Epilogue
Jack
Nine Years Later
Desmond does great the morning of graduation right up until the moment we start taking photographs. Parker, standing in front of the high school sign in his cap and gown, gestures him forward.
“Come on. We need some together,” he says.
I wait as Desmond moves to stand next to Parker, mouth pinched at the corners the way it gets when he’s trying not to cry.
When Parker puts his arm around his waist, he takes a deep enough breath for me to see the rise and fall of his chest. I wait for him to meet my eye before smiling— you can do it , I tell him silently.
He smiles back, and I hold the cellphone up.
“Okay. On three?—”
“Wait,” Parker interrupts, laughing a little bit. “You have to be in here, too.”
The first burn of tears pricks behind my own eyes now, as I lower the phone. Desmond looks at me, still holding on to Parker like he’s the only thing keeping him standing. You can do it , his brown eyes silently send back my direction.
“Do you want me to take them?”
I turn and look down at a young woman in a cap and gown, blond hair shiny in the sun.
Another graduate, obviously, but God she looks so young to me.
Like Parker still does. She’s probably waiting for us to get a move on so she can take her own pictures.
Clearing my throat so I don’t do something embarrassing like burst into tears, I try to smile in a way that can’t be mistaken for a grimace.
“Yes, thank you.”
“I’ll get some both ways,” she says, demonstrating tilting the phone between portrait and landscape.
“Thank you,” I repeat.
Parker grins at me as I approach, accidentally knocking his hand into his cap when he lifts an arm to put it around my shoulders.
My face heats as I look at the girl waiting with the camera raised.
Suddenly, I feel like I’ve forgotten how to smile.
I hate having my picture taken, and I’d pretty much talked myself into the belief that I wouldn’t have to be in many today.
Graduation photos are for parents and graduates—Parker and Desmond.
I’d planned on being the one behind the camera, making sure to get all the angles and the best lighting.
The selfie Parker took of me and him early this morning was the last time I thought I’d be asked to participate in this way.
Desmond’s fingers creep across my lower back, brushing gently.
Even though I know today has been hard for him—know he didn’t sleep last night, and is fighting against the weight of sadness—he’s still making sure I’m okay.
Reaching behind myself, I find his fingers and squeeze, before putting my hand on Parker’s back.
His graduation gown is warm from the sun, his shoulder bony beneath my palm.
He shot up like a weed four years ago, his skinny childish frame stretching into a lanky teenage one seemingly overnight.
He’s taller than Desmond, now, and nearly as tall as me.
“I wish he’d stay small forever,” Desmond had admitted to me in bed one night, the room dark and the sheets warm.
I understood that to mean he wanted Parker to stay a kid, forever.
To need him, forever. I can feel the same desire right now, trying to shove down the joy of the day and replace it with the knowledge that this is the beginning of the end.
The first day of adulthood and freedom and Parker no longer sitting next to me at the dinner table every night.
Somehow, we make it through the pictures. I don’t look at them just yet, knowing my face is probably closest resembling a beet than a human man. I probably should have pushed to be left out of the photos.
The morning passes fairly quickly even though the ceremony itself seems to take ages. Desmond and I are seated in the special section for parents, the sun hot overhead and burning away the foggy dawn. His fingers stroke the back of my neck, brown eyes as warm as the day when mine meet them.
“We should have brought sunscreen,” he says, voice low.
“Probably,” I agree. One would think after the amount of time I’ve spent at the beach with him and Parker, that I’d have developed some sort of tan. But no, it’s burned alive or nothing for me, it seems.
Desmond lowers his hand to my leg, fingers reaching for mine. We sit like that through the entire ceremony, holding on to one another for dear life, hands hot and sweaty, but neither of us willing to let go. Somebody should have warned us that high school graduation was going to be awful.
Parker finds us on the field after the ceremony, graduation cap held in his hand and gown slightly askew.
His hair, which so closely resembled Desmond’s growing up, is less ringlet curls and more waves, now.
He still gets mistaken for Desmond’s son more often than not, although he no longer corrects people.
Yes, he’ll say instead, that’s one of my dads.
I watch him as he approaches Desmond for a hug, wondering how it’s possible for someone to look so much like an adult but still hold space in my mind as a child.
They hug for a long time, Desmond’s eyes closed and Parker’s face close to his.
When they move apart, Parker looks to me and opens his arms, a smile on his face.
I blush, still now, after all these years, a little unused to the rare affection from him.
He was not big on it as a kid, and I’d expected it to be worse as a teenager.
Instead, the random hugs had come more often, as though he’d finally felt comfortable enough to share them.
“Congratulations,” I tell him. He squeezes me harder, fingers digging into my shirt and face pressed against mine.
“I love you, Jack,” he whispers, mouth close to my ear and words meant only for us. I close my eyes the way Desmond had, suddenly understanding why he’d done so. My eyes burn. “Thank you for staying with me and Desmond.”
“I needed you,” I whisper back.
“You’ll take care of Des, right?”
