Chapter 39

Joel staredup at the ceiling of their beach bungalow's bedroom, his breath coming too fast for speech, his brain humming too loud for thoughts.

Beside him, Daniel stirred, letting a hand flop onto Joel's bare chest. "We're damn lucky you booked us our own little house."

"Hmm?"

"With all the noise we make, we would've been thrown out of a hotel by now."

Joel gave a laugh that surely sounded as fuck-drunk as it felt. "How's it possible for guys our age to have this much sex without pharmaceutical assistance?"

"We should donate our bodies to science. Except, before we're dead."

"Calling the Kinsey Institute." Joel mimed using the phone. "Hi, are you by any chance looking for a pair of horny bisexual quintagenarians?"

Daniel snickered. "Is that even a word?"

"It should be. When we turn sixty we'll be sexagenarians, which sounds hot."

"Our hearts might give out before then if we don't pace ourselves." Daniel shifted closer and kissed Joel's shoulder. "By the way, I'll happily use pharmaceutical assistance when the day comes."

"Same. Did you know Alfred Kinsey started as an entomologist? He studied gall wasps."

"Ooh, tell me something cool about gall wasps."

It was hard to recall fun facts with Daniel trickling fingertips over the ridge of his hip, skirting the edge of the ticklish zone. "In every other generation, there are no males."

"Then how do they make more wasps?"

"Parthenogenesis." He slid a bare foot against Daniel's leg. "It's a form of asexual reproduction."

"So they clone themselves?"

"Well…" How to explain the intricacies of meiosis after getting one's brains screwed out? "Sometimes."

"Sounds like no fun." Daniel's caresses stopped abruptly. "Is it still raining? I don't hear it on the roof anymore."

"Maybe. Maybe not. Until we look out the window, it's both raining and not raining. It's Schr?dinger's Rain." He tittered at his own joke.

"Fine, I'll check." Daniel got out of bed and strode naked across the room to the window, where he nudged the curtain aside to peek out. "It's gorgeous."

"Sure is," Joel replied, staring at Daniel's…everything.

"Come on, we're gonna miss the sunset." Daniel grabbed his shorts from the corner where Joel had hurled them.

They got dressed and stepped out onto the deck of their bungalow. The sun was a fireball, appearing all the brighter for having just escaped the thick, dark cloud above it.

"Be right back." Daniel ducked into the house—literally, since he'd already hit his head on the low doorframe yesterday.

To Joel's left, the north shore of Rehoboth Bay curved around, bordering on a small motel resort with a long dock and a place to rent paddle boards. On the far side of the resort sat a bar with a huge outdoor patio bedecked by strings of multicolored lights. The place was jam-packed with revelers watching the sunset.

The crowd's noise traveled freely on the humid, cicada-less air. Over their chatter and laughter came a cover band playing that doot-doot-doot Third Eye Blind song.

Joel sighed. Now he'd have that nineties earworm for hours.

How had he and Daniel spent that entire decade without a word to each other? Now that they were together (for good?), their current state felt as eternal as the universe itself. But Daniel hadn't been the one bailing him out when he got arrested on ACT UP's Day of Desperation. And he hadn't been the one bunking up with Daniel in his first off-campus home, that drafty efficiency apartment downwind of the Greeley stockyards.

Thirty-four years of not being the one. But those years had made the two of them the people they were this evening, so perhaps not a single day had truly been wasted. All of their Thens had paved the long, twisty, potholed highway to Now.

Daniel emerged from the bungalow with his camera case and tripod.

"Can I help?" Joel asked.

"One of these days, yes. Right now, every second counts." Daniel hurried down the small slope to the flattened part near the shore, where their bungalow's cropped lawn turned into salt-marsh cordgrass. "Perfect!"

Yes, it was. Joel locked the panorama into memory: Sandpipers bobbing their tails as they trawled the bay's edge for the day's final meal. A heron frozen in ambush, waiting for a fish to approach its hovering bill. The tangerine sun painting the clouds a dozen neon hues and turning Daniel's silver hair a punk-rock pink.

The band slid into Marcy Playground's "Sex and Candy." Joel stepped off the porch and went to Daniel, syncing his steps to the dreamy tune, the damp lawn cool beneath his bare feet. "How's it look?"

"Great. As soon as I saw this tall cordgrass I knew how I was going to shoot the sunset." He gestured to the camera on the tripod.

Joel leaned over to peer through the viewfinder. The cordgrass waved against a backdrop of technicolor sky. "Artistic."

"Anyone can photograph a sunset. Foreground objects make it less generic."

"Like that dandelion photo in your shop, the one with the thunderclouds behind it."

Daniel did a double take. "You like that one?"

