64. Davis

“Atta girl, Mary Anne!” Davis said to the dog as she bounded down the trail after his bike. “You’re the best mountain dog of all time.” She cut to the side, and all of a sudden, he was chasing her, an elated giggle escaping his mouth as he watched her completely in her element. She waited at the bottom of the trail, just like she had been trained to do, and Davis dismounted his bike when he got to her. He rubbed behind her ears and continued to babble his affection to her until she rolled over, exposing her belly.

And it struck Davis, again, that this was his home. He had a dog and access to an untold number of trails and mountains. He had the belief of his coworkers and boss and a job he felt passionate about.

He’d had Jeremy, and he guessed that he considered himself lucky to have experienced that kind of love. The next time someone took a chance on him, was able to see inside his soul the way Jeremy did, Davis would make sure to grab on with both hands and never let go.

He still hadn’t gotten the courage to reach out to Jeremy. His gifts had been delayed by supply chain issues, so he had decided that he would head down to Vanberg and apologize in person after they arrived.

Having a plan felt good, he reflected, getting back on his bike and slowly pedaling to his cabin, Mary Anne contently trotting next to him. “Go on, girl. You can head to the cabin,” Davis commanded, and Mary Anne took off. The dog was smarter than most humans he had ever encountered. He would put money on it. Mary Anne let out a pleased bark, which meant that she had seen one of her favorite people. Alex or Yesenia, Davis guessed.

But then Mary Anne appeared back on the trail, and Davis felt like he was in one of the old black-and-white Lassie reruns. Like Mary Anne was here to tell him that Timmy had fallen into a well.

“What is it, girl?” he asked the dog, playing into the part. She gave another pleased bark, and Davis pedaled a bit faster, and then—

For a moment, Davis thought that he must have been dehydrated and hallucinating. Because there weren’t a lot of hybrid cars that went through the national forest, and there weren’t many that pulled up in front of Davis’s house. And Davis had only encountered one light blue Prius that had both NYU and Vanberg stickers on the rear window. And that specific car was parked in front of his cabin at the moment.

And if to confirm it, there he was. Jeremy Rinci, in all of his lanky, gorgeous beauty, leaning against the car, wearing those same damn suede boots he had worn the first time he had ever set foot in Davis’s life.

Mary Anne, the traitor she was, ran over to him and slobbered all over his hand. “Hey, girl,” he said, scratching the dog behind her ears.

“She’ll slobber all over those fancy shoes of yours,” Davis called, taking off his helmet and realizing that he was still damp with sweat.

“Eh, shoes can be replaced,” Jeremy replied. “Hi, Davis.”

“Jeremy,” Davis said, and his brain, which had momentarily blanked, was all of a sudden full of too many thoughts. Jeremy was here, which meant that he didn’t completely hate him. Davis had practiced for this, made sure that he had the words ready in his mind, right there on the surface, easy to grab. Like those ducks he used to pull at the county fair, the ones that meant he went home with three sandwich bags of goldfish.

“Jeremy!” he said, louder this time. “Sorry! I love you!”

“What?” Jeremy asked, looking stunned.

“I, uh, shit. I’m sorry. And I love you. I love you and I’m sorry.” He wasn’t making things any clearer.

“Thank you,” Jeremy said, laughing slightly.

“Why are you laughing?”

“Because I wanted to apologize, too,” Jeremy said, kicking at a rock in a gesture that was familiar to Davis. It was what he did when he was being stubborn about things.

“Why do you need to apologize?”

“I pushed you away,” he said.

“I sprinted away,” Davis admitted.

“I made you something,” Jeremy said, sticking his hands in his pockets. “I had some help installing it, so, uh.” He kicked another rock. “Can we go to your backyard?” Davis was, for a second, worried that it was going to be a surprise party, which would have been Davis’s nightmare. But no one else was there, just a double wide rocking chair with lush cushions, different from the cheap ones that had been there before.

“What, what are these?” Davis said, looking them over. They looked solid, sturdy, with a hint of craftsmanship that even Davis’s uncles would have been proud of.

“Rocking chairs,” Jeremy replied, using his forefinger to nudge one into movement.

“Why?”

Jeremy looked up at him, his eyes a bit shiny. “Because you deserve to dream about being on a porch with a partner, no matter who it is.”

Davis laughed, wet and messy, like the tears he was told boys shouldn’t cry as a child. “This is ironic. Like that story with the comb and the watch we read in school.”

“Huh?”

