Chapter Eight

If anyone were to ask Alex what he did the rest of that night, there's no way he'd be able to tell them, those hours passing in such a blissful haze. He makes dinner and eats in front of the TV, a movie on even if he's paying no attention to it at all, and he stalls for as long as he can before he heads upstairs. There's no real need for it, but he takes a shower anyway, just to waste a little more time, then Alex turns to his crossword puzzles in lieu of any book that might have him staring at empty margins.

Elijah texts him to say goodnight.

Alex's sleep is mostly dreamless, and he doesn't know how that's possible.

The first thing he notices when he looks outside the next morning is the fog, such a normal thing here, but reminiscent of the day he met Elijah all the same. Alex goes for a run—his first in a while—and it feels so good, his body hungry and begging to be satiated.

He's ready to feed it at least a little more when he picks up lunch on the way to Elijah's a few hours later, his heartbeat far from under control when he knocks at the door.

"So much better than yesterday's pizza guy," Elijah teases as he lets Alex in.

He smiles. He exhales. He walks through the door and keeps moving. But the thing is, Alex doesn't know how to do this any more than he knows how to want, or how to slow down the wanting once he's started, or whatever other step comes next in a dance he never properly learned. He took a pretty girl to the movies when he was a dumb teenager, tripped over himself for a while after that to make himself fit into a role that maybe never really belonged to him, and now he's here, with no idea what to do when his second forever might have started last night.

"You sure? There's probably still time for me to get out of your way."

Elijah snags the hem of Alex's shirt and pulls him closer. "Don't want anyone else."

Their kiss is careful, intent enough to mean something but just light enough that they can let go, Alex easily getting settled on the patio again while Elijah grabs a couple of drinks. They talk just as they had the day before, so much to still find out about each other, both of them more eager now and holding nothing back while Poe looks up at them every now and then, like maybe he's absorbing some of it too. And when they're done eating, they trace yesterday's footsteps and land on the couch, ready to move on to the second pair of books.

"The first books covered what—a year and a half or so?" Alex asks.

"Yeah, something like that. So, we're probably in the late 1940s."

"And you think you saw Peter and Edgar together in the mid-90s?"

"On our trip to San Diego," Elijah says. "Yeah."

"Then even if these books somehow carry us through a few years—"

"There will still be about four decades of the story we won't know," Elijah finishes. "How they end up together all those years later, and why they never let anyone know how much they loved each other."

Something knocks at the back of Alex's head, a question or answer he can't quite hear, but he only fights with it for a moment before he offers something of a counterargument.

"I'm not sure there's that much mystery to be solved about why they never let anyone know," he says. "Two gay men, from entirely separate classes, only able to communicate through messages scribbled into the margins of books passed back and forth between them, and only able to touch in the middle of the night while they hid in the shadows of some shabby warehouses? And then Edgar being attacked, plus whatever other hell we don't even know about? Even as times changed, that's a lot of very quiet trauma to overcome."

"So, you think at a certain point they kept the secret because it's all they'd known?"

"I can't be sure, obviously, but it makes sense. Feral animals don't just become tame the moment you let them into a home."

Elijah nods, thoughtful. "And my grandpa knew at some point, so they weren't totally alone, but yeah, I—it just hurts knowing how much it hurt them. We look back and celebrate all the brave people in the communities that fought for a better life—for their chance to love out loud—but maybe we forget that the quiet ones weren't cowards."

"Nah, just victims who were already sacrificing their safety to have any moment of honesty at all."

"Okay," Elijah sighs, taking a deep breath to regroup. "Then we read on to see if we can learn more about how they get away from the late-night visits. And depending on how much is still unknown when we're done, I could always try talking to my mom again."

"You think that would go over okay?" Alex asks. "I don't want this to be any harder for you than it already is."

"She didn't seem all that bothered when I asked questions at the beginning of all this. She just kinda paused and then answered. Not sure she cares enough to worry about why I'm asking, and I wouldn't tell her about the books anyway."

"Didn't figure you would." Alex smiles, though it feels sad. "Okay, here was Peter's message about their first kiss, the one I read when I found the book that first weekend: E, it feels rather perfect to start a new book today, with the ghost of your lips still on mine. I don't believe I have all the words to express the hunger I felt after indulging in that first taste, but I dream of the impossible world in which I could be truly satisfied."

