Interlude: Cavatina

by Bauer, Tal

  “It never is.” Mary seemed pleased. “But thank you for keeping him alive in Washington. My son thinks he can live off cold cuts and baby carrots and cereal if you let him.”

  “That was one time—"

  “You mean one whole year?”

  Jack’s jaw snapped shut.

  “Or was it two years?”

  Andrew joined the conversation, bringing his wife a glass of wine and a beer for Ethan and Jack to share. “Don’t forget when I came to visit you in Austin, and your fridge was nothing but different takeout leftovers and ketchup.”

  “This is outrageous.” Jack put on a façade of outrage, belied by the laughter in his eyes. “You know, I was—"

  “The President of the United States,” Ethan, Mary, and Andrew all said in unison.

  Jack’s jaw snapped shut, and he shook as he tried to hold in his laughter. Ethan wrapped his arms around Jack and kissed his temple, chuckling aloud. “We know, love. We know.”

  “Well,” Jack cleared his throat. “Just so you do know.”

  “How could we ever forget?” Mary winked at Ethan. She sipped her wine.

  As the laughter continued, and the conversation rose and fell over family in-jokes and memories of years past, Ethan seemed to slip out of the moment. As if he was standing outside, looking in on the scene like it was a snapshot of perfection encased in a snow globe. Pure joy, undiluted happiness. A family in love with themselves, celebrating the holidays. Warmth and laughter. Love in every direction.

  Had he ever imagined he would be celebrating Christmas as a married man, wreathed in joy and love and family? He couldn’t remember imagining this future for himself. Not once.

  “So, Ethan,” Andrew said, pulling him back to reality. “What kinds of things did you and your dad do for Christmas?”

  It was still awkward talking about his childhood. He and Jack had never been on a level playing field, not once in their lives. As adults, Jack had been quite literally the most powerful man in the world. He’d been a mover and shaker in Washington DC before the presidency. A Senator, a member of the elite.

  And Ethan? He’d been another civil servant, one of a thousand faceless Secret Service agents. He had the typical biography of a federal agent, too. Military service, federal law enforcement, presidential protections. He didn’t have a fancy pedigree, no college diploma or juris doctorate like Jack. His life was a master’s course in practical, hard-edged realities. Where Jack had books and debate and legal philosophy, he had sand and blood and gunpowder. Bare knuckle fights and scarred fists.

  How they were so perfectly matched still kept him up some nights, wondering.

  He cleared his throat. “My dad and I worked every Christmas. He was the foreman for the crew on the farm, and on the holidays, he’d take over the shifts so his crew could spend the day with their families or take the day off. He and I would get up early and do the rounds. Check the feed. Check the herd. The usual farm life. Never really can take a day off on a farm.”

  Whenever he talked about home, his old drawl would come creeping back in. The lingering hold on the vowels, the way he lengthened his words. It was faint, beaten out by decades of civil service and his own ruthless quashing of anything that could be used as a slight against him. “Hick,” he’d once been sneered at as a teen. “Fucking redneck sheepfucker.”

  “Christmas in Wyoming was cold and usually snowy, so he’d make it fun. He’d make us both wear Santa hats and bring thermoses of hot chocolate. When I was a kid, he’d hide a few presents around the farm the day before. I thought Santa had left them out there knowing that was how we spent our morning. We didn’t have room for a tree in our trailer.”

  Behind him, in Mary and Andrew’s two-story living room, a twelve-foot tree glittered in twinkling lights and tinsel. Piles of presents huddled beneath the branches, tumbling in yards of shiny paper and velvet ribbon.

  “When I was older, we’d drink coffee together and watch the sunrise. Sometimes we’d go ice fishing on the river that ran through the fields. It was our day, just him and me, and even though the work never stopped, it was always him and me together. That made it special.”

  “Sounds like your daddy was a great man,” Mary said gently. Jack’s hand squeezed hard against Ethan’s own.

  “He did the best he could. I mean, dinner was usually whatever he’d been able to hunt the month before. Deer or wild hog or sometimes elk. Canned green beans or corn. Apples from the orchard and peanut butter sandwiches. I think by the time I was six, I was half made of Kraft mac and cheese. For holidays, we’d spice it up and get KFC. Maybe spring for their chocolate cake.” He grinned. “It was simple. But we were happy.”

