Adam Venus
“I’m leaving,” I tell Fab as soon as he returns with two coffee cups. He frowns and sets them down.
“What?”
“I don’t know how else to say it…but I’m leaving. I have to leave. For two weeks. We just started to figure things out, and I’m leaving…”
He still doesn’t get it, so I hand him my phone, which is displaying the following message:
Greetings, Senior! You are receiving this message because we’ve run into some logistical issues and have had to make some scheduling changes. As you know, Seniors all undergo Interview Tours, where you tour various churches and congregations throughout the region and hope to be blessed enough to find a good fit. Traditionally, half of the seniors take this trip in December, and half take it before the conclusion of the semester in May. However, the national conference has decided to meet in May, meaning we’ve had to combine the two teams. All seniors are now embarking on their tours in December, during the Christmas break – starting this Monday. All churches are in agreement, and have made the appropriate changes. You’ve also been excused from any finals which may interfere with this new schedule. Barring an emergency, we expect you all to be thrilled with this new development, as you are now one step closer to spreading God’s beloved word.
In His faith,
Professor Harry S. Linklater
When he finishes, he looks at me, apparently speechless. “So…you’re leaving? What?”
I explain the basics to him. The Southern system of pastors and pastors is unique in that no church likes to have any one leader in place for too long. It can lead to too much fraternizing between clergy members, small-town scandals, etcetera. Therefore, church leaders usually take two-or-three-year jobs, moving all across the country all the time. My school does things differently from others, too. They help us more than many others. Every year the school sends out notices of who they have graduating, and if a church has a vacancy and needs someone, they go over our resumes and request interviews with select graduates. For whatever reason, I got ten requests, and was scheduled to take two weeks driving across the Southeast doing essential job interviews. That process is now set to begin in two days.
When I finish, he is staring at me, aghast. “But…we just got to meet…we haven’t even figured this out yet…”
I fall against him. “I know…I know. Gosh, I know.”
“Fuck, this sucks.”
I smirk against his skin. “Unless…”
“Yes?”
“It’s the start of winter break. You won’t have work.”
“Okay?”
“And…what do you have going on?”
I hear him take several breaths. “You mean…you’d invite me?”
I nod against him.
“Already? You’d be comfortable being around me for that amount of time? And…you’d be comfortable…with me being there at all?”
I inhale. “I mean, I’m traveling alone. They don’t know who you are, or where you work. And it’s not like you’d be sitting in on the interviews with me, and touring the churches or whatever. You’d basically just get a free vacation, with a pretty cool dude.”
“What would I do?”
“Walk around town, hang out in the hotel room, whatever? I mean, I know it’s crazy…”
“Not really. I know you’re not a murderer, or anything. So that step is out of the way.”
“Good point.”
“Yeah. The thing is…I just don’t want to be hidden. It would hurt my feelings.”
I take a deep, shaky breath. “Okay. I get it.”
“You do?”
“Of course. We’ve already made some progress, though. I will promise you that if you come, I will do my best to never make you feel like that. Trust me, it’s the last thing I want. But I want you there. I want you included.”
“I mean, I could give my cat to that other janitor, Debbie, she worships her…”
“Okay.”
“And I’ll be done after tomorrow, after I wrap up some last-minute decorations…”
“Okay…”
“But…what about when we get back? What, then, when it’s become more public than ever that we’re hanging out all the time?”
“We face it then, Fabian! Please, just say yes. We can cross all those bridges when they come. Right now…well, all I know is that I need you there.”
Finally he just turns to me. “Okay. This is absolutely crazy, but okay. Let’s go on this pastor tour together. Let’s do it.”
I’m so excited and nervous and terrified I want to scream and shout, but I hold it all in.
We spend the day together as I make preparations and shut up my house and do laundry. It’s weird how much it takes to simply leave. As we finally eat dinner, he looks at my arm and gets kind of weird.
“What’s wrong?” I ask him.
“So…what about…sex?”
“Um. What about it?”
“How am I going to control myself around you that long? Think about it – sharing a bed, sharing a room, sharing a shower. What am I supposed to?”
I frown. “I hadn’t thought about that…”
“Exactly. You are irresistible, Adam. The only thing is…do you still want to resist?”
I blush, then put a hand on his. “All I can say is this. I will try to do more and more things with you, if it happens that way, but you’re going to have to be patient. Let me do it on my time. Okay?”
“You got it, sir.”
~
A few hours later, I’m reading as night falls outside. Fabian comes up behind me and plants a kiss on my neck, like a grandmother to her granddaughter or something. It makes me feel like a Sunday morning. And in that moment I realize I never “fell” in love with him at all. I was already there. If all I could ever be was his, it would still be the best thing I ever did. He is a deity inside a set of bones, my angel in a devil suit.
“What you reading?”
“Nothing interesting,” I smile.
“Well it looks interesting.”
“It’s not, now that you’re here.”
He plops down next to me, and I run my fingers through his silky black hair and realize again that I love him.
“What’s so special about my hair?” he asks quietly. “You can’t keep your hands out of it.”
“It’s yours. That’s what’s special about it.”
“Damn,” he sighs, smiling. “So we’re really doing this, huh? We’re really road tripping together?”
“Guess so.”
His eyes bulge. “This is all moving so fast. I can’t believe we’re leaving tomorrow…”
“I know. Trust me, I know. We’re officially in crazy town.”
He motions at my Kindle again. Then he motions at the space between us. “Hey, say we were a book. You and I. What would our last page look like?”
“You mean, would I be there? On your last page?”
He nods, a little nervous.
“I can’t read the future, you know,” I say as I playfully nuzzle his head. Then a thrill jumps up my back, and I smile. “Actually, yes I can. Spoiler alert: I stay.”