"I love it."

"Me, too. It's one of my less popular prints. Most customer prefer big, uninterrupted landscapes to hang on their walls—pictures their guests will glance at and go, ooh. But sometimes I feel called to zoom in on small, ordinary things hanging out in the midst of larger forces. Those little foreground objects draw the viewer in and make them feel like they're right there."

Joel pointed to the camera. "It's working. I feel like I'm right here."

"I'm so glad you are." Daniel gave him a giddy kiss before peering through the camera again.

Joel had forgotten how mesmerizing it was to watch him work. "Will you sell some of these photos in your shop?"

"Maybe." Daniel pressed the shutter button, making several clicks.

"Last I looked, the Great Plains don't include Delaware."

"Might need to expand my brand." He smiled up at Joel as if to underline his meaning. "So I have an excuse to travel east more often."

"I guess I'll have to find some Nebraska bugs to research."

"Whatever it takes." Daniel adjusted the tripod, then took a few more photos. "Also, I thought I might show these to the realtor who rented us this house, see if they want to use them in their marketing materials."

"Always working the angle."

"It's how the self-employed live. If we want to live, that is. Starvation is always an option."

Joel frowned. He had tenure at the university, not to mention a Maryland state pension awaiting him when he retired. Daniel had no such security.

The sun was nearly touching the horizon now. The orange orb seemed to swell, reaching out for its reflection in the bay below. The sliver of sky between sun and sea shrank and shrank, until all at once it dissolved into flame.

A warm hand enveloped Joel's. He kept his gaze on the sunset, but shifted to press his shoulder against Daniel's. They watched the sun melt into the bay's calm waters.

The chorus to Arnaud's song flitted through Joel's mind.

What have you done, these seventeen years?

How have you grown? What have you seen?

It's of no use to turn back the clock.

Keep pressing on, and paths convene.

As the last fiery rays vanished beneath the waves, Daniel pulled him closer and kissed him. Applause rose from the nearby bar, and though it was obviously for the sunset, it felt like the entire world was cheering Joel on for being bold enough, wise enough, lucky enough, to let this man back into his life.

So this was Delaware.Daniel had now been to (or at least driven through) every state except Wisconsin. Neat.

Since it was their first night out, he'd left his camera behind at the bungalow. From what he'd seen online, others had thoroughly photographed downtown Rehoboth Beach—especially the spot where they stood now, on the corner between the main boulevard and the boardwalk, waiting in a half-hour line for a shop that sold 100 flavors of ice cream.

In any case, no still shots could capture the classic beach noises swirling around him: the laughter of children, the breeze in the dune grass, the twang of a blues band in the nearby gazebo. Not to mention the sound of Joel arguing with himself over which nondairy sorbet to order.

"What are you getting?" he asked Daniel as they neared the front of the line.

"Not saying, because you'll start suggesting other options."

"Is it the hot-pepper one? They make you sign a waiver before tasting it."

"It's not the hot-pepper one, but of course now I'm intrigued." With a sigh, Daniel reread the menu. There were at least ten other tempting flavors. "Damn you."

"This is what I do," Joel said. "I take an aspect I admire in someone—like your decisiveness—and I whittle away at it until they're as fucked up as I am."

"I'm sticking with Death by Peanut Butter. And you can stop trying to convince me you're unloveable."

"Just wait." Joel fixed the collar of Daniel's Hawaiian shirt. "Eventually you'll learn all there is to know about me, and then I'll be unloveable."

"There's always more to discover about someone. Like, I've had Luna for six years, since she was a kitten. I only noticed last month this thing she does when she's drinking: She starts at the near side of the bowl, and as she laps up the water, her face travels all the way to the far side." Daniel demonstrated, his cupped hands playing the part of the bowl. "Then she swallows and starts back at the beginning."

"Fascinating," Joel said. "Can you do that again, with more tongue?"

After getting their ice cream, they crossed the boardwalk onto the beach, where a full moon loomed over the ocean. There was no time for conversation at first, what with ice cream dripping down the sides of their cones.

Daniel's was gone all too soon. He examined the last bite of his waffle cone, a tiny dunce cap of dreamy goodness, then popped it into his mouth.

"You're done already?" Joel asked, his cone still whole.

Daniel thumb-pointed to himself. "Competitive eating champ, remember?" He slipped off his sandals, then stepped to his left to let the ocean sweep over his feet.

The first wave was like being leg-tackled by an iceberg. "Eeehlauugh!" A shudder zoomed up his thighs. "I mean, it feels great. Come join me."

Joel toed off his sandals. Daniel scooped them up, then Joel took his hand, his mouth still full of watermelon sorbet.

