Page 33

Joel staredat his phone screen displaying Daniel’s Google Maps progress, a journey he’d shared before leaving Omaha. Daniel had traveled ten hours yesterday and left Toledo at six a.m. to make the final seven-hour push. He’d claimed the long drive wasn’t a big deal, which maybe it wasn’t to someone from a big square state.

Now, at quarter after one, Daniel was three turns and six minutes away, while Joel was sitting at the top of his short, steep driveway trying not to puke.

Would this be yet another brief and disastrous affair, despite all their best intentions? Would they part again in a few days or weeks, promising to meet up after seventeen more wasted years (when they’d be—yikes!—sixty-eight)? Or was this reunion the beginning of forever?

Joel swiped a hand over his smooth scalp, checking for missed stubble. He had to stop getting ahead of himself. For once in his life, he’d forget the future and enjoy the Now.

In the last week, he’d cleaned his house from top to bottom. In the last month, he’d resocialized Florey and Archie with the help of vaccinated friends. And ever since Daniel’s Facebook messages had popped up on New Year’s Day, Joel had been working out, trying to restore his body to some semblance of hotness after the triplet ravages of cancer, chemo, and pandemic sloth.

He was ready. And also not ready.

On his phone screen, the traveling dot left York Road.

One more turn.

One more minute.

Joel closed his eyes to listen for the growl of an F-150 engine. The neighborhood was way too quiet today. A few robins chirped as they hopped over the lawn near the butterfly garden, scooping up grubs and worms from last night’s rain. Then of course there was the macho house wren’s incessant THIS-IS-MY-YARD! boast.

But the millions of cicadas perched in the neighborhood trees hadn’t made a peep yet. The cold, wet spring had thrown off the timing of their emergence, so why wouldn’t it delay the rest of their schedule? Still, it would’ve been nice if they’d greeted Daniel’s arrival.

There! A low rumbling engine at the end of the street. Joel buried his face in his knees and stayed put. No point jumping up to greet a vehicle only for it to belong to a neighbor or delivery driver.

The engine came closer, and closer still. Finally it stopped in front of his house. At the creak of a door, Joel stood and opened his eyes.

Daniel was climbing out of the truck’s cab. He stepped down onto the grassy berm between the curb and the sidewalk, grabbing the door as he wavered like a sailor finding his land legs. Then he smiled up at Joel, those blue eyes still lethal at twenty paces.

Joel sprinted to meet him at the bottom of the driveway. Two steps from Daniel, his momentum outpaced his feet. He pitched forward with a graceless yelp.

“Whoa.” Daniel caught him before he could face-plant. “I got you.”

Joel threw his starving arms around Daniel’s neck and pulled him close. “You’re here.” He clung on, breathless from the feel of another body—of this body—against his. “You’re actually here.”

“I’m here.” Daniel hugged him hard, his voice rasping. “And I’m not leaving until you kick me out.”

“Never. Never ever never.” It would be like evicting his own heart and lungs.

He pulled his head back and looked down at their feet planted on the driveway’s steep slope. “Hey, we’re almost the same height for now.” Then Joel buried his hands in Daniel’s hair and kissed him.

It was strange at first, using lips for something besides eating and speaking. Their tongues were overeager, romping like puppies let loose after a rainy day indoors.

But then the kiss softened, trembled, evolved from a mere meeting of mouths into a merging of selves. Seventeen years shrank to seventeen seconds and counting.

Finally, Joel’s racing blood demanded more oxygen. He paused the kiss and pressed his forehead to Daniel’s.

“Hi,” Daniel whispered.

Joel ran his thumbs along Daniel’s jaw, tracing the shape of this amazing face, finally in his hands. “Hi yourself.”

Daniel gave him a fleeting, feathery kiss, then bounced on his toes. “This is super romantic, but I haven’t peed since Pittsburgh.”

With a gush of laughter, Joel stepped back out of his arms, nearly stumbling again on the blacktop. He led Daniel up his front yard and through the door, as Florey and Archie yapped their indignation from the backyard.

“I thought about stopping before I got here,” Daniel said, “but I couldn’t wait to see you.”

“You chose your heart over your bladder. Now that’s romantic.”

“Yeah, but there are limits!” Daniel called out as he took the half-dozen stairs two at a time.

Joel sank onto the bottom step to give his weakened knees a chance to recover from that kiss. Had he ever truly dared to believe this would happen?

A giggle bubbled up from his chest. The sound of Daniel peeing made him seem so real, so here.