Davis pulled up his phone, swiped to his email, and pulled up an order confirmation, then a shipping notification, and showed Jeremy.

“You bought me two Eames rockers?”

“They’re not originals,” Davis said quickly. “Even with the overtime pay from the fire, there’s no way I could ever justify paying eight hundred dollars for a chair, let alone two of them.” Jeremy wrapped his arms around Davis, and Davis pressed his face into Jeremy’s chest, then added, “I also bought you a tool set. If I wasn’t going to be around to fix your shitty door hangings and hang your shelves, you needed good tools to do it.”

“I started therapy,” Jeremy said.

“I told Tiff about you. She said she’s proud of me. That she wouldn’t tell anyone back home.”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“I know,” Davis whispered. “I wanted to.”

“My therapist says that, well, he talks a lot about how I was lucky. Growing up where I did, working how I have. That the idea of coming out once and being done is bullshit.” Davis smiled as Jeremy sniffled, then continued. “I trust you to do what feels right for you.”

“I trust you to trust me,” Davis said. “But I need a push from time to time. My counselor told me that. I started seeing her again.”

“Therapy twins,” Jeremy said, letting out a small, uncomfortable laugh.

“Are we okay?” Davis asked.

“I think we’re going to be,” Jeremy replied. He reached for him, and Davis had the impulse to run back inside, tuck himself away with Jeremy. But he didn’t. He just let Jeremy kiss him, here in the parking lot, next to the sign that had previously read Visitor Cunter. Davis had kept that sign, tucked into a corner of his office. He’d give it to Jeremy on the one-year anniversary of the day they met.

A truck pulled up, and Jeremy pulled away, giving Davis space. Eric, Yesenia, and Alex piled out of the truck.

“Welcome back, Davis,” Eric said, nodding.

“Uh, hi, everyone. Eric, Alex, Yesenia.” Davis took a deep breath and felt just the whisper of Jeremy’s pinky against his own. He could do this. He would do this. He took Jeremy’s hand and gripped it tightly, the way he would grip an axe that he would use to fell a tree. He’d fell the tree of homophobia, if necessary.

There was a reason Davis had been in that remedial English class. “You remember Jeremy, right?”

“We’ve had loads of compliments on the visitor center, Jeremy,” Eric said. “Are you here for work on the exhibit?”

“No,” Davis said, speaking up, his voice cracking slightly, like he was in high school all over again. “No, he’s here because he’s my boyfriend.”

“Congrats,” Eric said. Davis had been ready, he supposed, to argue. To cite all the anti-discrimination laws that he had listened to podcasts about, learning about workers’ rights and how at-will employment didn’t apply to federal employees. Shit, he had been ready to teach these men a lesson about the Lavender Scare, the lesser-known Cold War moral panic that Emmy had sent him a podcast on.

“Thank you,” Jeremy said, giving Davis’s hand a squeeze.

“Okay,” Eric said. “Does your boyfriend want to come out to the bar with the rest of us?”

Later, at the bar, Eric came up next to Davis and offered to buy him a beer to congratulate him on his new relationship.

“It’s not that new,” Davis said, feeling his cheeks heat.

“Let me do something nice for you, because I doubt we’re getting a bigger budget from the White House this year,” Eric laughed. Another moment of truth, because Davis could get the beer and let it sit, warming up, or pass it to Jeremy, who would drink it for him and not say a second word. But he was being open and honest. He had called his old counselor last week and admitted that he was still nervous about telling people. He had also come out to her, explained what had happened with Jeremy and how they were healing.

“Good for you,” she had joked. “Twice the number of hot people to look at.”

She had talked him through his fears, using her way of posing questions and having Davis share answers he already knew deep within his soul. That he would be seen as weak or somehow broken. How the idea of alcoholism as an illness worked for some people but let others think it was contagious or incurable. How Davis didn’t want to care about what other people thought, but he did.

“Sweetie, we’re never done learning about ourselves,” she had said. “It ain’t a bad thing to update people on what you’ve learned about yourself.”

“I actually don’t drink,” Davis said confidently. Or as confidently as he could, talking to the toughest person he had ever met.

“Okay. My wife doesn’t either. Diet Coke?” Said like it was nothing at all. Davis supposed it wasn’t to people who could see the nuance of shades of gray in the world. He liked being around people who could understand the spectrum of experience, whether that be people’s paths to careers, sexuality, or life choices.

“Diet Coke is great,” Davis smiled back.