course they were.
“Ah.”
When we got to the living room, we made our way to the couch and Easton kept looking at me in that way that meant that serious conversation was not going to happen for much longer, so I said the rest of what needed to be said. “Will that interview affect your job?” I asked as I grabbed his hand, unable to stop touching him now that I’d started.
He smiled again and he leaned back on the couch. “No, Cindy was upset that I pulled out of the race, but she also knows that she should’ve never pushed me into it like that. And that we all have a lot to answer this community for.” He sighed, and even though his eyes looked tired, they had a fire in them that I hadn’t seen there before. “As for the interview, I had to say that, because you were right that us keeping quiet is not going to make things any better. I have to step up, we all do. Day called me tonight and said he wants to have a meeting and talk about doing anti-racism training with recruits that we’d talked about.”
I nodded, surprised at the news. “Holy shit, that’s huge.”
“It’s a start.” There was that strong voice that I’d heard only in the courtroom, the one that said, I will get this done.
“He wants to work with some community organizations that do this work, ask for their expertise. I was hoping you could help with that, or if you can’t, at least put us in touch with some of the ones you work with.”
“Yeah, of course. I’d be happy to help.”
Instead of answering, he leaned over, grabbed my sweater and pulled me in for a slow and chaste kiss, as if he needed to work himself up to being like we’d been before.
“You could be it for me, Patrice. You know that right?” Easton was always brave enough to show me his heart, even when I’d handled it so poorly.
But this time I would not waste another minute, second-guessing this enormous gift I’d been given. “I know you’re it for me. I’ve known it since that day at the Brew and Wine festival last summer.”
He smiled and shook his head as he got close enough to press our foreheads together. “Now, I know that is bullshit, but I appreciate you saying it.”
I smiled again, in that helpless way that only happened with Easton. “It’s true. I knew it then and I know it now. I’m here aren’t I? Like Nesto’s been telling me since I took the Cornell job, I could front like I was here for a million different reasons, but I knew very well that one big one was you.”
This time the smile was big and the kiss was long and deep, when we pulled apart, the glint in his eyes looked a lot like my future. “That’s a good place to start.”
Epilogue
Six Months Later
Easton
“How am I expected to be studious when you’re bare chested and wearing your hot teacher glasses?” I complained to Patrice as I walked out of his bathroom.
He just shook his head and smiled at me while eying my own bare chest over those glasses that made him look even more delicious than normal. “You’re a mess.”
“Yeah, but I’m your mess.” That got me another sweet smile.
“Yes, you are.” Those happened a lot lately. Patrice Denis had sweet smiles and now I got to see them all the time. My heart literally skipped as I hurried to finish up so I could get in bed with him.
We’d come back from the gym and were now in the “before bed routine.” We had that now. The last six months had been a remaking of us, together and individually. We’d worked hard on finding ways to be there for each other as we decided who we would be together.
I loved where we’d arrived, even if this new chapter of Patrice and I involved couples therapy, with homework.
“I’ll get into bed in a sec, babe, I’m ready to work.” I made a show of taking my towel off and sliding on a pair of boxers as he gave me an amused look.
“Are you going to be serious? We have to focus.” Patrice grumbled, as I fidgeted on the bed, arranging myself as close to him as possible while still giving him enough room to write in the notebook he had on his lap.
“I am, I swear, I am just advocating that we figure out a ‘strip poker’ version.” I wasn’t whining so much as being bratty enough to get him riled into messing around with me. When he turned to look at me, he scoffed just as he tugged me so that I was sitting between his legs, my back pressed to his chest.
“Here,” he said, placing the notebook, pen and sheet from our therapist in my hands. He pressed his lips to my temple as he pointed at the paper. The heat of him made it hard for me to think. Because after almost a year since we started again, and countless nights of getting as much of him as I wanted, being close to him, still made me breathless.
He cleared his throat, commanding my attention, and ran a finger over the paper I was holding. “Today we’re supposed to think about shared qualities.” The way he said it, like the fact that we could even do this, was a blessing, made my chest tighten. I looked up and found him looking down at me with what I assume was the same lovesick expression on my own face.
I spoke with my lips pressed to his. “I’m so grateful we get to do this.” I didn’t have to tell him what I meant—that we’d been able to make this work, to makes us work.
“Same. I love you, bébé.” There was no hesitation in his words, or in the way his eyes locked with mine when he said it.
