You & Me

No. No, fuck this. This wasn’t how Landon and I ended. I wasn’t going to watch him walk away. I wasn’t going to pretend that kiss—that kiss—hadn’t just happened. That one of the best moments of my life, and the best person I knew, were things I could walk away from without a fight.

We weren’t going to end like this. I’d been frozen against the truck, my hands in my hair, staring at the sidewalk where Landon had stood. Negative space roared around me and filled up the night.

I don’t want to be your mistake.

There were dozens of reasons why we shouldn’t be together, I knew, but Landon being my mistake was never going to be one.

I jogged to Landon’s home. It was dark, with only one light on. I heard crickets sawing, an owl hooting. I took his porch steps two at a time. My lungs burned, more from the agony wrapping around my insides than the run. I tried to breathe, tried to still the careening of my heart. His front door loomed.

No time to be subtle. I knocked and rang simultaneously, one hand pounding, the other mashing his doorbell. “Landon? Landon, open up. Please. We need to talk.” More mashing of the doorbell. “Landon, I don’t want to end like this.”

The door opened. Landon stood on the threshold.

He looked destroyed. Devastated, like a bomb had gone off inside his soul. His eyes were dark and hollow and rimmed with fear. “Luke—”

“Landon, you’re not my mistake, and I don’t want to forget what just happened.”

If anything, Landon looked worse after my declaration. I’d thought he’d be relieved. I thought he’d at least smile. Maybe we’d kiss again.

No, none of that. He dropped his gaze and stared at his porch, his neck muscles bulging, hands squeezed into fists.

Fuck, what if everything I thought was wrong?

“Please, can I come in? Let’s talk about this.”

He held the door open silently. I followed him into the kitchen where he braced himself against his granite continent. There was a glass of water beside him, half-gone. He faced forward and wouldn’t look at me. “Luke, that wasn’t you. What happened out there wasn’t the Luke I know.”

I stood beside him, close enough to touch. I didn’t, though. He looked like he’d break apart if I tried. “Yes, it was.”

“That came out of nowhere.”

“Not for me. I’ve been falling for you since we met. I didn’t know, I didn’t realize, until it all hit me at once. I’m falling for you— No, I have fallen for you. I’m absolutely gone for you.”

“Is this… curiosity?”

“No. What I feel for you isn’t curiosity.”

I was curious about Emmet’s games and the source of his stench and where the hell he put all that milk, but I was not curious about what Landon made me feel. No, that was certain.

Finally, Landon looked at me. He still wasn’t facing me, but at least I got to talk to his face and not the side of him. “You are straight.”

“I thought I was. Maybe I’m not.” I shrugged.

He looked like I’d punched him in the stomach. Like he was going to be sick all over his countertops, all over me. What did I do, what did I say? How did I salvage this? “How did you figure out you were gay? You said you had your eyes opened. What happened?”

He made a sound like a wounded animal and dropped to his haunches, hanging on to the edge of the counter.

I was fucking this all up. I was ruining everything. I wanted to talk, but all I was doing was hurting him. “I’m sorry. Fuck, I’m sorry—”

Landon shook his head. He breathed in deep and then hauled himself to his feet. Silence stretched between us as I counted my heartbeats.

“I fell for a friend,” he eventually said. “Someone I thought was my closest friend in law school. He was funny and charming and smart. Faithful, too. A good Mormon. I was dazzled by him. I couldn’t wait to see him in class, and when I wasn’t in class, I was thinking about him. I never wanted to be apart from him.”

That was how I felt, exactly how I felt. “I, uh. I get that.”

Landon sagged, his head in his hands, his chest to the cold granite. His eyes flicked to mine. They were so bright beneath the kitchen lights. Shimmering, I realized. Brimming with tears.

