Authors: Mimsy Hale
“Wait, wait,” Jake whispers, pulling back and searching Aiden’s eyes. “Aiden, I… I’ve never trusted anyone the way I trust you. You know that, right?” At Aiden’s nod, he clears his throat and continues, “And you know that I… the way I feel about you, it’s not—”
“Stop,” Aiden interrupts, and gently places his fingertips over Jake’s mouth.
“We’re not gonna do that right now.”
“Why not?” Jake asks slowly.
“I didn’t tell you because I was trying to rush you, and I wasn’t expecting anything. Hoping, sure, but…” Aiden reaches up to trace Jake’s cheekbone. “You don’t owe me anything. Okay?”
Warmth blooms in his bloodstream, and Jake nods.
“Good. So, for now… please come back to me,” Aiden says, dropping his hands to graze Jake’s thighs. “Let it go, and just be with me.”
Jake pitches forward, falling into a kiss that feels shattering in the wake of Aiden’s words. All at once he’s five years younger, fumbling and frenzied and trembling under the weight of the things he wants. Aiden’s hands are still, now, and heavy on his thighs; he scoots forward in Aiden’s lap, pressing into the firm touch and chasing the taste of something sweet that lingers on Aiden’s tongue.
He reaches down for Aiden’s hands and pushes them back, back, back until Aiden is cupping his ass and holding him right where he is, immobile save for the tight figure eights he makes with his hips. Slow kisses contrast with the movement of Jake’s impatient hands as they rush beneath Aiden’s shirt and undershirt and push them up over his head.
Though he feels Aiden growing hard beneath him, Jake doesn’t know how to ask for what he suddenly wants, and pulls away to catch his breath. Aiden follows, one hand tipping Jake’s head back; his mouth is warm and wet on Jake’s throat, trailing down to his collarbone.
Opening his eyes and staring blankly up at the ceiling, Jake breathes, “Do you remember what I said to you in West Virginia?” At Aiden’s questioning hum, he swallows and adds, “You asked me if I topped.”
“And you said exclusively,” Aiden says. He works his hand up into Jake’s damp hair, but Jake peels it away and brings it to his cheek, and then kisses Aiden’s palm.
He stares into Aiden’s eyes. “This time, I want you to.”
“You…” Aiden trails off, eyes wide. “Jake—”
“Just be with me,” Jake echoes, adding in a whisper, “like that. Please.”
Aiden looks at him searchingly for a moment, then pulls Jake’s legs forward, wraps them around his waist, and carries him to the bedroom. They shed each other’s clothes quietly, revealing skin inch by inch, keeping eye contact as much as possible as they let their fingers retrace maps long since drawn. Aiden’s hands shake as they trail the length of Jake’s bare arms with the lightest whisper of a touch, leaving the hair raised in their wake. Jake licks his lips with a dry tongue, and his eyes close as he finally lets his foundations crumble and gives himself up. It’s as easy as falling asleep at the end of a long day, a drift into floating.
Aiden’s mouth is soft on his and his hands are everywhere, a breath of skin on skin. He strokes Jake all the way to hardness as they kiss deeply, kisses that are like drowning, falling farther and harder and faster, and breathes raggedly whenever they break apart, as if he too is surfacing for air.
“I love you,” he whispers, taking his hands away and swallowing Jake’s soft whine inside another kiss. While Aiden moves to the nightstand, sunlight floods Jake’s skin and there’s nothing but heat. His head falls back onto the pillow and he takes a few deep breaths. He can barely stand this out-of-control cascade, this bone-deep need and vulnerability, this feeling that if he doesn’t have Aiden, he has nothing. It hurts so beautifully that he wants to cry.
And then Aiden drops a condom and a small bottle of lubricant onto the bed and brushes his thumb over Jake’s lips. With just a nod, it becomes simple. It’s him and Aiden—just him and Aiden, like always.
Everything in him loosens, uncoils, and he surges up to capture Aiden’s mouth, smiling against his lips as Aiden slowly moves his thighs apart and settles between them. The shift is immediate, the tension is broken, and soon Jake feels one of Aiden’s slicked fingers circling him and then slowly pushing inside. He gasps at the soft pressure, full but not to bursting, and Aiden pauses to look up at him.
“Okay?” Aiden breathes the word as if it is a benediction, and Jake wriggles underneath him, bearing down and already wanting more.