Since I’d dropped out of the DA race so much had changed for me. I’d stayed in my job, determined to use the power I had to actually make changes in how we dealt with racial justice in the county. My first step, with the new DA’s blessing, was heading an initiative to work more closely with advocacy groups in the region.
We were listening to the struggle that minorities faced in our communities and how law enforcement was falling short. We’d been building bridges into parts of the county that we’d neglected for too long. I’d learned more about myself and the kind of prosecutor I wanted to be in the last six months than I had in the previous five years. I wouldn’t say being with Patrice had made me do it, but his presence in my life had certainly been the catalyst for me to take bolder steps. To examine how I wanted to show up in my job. To live up to the responsibility I’d been given. I had to be humble enough to admit that being an ally in words but not action was not enough, and in the
end, I hadn’t learned how to be one for every person I was tasked with serving. But I was determined to do better.
A rumbling sound got my focus back on the man in question, as he gently pressed on my chest. “Did I lose you?”
I shook my head as he ran a hand over my bare skin. The contact bringing me fully back to the moment and him. “Never, you’re stuck with me, professor.” I felt a ghost of a smile on the side of my face.
“That I know, especially now that you’ve gone and done this. I have to keep you,” he said as he touched the red Scotch Bonnet pepper I’d had tattooed on my right hipbone on our last weekend trip to New York. The little pepper was a hard to find ingredient in all the Haitian dishes Patrice and I tried to make together. So I got it as a joke, or at least I’d said it was. But we both knew it was more than that. Patrice had claimed possession of that particular part of my body and tended to it like I’d transplanted a part of himself and tattooed it on my skin.
I could not say that I was very upset about it.
“If you keep touching me like this, I’m not going to be able to do this homework,” I said as my hand tightened around the notebook and I lifted the other one to his neck. “It’s very hard to focus when your lips are only an inch from my mouth.” I sounded breathless, but who could blame me?
“Okay, sorry,” Patrice said on an exhale and moved a hand to the paper that was now totally crinkled on one side from my tight grip.
“Let’s work on this.” More hot breath on my neck, making me shiver and my skin tighten. “Then I can do unspeakable things to that tattoo.”
I groaned, and tugged on the poor sheet, which was now really at risk of getting torn to smithereens. “Are you sure we can’t do this naked, it’ll be more fun that way.” I could feel his shoulders shaking behind me as he planted a kiss on the top of my head.
“It’s a blessing that I didn’t take up with you until I was almost done with my PhD or I would’ve never finished.”
“Do I bring you to distraction, Professor Denis?” My heart fluttered in my chest like it had wings as I asked, knowing that now I would get the answer I wanted.
“You know you do.” There was nothing in his words other than affection, and maybe just a hint of indulgence. I lifted my face again, needing to respond to his words with a kiss. As I pulled back and settled into his arms I thought of where we’d arrived. Nothing much had changed, and yet it felt like everything was different. Patrice had successfully finished out the academic year. He’d eventually gotten the hang of his classes and with the help of the chair of his department, he’d even started a new research project.
“How was your meeting with Martin?” I asked into the comfortable silence, my body pressed so tightly with his our chests rose and fell in unison.
“It always throws me off that you call him by his first name.” My parents had known Patrice’s boss for years, and it had been a great surprise to hear he’d offered Patrice his personal support after the police stop. Now they were launching a project to research the hindering effects of systemic racism on social mobility for immigrants.
“It’s going well, we got confirmation that we will get the funding for this first phase. So I’ll go south in July to meet with the guys from University of Miami who we’re partnering with. Maybe you can meet me after I’m done. We’ll take a few days after to hang out. Go to Tap Tap.”
“Oh I’m in,” I said at the mention of the Haitian restaurant he’d taken me to when we’d gone a few months back. “Just tell me the dates and I’ll take the time, I can get away for a couple of days next month. Besides, I didn’t get nearly enough food and beach time when we were there in February.”
Patrice was on fire for the project at work and was also doing more with some of the community organizations he’d gotten involved with over the last year. He was already a big part of the activism in the area, and I was so fucking proud of him.
“Day got back from his trip.”
Patrice grunted at the mention of the sheriff. “Oh.” Day was not exactly on his favorite people list, but the sheriff had been making some bold moves over the past six months to address the issues in his department. Including a trip to a national gathering of law enforcement leaders trying to address systemic racism at a local level.