“One night I… kissed him. And he—” His eyes shut tight. “He pushed me away. He was horrified, and disgusted with me. He threatened to report me to the dean. He said I didn’t belong there, that I was violating the ethics code. He said he’d have me thrown out of law school. I begged him not to. I swore it was a mistake, that I was just under stress. He said he never wanted to see me again. I never went back to that class. I failed it, because I could never face him again.”

Despair moved within me.

“That was my first kiss with a man, Luke. I’d fallen for him, I’d obsessed over him, I kissed him, and he nearly destroyed me.” He sank to a barstool with a whimper. “I had a wife and a son at home while I was lusting for him.”

“Landon—”

“I swore to God I’d change. I’d bury those desires, and I’d never let myself feel that way again. I vowed to honor my marriage and be a better father to my son. But… Pandora’s box was open. The more I swore I wouldn’t think about men, the more my thoughts churned. The more I prayed for deliverance, the more I dreamed of loving, and being loved, by a man.

“After I graduated, the first account I was assigned to had their headquarters in Seattle. The third time I flew out, I walked six miles to a gay bar just to look at the building. I was too afraid that the rental car’s GPS would reveal where I’d been if I drove. And I needed those six miles to psych myself up. I told myself to turn around a dozen times. I told myself I was ruining my life with every step. I told myself I had to stop. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t make myself turn around.”

“Jesus, Landon—”

“I was only supposed to look at the place. Just look. Stand across the street and get a glimpse. But then I walked closer, and then I decided to go inside, and—” A tiny little inhale. A breathless little whine. “Seeing that? Seeing men who loved each other openly? Without shame? Being in a place where the feelings I felt were normal? And good?”

Tears rained down his cheeks. It was so deathly quiet I could hear them fall and shatter against the granite.

“Everything got worse when I flew back to Utah. What I felt wasn’t going away. I craved a man to love, and I yearned for a man to love me in return. I wanted so badly for the love of my life to be my wife, but she wasn’t. The love of my life was a man I didn’t know. I dreamed about him every night. All I wanted was to find him, this guy of my dreams that I was supposed to be with.

“And I hated myself. I hated what I wanted. Why couldn’t I be happy with my family? Why couldn’t I put these desires away? Why did I think I deserved to be happy with a man? All those blessings and the beauty I’d been given—a wife who loved me, a son who adored me—and I wanted to love a man?”

He spoke through gritted teeth, his words forced through a clenched throat. “I drove to Zion and climbed up to the edge of a cliff. But I thought of Bowen—”

Silence soaked the air between us. Unspoken words huddled around his anguish. His tears flowed like rivers.

“I worked sohard—” His voice broke. A gasp punched out of him. “—to find myself. I fought for this life. I fought to be the man I am today. I don’t understand how you can just kiss me out of the blue and be so okay with it—”

No more words came. He dropped his head in his hands as he sobbed, the sound echoing off the counter and through his empty house.

My soul echoed the agony in his. We’d always been magnets for each other, and standing apart while he shattered was the absolute edge of my control. I pulled him into my arms. He buried his face in my ribs and wound his arms around my waist. His tears soaked through my sweater and slid down my belly.

All men cry different. Emmet wailed and roared and sobbed so hard it sounded like he was trying to blow out his lungs. I stared into corners and let my soul drift until the urge to cry passed. It’s how I survived with Riley: stay untethered, and you’ll never feel a thing.

Landon cried softly, but with everything he was.

I ran my hands through his hair. Silken strands slipped through my fingers. “Landon, I’m sorry,” I breathed. “I’m sorry.”

We were alike in many ways, but there were deep differences, too. Our childhoods, the ways we’d been formed, still had firm holds on our souls. “I realized I’d fallen for you last night, but I’ve been falling for you since the moment we met. I haven’t been able to get you out of my head once since you said hello to me at that Tuesday night practice. Every day, you’ve been in my thoughts, from when I wake up to when I fall asleep. And then you’re in my dreams.”

His hands curled in the back of my sweater.

