Eleven Months Later
MAX
IT’S EARLY.
I can tell by the pre-dawn light, just barely struggling through the blinds, leaving thin stripes across the floor.
But Sam’s side of the bed is empty, the sheets just barely holding on to the last of his body heat.
And I can hear water running in the bathroom on the other side of the wall, splashing into the sink.
A little while later, the soft slap-slap-slap of his bare feet tells me that he’s coming back, and I shut my eyes, waiting to find out what he’ll do next.
It’s been almost a year since Sam and I figured everything out, and I think I can say for certain that it’s been the happiest year of my life.
In some ways, very little has changed. Sam and I were already living together, taking classes at the same school, eating most of our meals together, playing in the same band, hanging out with the same friends, and pretty much everything else.
Roxie likes to poke me in the ribs and tease me that Sam and I have already been married for years, and I was the only one who didn’t know.
But damn, I’m glad I finally wised up. Because now, when I wake up in the morning and Sam is making breakfast, I can put my arms around his waist and kiss the side of his neck.
When we watch a movie, we curl up together, and half the time we end up making out and missing most of it.
When we go to sleep at night, it’s on a new bedframe that we bought last summer, just a few weeks after we got back from tour.
And when Sam climbs back into bed on a weekend morning and wiggles backwards on the mattress, nonchalantly pressing his naked ass against my equally naked and rapidly filling cock, I can drape my arm across him with a groan, scraping my teeth along his shoulder.
“Happy Graduation Day,” I whisper into his ear, slowly grinding my hips against him.
“I thought you were still asleep,” he murmurs back, reaching for my hand and folding it against his chest.
“Mmm, I could be persuaded not to be.”
I’m already mouthing at his earlobe, my fingers finding his nipple ring as he shudders against me. He turns his head, finding my lips over his shoulder, and we’re kissing, locked together in a gentle embrace, all the time in the world to bring each other off.
Over the past year, Sam and I have had our fair share of adventurous sex — outside, in the bathrooms of bars and clubs, in the back of the van when we’re on a road trip with Roxie and Blake for the weekend.
Sam has shown me a few things that it had never occurred to me to be interested in, and the slats of our new headboard have been put to rather interesting use.
But I have to say that some of my favorite intimate acts with Sam are the quiet moments like this, when it feels as if we’re moving as one, completely absorbed in each other, nothing but the two of us.
Holding him in my arms, listening to his little hums and whimpers as he kisses me — I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
Sam unwinds from me just long enough to grab the lube from the bedside table, and it’s not too long before I’m lifting his leg and sliding inside him, my free arm cradling his head, my back pressed against his chest. We make love languidly, side by side on the bed, our hips undulating slowly as we kiss, the intensity building until we’re both tumbling over the edge, sated and happy and deliriously in love.
When it’s all over, Sam throws himself across my chest with a groan. “Do we have to go to graduation? Think I’d rather just stay here with you.”
I laugh, ruffling his short hair. It’s dark brown at the moment, but we’re going to take care of that as soon as the festivities are over. “I think our parents would shit a brick if we didn’t show up.”
“Pssh, who gives a fuck?” Sam retorts, waving his hand dismissively. “My parents deserve it after the way they’ve treated you.”
So, it hasn’t all been sunshine and roses.
Growing up, I always used to think of Sam’s family as my second family.
Even if the rules were a lot more conservative, they were stable when my family was in chaos, and I think they appreciated that I was looking out for Sam.
But that all changed last August. We were at Sam’s house, up on the roof cleaning out the gutters, and it got hot, so we took our shirts off.
And I guess I can’t be trusted around a shirtless Sam anymore, because when we stopped to take a break, I leaned over and kissed him, and he kissed me back, and it was so quiet up there that we sort of lost track of ourselves.
That is, until Sam’s mom came out and saw us.
She didn’t yell. But she made it clear that this behavior has no place in a Christian home and before I knew it, I wasn’t welcome at the Dove house anymore. It fucking hurts, but Sam doesn’t want to be cut off from his siblings, so for now we have to do what they say.
But I don’t want Sam to feel bad about something that isn’t his fault, so I reach out and touch him gently on the tip of his nose. “Don’t talk like that. I’m gonna win them over someday — just wait and see.”
It takes us a while to get ready, what with how we’re still getting distracted by each other all the time, even though the honeymoon period definitely should have faded by now.
We always used to joke about those couples who can’t keep their hands to themselves and make it everyone else’s problem, and now I guess we’re one of them.
But I couldn’t give a flying fuck. Sam went through so much waiting for me to figure my shit out, and now that I have, I spend every single day making it up to him.
“Where’s my fucking tie?” I grumble, rummaging through my closet while tugging at the too-tight neck of my collared shirt.
“Right here —” Sam swoops in beside me, leaning down and picking the offending item up off the floor. “Do you even know how to tie this thing?”
“Of course, I just —” I drape it around my neck and cross it over once, then give up with a shrug. “Okay, I have no fucking clue.”
Sam steps a little closer, biting back a smile as he begins to do it for me. “What are you going to do when you have a real job and you have to do this every day?”
“Dude, I’m in IT. I’ll buy a bunch of polo shirts and call it a day.”
Yeah, that’s right — Max Finley, soon to be working stiff.
Sam already has a job lined up in the ICU of a Center City hospital in Philly.
I’m still working on it, but Roxie’s sister Holly has a lead on a position at Penn that sounds good.