  “I would have loved to have met him.” Andrew raised his beer in a salute to Ethan’s father’s memory.

  “You two would have been good friends. I can definitely see that.” Ethan laughed, trying to shake the memories that were tumbling through him, snowy mornings and holding his arms around his father’s waist, smelling cigarette smoke and black coffee, warm hay and the herd huddling close together for warmth in the barn.

  He rubbed his hands together, his thumb digging into the callouses he’d never truly lost. Eighteen years as his dad’s assistant, a pitchfork or a shovel or an axe in his hand. Or a rifle. He’d had workman’s hands from the time he was a child, and then soldier’s hands. Enforcer’s hands. Once, he’d worried they’d be too rough against Jack’s smooth skin. That he’d be too rough.

  “Lord have mercy,” Mary suddenly said, winking at Ethan. “Can you imagine your daddy and Andrew? They’d be nearly as inseparable as you and Jack are! We’d find them in the garage and the shed tinkering over projects and talking until the cows come home!”

  Ethan laughed. “My dad was a man of a thousand words in his whole entire life, but I do believe he’d find something special in you, Andrew. You might get a few more words out of him than most everyone else could.”

  Chuckles filled the kitchen, and then Mary changed the subject, suddenly asking Andrew about a project he was working on for her, one of a dozen that he had going simultaneously. She slid her gaze back to Ethan, giving him a small, private smile behind her wine glass. He nodded back to her.

  As always, her timing was impeccable. The wife of a lawyer, a practiced Texas socialite and a southern lady, she could read the eddies and flows of a conversation more than anyone Ethan had ever met. As well as he could read threats and take the pulse of a crowd, she could read people, read conversations. His throat had been on the verge of tightening, the memories edging toward painful instead of heartwarming.

  There wasn’t a day that went by that he didn’t wish his dad was there to meet Jack.

  Not a single day.

  * * *

  This Christmas, it was Jack who played “Santa Baby” on his phone and pulled Ethan into his arms, swaying before the flickering fire in the stone fireplace. Mary and Andrew went to church, and instead of facing crowds and gawkers, they’d decided to stay home.

  “I love my family,” Jack said softly. He rested his cheek against Ethan’s. “But it’s nice to get some alone time with you.”

  “Your momma would have murdered you if you didn’t spend this Christmas with her. She’s still upset about missing last year and seeing the White House at Christmas, I think.”

  Jack laughed. “Well, I had someone special I needed to spend time with. I needed to be greedy.”

  “Someone special, huh?” The music played on, and their hips swayed, bodies made to fit together.

  “Someone super special, it turned out. But I had to make sure. I wanted to see if spending a long holiday together was as amazing as I hoped it would be.”

  “And was it?”

  “It was better.” Grinning, Jack kissed him. “You know, I married that man.”

  “Did you?” Ethan’s cheeks ached.

  He was smiling like an idiot, he knew. He loved this goofy side of Jack, the playful way he’d pull Ethan into the silliest conversation
s, lead Ethan down the road with a dopey look of bliss. He was putty in Jack’s hands. The same jokes, the same rhythms of their life, and he loved every moment of it. Would he ever tire of this? Ever roll his eyes at Jack’s silliness? Would their little love rituals ever go sour on him, tired and staid instead of belly-button-pinching and feeling like a whole firework show was being set off only for him? He couldn’t imagine a day where he wasn’t this in love with Jack. Visions of the two of them sitting on a porch somewhere, old and wrinkled and gray, still holding hands, popped into his head. You know, I married that man, wizened old Jack said, winking at him. His heart swelled, nearly burst against his ribs.

  “That man is the luckiest man that ever lived,” Ethan said. His voice was huskier than it had been, thickened with the honey-languid intensity of his imaginings. He barked out a laugh. “Bet he was shit scared working up the nerve to ask you to marry him.”

  “Scared?” Both of Jack’s eyebrows shot sky high.

  “Is there anything more intimidating than asking the love of your life if they’ll marry you?”

