Authors: Mimsy Hale
Then, calmly, he turns off the music, quickly changes into clean underwear and sweats, sits back down on the couch and closes his eyes just for a second.
The next thing he’s aware of is the engine of the RV rumbling beneath him, but Aiden doesn’t bother to move; a quick check of his watch confirms that he slept for a little under an hour, and his head is already throbbing.
It’s twenty minutes before Jake pulls the RV into a spacious parking lot somewhere—Aiden hasn’t exactly been paying attention, and he’s finding it difficult to care all that much—and switches off the engine. Aiden looks up in time to see Jake walking quickly toward him; he jumps up from the couch and takes three steps back, and Jake stops in the middle of the living area, hands opening and closing at his sides.
“I’m sorry,” Jake whispers, and Aiden’s stomach gives a painful lurch. “I’m so sorry, Dan, I couldn’t—”
Aiden resists a perverse urge to laugh and looks Jake squarely in the eye. “All this for a fuck-and-run?”
“Dan, it wasn’t—” Jake starts, but Aiden holds up his hand.
“Don’t,” he says, moving toward the bedroom and turning his back. “Just don’t.”
5,810 miles
Chapter Six
Day Fifty-one: Wisconsin
Jake (8:53 a.m.) –
[Sent to: ALL CONTACTS]
Have you voted?
April (9:12 a.m.) –
Yes, dummy. Remember we all did our absentee ballots at the same time?
Toby (10:32 a.m.) –
We managed to coordinate lunch breaks so we can head over together. Thanks for the reminder!
Marcie (11:01 a.m.) –
Of course! Thank you so much again for all your help with the door-to-door this summer!
Eric (11:11 a.m.) –
Got my sticker and everything. And now, we wait.
Aiden (12:59 p.m.) –
Finally on my way back. Got into a debate with a Romney supporter. They were out of the sandwich you wanted so I got you an Italian Club instead. Need anything else while I’m out?
Zoe P. (1:44 p.
m.) –
IMG_20121106_9368.JPG
Zoe P. (1:44 p.m.) –
Voting lines around the block! :)
Alice (4:54 p.m.) –
Never realized all of this driving around would be so exhausting! Don’t know how you two do it! Getting them all to the polls has been worth it, though, even if just for some of the characters I’ve met today. Give Aiden a hug from his momma.
Charlie (5:02 p.m.) –
Just got off work and heading straight to the polling station. Good luck tonight, Jakey. Give me a call soon, okay? We need to talk about this house thing.
Aiden (6:00 p.m.) –
Where are you? It’s starting.
Jake smiles crookedly, anticipation fluttering, and pockets his phone. He stands outside Madison’s, a bar on King Street, having a much-needed moment to himself after what has been a thoroughly crazy day. The evening air is cool and he breathes as he would if he was doing yoga inside the RV with his mat stretched out in front of the couch where he has slept for the past two nights.
Before Chicago, Jake thought that going there and being with Max was at least partly about closure, but it wasn’t really about that at all—it was about proving something he thought he knew about himself but that turned out to be a gross mistruth. It was an itch that he’d needed to scratch, but when Jake had Max sprawled out on top of soft, pristine covers and looking up at him with his penetrating gaze and lecherous smirk, Jake couldn’t do it. And he had tried,
god,
how he had tried. The mortification still smarts. And then, after he ran back to the RV and drove them far enough away that he stopped wanting to throw up, he saw the hurt in Aiden’s eyes and his stomach flipped like a pancake, and he knew without question that he had fallen in love with Aiden, sometime beyond memory.
Today, he and Aiden have reached some sort of unspoken détente. Over the summer they both spent time volunteering for President Obama’s re-election campaign, and the excitement over all of their efforts hopefully coming to fruition has put a firm moratorium on mostly everything else.
He sighs once, allowing himself a moment’s grace. Somehow he will make things right between them, but tonight is not the night.
When he steps inside, Aiden waves him over to the bar with a rueful half-smile.
“Have they called any yet?” he asks, sliding onto an empty bar stool next to him and taking a sip of the cocktail that Aiden slides over.
“Indiana and Kentucky for Romney, Vermont for Obama,” Aiden replies succinctly. He tilts his head toward Jake but does not look away from the screen over the bar playing NBC News; he rests his elbows on the bar, clasps his hands and absently chews his thumbnail. Tension radiates from him in waves. Tentatively, Jake slides his hand over, fingers splayed and wiggling to catch Aiden’s attention. It feels a little as it did back in Provincetown: a hand reaching out for more where there has never
been
more. Only this time, it’s Jake trying to push back unturnable tides.