Daniel kept his gaze on the sand swishing beneath their feet, on the moon spray-painting its light over the Atlantic, on the German Shepherd charging the surf to fetch an LED Frisbee. But definitely not checking to see if anyone was staring at them holding hands. Definitely, definitely not that.

"You know," he said, "with all the hype about how gay-friendly Rehoboth is, I expected a totally different vibe."

"More Provincetown, less Sesame Street?"

"Yeah, this place is so normal. There are kids here, and old people. Hanging out on the beach with all kinds of same-sex couples."

"Not all kinds. The 18-to-34 crowd prefers Dewey. Tomorrow we can go to Poodle Beach if you want."

"Is that for dogs?"

Joel laughed. "It's for guys. Very scenic, if you know what I mean."

"Up to you." Daniel stepped over an empty horseshoe crab shell, its interior smudged gray like an old ashtray. "My point is, this isn't Provincetown or Poodle Beach, and yet here we are, holding hands in public."

Joel crunched the last of his cone. "What about in Omaha? You and Corey didn't do public displays of affection there?"

"Not around people we didn't know—unless we were in a gay bar, obviously." He gave a gruff laugh. "Part of me is grateful to finally have this freedom, but another part is pissed I had to spend my life scared to be myself around strangers."

"Amen, dude." A ringing came from Joel's pocket. "A phone call? What is this ancient means of communication?" He pulled it out and put it to his ear. "El, this better be important, because I'm having a romantic moonlit walk with the man of my dreams." He listened for a few seconds, then his jaw dropped. "That's great!" He turned to Daniel. "My sister got a job!"

Daniel whooped loudly enough for her to hear, then stepped out of earshot to give them privacy. Now that his feet were used to the cold water, it was time to wade farther. He rolled up the cuffs of his shorts, then strode into the surf.

Knee-deep in the Atlantic, staring out at the endless east, his landlocked life seemed to unfurl. Anything could happen now. The Year of Living Carefully was over, and good riddance.

With a series of splashes and gasps, Joel came to his side. "Ella's coming down Sunday. To Maryland, I mean, not here." His voice was subdued.

"That's good, right? You haven't seen her since before the pandemic?"

"That part is good." Joel interlaced his fingers behind his head and puffed out his cheeks. "She wants to go to Mom's place before the new job starts. We need to get it in shape to sell, now that the market's picked up again. So the two of us'll go through Mom's stuff together, decide what to keep and what to donate." He dragged his hands down over his face. "I know it's time, but I don't feel ready."

"I'll come with you. We can use my truck."

Joel flashed a wide-eyed look of alarm. "You don't have to."

"I do. It's an unwritten law: If you own a pickup, you have to help friends move their shit. And after meeting your dad, it'd be good to get to know Ella, too."

"We could definitely use your help, but…you sure you're okay going back to the place your father died?"

Oh. Oh God. The ice cream seemed to curdle in Daniel's stomach. "It's that house? Your mom never moved?"

Joel shook his head. "I suggested she downsize, but she loved hosting family and friends, especially for holidays. She didn't want to be a satellite orbiting her kids, she said. She liked being the sun."

The sand shifted beneath Daniel's feet as memories lassoed his mind. The roaring surf and barking dog faded into the chaotic hum of the biggest hospital he had ever seen in his seventeen years of life.

The same clips rolled again:

A round-faced receptionist gaping as he and Ella rushed past the ER front desk.

The doors to Triage sweeping open to reveal gleaming, beeping, alien machines.

Ella taking his hand, leading him toward a teal curtain.

The metallic hiss of the curtain sliding?—

"Daniel?"

Joel stood in front of him, framed by the moon-streaked ocean.

"Sorry." Daniel wiped saltwater spray from his own cheek. "I was thinking about that day—the bad parts, for once."

A soft touch, just above his elbow. "You ready to talk about it?"

"No." The word leaped out faster than the speed of thought. "Not right now."

"If you change your mind about coming to the house this weekend, I'll totally understand."

"I think I need to go there." Daniel looked down. His feet had sunk into the sand while he'd stood in the surf. "Unless I'm still buried here, in which case bad memories will be the least of my problems."

Joel took back his own sandals, then grabbed Daniel's hand to help free him. "Remember how quicksand was such a big deal when we were kids? Characters on TV were always getting sucked into it and disappearing. Now nobody ever talks about it."

"Huh."

"Fun fact: You literally cannot drown in quicksand, because it's twice as dense as the human body. So the farthest you can submerge is halfway, up to your waist."

"Good to know."

They walked on through the shallow surf, hands clasped tighter. Daniel looked back to the spot where he'd sunk. The divots from his feet had already washed away.