Then it sank in that he wasn’t the only one with wet cheeks and the brine in their kiss hadn’t been his alone.
“Carl?” he asked, struggling again to put words to emotions. Oh God. He suddenly remembered the thing he’d tried so hard to hide—so hard to forget, to overcome, to ignore. His body had been spread out, the scars of violation, the prison tattoo that had made him scream and weep, all there for Carl to see. He tightened his knees together, attempting to curl up into a ball, to hide himself, but he couldn’t, not and remain plastered against Carl, wrapped in his arms and legs, safe and secure at the same time.
“You,” Carl said thickly, not stopping any of the things that were pulling Michael into a happy, dreamy haze, “are not meat.”
Michael’s breath caught.
“Carl?”
“You’re Michael,” Carl told him huskily. “You’re wonderful. You’re kind. You’re generous. Your soul is so fucking shiny, I could still see all of you if we turned out the lights. And I don’t care what people tried to make you into, you are not meat. You’re Michael. And I never knew I needed you in my life, but I do.”
“Okay,” Michael said, not sure he had any other words.
“Nothing about you needs to hide,” he said, his shoulders shaking. “Every part of you is beautiful.”
Oh.
“Okay,” he said again. He was weeping against Carl’s chest now, but he was also falling asleep. Tired. So tired. So many years hiding, and two brutal years unable to hide anywhere but inside his own head. He’d spent his entire life wanting a place where he’d be safe, be protected, be cared for.
Now that he’d found it, here in Carl’s arms, all his body could do was rest, replete. And finally, finally, he was no longer afraid.
A Shift in Expectations
CARL STARTED to get cold, lying on top of the covers without any clothes, but Michael was sleeping.
It seemed imperative that, for this moment, Carl let him sleep.
Finally when he was not only cold but also had to pee, he worked carefully to situate Michael under the covers before sliding off the bed and into his briefs and T-shirt before using the facilities.
He stayed in the bathroom for a moment after washing his hands and splashing some water on his face to see if anything about him was different. Same guy, he thought. Starkly handsome in a broad-shouldered, Viking sort of way. Green-eyed, a nose that was short a millimeter from being described as “Roman,” and an almost perpetually quizzical expression, as though he was used to watching the world behave in absurd and strange patterns around him.
I can’t be that guy anymore. The guy who fell into things, like he’d fallen into his job or fallen into his attachment to the Salingers, no matter how satisfying that was. Michael hadn’t just fallen into his bed—Michael had chosen him, after a whole lot of heartbreak and a whole lot of violence and pain and fear. The violence and pain and fear had been written on his skin, and the thought of that made Carl’s hands shake.
Michael had walked through fire, and apparently he thought Carl was one of the good things that had been waiting for him on the other side. Carl needed to do better, be better, to be that sort of reward. Michael deserved better than an also-ran. He deserved a hero.
But not a hero like Chuck or Hunter, who, though pretty damned heroic, didn’t really fit the mold Michael had in mind. Carl had seen the signs in him from the very beginning: making an apartment out of an airplane hangar, learning to cook with his ex-wife, thinking about how to integrate his children into the life he was building in this new city.
Michael needed a hero who could be proactive. Not about the adventures that might befall them all, but about their personal life. Carl’s ex-wife had done the wrangling, the proposing, the “Where’s this relationship going, Carl?” and that had been fine with him. He’d assumed he’d get married, assumed he’d be unhappy in that relationship—or absent—and had then fulfilled both prophecies nicely.
Carl had known his relationship with Danny had been doomed from the start. You didn’t fall in love with someone in rehab when they said right up front that they could kick the whiskey, but they couldn’t quit their addiction to their one true love.
This was different. It wasn’t a hookup like Chuck had been. It wasn’t a one-off or a “hey, let’s see where this goes,” only to have it go nowhere. It wasn’t a “wait-and-see” like Ginger had been, which he was glad hadn’t gone anywhere because apparently she was as corrupt as most of Serpentus.
This was someone Carl liked, admired, and cared for, and he’d made Carl his holy grail.
Carl needed to pony up. That didn’t mean “Hey, we like each other, we’re probably going to sleep together—let’s share a free apartment because it’s easy!” That meant intent. It meant commitment.
It meant making Michael’s thoughts, his feelings, his plans for the future, all of it, a priority.
Carl hadn’t done that with any other person in his life. Not once. But he really, really wanted to now.
So what? Churches? Wedding bells? A house in the suburbs? All after one night together?
Well, no. But they were living together, by accident or not. Maybe it was time to begin as they meant to go on.
To that end Carl walked into the kitchen and cleaned up what was left of dinner, making sure his dishes were rinsed and put in the dishwasher and his place mat wiped off and put away. And then, feeling a bit peckish, he cut the enormous portion of brownie Phyllis had sent for him in half and put it in the microwave for about thirty seconds. Just enough to heat it up. He put that in a bowl and added two scoops of ice cream—and two spoons—before grabbing a towel and a glass of milk. He made his way into the bedroom and set everything on the end table before sliding into bed, clicking on the lamp, and turning on the television.
Michael grunted and stretched, then rolled over to glare at him in confusion. “You let me fall asleep!”
“Yeah, you seemed to need a nap. Here, lean forward and I’ll shove some pillows behind your back. Are you up for stupid TV?”
Michael did as he asked, and Carl could see him processing.
“But aren’t we going to…? I mean…. Oh.” His disappointment was more than Carl could bear.
“Don’t think that,” Carl said softly, squeezing their bodies together so their sides, thighs, and shoulders were touching. “Of course we’re gonna.”
Michael gave him a suspicious look, and Carl sighed, figuring he was going to have to be more explicit than that.
“Yes, Michael Carmody, I want to make love with you some more. A lot, actually. But this first time—that was special and hard on you. I love touching your body. Don’t ever think I don’t.” He draped a deliberate arm around Michael’s shoulders and pulled him even tighter. “But I think you need more than a fuck and a suck. And I think you’ve needed more than that for pretty much your entire adult life. So if I’m going to give you what you need, we’re going to start with the idea that making love doesn’t ever have to be penetrative. It doesn’t ever have to scare you. And it doesn’t ever have to be transactional. That means you don’t have to repay me because I pleasured you. It means we made love, and we’re done for the moment, and it’s time for ice cream and a brownie.”