Soon Daniel reappeared and sat beside him. “Sorry. Where were we?”

Joel took his hands, slightly chilled from having just been washed. “Before anything else, you need to meet my dogs.”

“Oh!” Daniel leaped to his feet, tugging Joel with him. “I brought them presents.”

“Presents?” He could kiss him again just for that.

They brought in his bags from the truck, then went out the sliding back door, where Florey and Archie were scratching and barking. The dogs fell silent at Daniel’s feet, for there was serious sniffing to be done.

Daniel crouched on the deck and let them scan his sun-freckled hands with quivering noses, earning bonus dog-person points for not leaning over them or staring into their faces.

As usual, Archie made friends first, soaking Daniel’s fingers with slobbery kisses and wagging his whiplike tail so hard, his butt nearly hovered from the lift it generated. Then Florey gave a sharp bark and a bouncy play bow.

“Be right back.” Joel slipped into the house to fetch a couple of beers, his head spinning with each step across the kitchen linoleum.

His hands shook as he popped off the beer-bottle tops. He took a long first sip, then let out an even longer breath before returning to the back door.

Outside, Daniel was down in the yard with the dogs, who were running laps while carrying their new toys, which squeaked with each scampering step. Joel paused at the top of the deck stairs to observe him.

Daniel’s grin was as wide as ever, his legs as long, his shoulders as broad. (Due to that untucked light-blue shirt and Bermuda shorts, his ass was un-evaluate-able at this juncture.) He still moved with the easy grace uncommon among taller men, as if he were precisely the right size for any space around him.

He turned to Joel, shading his eyes from the sun. “Look at you, standing there in 3D instead of on a screen.”

“Look at us, making direct eye contact.” Joel went down into the yard, his face flushing hot under that gaze. The dogs circled closer, tossing their toys in the air—and in Archie’s case, tripping over them. “You got them a grasshopper and a bee? That’s adorable.”

“They didn’t have any cicada dog toys, so I went with the next best thing.” Daniel took the beer from him with a nod of thanks. “Speaking of bugs, what’s that buzzing sound? Is it the cicadas?”

Joel cocked his head, tuning out the squeak of toys. “That buzzing sound is literally a buzzsaw. The family down the street are building a shed.” He tapped his bottle against Daniel’s. “The cicadas waited for you, dude.”

“Told you they would. Bummed I missed them emerging, though.”

“There might still be more underground waiting to come out.”

“Wow, look at that.” Daniel strode past him to the mulberry tree planted just outside the fence, its lowest branches at eye level. “Jesus Christ, they’re everywhere!” He examined a branch with dozens of cicadas on it, bringing his face a few inches from the bugs. “How many do you think are in your yard?”

“Well, there’s roughly a million per acre in this area, but that’s with total tree coverage. Front and backyard together are a quarter acre, roughly thirty percent of which has trees, so…” Why was he standing here doing mental math when the possible—no, probable—love of his life was within arms’ reach? “Seventy-five thousand, max.”

Daniel gaped at him, then peered up at the treetops. “And they’re so quiet and still. I’ve never been around them like this.” He turned back to the low mulberry branch. “They’re kind of gorgeous, aren’t they?”

Joel’s throat went too tight for speech. He walked over and poked Daniel’s arm.

Daniel looked down. “What was that for?”

“Just making sure you’re actually here. In my reality. When we were together before, it was a time out of time. It felt like a dream.”

“A good dream or a bad dream?” Daniel asked with a teasing tilt to his mouth.

“The best.” Joel studied his bottle, fidgeting with the crinkled edge of the label. “I couldn’t sleep last night. Too busy cataloguing all the things that could keep you away. Like an accident or food poisoning or, I don’t know, a meteor impact.” He shifted his feet, leaving out his greatest fear: You changing your mind. “And yet here you are.”

“Here we are.” Daniel reached out and brushed his fingertips over Joel’s cheek, as though confirming the two of them were flesh and not phantoms. “Can I kiss you again?”

“Please.”

This time, it didn’t feel strange at all.

Together had been a long time coming, and if Daniel had any say in the matter, it would be an even longer time staying.

Joel led him by the hand back indoors, the dogs trotting at their heels. Inside, he reached to slide the door shut, then hesitated.

“What are we doing now?” he asked Daniel.

“What do you mean?”

“So, if we’re just going to make out on the couch for a bit, then the deck’s screen door will be enough. But if we’re going up to the bedroom, I’ll need to slide the glass door shut so Archie doesn’t walk through it if he sees a squirrel. Left unsupervised, he’ll make his own doggie door in a screen.”