As Jake watches, encourages him with soft words and silent nods, Aiden moves steadily; a second finger soon joins the first, and his trembling has stopped.
Minutes seem to pack themselves into seconds, an incomprehensible but pleasant stretch during which Aiden, eyes dark and heavy-lidded, checks and double-checks that what he’s doing is still all right. Jake is panting, lost, three fingers twisting inside him and sweat beading at his temples while Aiden brings him back to full hardness.
And then Aiden’s mouth covers his, gives him air as he pushes inside inch by inch and mile by mile. The feel of Aiden inside him, and the look in his deep brown eyes when he pulls back—volumes of love and awe—create an ache in Jake’s soul, a cut that runs so deep he knows he’ll carry it for the rest of his life.
Aiden starts to move, barely at first, and it’s a maelstrom of wildfire sensation: Jake’s arching back and his fingers curling into the sheets. It’s Aiden’s half-sobs, half-laughs choked into the hollow of his neck. It’s push and pull and give and take, winding and reaching and a burning heat that scorches Jake from the inside out; it’s falling apart over and over and knowing that Aiden will catch him.
It’s everything.
Jake is too close too soon, but he doesn’t have it in him to ask Aiden to slow down; his toes curl, and he breathes only fragments of Aiden’s name. Chasing sensation, rubbing against the soft swell of Aiden’s stomach, he hooks his arms around Aiden’s neck and pulls himself up, pressing his forehead to Aiden’s temple just as he screws his eyes shut and lets go completely, Aiden’s arm sliding underneath him to hold him up, to cling to him like a lifeline.
Aiden follows him over the edge moments later, panting and gasping and whispering, “I love you,” again and again and again. Jake drifts down, locked on those three words and truly wanting, for the first time, to return them. But everything is already too intense; Aiden’s eyes water as he pulls back, and Jake’s entire body feels like putty. He lies back and pulls Aiden down with him, shaking in the thick air that surrounds them.
Then it’s sudden emptiness as Aiden slowly pulls out; damp, unsteady fingers card Jake’s hair; a lazy kiss bleeds into another, and another, as Jake’s nerve endings recover from overload.
It’s Aiden wrapped around him from head to toe, the pulse in his neck rabbit-quick, something unfurling and stretching awake.
And later, much later, when Jake is absolutely sure that Aiden is asleep, it’s letting the words roll onto his tongue, their taste heady and dizzying; it’s lying stone-still as he considers them. It’s looking over at Aiden, arms curled up beneath his pillow and his face peaceful in sleep, and whispering, “I love you, too.”
11,772 miles
Day Eighty-four: New Mexico
“Ready?” Aiden asks, taking Jake’s hand and giving it a reassuring squeeze.
They’re standing outside Loretto Chapel in downtown Santa Fe. With its snow-covered adobe buildings and unlit
farolitos
lining the sidewalks and rooftops, it seems like some made-up place, nothing like the city they read about on the Internet.
Jake takes a deep breath and leans into Aiden for a moment. “I’m ready.”
They push through the heavy wooden doors, which are hung with Christmas wreaths, and stop to take in the pews decorated with greenery and twinkling lights. Carvings of saints stand sentinel amid ornate stonework over the altar, and above them the vaulted ceilings are painted in an intricate, swirling red and gold design. To Aiden and Jake’s right is part of the reason for their visit: the miraculous staircase.
“So what is it with this staircase?” Aiden gently nudges Jake’s shoulder, his voice low; several people are seated in pews throughout the chapel, heads bowed in prayer. Aiden tries to shake the feeling that he’s trespassing—neither of them are Catholic, but this private ceremony is a tradition Jake has observed since the first anniversary of his father’s death.
“The story goes that the chapel architect died,” Jake begins, walking toward the staircase and running his hand over the banister. “And the builders realized that there was no stairway to the choir loft included in the designs. The Sisters of Loretto prayed to Saint Joseph for divine intervention for, like, nine days straight. On the tenth day, a man appeared.
“He told the nuns that he’d build them a staircase, but that he needed complete privacy,” Jake continues. “So he locked himself inside for three months, and as soon as the staircase was finished, he left. No one knew who he was, and they never saw him again.”
“And what’s the miracle?” Aiden asks.
“The construction,” Jake answers. “No nails, no visible means of support… apparently, it still has some people baffled. The Sisters eventually decided that the man was Saint Joseph himself, come to answer their prayers.”
“Aren’t we gonna go up?”