“I promise. And you,” I add, tightening my arms a bit. I can feel his smile against the curve of my ear, where our faces are close together.
“Love you,” he repeats, sounding so, so young.
“I love you, too.”
We leave Parker at the high school, mingling with his friends and making plans to attend various graduation parties.
His own will be held tomorrow, which I’m incredibly grateful for now.
I don’t think I have the bandwidth available to host people right now.
I don’t have the bandwidth for anything except crawling into bed and holding Desmond and maybe kissing away the pain of the day.
“Nico texted,” Desmond tells me when we get home, looking at his phone but leaning down to greet Maverick as he pads over to say hello. He smiles at the dog. “Hey, buddy.”
“About the party tomorrow?” I ask, leaning down and rubbing a hand along Maverick’s back as I receive my own welcome home.
Nico Mackenzie—whom I’ve only recently gotten out of the habit of calling coach—and Desmond are close.
Mates, as Desmond likes to say—friends beyond what is required of them as colleagues.
It was he who offered their backyard as an option for the graduation party, having triple the space that our small house does.
It was also Nico who connected us with the breeder for Maverick five years ago, and obtained what I suspect was a very hefty discount on our behalf.
Sitting down on the couch, I rub one hand over my warm, likely sunburned, face. Maverick sits next to me and rests his red head on my knee, eyes mournful when they meet mine like he’s picking up the vibes of the day. When I rub his ears, his tail thumps against the floor.
“Yeah. Asking about food. I feel a little bad that Corwin is cooking. Nico keeps telling me he wants to, and he offered, but…it’s a lot of work.
” Desmond thumps down next to me on the couch, sighing and resting against me.
Maverick, happy to ha ve both of us so close, wags his tail harder, a dull thunk every time it hits the couch.
“They love Parker, too. And you,” I say. Desmond smiles. “Maybe this is how they’d rather show that, instead of a card or gift or something.”
“True. Except all of them will also give him a card that has money in it, I would bet anything.”
His weight falls more firmly against me, like he’s not holding himself up.
Freeing my right arm, I slide it across his shoulders.
He moves closer immediately, tucking his shoulder beneath mine and resting his head back on my bicep.
Maverick stretches his neck and licks Desmond’s fingers where his hand is resting on my thigh.
I kiss the side of his head, curls tickling my lips, and he sighs.
“I thought graduation was meant to be happy,” he says softly. “I know mine was. But bloody hell, this is complete shit.”
“We’ve still got all summer. And the road trip,” I remind him, trying to take his mind off Parker’s impending flight away from the nest.
“Montana is so far away,” he whispers. I hug him tighter to my side.
It is far away. And when Parker had first broached the possibility of attending university there, I’d seen the panic in Desmond’s eyes as he’d mentally calculated the number of kilometers that would separate them.
Brain fuzzy with anxiety, I’d texted Nate, hoping for my friend to offer the support I still hadn’t grown out of relying on.
He’d called me later that night, and explained all the reasons why Parker going to school in Montana was a good thing.
Namely, that he and Marcos would be close by; that they had plenty of space on the ranch for guests, and that we could visit whenever we wanted.
That Parker would be welcome any day, any time, if he were to feel sad and needed to be in a home and not a dorm.
“We’ll go visit,” I promise. “I think Nate is more excited than Parker, actually. He thinks we’ll be there all the time, staying in the guest bedroom; helping with the kids.”
Desmond brightens up enough to chuckle. I kiss him again, inhaling the fresh, clean smell of his hair.
“I can’t wait to help with the kids. Luca and I are going to be best mates.”
“Probably,” I agree, thinking about all the conversations I’ve had with Nate about his son.
Shy, quiet, and clingy—happiest when someone is carrying him around, or holding him on the couch.
Essentially, exactly the kind of snuggly kid that Desmond likes.
Luca’s sister, on the other hand, seems to take after Nate in all things high energy.
Less possibilities of cuddles from her, but a high probability of chaos.
“We should probably do something productive,” Desmond says, but only turns his face so his nose tickles my jaw. “Get stuff ready for tomorrow.”
“Or we could take a nap. Snuggle a little bit.”
Desmond laughs, shoulders shaking beneath my arm.
Turning, he puts a palm on my cheek and directs my face down.
His lips are warm from the heat of the day, soft and sweet and achingly familiar to me.
I meant what I said to Parker earlier about needing them.
I did need them. I do. I need them more than I need air in my lungs.
Cheeks hot, I whisper against his mouth, “I love you.”
I probably say it too much. After that first time, when I was sweaty and nervous and sick with anxiety, I couldn’t seem to help myself.
Sometimes I worry that I tell him so often that it’s going to lessen the meaning behind the words.
But greater than that is the desire to make sure he knows.
I want my love for him and Parker to be stitched across his skin like tattoo ink.
I don’t ever want there to be a time where he questions.
There very well might come a day when the sun rises in the west and sets in the east, but there will never come a day when I do not love him.
Some things are just too impossible to consider.