"Definitely no way to know how long Uncle Edgar's recovery took, other than the ‘weeks' mentioned at the end of the last book. We don't even know exactly what happened in the first place."

"Nope," Alex agrees. "But Peter took it as some kind of sign to stop being so afraid, all the restraint from before apparently gone once they were able to meet up again. How did Edgar respond?"

P, waiting for that first kiss was torture for my body and soul, but waiting now for all the others we might share is so much worse. I have nothing else to give but everything you already know is yours, but I'll be ready to try whenever you come to me, tonight or for the rest of our lives.

Alex glances up at Elijah as he finishes, then turns to the next entry in his book, another one he's already read, but not one he's shared yet.

E, I have so many sleepless nights now, most of them when I haven't been able to see you and cannot know how safe you are, but every one of them is worth it when we're together again and I can steal enough time to make myself believe you're still mine. I can't stop worrying about what could happen if we're ever caught, and how violently people could react to this love they don't understand, but I will continue to be there with you because it's the only place I can rest while wide awake.

"Yeah, maybe the restraint was gone, but I can't imagine that ongoing fear for my great grandfather," Elijah says. "Being apart for what we're assuming are long stretches in between, and not having any way to know if something happens. Just waiting any time there's a delivery and hoping Uncle Edgar would be there."

"Edgar would've been able to relax a little more, if relaxing were a thing anybody could do under these circumstances. I mean, Peter technically had more to lose, but he had a lot more to protect him, too."

"A wealthy widower with broad shoulders and a solid build was definitely less of a target. Not the kind of guy most people would"ve targeted for being gay the same way they had done to Edgar."

"But I'm guessing Edgar's about to reassure him that he's fine," Alex says.

"And you're right. Here it is: P, I know I'll never be able to stop you from worrying after what happened to me, and maybe it would have been impossible long before that, but please know every day of my life is worth the fight if it means tomorrow could bring you back to me. And while it may feel like the shadow of the warehouse is the only place I can be yours, I ask you to remember that I am always yours, everywhere you go."

"Edgar was smoother in hidden messages than I've ever been a day in my life," Alex mutters.

"Eh, I don't know. Showing up at my garage sale two days in a row was pretty hot."

He laughs and elbows Elijah. "Hey, I just went out for some fresh air. Didn't know you were gonna sell me a love story."

"Is that what I did?"

"Certainly seems like it," Alex answers, but then he remembers something else and tilts his head. "That night you invited me to the bar, when you'd already figured out that they were gay, what happened right after I read those messages on your phone? Why did it seem like you were suddenly sorry I was there?"

For a second, Alex thinks maybe Elijah will deny there was anything wrong then, but after another moment or two, Elijah nods. "You want to know why I went from being so eager to share what I'd found to walking away from you."

"You walked away a couple of times, yeah. And you wouldn't tell me if you were okay, but you said you might have an answer if I was willing to wait a while."

"We're probably past a while by now."

"I think so," Alex agrees.

"I don't want to take anything away from their story. It's about them, it's—none of what we're reading is actually about me," Elijah says, scratching at an invisible spot on his jeans until Alex slides his hand under Elijah's and gives him something to hold. "But when I read those, I felt like it loosened something in my chest. Made it easier to breathe, just knowing maybe it wasn't just me. That I wasn't the only one in my family."

"I don't think it's ever wrong to connect with the things other people write—I mean, my entire career sort of relies upon it—and it's especially not wrong when those words were written by a great grandfather you actually met."

"Yeah, maybe. But I also already knew I liked you—a lot—and I didn't know if I was imagining that you might feel the same way. I couldn't tell whether I was just caught up in the story. So, I wanted you there, and I wanted to show you what I found, and I wanted it to make it easier for you to breathe, too."

Alex thinks back to that night, sitting next to the wall, the hard stool and the crispy fries and the cold beer and the sudden awareness of what they'd been reading, all of it colliding with what he'd already started to feel. He'd frozen there, he knows he had, and Elijah had left him to figure out the rest alone.

"I couldn't breathe at all."

"I noticed," Elijah says, an admission more than an accusation. "And then neither could I. I got worried that you were disappointed in what we"d read, like maybe a story about two gay men wasn't one you still wanted to follow."

"And you thought that if I was disappointed in what we"d read, then that might mean I'd also be disappointed in you. And uninterested in us."

"Which wasn't fair. I knew that even then," Elijah sighs. "But I think I'd built up a moment in my head where you'd read those messages and then look up at me and we'd just know, and instead you went cold, and I thought maybe I was so, so wrong."