“I see,” Daniel said, somehow with a straight face.

“Also, if we’ll be in the bedroom for a long time, I’ll need to give them a couple of frozen Kongs to keep them occupied.” Joel looked at his feet. “Sorry. Overthinking is so unsexy.”

“I remember what it was like having dogs.” He squeezed Joel’s hand. “Couch sounds incredible.”

“Cool.” Joel slid the screen door into place, seeming relieved not just at having an answer, but at the answer itself. He was clearly overwhelmed by their reunion, as he’d warned he might be. While in theory dragging each other up to the bedroom—shedding clothes every step of the way—sounded great, instinct said to take things slow.

They sat turned toward each other, one knee pressing one knee. Joel put his elbow on the back of the sofa, rested his head on his hand, and just gazed at him.

Daniel’s face heated. “What?”

“What, what?”

“What, what, what?”

They laughed, the sound so much fuller and richer in person than over the internet.

“I just want to look at you,” Joel said. “I mean, not just look at you. But…yeah.”

“Same.”

The light in here was soft, thanks to the shady front yard and the bay window’s sheer curtains. But it was enough to illuminate the blush creeping up Joel’s neck, past his dark beard to arrive at his cheeks and the tips of his ears. It was enough to read the joy in his eyes.

“I find myself wanting to memorize your face,” Daniel said, “in case it’s taken away from me again.”

“It won’t be.” Joel glanced down, then back up to meet his eyes again. “I can’t make any lifelong promises right now, but I can state that I have no intention of taking my face away from you.”

“Same.”

“Cool.”

“And for the record, overthinking is not unsexy.” He took Joel’s hand and brought it to his lips, first the knuckles, then the soft center of his palm.

Joel leaned in. His kiss was tentative, as if testing this new reality. Daniel focused on their shared breath, which felt both new and endless.

Then they pressed their foreheads together, as they’d done after their first kiss at the bottom of the driveway. Joel threaded his fingers through Daniel’s hair, sending delicious chills squiggling down his neck.

Daniel cleared this throat. “Can I—” How to ask this? “Can I do that to you, too?”

“What, run your fingers through my hair? You’re gonna need a lot of imagination.” Joel gave him a quick kiss. “Yes, you may touch my head. I think I would love that.”

Daniel let his fingertips graze Joel’s scalp above his ears. “Holy cow, it’s so sleek.”

“Enjoy that while it lasts. By tonight there’ll be stubble.”

Daniel slid both hands over the top of Joel’s head, from front to back. Smooth as it was, it felt too warm to compare to a nonliving substance like marble. It was just him. “Do you like that?”

“Only when you do it.” Joel smiled. “Not that anyone else has ever done it.” His hands descended to Daniel’s shoulders, where the tension of the seventeen-hour drive melted away at his touch.

Daniel kissed him, deeper this time. Joel reached down and around to pull their bodies closer.

Knowing these touches weren’t leading to sex made them all the more thrilling. Besides, this outrageous gift of real live contact—kissing, fumbling, and groping like a couple of teenagers—this was more than enough.

As they shifted against each other, Joel’s knee knocked against Daniel’s.

“Sorry,” Joel said, then gasped. “Is that the bad one?”

“It’s the good one now.” Daniel hiked up the leg of his shorts and pointed to the long, unswerving white scar. “Had it replaced a few years ago.” He’d never mentioned it over Zoom, for fear of seeming old, but there was no way to hide it now.

Joel reached out. “May I?”

“Of course.”

Joel’s traced the seam along its entire length, starting below the knee and traveling up almost to mid-thigh. His touch sent hot electric pulses throughout Daniel’s body. “Does it still hurt?” Joel asked.

Nothing would ever hurt again. “It felt weird at first, having this mechanical thing become part of me.”

“But now you’re, like, eight percent Bionic Man.” Joel drew a lazy circle around Daniel’s knee. “Which is very hot.”

Dizzy from downing a beer on an empty stomach—and even dizzier from the urge to pin Joel beneath him—Daniel kept the conversation going. “Your turn to show me a scar.”

“I’ve only got one, and it’s not as glamorous as an old football injury.” Joel undid the top buttons of his pine-green shirt, enough to pull it aside to show the upper left portion of his chest, which was smoother than in Daniel’s memory. “This is where they put in the magic poison.”

Daniel examined the inch-long raised mark, pale even against Joel’s fair skin. “Why did they do all the injections in the same spot? Is that what caused the scar?”

