Memento Amare
Page 39
Clyde's laughter is audible now, an infectious sound that makes Cole also laugh, his face reddening. Cole tightens his right arm around Clyde and leans his head against his husband's, still smiling.
"But yeah, you're still human like everybody else. You got your own thoughts and emotions and all that shit just like everybody else. You know who and what you are. You've always known. Don't even bother trying to lie to me because I'm you, pal."
"And to think we didn't even prepare notes before making this video," Cole says to his white-haired, still so very gorgeous husband.
"Yep," Clyde says blithely. "Just look at me go!"
Indeed, the younger Clyde in the video is still talking while Cole's younger self is gazing down at a spot on the floor with an abashed expression and a smile that refuses to be tamed.
"Well, okay, maybe you're not quite like everybody else since you're a freaking specialist agent for the Global Anti Terrorist Force. But ya know what? You're even cooler than all the other GATF agents and ya know why? Because you're the luckiest bastard alive in the universe to be married to this guy. Yeah! You heard me! Married." Grinning, Clyde's younger self turns to his right to face Cole's younger self, reaching for his hand and gripping it tight. "C'mon, babe, introduce yourself!"
Cole and Clyde chortle together when Clyde's younger self zealously shakes the hand of Cole's younger self and even bounces on the couch. In the video, Cole's younger self lets out a soundless huff of laughter. Cole's younger self clears his throat once.
"Hello," Cole's younger self says, gazing at the camera with crinkled, warm eyes. "My name is Phelan Cole. I'm the son and only child of Dennis and Mary Cole in Chicago. I was a Ranger before becoming an agent of the GATF with Nathan Fabry. You and I met each other in Nate's office in the agency's NYC headquarters when he assigned us to become handler and asset, and we've been together ever since as partners in the line of duty and outside of it. And yes, I am your husband."
Cole and Clyde laugh louder at Clyde's younger self waggling his eyebrows at the camera and saying with them, look at the great catch of a guy you got! That never becomes less funny to Cole, no matter how many times he watches this video.
He watches his younger self lift his left hand to show off that luxurious platinum, court-shaped wedding ring. He feels the very same ring on the same finger of his left hand right now, still fitting as perfectly as it did when Clyde slid it on for the first time in Nate's office at HQ.
He feels Clyde snuggle closer to him with Chestnut Junior tucked between them as Cole's younger self speaks more about their burgeoning relationship after two years of being handler and asset, then about their years of marriage. They laugh yet again at Clyde's younger self making a big show of fluffing the throw pillows on the couch and settling down like an odalisque on them to listen raptly.
By the time Cole's younger self is speaking about their plans for their fourth honeymoon, both of Cole's arms are enfolding Clyde and holding Clyde close to his relaxed torso. Chestnut Junior had clambered out of Clyde's arms and off the couch at some point and is curled up and napping in his deluxe donut dog bed next to the couch. Clyde is quiet in Cole's embrace as Clyde's younger self speaks again in the video, now with a far more solemn and sincere tone.
"Hurting people is so easy. It's so easy that even kids can do it, with a cruel word or a physical blow. It's so easy that you can even do it by accident, without ever meaning to do it. But loving somebody? That's tough and nowhere near easy, not when the world hates you for it and thinks you're some kinda monster or something just because of it. It's their loss, though. It takes serious guts and strength to love, especially after you've been hurt, again and again."
Cole kisses Clyde on the crown of his head and then leans his cheek against it once more. This vast, unfair, unpredictable, senseless world they live in has changed a great deal since they filmed this video, for the better for people like them. Still, they both remember a world that wasn't better. They both remember what their lives were like before they met each other. They remember the fear, the pain, the loneliness.
They also remember the elation of finally being liberated from that fear and pain and loneliness. Of being truly loved and loving wholeheartedly in return.
"This guy next to me, he loves me - loves you so goddamn much that you can't even begin to measure it," Clyde's younger self says, gazing steadfastly at the camera, at them with gleaming, unguarded eyes. "He'll lay down his life for you like you have for him. So many times. Always. And there's no greater love than that, ever. You remember that. You remember that."
In the video, Cole's younger self is gazing at Clyde's younger self with eyes practically aglow with affection and regard. He remembers how he'd felt while he gazed at his husband that way. He remembers how proud he'd been, how humbled that Clyde had loved him that much, that Clyde loved him.
Clyde still loves him. And he still loves Clyde.
They're still the very best of friends and lovers and husbands. They're still The One to each other, The One they never thought they would be destined to find, much less have and keep for life. They're still each other's Happily Ever After.
He feels Clyde snuggle even closer to him. He feels Clyde's warm, callused hand stroke his left hand over his belly. He tightens his right arm around Clyde's still firm, broad shoulders, inscribing motifs of perpetual love on the ball of Clyde's shoulder with his thumb.