“I’m head over heels for you, Landon. You came into my life and flipped my world upside down. Everything has meaning again. I can’t get you out of my head. Your smile and your laugh have become my sun and my moon. You brought color into my world.”

“Luke—”

“So yes, I kissed you, but it’s not out of the blue for me. It just took a while for my head to catch up to my heart. I have never had a problem with guys who love each other, so why would I have an issue with myself when I realized I’d fallen for a guy? It’s fine for you to like guys, but not me? That’s bullshit. I didn’t know I could feel this way about a man, but I do. And I’m happy about it.”

Well, happy might be a stretch. I was fucking terrified that I’d ruined everything between us. But I wasn’t agonizing over this new revelation of my psyche. If anything, other than the terror, I was jumping for joy. The chance to fall in love with the best guy I’d ever known? Fuck yeah.

“I hate that you went through what you did. That guy, that asshole from your law school? The jackass who didn’t realize your kiss was the greatest thing that happened to him? He’s the biggest fucking fool on the planet.”

“I realized later he wasn’t my type at all.”

Good. No, put that jealousy back where it belonged.

“I want,” I said, “to stay up all night with you watching Netflix. I want to go kayaking with you. I want to watch our boys play football together, and I want to listen to you explain the game to me because no one explains football like you do. I want to cook with you and drink wine with you. I want to fall asleep and wake up with you. I want to learn how to love you, and how to make love to you. I want you to make love to me.”

He flushed a deep, dark burgundy as he pulled away.

Heat flared in my chest. I was so far ahead of myself. So, so far, and I was about to fall on my face. I could see the ground flying up at me. “Um, but. I haven’t even asked you if you like me like that—”

“You’re kidding, right?” Finally, Landon almost-smiled. “I thought I was so transparent. Hiding how I felt about you was turning into an Olympic-level feat of endurance.”

He does like me! The juvenile part of myself jumped for joy. I was flying off the swings in the playground of my mind. Whooping and cheering with my arms spread. He likes me, he likes me!

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Luke, I was never going to say anything. Never. Not one word. You’re straight, and I wasn’t going to jeopardize the best friendship I’ve had by making you uncomfortable with the feelings I have for you. I can’t change who you are. I know that. Me falling in love with you isn’t going to realign the stars. Why would I say anything if there was no chance you could love me back?”

But I do, I wanted to say. I am changing. I’m falling in love with you, too.

“Why are you talking like that? Like we’re not going to try and figure this out?” Was I missing something? I liked Landon, and he liked me. More than like. Like was for schoolyards and little kids. What I felt for Landon was deeper, truer, than anything I’d felt before.

He slid his hand across the counter and laid his fingers over each of mine. “You mean so much to me. So much that I don’t want to lose you if we try for more and it doesn’t work.”

I threaded my fingers through his.

His eyes fluttered closed. Anguish flickered across his face. I thought he was going to cry again. “And I don’t know if this is really what you want.”

“What?” I thought I’d been clear.

His thumbs stroked the side of my hand. A storm of emotions broiled in his eyes. “You told me you realized you’d fallen for me last night, and that what you thought was friendship was more. Now you’re kissing me less than twenty-four hours after your realization. Are you sure you want to do this, Luke?” He sighed. “I’ve walked this road. Changing your world, shifting your reality… It’s huge.”

“I know.”

“Are you gay? Are you bi? Is this the first time you’ve had feelings for a man? I’m guessing yes, because I think if you’d felt something before, you would have said so. I think we’re close enough friends that that wouldn’t be a secret between us.”

“I’ve never felt this way before for anyone, man or woman. To me, it’s not about you being a man or that my past relationships were all with women. This is something brand-new. These are feelings I didn’t even know existed.”

“It’s easy to throw words around when it’s just the two of us, but it’s completely different when you’re facing the world. What are you going to tell people when they ask? Your friends. Your family. Your coworkers. Your boss. Are you ready for a lifetime of being different? Coming out isn’t a one time thing. It’s every person for the rest of your life. It’s thinking twice about who you should let close and who you shouldn’t. It’s justifying yourself and your existence over and over again. It’s losing friends and family members and being alone.”