“Aw, bless your sweet, cancer-innocent heart. No, they inserted a port under the skin directly into a big vein. Then the nurses could put the IV chemo drugs into the port—or use it to draw blood for tests—instead of poking my arms a million times.”

Christ, what an ordeal. To be there for Joel, to hold his hand and draw him a warm bath and cook him food that wouldn’t make him barf…it would’ve been an honor.

He swallowed hard and echoed Joel’s question back at him. “Does it still hurt?”

“Nah, you can touch it if you want—or not, if you don’t want.”

“I do.” Daniel grazed the thin lump with his first two fingers. “It’s cool.”

“You think so?”

“I know so. It saved your life.” Daniel leaned forward and brushed his lips over the scar.

Joel drew in a quick gasp.

Daniel pulled back. “Sorry. I should’ve asked first. I didn’t mean?—”

“It’s okay. I want you to.” Joel’s dark lashes flickered. “I want you to kiss me everywhere, and the fact you started there…”

“We started here.” Daniel touched the corner of Joel’s mouth, then kissed him gently, the soft hairs of Joel’s beard tickling his lips. The reality of kissing him was a hundred times better than any memory or fantasy.

He moved to the hollow of Joel’s throat, the skin there warm and smooth. Joel let out a noise that was half sigh, half moan. Daniel’s resolve to hold back was melting into the need to get closer, to get naked. After a seventeen-year, twelve-hundred-mile separation, it seemed ludicrous to let a few millimeters of fabric keep them apart.

Then his stomach growled, loudly enough to be heard over their heavy breathing. “Sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry,” Joel said with a chuckle. “It’s lunchtime, and I didn’t even offer you a snack.” He nestled closer, resting his head on Daniel’s shoulder. “I need a pause, anyway.”

Daniel just held him, offering space to finish that thought. For the first time, he took in Joel’s living room. There was as much greenery here as in the office Joel had Zoomed from, if not more. Vines draped from the tops of tall shelves, each of which contained herbs and flowers Daniel couldn’t immediately identify, thanks to having always owned curious cats. A pair of huge plants with leaves the size of lampshades flanked the fireplace and draped over the dog beds on the hearth, where Archie and Florey were currently snoozing. It was a house brimming with life.

“This is so good, kissing you and touching you.” Joel traced the ridge of Daniel’s collarbone. “I’m still a bit dazed, though. It’s been forever since I felt like my body was part of me. Maybe kinda like your new knee, except all over.”

“That makes sense.”

“Does it?” He fidgeted with one of Daniel’s shirt buttons. “When I was sick, see, my body was like a prison and a sadistic cellmate at the same time. Then when you and I reconnected in January, I started thinking about the things we did, the things I wanted to do again—plus so much more—and it scared me.”

Daniel caressed Joel’s shoulder. He would find a way to prove how much he revered Joel’s body—healthy, sick, or anywhere in between. “Are you still afraid?”

“No, now it’s more like a tug-of-war feeling. Every inch of me wants to be touched but also left alone. Like there’s a short circuit somewhere between my brain and the rest of my body.” He gave a low laugh. “Except my dick, which is unequivocally on Team Touch Me.” He pressed his hand over Daniel’s. “Best to ignore that for now.”

“Okay.” He interlaced their fingers. “Thank you for telling me how you feel.”

“I couldn’t have you thinking I don’t want you with every cell in my body, because I totally do.”

“Same here. If it helps.”

“It helps a lot, because my biggest fear was you’d get here and not be attracted to me.”

“No chance in hell of that. Listen.” He shifted to look Joel in the eye so he would understand he wasn’t alone. “I haven’t had cancer, but it’s been over a year since I touched anyone but Luna. So reaching my hand into space and, boom, there’s a person occupying that space? It’s kind of mindblowing. Like everyone else, I’m just bumbling toward normal.”

“Okay, then,” Joel said with a heavy exhalation. “Let’s stick with our plan: We won’t worry about when we’re going to do stuff, and just let it happen.”

“I support any sentence that starts with, ‘We won’t worry.’” His stomach growled again.

Joel laughed hard, his back arching. What a fabulous photo that would make.

“I was thinking,” Joel said as he got to his feet, “you’d probably like to move around a little after driving so long.”

“I’m not up for one of your Zoom Zumba classes. Maybe by Monday.”

“That was not my brilliant suggestion, although I will definitely hold you to that. The humidity is low, and the cicadas are quiet—neither of which will last.” He reached for Daniel’s hand. “Let’s hit the great outdoors while we can.”