"You kept coming back to me, though."

"I did, yeah. You didn't leave and I couldn't stay away."

Alex cocks his head. "The other night, when I stopped by after my retreat, I pulled you close to me, and you said something about me being the one still in the dark—that you didn't care who saw us. Does that mean you're out at work?"

"Mmmm, I wouldn't say I'm out out, but I don't really hide, and anyone paying attention probably made assumptions a while ago. Tyler knows for sure. He's stood too close to me too many nights to think I have any sort of preference about who I might want to take home."

"Have you taken him home?"

"Tyler?" Elijah asks, his eyebrows high. "No, I—no. He's straight and I haven't screwed up that badly in a while."

"Did those women at the bar really ask about me? That first night, when things got weird."

Elijah chuckles. "Oh, absolutely. And that definitely didn't help while I was having a whole crisis about my feelings for you. But you didn't seem to care when I told you about them, so I relaxed a little."

"You told them we're friends."

"Aren't we?"

It's what Alex has told himself from the beginning, and he won't begrudge Elijah the question now, even if he won't answer it either. He takes a deep breath and leans close enough to kiss Elijah instead, squeezing his hand before letting it go and turning back to the book in his lap, his fingers light against the page as he reads another one familiar to him from those first couple of days.

E, I am so sorry, darling. I've been ill and at home and so far from you, and I can only hope you will be back to take this book from me when I've finally returned to my office again. And perhaps I can dream of seeing relief in your eyes rather than the reluctance our relationship might deserve. If there is anything certain, it's that I would give anything to have you here with me, the chill unbearable without your love to keep me warm.

"So much for Uncle Edgar being able to relax about my great grandfather's wellbeing. Guess he disappeared for a while, too."

"And however much time has passed since Edgar was hurt, another lengthy separation had to bring them right back to that fear that it could be over for them," Alex says. "There were plenty of other ways to communicate, but none they would have considered safe, so what would've happened if Edgar had just stopped delivering to the firm? Would Peter have had to risk multiple trips to the docks to find him there? Would he have prepared himself to let Edgar go?"

Elijah nods down at the page. "It sort of sounds like he already had. ‘The reluctance our relationship might deserve' was a pretty carefully constructed wall."

"He was giving Edgar an out, or at least steeling himself for the possibility Edgar would want one."

Something about that stings, and Elijah only hums before he goes on.

P, please don't apologize any further for making me wait for tonight, and the chance to hold you again. Though we did nothing more, having you in my arms for longer than we usually dare was enough, my relief there for you to claim as yours. I think I could've stood there until dawn. Someday, maybe we can have that, too.

Elijah frowns for a moment, and Alex has the fleeting thought that he might be able to kiss it away, but then Elijah corrects it himself and looks at Alex. "Every one of these messages is so damn romantic. Poetic, really. And on the one hand it feels like it's kind of over the top, like maybe they should be so much more casual than this after what might be close to two years together, but then I get chills when I think about how little time they really had."

"Yeah, their two years together wouldn't have been anything like that," Alex says. "And these messages are literally half of their entire relationship. They feel intense to us because they had written them that way, so many emotions condensed into the only moments they got."

"And knowing that is really kind of beautiful, right up until it hurts again."

Oh, E, seeing you tonight was the very greatest pleasure, the breath passed between us enough to keep me alive until the day I can give it all back again. It almost felt like we kissed so long that the night could have led us straight into the next. I only wish we could be together elsewhere, my gratitude for our shadows waning when I know there are empty rooms here at my home. When there is so much time we're still not allowed to claim as ours. Touches that remain forbidden.

"How old would your grandpa have been around this time?" Alex asks.

"Mmmm, about 14, I think?"

"So, there was still no way to bring Edgar home," he sighs. "Go ahead."

"Looks like the same thing was on Uncle Edgar's mind. P, my love, I would never ask you to put J at risk, but he won't be at home with you forever, and whatever remains forbidden now may not always be. You just told me about an organization only whispered about, rumors of men like us who are no longer content to hide. To be clear, I will hide with you for as long as you need. But I'll also dream of a time when others no longer make that decision for us."

Alex rolls his head toward him. "Your grandpa was J?"

"James, yeah. Or I guess I heard most people call him Jimmy by the time I was old enough to notice, but he always introduced himself as James, so maybe it's what he preferred."