"And how long have we been married, babe?" Clyde's younger self asks in the video, smiling that huge, adoring smile again at Cole's younger self.
He sees his younger self gazing back at Clyde's younger self, grasping each other's hands.
"Three years and counting."
He watches Clyde's younger self lift his younger self's left hand to those full, supple lips. He watches Clyde's younger self kiss that luxurious platinum, court-shaped ring while gripping onto his younger self's fingers.
In the present, he feels Clyde's fingers around his. He feels Clyde lift his left hand to those still full, supple lips, feels them kiss his wedding ring and then the back of his hand. The simple action still makes something in the left side of his chest swell and dance with awe. It still makes his throat constrict to a pinhole and his eyes burn for the best reasons, the very best.
"Thirty-three years," he rasps, brushing his beloved husband's bristly cheek with the back of his fingers.
"And counting," Clyde rasps in return, smiling that huge, adoring, enduring smile at him and putting the noon sun to shame with its warming radiance.
EPILOGUE
PHELAN,
I wish I could be the man you deserve to have. I know how much and how often you tell me that you love me just the way I am, that I'm right just the way I am, but sometimes I'm still afraid that I'll never be enough for a man as good as you. I hope the man I used to be before I met you will never, ever come back.
This life with you is the only one I know how to live, the only one in which I feel alive. The only one I want to live. I feel like it isn't fair at all to you for me to be the one you love and wanna be with for the rest of our lives. But I am. Somehow in this unfair, crazy, fucked up world, out of all the billions of people in it, I am the one you chose. I wake up every day grateful that I still remember you. Us. Everything that we were, are and will be.
Nunc scio quit sit amor, babe. I know what love really is because of you, and always will with you at my side.
I love you.
I love you.
- Clyde
"CLYDE, I JUST WANT you to know that whoever you choose to be, that whatever life you choose to live, I will always wish only happiness and freedom for you. I know, I know, the only life you want is with me and that's what I want too, but it still needed to be said. It's still true.
"I still joke about how you're so much like a big cat, a majestic and beautiful creature, but you are one. A king of any land you roam. You're meant to be free. And every time I let you go and you return to me, I am always amazed. Blown away, real
ly, that you chose me out of the billions of people in this world. I'm not sure I remember what it's like to have my feet on the ground anymore and I don't think I'm going to land for a really, really long time, not with you raising me up and flying with me on and on.
"Everything I have is already yours. Yes, there are some things that are willed to Nate, and Pa and Ma in the event I go before them, but everything else has always been yours to do with as you wish. Our apartment, our sanctuary, will always be open to you, as I am for you. And when I do have to go, hopefully a really, really long time from now ... maybe I'm selfish for hoping that we'll leave this world together, with a deafening boom and blinding light and not a mere whimper. But without you, there would be no more spring, no more larks singing of our everlasting love.
"Una in perpetuum. Together forever, sweetheart, and that's still a promise.
"I love you, Clyde. I will always love you. For all time."
FIN.
About G. D. Cox
G. D. COX HAS BEEN imagining, telling and writing stories for as long as they can remember. An obsessed writer by day and an avid reader by night, they discovered their passion for writing gay romance in 2012 and hasn't stopped writing it ever since. When they're not writing or reading or spending time with their beloved piebald French bulldog, they're sleeping and dreaming of their next story to tell.
Email: gdcoxauthor@gmail.com.
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Other Books by G. D. Cox
Memento Amare: All About the Memories
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Available FREE on Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes&Noble, iBooks, Kobo and other online stores!
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'THEY WALK TOGETHER like they're attached by some invisible bond, like they're meant to be there at each other's sides. There's no doubt that they're more than just friends, that they're lovers. Maybe even more than that.'
A fluffy glimpse of former secret agents Phelan Cole and Clyde Barnett-Cole while shopping in a supermarket, set in the near future from the perspective of a kind stranger.
A 5,000+ word short story and companion piece to Memento Amare. It can also be read as a standalone, or as a teaser story before reading Memento Amare.
Table of Contents
i. Copyright & Disclaimer
ii. Preface
iii. Warnings & Potential Triggers
Prologue
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
X.
XI.
XII.
XIII.
XIV.
XV.
XVI.
XVII.
XVIII.
XIX.
XX.
XXI.
XXII.
XXIII.
XXIV.
XXV.
XXVI.
XXVII.
XXVIII.
XXIX.
XXX.
XXXI.
XXXII.
XXXIII.
XXXIV.
XXXV.
XXXVI.
XXXVII.
XXXVIII.
XXXIX.
XL.
XLI.
XLII.
XLIII.
XLIV.
XLV.
XLVI.
XLVII.
XLVIII.
XLIX.
L.
Epilogue
About G. D. Cox
Other Books by G. D. Cox