I imagined my heart being peeled, individual muscle fibers plucked and pulled free like string cheese. Every word he spoke was another string ripped away. “We wouldn’t be alone if we were together,” I protested. “And I don’t care about the world. I never have. Fuck everyone else.”

“You care about Emmet. You care about what he thinks.”

I looked down.

He found my gaze and drilled a hard look into my soul. “Would you risk losing Emmet for this?”

I sank into his barstool and slumped forward. My head landed on his shoulder, and his hand wrapped around the back of my neck. “Sometimes it’s not as simple as falling in love. Sometimes love can’t overcome reality.”

If I had to guess, right now—place your money on red or black—if Emmet loved me or not… I couldn’t.

There was so much about my son I didn’t know. What would he think about me falling for a man? Still waters ran deep in my son, and where there was silence, there was often a maelstrom beneath the surface.

We’d only just barely begun to rebuild our relationship. What if I lost him again?

But who was I outside of Emmet’s father? If I deconstructed myself like Landon had done, what would I find? I’d never faced myself deep enough to find out. Looking inward had always been more terrifying than staying lost.

There was more to me than just a collection of DNA that built half of Emmet.

I wanted my life to stay twined with Landon’s. My life was whole again because of him. What did I do with my puzzle piece if I didn’t have him to match with? “I don’t want to walk away from you.”

“That’s why we need to stay friends.”

“What if we’re supposed to be more?” There was something here, between us, within us.

“Please don’t make this harder than it is—”

“How can it be worse? I found you and you found me, somehow in this whole world, and you’re saying we can’t—”

“God, Luke, I want to be with you so badly it’s killing me!” His palm slapped the countertop. Anguish crackled from him. He gritted his teeth, looked at me with such hunger, such yearning, that my heart stopped. “I dream about you every night! I dream about the life we could have! Every day for the rest of our lives, together. I want that, damn it!”

I dragged him to me, until we were so close his tears slid down my face. “Then—”

He grabbed onto my wrists, holding me to him. “This could go so wrong. I could lose you, and I don’t know if I’m strong enough to survive that.”

“Give me a chance to prove to you that we can work. We can be so fucking great together, Landon.”

I listened to him breathe, short, sharp, jagged pants. “What if you change your mind?”

“I’m not going to change my mind. When I wake up, I’ll still want you, and I’ll still be falling for you.”

“What if I’m not who you want?”

“You are.” I pulled his hands to my chest. Landon was branded on my insides, burned deep into me. “This is you and me, Landon. Yes, part of me is terrified. I’m scared of this because I’m scared of what I feel for you. It’s huge, bigger than I’ve ever felt before. And I’m afraid of what Emmet will think. But another part of me, a bigger part of me, is ready to fling myself off this cliff and into your arms. I want to be with you. And—” I said, leaning in and kissing him when he opened his mouth to protest. “I want to know myself. I want to do what you did. Open myself up and explore everything that I am.”

“What if you don’t like what you find?”

“Impossible. I already know I’m going to find you. You’re a part of me somehow. I can feel it.” We were moving closer, closer. My forehead dug into his. We were sharing breaths, sharing words. “You are the gradations of undiscovered colors in my soul. You are the inhale before my blank canvas, the moment before my pencil touches the page. You are the manifestation of my dreams. You are my intensity.”

His gentle hold on my face turned possessive, almost feral, as he cradled my skull and hauled me out of the barstool and against his body. “The things you say… What does the world look like through your eyes?”

“It looks like you painted it with all of your joy.”

He groaned and sank his lips to mine.

Perfection. Passion. He consumed me, and I tried to consume him in turn. We kissed like our souls were burning.