“He came back with all kinds of ideas, and is rolling out the anti-racism mandatory training in the department. He’s gotten some resistance, but he seems committed.”
“He’s trying,” Patrice conceded. “I hope he sticks with it, because the pushback is not going to relent.”
I nodded at his matter-of-fact tone. He ran a hand over my arm again and rested it by mine on the page.
“First question, counselor. As a couple, we’re good at—”
I tried very hard not to burst out laughing, and when I looked up saw a matching knowing grin on my boyfriend’s face.
“Well that’s an easy one, sex. We are excellent at fucking.” He nodded soberly at my words as I giggled.
“We’re on the gifted and talented track for that for sure. But we’re also good at cooking together, and last-minute weekend getaways,” he said, and I heard the awe that sometimes tinged his words when he talked about us, the life that we were slowly building together.
I took the dark brown hand, which was a study of hardness and softness, and brought it up so I could kiss the roughened palm. “I love cooking together and I love our little romantic getaways. I also love how well our families get along.”
“I like that too,” he said firmly. My father was still an asshole for the most part, but Patrice got along great with my mother, sister and grandpa. And Patrice’s mom and stepdad were so fun to hang out with. We were now fully in each other’s lives.
I looked down at the second question and raised an eyebrow. “Uh oh, next one is tough.” When I glanced at him, his face said, bring it on.
“What are our weaknesses? As a couple.”
To my surprise the prospect of hearing what Patrice was going to say didn’t make me cringe in trepidation of what he’d say. I knew whatever it was it didn’t mean things were shaky or that if I didn’t change it was over. Just something to work on, together. So my heart beat steadily in my chest, as I waited for Patrice to think over his answer.
“Hmmm we’re getting better at it, but we sometimes wait too long to air grievances.” Even as he spoke he kissed my neck and face, soothing the blow.
I nodded in agreement and kissed his palm again. “This is true. We are getting better, and we are still not that great at being open about what bothers us in the moment. I wonder if we could use a new tactic—”
“Okay, but why do I have the feeling this is going to go down the fucking path,” he said, voice full of humor.
“Uh because you know me and my thirst.” I clapped my hands, ready to laugh my ass off at his reaction to what I was going to say. “Hear me out before you veto my idea, are you ready?”
He grinned at my teasing and waved a hand in a “get on with it” motion. “Grievance oral! Whenever we need to say something that we think may be hard for the other person to hear, we soften the blow with a blow job. Pun intended,” I added smugly, barely able to get the words out, and Patrice was laughing so hard I had to move out of the way to give him space. I turned around to face him and he had his fist over his mouth like he did when he was practically convulsing from laughing so hard. Which he did a lot these days, because I could be a clown.
“Bébé, we need to report back to the therapist. I am not getting into grievance oral with her!” He did sound a little terrified, but he was grinning so hard the corners of his eyes were crinkled.
“I’ll report back on this one, I can keep it PG though. But at least admit you like my idea.”
I was on my knees facing him and he tugged on my hand to bring me closer. He was still sitting with his legs spread on the bed, that massive chest
still moving up and down fast after the laughing fit. “You’re lucky I’m so into you.”
It was like everything he said was a reason for me to say something corny. But before I did, he got us back on track. “What are the qualities we value in each other?” Patrice asked, making me squirm. That one would go to a place that was hard for me. I did not do well with compliments.
I pointed at my chest. “I’ll go first.”
Patrice
If anyone would’ve told me a year ago that I’d be elated to be sitting in bed on a Tuesday night talking about my feelings with my almost live-in boyfriend, I would’ve told them to fuck right off in no uncertain terms. But here I was, one month out of finishing my first year at Cornell, anxiously waiting to hear what Easton had to say. I knew he’d asked to go first because he hated hearing people say nice things about him. Too bad, because I was going in on all the fucking ways he made me ridiculously happy.
We stared at each other for a bit and as per usual Easton draped himself on me. When we were in bed it was practically mandatory to be touching at all times, and we were in bed together every night these days. We took turns between my place and his, but I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept alone. It was hard to recall much of how it felt to be without Easton, to be honest.
As he moved limbs around, getting us wrapped around each other exactly how he wanted, he started talking. “I love how fiercely loyal you are to your friends. How open you are about your love for them,” he said, talking with his face against my neck, warm breath tickling my skin. “I don’t get jealous of them anymore, but at first.” He paused, nipping on my neck, and then running his tongue over the spot.
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