When Aiden finally takes his hand, though, Jake thinks that maybe together they can do it.
“What about Question One? Any news?” he asks, referring to the bill on Maine’s ballot that, if passed, will grant marriage equality to same-sex couples.
Aiden shakes his head and takes a large gulp of his beer, then grabs a napkin and wipes his mouth. “What if—”
“Dan,” Jake interrupts. “This is our year.”
At last, Aiden gives him a real smile. After he briefly leans into Jake’s touch, and after Jake bites his lip against the urge to kiss the smile wider, they join hands again and settle in to watch.
The hours pass at a crawl, and tension grows as more and more people filter into the bar. Despite the air conditioning and the cool temperatures outside, it quickly becomes hot; and before long, the scent of beer and body odor permeates the air.
At seven p.m., they cheer as Maine is called for Obama along with Illinois, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware and Maryland. At eight-thirty, the entire bar erupts in triumphant whoops as Wisconsin goes blue. And at ten fifty-four p.m., when early results show marriage equality ahead in Maine, Aiden’s unfailing grip on Jake’s hand suddenly becomes so tight it almost hurts. Uncomfortable under the weight of his scrutiny, Jake shifts in his seat and signals the bartender for another round.
At length, Aiden asks, “Do you think you’ll capitalize on it?”
“On what?” Jake asks, pulling out his wallet. “On marriage equality?”
“Yeah, if we get it.”
Making a face at him, Jake nudges over his fresh bottle of beer. “Of course we’ll get it. This is our year.”
Aiden takes a fast pull from his beer. With a tight smile, a quizzically furrowed brow and a humorless laugh, he asks, “Why didn’t you answer my question?”
“Because I don’t know.”
“Why not?”
“Aiden,
Jesus,”
Jake exclaims.
“I’m just curious.”
Taking a deep breath, Jake squares his shoulders and says, “Maybe. I mean, I’d like to think there’s someone out there who could put up with me ‘til death do us part, but…”
“There
is
someone, you know,” Aiden says, as matter-of-factly as if he’s commenting on the weather.
“What are you saying?” Jake asks slowly.
Aiden takes a long, deliberate drink from his bottle and meets Jake’s questioning look. “There
is
someone who can put up with you. He’s been doing it for seventeen years already.”
“I don’t understand what you’re trying to say,” Jake says weakly, his stomach twisting into a tight knot.
There’s no way he can be saying what I think he’s saying. Not with the rules. Not after what happened in Chicago.
“Just that,” Aiden says, his voice infuriatingly mild.
“What about you?” Jake asks, shifting in his seat to face him.
A barely there smile has the corners of Aiden’s mouth twitching, and at length he responds, “If the time was right, if he was the right guy… yeah, I think I’d like to get married.”
“Proposal?” Jake prompts, resting his chin in his hand.
“Something simple,” Aiden answers, looking thoughtful. “Quiet and intimate, just the two of us. Not on an anniversary or a birthday or Christmas.
Definitely
not on Valentine’s.”
“You or m—him?” Jake forces out, quickly covering his slip and clearing his expression as much as he’s able. He can’t keep letting his mind run away with his tongue, he
can’t—
it feels too much like cheating himself. He clears his throat. “Would you be the one getting swept off your feet or the one doing the sweeping?”
“I haven’t ever really thought that far ahead,” Aiden admits, picking at the label on his beer bottle where condensation is causing it to peel away from the glass. “Either way you end up pretty vulnerable.”
“Isn’t that the point of love, though? Being vulnerable but being okay with it?”
“No. It’s being vulnerable but trusting the other person not to betray that vulnerability.”
Jake finds himself nodding even as this hits him with blunt, bruising force. It’s an unexpected segue, but a segue nonetheless.
Not a second after he opens his mouth to speak, the bar erupts in a cheer. Jake’s head snaps up to the television, where he sees a smartly dressed blonde anchorwoman. She holds her earpiece and says, “Once again, that’s Iowa, California, and Washington for President Obama. I’m just waiting for confirmation…”
A quiet envelops the inside of Madison’s, and Jake leans over to press his forehead to Aiden’s temple; his eyes slip closed. Aiden squeezes Jake’s knee and leaves his hand there; Jake covers it with his own and takes a deep breath.
“And with two hundred and seventy-four electoral votes, we are now calling this election for President Barack Obama.”
The force of Aiden’s hug, arms thrown tightly around him with Aiden’s face buried in the hollow of his neck, almost topples Jake from his stool. He grabs the bar with one hand to right himself and then holds Aiden tightly, thoughtlessly pressing a kiss into his hair.