  “Oh, I was a sure thing.” Jack swept his hand over the side of Ethan’s face. His thumb stroked over his cheekbone. “The love of my life wanted me forever. I’ve never been happier than that moment.”

  “Never, huh? I’ve got some work to do.” He gently thrust his hips into Jack’s.

  Jack threw his head back and laughed. “Different kind of bliss, love.” He pushed his hips right back, grinding into Ethan. He sucked in a quick breath. “And you do that perfectly, too.”

  They kissed, the music changing over to another slow Christmas song without them. Their arms wrapped around each other, dragging over backs and shoulders, up necks and into hair. The kiss stretched, deepened into tasting each other and pressing into one another, a dance more familiar between them than everything else. Instinctive. Natural. Loving each other was as natural as breathing.

  Jack pulled back first, pressing their foreheads together. Ethan watched him visibly collect his thoughts, his own mind smeared into a mirage of touch and feel and desire. “We start that,” Jack breathed, “we’ll never get through our gifts.”

  They pulled apart to sit, leaning against the couch in front of the fire. Mary and Andrew had gone on a Christmas bender, buying them far, far too many presents, with ridiculous excuses like, It’s for your new home, or, We didn’t get to buy you anything for your wedding, or, Quit all that, it’s our God-given right to spoil our children.

  He and Jack had hustled off to the store, buying jewelry for Mary and tools and gadgets for Andrew as fast as they could.

  But for each other, they kept to their three gifts each.

  Ethan went first, giving Jack a squat box as he desperately tried to smother his grin. He failed, and Jack eyeballed him as he unwrapped his first gift: a coffee mug with a personalized inscription. You know, I WAS the President.

  Ethan doubled over, laughing so hard he snorted as he buried his face in Jack’s lap. Jack had that indignant look on, the one he always had right before that line came tumbling out of his mouth. “I don’t say it that much, do I?”

  Ethan howled. Jack glared, but laughed, his cheeks a glorious, hilarious fuchsia as he primly set his new mug aside.

  “Darling,” Ethan said, taking Jack’s hand. “Sweetheart. Love of my life. Apple of my eye.” He pressed kisses to Jack’s palm with each nauseating endearment. “Light of my life.”

  “Mmmhmm.”

  “You say it just enough.” Another kiss, this time to Jack’s nose. “And I love when you do.”

  “Well,” Jack grumbled. “I was the president. Less than a hundred people ever can say that, living or dead.”

  “I love you so much.” It was hard to kiss Jack while he was smiling so wide.

  Jack’s first gift was an ornament, like the year before, with a selfie he’d taken of them smiling framed inside a silver stocking. My Best Gift is Always You was etched on the bottom in curving script. Ethan kissed Jack again, slower.

  Ethan’s next gift was practical, a new leather laptop bag for Jack. He’d had it monogramed with Jack’s new initials: JSR. Jack Spiers-Reichenbach.

  Jack traced the monogram and beamed, and then kissed him longer than he had for the mug.

  His next gift felt like a frame, and Ethan opened it carefully. The year before, Jack had given him a coffee mug with an artistic rendering of Jack’s campaign poster redone in diagonal stripes of rainbow hues. It had been a widely-circulating image supporting Jack, and he’d gone and bought a mug with it for Ethan. Ethan had used that mug at his office in Des Moines every day after, taking an almost ridiculous amount of joy out of the way everyone’s eyes slid sideways and how no one, especially not Shepherd, could look at that mug. Or him.

  Someone had taken that image of Jack and added a stylized picture of Ethan beside him, the two of them almost shoulder to shoulder, tucked together, facing forward and staring upward and to the left, as if they were looking toward a utopian vision. It was a campaign ad of the future, or a science fiction poster of the past, astronauts gazing into the heavens. That same striped rainbow filter laid over their digitally drawn features. Beneath the image, in rainbow print, it read, Stronger Together.

  “I found the original artist who made the poster of me from last year,” Jack said. “I asked him to make one of us. He was very excited to do it.”

  “I love it,” Ethan breathed. “It’s going right on my desk.”

  “With all the other pictures? Aren’t you tired of looking at me yet?”

