Page 44 of After His Eulogy
“Okay.”
He puts his hand on my face. He keeps it there.
“Reed.”
“Yeah.”
“I want to do that again.”
“Tonight?”
“No.I mean generally. I want, what we did. I want it. Sometimes.”
“Okay.”
“Not every time.”
“Okay.”
“Just. I want you to know. I want it. I am not going to be weird about it tomorrow.”
Two years ago he wouldn’t have said this. Wouldn’t have needed to. There was no version of him being weird about anything tomorrow because tomorrow was just the next day, and the day after that was the next day after that, and the days were going to keep happening together. He’s sayingI am not going to be weird about it tomorrowbecause he’s had to learn that tomorrows can stop. I taught him that. I’m going to spend the rest of my life knowing I taught him that.
“Okay,” I say.
“Are you going to be weird about it.”
I look at him.
“No,” I say.
“Okay.”
“Griffin.”
“Yeah.”
“I want it too. I want it to be a thing we do. Both ways. The way we used to.”
“Okay.”
“And we figure it out.”
“And we figure it out.”
He smiles. The same small smile. He keeps his hand on my face. We lie there. Outside it’s starting to get light. The lamp is still on — neither of us has turned it off, and the apartment is quiet and his hand is on my face and we’re figuring it out.
TWENTY-ONE
REECE
Eleven days. That’s how long I last after Saturday. Eleven days of waking up next to him in a bed that’s slowly stopped being only mine, or only his, depending on the night. The bed not feeling like it belongs to one of us anymore. Eleven days of seminar. Of routes that include him now — the bench by the river on Mondays, his apartment on Tuesdays after class, the gas station coffee with him on Thursdays because the basement of Hartwell is too public for the way we look at each other now. His hand finding mine, again and again, on a table or a counter or a bed. Eleven days of being seen.
He has stayed at my apartment four nights. I have stayed at his three. The pattern has tipped, slightly, toward mine. Toward me being the one who is hosting. Toward him being the one who is coming over. I have not said anything about it but I have been watching. The pattern has been changing in real time and on the eleventh day Mendez calls.
The call comes at four-fifteen on a Wednesday. I am at my desk. I have not seen Griffin yet today. I am supposed to see him at seven.
“Reed.”
