Page 131 of Whisper

“I loved the house I grew up in in Libya. In Benghazi. There was so much light. You could see the ocean from the roof, and the beach. The sand. When I came to America, I fell in love with trees.” He chuckled. “Forests. I always loved field exercises when we were buried in the woods. Everyone thought I was insane.”

“What kind of house do you want now?”

“Something quiet. Maybe a bit farther from Langley. Something with land, and trees. Privacy. But most of all, peaceful. Someplace you and I can relax.”

“That sounds perfect.” He slipped around the table and perched on David’s lap. He took another sip of his mimosa. “Okay. I accept your wedding gift.”

David laughed. One hand landed on Kris’s briefs-covered ass. “This is not how you take a break.”

Kris shrugged. One eyebrow arched.

David’s laptop chimed. The website he’d clicked finally loaded. An advertisement and a service for gay couples eloping to Canada scrawled across the top. “Elope in Canada for US$200! Call today! Next Day Services Available!”

Their eyes met.

“Want to go to the airport?”

On the way to the airport, Kris called Director Edwards back. He was owed two full months of vacation after working nonstop in Iraq, hunting Saqqaf, and he was going to take every single day of it. He told the director he accepted the assignment in Afghanistan and that he’d report back in six weeks.

They flew to Toronto on a red-eye and checked into a hotel downtown. Kris dragged David from store to store, looking for the perfect pair of suits. David picked out a pair of fitted smoking jackets, and he looked so perfect in the dark brocade that Kris gave up the hunt and bought two, along with matching dark slacks, French cuff shirts, and bow ties.

David disappeared to buy rings while Kris window-shopped, promising to be back to meet Kris at an art gallery for the evening.

The elopement agency had a small assortment of locations where they could get married. They chose Gibraltar Point, a stretch of sandy beach near a park, for the next day.

They couldn’t stop giggling the next morning. From making love with huge smiles to getting dressed in their pants and shirts, to tying their bow ties, they kept devolving into smiles and handholds, nervous and delighted laughs that turned into tiny and lingering kisses. They held hands in the taxi the whole drive to Gibraltar Point, stealing looks until they just stared into each other’s eyes. Kris could see the outline of a ring box in David’s pants.

A tall man, slender and wiry and dressed in a blue suit, met them. He was geeky and affable, and kept grinning at the two of them, obviously amused by their lovesick adoration of each other.

And then they stepped to the edge of the sand. Waves lapped at the shore. Seagulls cried overhead. Summer sun warmed the early afternoon, turned the sand golden, the sky a perfect azure.

David took Kris’s hands. Kris’s breath shuddered.

Kris hadn’t known what David was going to arrange. He half expected an Islamic ceremony, if therewereany Islamic imams who would have wed them, two men, and one not a Muslim.

Though, was David a Muslim? What did he consider himself? David’s pain was too raw, too poignant, to wade into those waters. Kris would be his lighthouse out of those memories, out of the anguish, his life preserver back to safer shores.

The officiant kept the ceremony short and simple, a standard exhortation on the beauty of marriage and then the exchange of vows, first David and then Kris promising to have and to hold, to love and to cherish, from that day ever forward. David slipped a gold ring, with a channel of diamonds in the center, onto Kris’s finger. Kris did the same for David, biting his lip as he beamed.

Kris’s breath kept coming faster, his smile kept getting wider. He thought he’d faint, or launch into space. He held David’s hand in both of his own.

“Before we conclude,” the officiant smiled at Kris. “I understand your groom has something he’d like to recite?”

Kris paled. David chuckled. “I do, yes. It’s a poem of Rumi’s.” He cleared his throat and looked deep into Kris’s gaze.

“Oh Beloved,

take me.

Liberate my soul.

Fill me with your love and

release me from the two worlds.

If I set my heart on anything but you

let fire burn me from inside.