  “Never. I’d wallpaper our house in your photos if you’d let me.” Jack blushed and laughed, shaking his head. “You know,” Ethan teased, “presidents should be used to having their photos displayed everywhere…”

  “Oh stop!”

  Ethan managed to control his giggles—barely—as he reached for his last gift. He sobered and passed a slim wrapped box to Jack with a gentle smile.

  “This looks familiar.” It was same shape as last year. Ethan waited as Jack slid off the wrapping, exposing the same slim navy box from the year before.

  Jack smiled. He flipped open the lid. A watch lay inside.

  “You needed a replacement.”

  “It was an eventful year. That watch went through a lot.”

  Ethan snorted. Jack’s watch, his present last year that Ethan had engraved for him, hadn’t survived Sochi unscathed. But Jack had worn it every day after Sochi, even through their darkest days, even after it stopped working. Like Ethan’s sweatshirt, he’d only taken it off once they returned to America. “Flip it over.”

  Last year, Ethan had inscribed a devotion of love to Jack, something gushy and sweet and that had turned him inside out. He hadn’t known if he was coming on too strong or pushing too hard, and he’d been a nervous wreck as Jack read his words.

  No nerves this year. Ethan waited, smiling as Jack read the numbers he’d had engraved. “I don’t get it,” Jack finally said. “Is it a code?” He recited the numbers, and then the line Ethan had added below them. “‘Forever began here.’”

  “They’re coordinates,” Ethan said softly. “I asked Captain Anderson to confirm the exact position of the USS Honolulu when we were married. Those are the coordinates of where we said ‘I do’ to each other. Sixty-four degrees, forty-one minutes, nine-point-five seconds north. One hundred sixty-eight degrees, twenty-six minutes, twenty-seven-point-three seconds west.” He’d memorized them. “The Bering Sea, southeast of the Strait. When forever began for me.”

  It hit Jack like one of the roll tides from the Strait, one of the deep swells that came up from the deep and upended everything. His breath hitched, and he covered his mouth, and he clasped the watch tight in one fist as he grabbed Ethan and pulled him close, kissing him like he was trying to climb inside Ethan’s soul.

  “You know,” Jack finally said. “I’d thought about it.” His voice was a fragile thing, cracking on the edges. “I’d thought about marrying you. About asking you to m
arry me. Maybe after the White House, I thought. When it would be only you and me, and not a political thing. And…” Jack sniffed. “Part of me was scared. Marrying again. I didn’t know if I could do it. I nearly died losing her, back then.”

  Ethan ran his fingers through Jack’s hair. He held him close, cradled his head. Pressed a kiss to Jack’s lips.

  “But when you asked me, on that island, on that rocky beach…” Suddenly, Jack beamed, and the tears on his face turned to diamonds, turned to stars, as brilliant and glittering as the stars strewn overhead Simushir Island the night he’d asked Jack to be his husband. “I had never wanted anything as much as I did that moment. And I realized I wanted everything with you. And that you were everything to me. The love of my life, Ethan.”

  They kissed again, Jack climbing into Ethan’s lap, straddling him, kissing him and kissing him as the living room, the fire, and the Christmas tree faded away. Ethan’s hands slid beneath Jack’s sweater, his touch running up his sides, over his ribs, and down, over the abs Jack had so lovingly dedicated himself to preserving. Jack shivered under his touch, and his tongue tangled with Ethan’s. This close, Ethan felt Jack’s pulse race, the beat of his heart hammering.

  “Upstairs,” Ethan mumbled into their kiss. “I’m not making love to you on your momma’s carpet.”

  Jack barked out a quick laugh. “Would be worth it to hear her shout about the stains.”

  “I’m brave enough to protect your life, Mr. President, from all enemies foreign and domestic. But I’m not brave enough to face down Mary Spiers after that.”

  He chased Jack up the stairs, grabbing handfuls of Jack’s ass and playfully biting one round cheek through his black trousers. Jack pushed into his touch, already working his belt free by the time they hit the second-floor landing. Ethan finished the work for him, undoing the belt and unzipping his fly and reaching into his pants, stroking the hardness he found as he kissed Jack against the bannister.