"Sounds like a familiar story," Alex says. "Was he the one who called you Elijah?"

Elijah smiles. "Protecting me and my name."

"Seeing you. Honoring the person you are instead of the person everyone else assumed you should be."

"And I have no way to thank him for it now."

"No, you don't," Alex agrees. "So, maybe you just honor him back by living the way he knew you could."

"The way they couldn't," Elijah says, his touch reverent when he drags his fingertips over the faded ink in front of him. "Even when the decisions became theirs."

"You understand why they stayed quiet, but it hurts you, too."

"I think it ended up hurting everyone."

Alex swallows against all the layers of that, the knowledge that Peter and Edgar's decision to keep their relationship a secret, even a while after they really would've had to, affected Elijah's grandpa and his mother and then him, an accidental domino tipped over decades ago. He closes his eyes, opens them again, and reads.

E, we meet more often now and exchange these books far less, eager to be with each other more than we need to document the same. And I truly cannot write about tonight, with no words to describe a touch I've never known and the respect to avoid trying to describe it at all. I'll only thank you for letting every sound I made land gently on your tongue, and for letting me taste more moments later.

"Well," Alex starts, clearing his throat. "That was—something."

"You don't think they—"

"No, not there. Not like that. But still, they—"

"Yeah," Elijah says. "But it wasn't sudden. I mean, even taking into account the broader timeline, this message makes it sound like they've been able to signal meetings without having to rely on the books. Probably could've for a while, but just hadn't broken the habit."

"Now the books are just for the occasional thoughts they want to share," Alex notes. "And the physical relationship is growing."

"Which means these two books might carry us further than we'd guessed."

So, they continue to read, and while it had taken them nearly a month to stumble through the beautiful beginning of another couple's love story, Alex and Elijah continue to race through the middle of it in a single afternoon, their pace reckless when they should be terrified of where it all ends. The tone of Peter and Edgar's messages certainly tips toward risqué for a while, far from explicit, but just enough for it to be clear that they wanted more than they could have, even as they started to have far more than they were allowed. And as months went by, maybe another year or two passing in the pages they turn, Alex and Elijah begin to sense that Peter and Edgar's lingering reluctance had become stirred with newfound hope. James would be moving away in the next few years, even if they suspected he already knew more than he'd ever said, and there was still danger everywhere, even if there were the first hints of fights to be won. There were the early rumblings of places to go and communities to join and precautions to take, but Peter and Edgar kept a tight hold on the sliver of safety they already knew, pushing the boundaries of it until it seemed like they were finally ready to leave it behind, a new chapter beckoning them forward.

By the time Alex closes his book, Elijah taking another several seconds to do the same, he aches with the realization that Peter and Edgar were so close to something that might have become everything, but that there's nothing more of their story left to read. They both set their books down, Alex giving his back to Elijah now that they're done.

"The end?" Alex whispers.

"I don't want it to be."

"You have to go to work soon," Alex says, standing and holding out his hand for Elijah to take.

He does exactly that, and then lets go once he can cradle Alex's face instead, his kiss devastating. "Don't want to go anywhere. Don't know how to go anywhere. And I want you to stay."

Alex's fingers catch in the material of Elijah's shirt. "I want to stay, too. But Elena will be back tonight."

They stumble toward the front door, an entire afternoon spent in the past leaving them only with a few minutes of the present, and Elijah wraps his arms around Alex there.

"Are you gonna tell them?"

Alex's first instinct is to ask Elijah what he means, except that they both already know exactly what he means, and pretending otherwise might be one of the worst things Alex could do. Unfortunately, what he says instead isn't any better.

"I don't know."

It's a lie, bitter on his tongue and left to dissolve there when Elijah stopped kissing him before the words were fully formed. The answer is no—it was the answer before Elijah asked and still is now—because Alex spent the last two decades failing his best friend and he's terrified of screwing up again, and for as long as he can feel all of Peter and Edgar's mistakes living in between his own heartbeats, he thinks mimicking their silence might be the only thing keeping him from denying himself entirely. Alex has only just learned what it's like to want, and it twists him up to imagine anyone else watching closely enough to catch the moment that goes wrong too, and whatever dishonesty Alex can taste inside his own mouth, Elijah eventually leans back in to steal a little bit of it for himself, as if he really needs confirmation that it exists at all.

"Okay," Elijah says when he pulls away.

Alex doesn't think it is.