Looking around the bar, he sees other couples and groups of friends hugging, exchanging high fives and fist bumps, and two girls by the door to the restrooms are wiping away each other’s joyful tears. The group of students sitting over by the electronic jukebox is playing celebratory music. Jake grins despite himself, lets himself revel in the simple, uncomplicated, unbridled elation of the moment.
Aiden has always been so expressive that Jake has never had difficulty reading the emotions on his face—an exaggerated downward quirk of his mouth when trying not to laugh; a tilt of his head and furrow of his brow when giving sympathy; a slight but unmistakable widening of his eyes and a flush of anticipation in his cheeks when turned on—but when Aiden breaks their hug, clears his throat and settles his hands on his thighs as though he doesn’t know what to do with them, Jake has no idea what’s going through his mind. The water is flowing quickly between them instead of under a bridge—does he need to divert it or build a bridge over it? At this point, either action looks likely to require a Herculean effort, with skills he can’t be sure he possesses.
The rest of the evening passes in a blur, exchanging goodwill and congratulations with the other bar patrons as they all wait for Romney’s concession and Obama’s acceptance. By eleven fifty-nine p.m., in the midst of the merriment surrounding them, Jake has almost forgotten about Question One.
One minute to midnight, and the new ticker at the bottom of the television screen suddenly reads,
Breaking News.
Jake sits up straighter on his stool, his hand automatically gravitating toward Aiden’s. A replay of Romney’s concession speech cuts to the same blonde anchorwoman. Her makeup looks as if it’s been retouched.
She smiles as she reports, “And while we’re waiting for President Obama’s acceptance speech, this evening Maine has made history as the first state to vote by referendum to back marriage equality.”
It’s as if he and Aiden have formed their own private vacuum; sound ceases to exist, and the air feels hard to come by. Jake feels tremors in Aiden’s hands, almost imperceptible at first but growing until he shakes violently, his eyes still glued to the screen.
“Hey,” Jake says, squeezing his hand. “Hey, look at me. Dan,
look at me.”
Even in the dimmed light of the bar, Aiden’s eyes swim and shine, and for a moment he looks as if he doesn’t recognize Jake. Then his expression clears, and he pitches forward to take Jake’s face in his trembling hands and kiss him, softly and tenderly, like a first kiss at the end of a first date and the beginning of the rest.
God, I love you,
Jake thinks, stretching into the kiss and welcoming the feeling of Aiden’s lips skating over his own in long stretches, not caring that they’re in public and acting like the very people he professed to hate back in Florida.
Aiden inhales sharply and breaks away, eyes remaining closed for a moment. Jake glances to their left and catches the bartender watching them with a wry smile.
“I’m guessing you guys are from Maine?” he asks, taking their empties and putting them behind the bar. At Jake’s nod he continues, “Champagne’s on the house if one of you proposes.”
Aiden snorts derisively, and it all comes screaming back. “Unlikely, when we aren’t even together,” he says with a weariness that Jake hates with every fiber of his being.
“Could’ve fooled me,” the bartender says, and moves off to serve some customers down the bar—or more likely refuse service, considering the way they practically fall over one another.
Jake is surprised to find that the assumption doesn’t irritate him. The way he and Aiden interact, he can’t blame someone for thinking they’re an item.
“Told you it was our year,” Jake says, and Aiden shoots him a quick smile. He looks freer than he has all night; Jake thinks,
Maybe the tide is turning anyway.
5,957 miles
Day Fifty-two: Minnesota
“Oh my g
od,”
Aiden wheezes between bouts of laughter. Jake is still splayed out on the shiny, waxed wooden floor of the lane, holding his stomach, his eyes watering from his own giggling. “This was the best idea
ever
.”
They’re at the Bryant Lake Bowl in Minneapolis, a place that somehow manages to be a restaurant, bar, theater and bowling alley all at once. They have most of the bowling area to themselves, the only other people there a group of six hipster-looking students occupying the lane at the far end. Aiden had immediately fallen in love with the atmosphere of the place: warm and accepting, somewhere to get out of his head and cut loose for a while.
“Okay, okay,” Jake says breathlessly, struggling to his feet and brushing off the seat of his pants. He squints as he looks at the pins. “Did I even hit any?”
“Gutterball,” Aiden calls out, raising his voice to carry over the music.
“What was it again?” Jake asks as he walks over in time with the beat
,
and Aiden glances down at the dog-eared, laminated card titled,
BLB Crazy Bowl.
“One-Eyed Jack,” he says. “You have to turn around twice, cover one eye with your hand and bowl. That’s how you ended up on your ass.”