We’re going to be moving next month — but not before one more tour with Roxie and Blake, returning to our old haunts from last year. We leave in two days, and I can’t wait.
When we pull up to the stadium for our graduation ceremony, I spot my sister playing with my nephew in the grass next to the front door.
“Sage!” I scoop her up in a hug that lifts her clear off the ground. She looks like a mom, in a knee-length black dress covered all over in tiny red flowers, but she still has that purple streak in her hair. “How was the drive?”
“With a toddler? Long,” Sage laughs, rolling her eyes. “We got in late last night and Bill had already turned all the lights off.”
“Sounds like him,” I mutter. “Where are Mom and Bill, anyway?”
She waves a hand over her shoulder. “Already saving seats inside, I think. Paul is with them. But this little monkey wasn’t going to make it through the ceremony without a chance to run around first.”
Leo is a sturdy two-year old, still the spitting image of me. At the moment, he’s pulling up tufts of grass and piling them in Sam’s palm.
I cross my arms over my chest, lowering my voice so that only Sage can hear me. “I bet Bill had some fun things to say about me. He’s been on my case about Sam ever since he found out.”
“Don’t listen to a word he says,” Sage murmurs back. “You’re doing everything right, and you have a beautiful life in front of you. Nobody can take that away from you.”
“If it weren’t for Sam, I wouldn’t have any of it. I probably wouldn’t have gotten into college, let alone making it to graduation.”
“Max.” Sage opens her arms, and I let her pull me into a tight hug. “I am so proud of you, and I always will be. You know Sam is, too. You’ve worked hard to get here, and I don’t think you give yourself enough credit for that. You deserve every bit of this.”
“Thanks, Sage.”
I might have said more, or fucking cried or something, but I hear a raspy cough behind me.
“Hey, isn’t it too early in the day to be this fucking sentimental?”
Roxie is standing in the grass with her arms crossed, a single eyebrow lifted as she looks me up and down. Her graduation gown is still open, and Blake is carrying her mortarboard.
“Oh my god, Roxie, are you wearing a dress?” I crow.
“Shut the fuck up, asshole, I own dresses,” Roxie scowls. “Nice tie. I’m surprised it’s not a clip-on.”
Sam appears at my side, slipping an arm around my waist. “It almost was, actually.”
Beside us, Sage squeals. “You guys! This needs to be a picture. Come on, everybody get close —”
She pulls her camera out of her purse while the four of us get into position.
I end up in the middle, with Sam under my arm on one side, my other arm draped around Roxie’s shoulders and Blake leaning in on her other side.
At the last minute, she plonks the mortarboard on his head at kind of a jaunty angle.
“All right, everyone say GRADUATION!” Sage trills.
She takes a few pictures, and there’s at least one where we’re all smiling sort of normally.
But there’s another one that is actually my favorite.
Sam is turning his head to look up at me, giggling at one of my jokes, and I’m tilting my head, halfway to kissing him because I can’t help it these days when he makes eyes at me like that.
Roxie is still underneath my other arm, trying to pull off the stormcloud in polyester look, but one corner of her mouth is twitching upward.
And Blake is laughing, ever our audience as he leans affectionately towards Roxie.
Sage is right. I have a pretty sweet life, and I’m going to keep it that way.
SAM
“Are you washing my hair or trying to drown me?” I splutter, leaning over the edge of the bathtub as the water runs down my face, cold tile digging into my knees.
“Fuck off, I’m just making sure it’s all rinsed.” Max has the detachable showerhead in his hand, spraying cool water all over my head as he massages my scalp with his fingers. And I think he takes his sweet time, too, now that I’ve said something.
Finally, he turns the water off, rubbing a towel over my head and then draping it around my neck. “Dude, I think you’re going to like this one.”
I sit back on my heels, mopping my face with the ends of the towel. “I’m not going to know for sure until I dry it.”
Max gives me a hand up, and I clamber to my feet, reaching for the hair dryer.
I’m afraid to look in the mirror, keeping my back turned as I comb my fingers through my hair, drying the choppy strands and shaping as I go.
Finally, I think I’m ready. I close my eyes as I turn, finding the sink with both hands.
And then, with a deep breath, I open them.
The boy staring back at me is pensive at first, chewing on his lip.
But as he studies himself, his hazel eyes grow wide, a smile breaking across his face.
The little jar of hair dye said this color was called Siren’s Song.
In reality, it’s a bright teal, mostly blue with just a hint of green, vibrant and fun.
And somehow, as I lock eyes with my other self in the mirror, I know that it suits me.
This time last year, I didn’t know quite where I belonged, and it felt weird to call attention to myself when I didn’t even really know who I was.
But now, I know I’m loved, and I don’t care who sees me.
And more importantly, I see myself, more clearly than I ever have before.
Beside me, Max is grinning as hard as I am, wrapping his arms around my waist as he looks over my shoulder. “You love it, I can tell.”
“I love you.”
And as I turn over my shoulder to kiss him, I know that I’m never going to get tired of saying it.
Because even though it’s been a year, even though Max has proven to me time and time again that he feels the way I do, it’s never going to be less than miraculous.
We have this brand new road ahead of us now — another tour with the band, and then the great unknown of figuring out how to grow up, how to live in the world.
But I know it’s going to be okay, because Max is always going to be exactly where I need him.
Right here next to me.