by L B Winter
“Jamie,” I whispered, wrapping my arms and legs around him and feeling the immense comfort of his weight above me. I never wanted him anywhere else but right here. He was heavy, but I didn’t need him to roll away. If I could just hold him like this forever, I would be able to die happy.
A few minutes later, as our heart rates settled, he started to sit up.
“Hey, come back,” I said.
He smiled down at me for a second or two before crawling back over to me on the couch. “There isn’t much space.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “I can scoot over.”
“I love that you do this,” he said, as we settled into each other’s arms, nuzzling my cheek with his stubbled face.
“What?”
“That you always want to cuddle after sex.”
“Doesn’t everybody?” I said. Having had sex with almost nobody but him, I just sort of assumed that was how it was.
“No,” he said, and a sigh of resignation came with it. I was glad to see it was no longer a source of significant distress for him when he said, “I’ve slept with a lot of dudes, and most just want you out the door after. Especially if you’re both in the closet.”
I wasn’t all that curious, frankly, about who Jamie had been with before me. He had been through so much, and it wasn’t like that lifestyle was his choice. He’d been like me a year ago—repressed enough to be desperate for it, with no permission for a relationship that was healthy and whole. Now was so different.
I threaded my fingers through his hair. “We don’t have to if you don’t want to,” I said, though I probably would have clung to him like a monkey if he’d tried to leave.
“I just said I liked it,” he protested.
“Maybe upstairs would have been a better idea,” I conceded, still running my hands up and down his body. “There’s more space up there.”
“No, we’d better do it while we can in front of this window, because I have a feeling Taylor won’t be too thrilled if we do it when he’s home.”
I laughed. “Yeah, that would not go over well. Though, he might be spending more time at Tessa’s now. Who knows?”
“I love that eternal optimism,” he said, and he kissed me again.
Taylor, when he got back, thought it was awesome we were together. Tessa came to our place a lot, too, and when she was over, got a kick out of telling me that I was nuts for even considering that Jamie could be a Daniel.
“For the record,” I’d told her, “you were the one who told me he was a Daniel in the first place. But now, I’m pretty sure I was the Daniel at least half the time.”
“WTF is a Daniel?” Tay had asked.
“I’ve told you about him,” Tessa said.
“Well, I thought you had,” Tay replied. “Is it a person, or a category of person?”
“Both,” I said, elbowing him a little as I added, “Geez, Reese, it’s not that complicated.”
He laughed. “I’m sorry I asked.”
“The person who is wrong is a Daniel,” Tessa said. “Write that one down if you need to, because you won’t find it in any dictionary. Just a tidbit I have learned from life.”
I turned and smiled at Jamie, who’d been watching quietly. “You really should write it down. She’s very wise. Full of tips.”
“I think I can remember that one,” Jamie said, smiling softly. “But hey, does that mean I was wrong half the time?”
“Yes,” I said, “but I was wrong the other half. So you see? It was a tie.”
He shrugged, smiling. “That’s fair.”
“Good.”
“Actually, better than fair,” he said. “I feel like it was 60-40, or even 75-25, to be honest.”
“In whose favor?”
“Yours!” he said, laughing. “I mean, you were usually right. I was awful to you for months, but you only did, like, one shitty thing.”
“Oh, my God—Paul, your boyfriend says ‘shit’ now!” Taylor said.
We all cracked up, and Jamie said, “Why is it so hard for you two to believe that I can cuss? Like, they’re just words. I know how to say words.”
“But you never used to, ever, the whole time I’ve known you,” Tay said. He was clearly proud of himself when he added, “We are a bad influence on you.”
“Oh, yeah, the worst,” Jamie answered, but he was smiling. He was so calm now, so unflappable. He was like I’d always known he’d be, relaxed and carefree and always up for a laugh. The Jamie I’d seen deep down was free now, free to just live and love how he’d always wanted to—how he’d always deserved to.
When Lynn and Deacon got married, we all went together—Tay and Tessa, Steven and Trent, my mom and dad, and Jamie and me. I’d told my parents Jamie was my boyfriend, and Mom was as over-the-top supportive as I’d guessed she’d be after all the hints she’d been dropping all year. What was more, my dad seemed cool with it, too. He made an effort to talk to Jamie, and to treat me like he didn’t see me any differently. Then again, maybe it wasn’t an effort—maybe that was really how he felt. It gave me such a foreign, amazingly freeing feeling.