“You can’t anymore,” Jake says with a sigh. Aiden follows his gaze to behind the staircase, his eyes immediately drawn to the flickering candles gathered on a high, wide table. A small sign in front of the votives reads,
Light a candle and speak your prayer, and accept the light that it may protect and keep you.
Aiden crosses his arms over his chest and leans against the pillar just in front of the table, looking out at the rest of the small chapel. Trying to see through Jake’s eyes, he quietly asks, “What would we film here?”
“I don’t know.”
Aiden conceals his surprise—Jake is the one with the visionary imagination, and Aiden is the one who riffs off of it. “Nice place for a wedding, maybe,” he suggests, straightening and stretching his arms out in front of him. He deliberately frames a shot badly, knowing that Jake won’t be able to resist correcting him—which he does, after a moment, covering Aiden’s hands with his own and creating a panning shot that begins at the door and travels across the pews right to the altar.
“Native Santa Feans,” he says, his hands lingering on Aiden’s.
“Nah,” Aiden says. “Two guys who’ve been in love with each other forever but haven’t seen each other in years.”
“And, what? They randomly run into each other here?”
“And finally admit everything, yes.”
“Why here?” Jake asks.
“This place, it…” Aiden trails off, dropping his hands and looking up at the staircase. “Do you get the feeling that everything would be better if you just stayed here for a while and figured your shit out?”
“It does have something,” Jake concedes. His hands are balled into fists, and his knuckles are white. He looks down at his feet for a long moment before finally turning around.
Aiden hangs back while Jake moves over to the table. He bows his head, says his own kind of prayer and thinks back to waking up this morning and finding Jake curled up on the couch, his mom’s art journal open and face down on his chest. When Aiden picked it up, he found that it was open to a page featuring a drawing of William, and that was when he realized the date—December ninth, the anniversary of his death.
He sees a small group of children robed in white file into the apse, holding red hymnals. They arrange themselves in what must be their usual formation. A man comes to stand before them, and once they’re ready, they start to sing. It isn’t a Christmas carol, as Aiden might expect; it sounds more like a haunting lament, and it sends chills up and down his spine. It echoes the sorrow he feels for Jake, for Charlie, for their little family that was ripped apart by one freak storm.
Aiden’s eyes sting, and he watches Jake reach for a lighting stick from the small pot in the corner of the table. There’s no discernible pattern to the way the candles are lit; flames flicker in clusters and pairs, and though Jake’s back is turned, Aiden knows that as he pauses, he’s turning the stick over and over in his hands, agonizing over which candle to light because there is no neat line to join. Slowly, his boots quietly clicking against the wooden floor, Aiden closes the distance between them and reaches forward, clasps Jake’s shoulders and runs his hands down his arms. Then he gives in and wraps his arms around Jake’s waist and hooks his chin over his shoulder.
Jake leans back, curls his fingers over Aiden’s, and asks, “Do you think he’d be proud of me?”
“I know he’d be proud of you,” Aiden says.
This seems to be all Jake needs to hear; the warmth of his fingers over Aiden’s disappears, and he reaches forward to light the stick. Aiden watches him pick a candle in the center of an unlit group and hold the flame over the wick. He lights the one next to it, too.
For both of them,
Aiden thinks, and squeezes Jake’s waist before stepping around to his side. His skin glows warm in the candlelight, reminding Aiden of WaterFire, of feeling for the first time in his life as if he was on the precipice of something that had the power to transform worlds.
“I wrote a letter to him last night. That’s why I didn’t come to bed,” Jake says, his voice raspy and thick. “Will you help me with it when we get back?”
“What do you need?” Aiden asks.
Jake sucks a breath through his teeth and his shoulders rise as he buries his hands in his pockets. He exhales and says, “To let go.”
It’s mostly dark by the time they step outside, and it’s like walking into a different world—the Christmas lights have burst into life, and the
farolitos
lining the sidewalks and rooftops have been lit as if by magic.
They go to the Blue Corn Café on Water Street and get tipsy on margaritas despite eating more than their fill of tamales and
calabacitas
and
carne adova
da
, and Jake barely puts up a fight when Aiden buys him a café T-shirt. He puts up even less of a fight when Aiden leads him to the back of the bus that will take them to the campground and spends their fifteen-minute journey holding him, touching his face, kissing his mouth and chasing the scent of Jean Paul Gaultier that always lingers around his throat.