He rose and pulled me to him, twisted me until I was backed against the counter. He pressed himself to me, body to body, toes, shins, thighs, hips, stomachs, chests, everything touching. There was no space where we weren’t one, where he wasn’t grinding into me.

I moaned. He bit down on my lower lip. Whimpered and breathed my name.

Nothing existed but this moment. Him against me, the puddle of the kitchen lights scattered around us. Our kiss, his hands traveling down my arms, his fingers tangling into mine. He wrapped my hands behind my back and trapped me in his hold. My knees buckled. I wilted against him.

He kissed the corner of my lips, my cheek, my closed eye. He was shaking, almost trembling apart.

“Are we going to do this?” I whispered. “Because if this is you saying goodbye…”

His fingers tightened. “We shouldn’t.” The house was silent, but I had to strain to hear him. “We could be amazing—” I felt his swallow, his body shudder in my arms. “Or we could break each other’s hearts.”

I kissed his cheek. My lips were wet and tasted of salt. “I don’t want to break your heart. I want to fall in love with you.”

He stepped back and pulled my hands in front of me. His thumbs ran over my knuckles before he kissed each one. “If we do this, we need to go slowly,” he said. “I need us to be certain before we rush into anything. You are too important to me.”

I nodded. I’d dreamed of everything but slow last night, but I could kiss Landon like that for the rest of my life and not need anything else.

Another kiss, this time to the center of my palm. He closed my fingers around it like I could hold on to his love forever. “Sex means a lot to me. I didn’t make love to Bethany until we were married. I’d hoped to find the same with a man, but it didn’t happen that way.”

The guy who’d moved too fast for Landon. Rage ran like ice through me. I started to shake, squeezing his hands until my bones ached. What fucking world was this where the best man I knew had been treated like shit by people he’d let close? I wanted to rampage through Utah.

I pushed down on my anger, fighting it until my pulse slowed. “I want to cherish you, Landon,” I said. “I’m not just trying to get into your pants.”

He smiled. It faded fast. He studied me, his thumbs circling in my palms. “I have never been this close to anyone.”

“Neither have I.”

I gnawed on my lip as the quiet between us stretched. So much of what he’d said was still swirling in me, but there was one thing that stuck in my mind like broken glass. “Can I ask you something?”

“Please. If we’re going to do this, we’re going to need to talk to each other.”

I took a deep breath. Here goes. “Can I spend the night?”

His eyebrows arched.

“Not like that, for that,” I stammered. “I mean, I do. Eventually. But I agree with you that we should go slow. I want to go slow—”

His gaze gentled, and he smiled at me.

My babble faded as I exhaled. “I want to wake up beside you and prove to you that I’m still falling for you. When you wake up, I want the first thing you see to be me, telling you I still want you and me. Us.”

His eyes went watery as he swayed into me and nuzzled my cheek. “I’ve never had a man in this house. You’ll be the first.”

I smiled. Kissed his ear. “I like that.” My heart ached at the sound of his laugh.

He led me to his bedroom and guided me to his bed. We lay facing each other, curled on our sides, eyes locked, hands clasped. He pulled my leg between his thighs until we were threaded together, all parts of our bodies touching through our clothes. My toes wiggled against his bare foot. His calf brushed over mine.

Moonlight fell through the trees outside and scattered in broken beams across us. I could feel him in the darkness. If I reached out, I could trace every line of him. Call him out of the shadows with my fingers and memory.

“We have to be careful. Bowen and Emmet are best friends. Whatever happens between us, we have to preserve that for them.” His words puffed across my eyelids as I fought to breathe.

“I want to be as brave with Emmet as you were with Bowen.”

I wanted to believe that Emmet would accept that I’d fallen for Landon, too. I didn’t know my son well enough yet to know for certain. A fist closed around my heart.

“We go slow.” Landon’s voice had dropped, less than a whisper. Less than a breath. “And if we need to, we walk away from each other.”

I squeezed his hand. I stared at the starlight reflected in open eyes.

Could I ever walk away from him?