But the best part, easily, was when my dad came up to me while the others were on the dance floor and said, “Listen, Paul, you have to bring Jamie home with you for Christmas this year. He’s never had a mince pie! I’m going to make all our favorite family dishes, and there will be way too much for us to eat, so you have to bring him.”
I smiled, reading between the lines of what he was saying—my boyfriend wasn’t just welcome. He was wanted—we both were, just as we are, no changes.
“Okay, Dad,” I said, putting my arm around his shoulder. “I’ll ask him.”
EPILOGUE
__________
The crowd was packed—people of all ages, lining up in a cluster that felt about a mile long, though when I observed this to Jamie, he insisted that was neither accurate nor possible.
“I can’t believe you talked me into this,” I said as I flattened out the racing bib that was pinned to my t-shirt.
“Me, neither,” he said. “You held out for a long time. I was surprised you didn’t want to do a half first, though.”
“No, I should just get the whole thing over with. Marathon, half-marathon—what’s the difference? It’s still a really long-ass time to be running, that’s all I know.”
“And yet,” he said, his teasing look now softening into an affectionate smile, “you’ve done all the training. You’ve put in all the work with me. You’re ready.”
“Yeah,” I said, “I’m ready. And if I survive this, I’ll—”
“Oh, you’ll survive,” he said. “Don’t be dramatic.”
At that exact moment, we heard Steven call from the curb, “Where the hell are your energy gels, Paul? Do you want to die on this run?”
“They’re in my fanny pack!” I shouted. I turned to Jamie and said, “He’s more nervous about this than I am.”
“I think he just wanted you to say, ‘fanny pack,’” Jamie smirked. “Why are you nervous, anyway? You’re ready, and I’ll be here with you the whole time.”
“Well, first of all, you won’t be with me, because you have to run at your pace, not mine.” He rolled his eyes, but he was still smiling, one arm resting on my shoulder. “And secondly…I don’t want to let you down,” I said, looking away for a moment with a faint blush. “I mean, you’ve wanted me to do this for three years, and if I can’t finish it…. I mean, you’ll still like me, right?”
He sighed, smiling as he tilted my face up toward his, and said, “Paul Michael Garrison, there is nothing you could do that would make me love you less. Nothing. I love you even if you don’t make it past the first fifteen minutes.”
“Okay, well, obviously I’ll make it that far,” I said.
“Not the point,” he said, leaning in to kiss me softly before pulling back again. “Just for being here, I’m proud of you.”
“Participation award for me, yay!” I said, making a silly gesture with my hands.
But he held my gaze and said, “You can laugh, but I’m still really, really proud of you.”
This time, there wasn’t anything to laugh at. I pulled him back toward me, kissing him deeply, right there in the open in New York City, where anybody could see us if they wanted to. I kissed him knowing that there was nothing that could come between us now, though life and all its obstacles had certainly taken their best shot at standing in our way. I could kiss him whenever I wanted, forever. And it never, ever got old.
“Woo-hoo!” a chorus of voices came from the sideline again, and we turned to see Steven, Trent, Lynn, and Deacon all standing on the curb, cheering for us. Even little Bella, who was bouncing in Deacon’s arms, was clapping—though she didn’t know why.
We laughed, and I turned to Jamie and said, “I can’t believe they came to watch.”
“They wouldn’t believe you’d actually done it,” he said with a smirk. “Had to see it with their own eyes.”
“Yeah, maybe. Still, it was a long train ride to make with a one-year-old.”
“Lynn wouldn’t miss this,” he said. “Besides, Bella’s so chill.” He squeezed the back of my neck. “Hey, didn’t Tay say he was coming? I didn’t get a chance to see him this morning.”
I nodded. “Yeah, at some point. Maybe not for the beginning of the race, but he’ll be here by the end. Remember, he’s on surgical right now, so he was up really late last night. But Tessa’s flight got in this morning, and he’s definitely gonna bring her.” I paused, shaking my head. “Now there’s somebody who won’t believe I ran this until she sees it.”
Tay had just started medical school here in the city, and since my first job out of college was at a large communications firm in NYC, we shared an apartment during the week. On the weekends, though, I usually commuted back to Philly, where Jamie was finishing his last semester at Franklin.
Either that or he came here, like he had last night, so we could run this marathon together—the ninth he’d run, and my first in the three years we’d been together. He, at least, had gotten a qualifying time for this race earlier that summer, but I had to get in by fundraising for a local nonprofit—and I felt like a fool, lining up with all these real, serious runners and knowing that, just by being here, I was probably slowing Jamie down. I insisted that he run at his pace, and though I would try to keep up with him, when I needed to slow down, he should keep steady. He’d argued about it a little, but the way I saw it, it didn’t matter who crossed the finish line first (spoiler alert: it would always be him), as long as we both got there eventually.
Jamie said, “How’s Tessa liking law school, anyway? I forgot to ask.”
“She likes it.” I said, “Michigan is pretty far away, though, so it’s the first time she’s visited since the semester started.”
“Just for the weekend?”
“No, she’s staying the whole week.”
“This is going to be really crowded,” he commented.
“What, the apartment? I know,” I said, “but she actually wanted to come when you’d be here, so we could all hang out again. She said it would be just like the good old days.”
He smiled, remembering, as I did, those amazing three years when Tay and I lived in the townhouse, and Tessa and Jamie were regular visitors, slowly growing to become great friends themselves. We had never lived together just the two of us; Jamie kept his room with Steven and Trent, and he became as good of friends with them as I’d ever been. Now, though, we were ready to take that next step. The plan this winter was for Jamie to finish his course work in December, then move to NYC for his student teaching in the spring. We were going to move to our own apartment then, and the notion of there being only two months until we would wake up together every morning was even more thrilling than the thought of running this marathon.
As we lined up for the race, Jamie looked at me with eyes sparkling with excitement, the autumn sunlight pressing through the chill in the air to warm our skin. I couldn’t get over how much I loved him sometimes. He never stopped being that bright, deep, amazing person I’d always thought he was—the one who chased after what he wanted, passionately. And for some reason, he loved me like crazy—even though I never stopped being this ball of frenetic energy, keeping him on his toes and bringing new people into our lives, friends that usually came for the excitement that was me and stayed for the warmth that was Jamie. The better I knew him, the more I loved him.
My parents felt the same way—Jamie was like another son to them. Especially since his parents never got their act together about the whole thing, it made such a huge difference to us that mine did. Dad had kept his word, continuing to learn more about all the issues that had led him to put me in conversion therapy in the first place. He even apologized to me for it one time when I was at the house to visit. Freedom had been his idea, and he wouldn’t let Mom take any of the blame, but he had researched it more now. When he figured out how harmful it had been, he was devastated. He turned his life upside down in response to it; he left the church where he’d been pastoring, where the tenets didn’t support what he knew was true. He planted a new church for people who didn’t feel welcome—a lot like our church in Philly, actually—and it was already thriving; many people from our old church came with him, and many more who had never felt welcome before. I was super proud of him, and it made it easy to forgive him when he asked—because they weren’t just words. He was proving it with his actions.
The race announcers called the first groups of qualifiers to the starting line, and Jamie and I watched as they took off running. We would be in the next group, and he turned and smiled at me. “Are you still nervous?”
“Yes,” I said, returning his smile. “I’ll probably start out going too fast so I can keep up with you, and then I won’t be able to finish.”
“Don’t do that,” he said, sounding like an experienced coach. “Just pay attention to your body. Do what it tells you to do. You’ve run this distance before; trust yourself.”
I nudged him with my shoulder. “Promise you won’t slow down to run with me?”
He rolled his eyes. “Yes, I promise.”
“Okay. Good. I’ll probably find somebody else running my pace anyway, and make friends with them.”
He laughed. “I would expect nothing less from you.”
The announcer called our group to the starting line, and we moved forward together with the bustling crowd. This was going to suck—but then again, maybe it would be worth it. After all, I liked running. And I wanted to make Jamie proud of me—but then I saw the way he smiled at me, and I remembered his words, that he already was. And I knew then that I could do this.
As the starting gun was lifted, Jamie turned and pressed a quick kiss to my lips. “Love you,” he said.
Then the shot went off, and we ran.
About the Author:
L.B. Winter is a part-time author and full-time business executive who resides in the mid-western United States and composes romances that embrace the idea that love is love.