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Ray Garraty fumbles the box of pasta out of the paper grocery bag and lets it crash to the floor.
Or — he doesn’t let it happen. It happens despite his clumsy hands reaching out for the box, despite his knees jumping to try to catch the bag, despite his body pressing to the counter to stop the fall all together. The box bursts and half the noodles spill across the tiled floor. He sets his forehead to the cabinet, eyes closed, and heaves a heavy sigh.
“Everythin’ okay in there?” Pete calls.
“F-f-f-fine,” Ray shouts back. “F-fuck off.”
Ray used to be a real boy. He used to play baseball and read books and drive into town in his mom’s battered jalopy. He went on dates. Obviously. He’s a good enough looking guy, if maybe a bit on the hefty side. Before the Walk, he and Jan had standing Friday evening plans at a local diner to split a soda and a plate of fries. Under the gritty neon lights, they’d hold hands and drink out of one cup, two straws. Typical teenaged stuff. What was expected of him. He did more than that. He read everything his dad left them, great works of literature and philosophy and science. Ray used to be smart. So smart he looped back around to stupid, started thinking he that was invincible, that he was special, that he could enact real change in the world.
And then the Walk happened. No, not happened. He applied. He signed up for it.
He doesn’t remember it right, that sunny morning to that rainy night, but his body reacts badly to the sounds of rain all the same. He can remember Pete down on one knee, then Ray down on his knees and Pete hovering above him. What did you do? What the fuck did you do? Ray! Ray! Ray! He can remember a pain in his head and then total darkness — and then the bright, awful lights of the hospital and Pete’s hand in his. A coma, one month long. Months of recovery. Learning to talk again, kind of. Learning to walk again, badly. Learning to use his fingers and his hands and his head, all over again, like a toddler.
A gunshot wound to the head will do that, apparently. Dazed and confused, that’s Ray half the time. Making connections but missing the points along the way. Mom says he’s getting better. Pete swears it. Just doesn’t always feel like it.
Pete’s been an angel through all of this, even though he’s got his own recovery to deal with. While Ray was asleep — that’s how he likes to think about his month-long coma, just a little nap — Pete had toes amputated. He lost a toenail, somewhere on the walk, and it cut the hell out of his foot in his boot. The bottoms of his feet were mincemeat. Every step he took was like walking on glass, he says, but he got up and he walked down the hospital hall to sit at Ray’s bedside every day anyway. Because that’s what we do for each other, he always says, brushing his hand through Ray’s hair. Only, Ray hasn’t had much chance to reciprocate. He’s worse off than Pete, medically. If Pete’s a toy soldier with a few dents and dings, Ray’s a cheap plastic action figure that’s been snapped in half by a miserable child and left in the road to be run over by a bus. Ray’s a puppet with the strings cut. Some days he can barely make it down the stairs.
Ray’s functionally useless these days. Can’t drive, even though he used to be good at it, used to enjoy it, and that means they have to walk or rely on the kindness of Ray’s mother to get anywhere, because Pete doesn’t have a driver’s license. He’s not to be trusted with scissors or knives. His use of the toaster has been monitored since he came home. He can’t even knit, which he used to really like doing.
He’s a burden. There’s no getting around it.
Everyone’s a burden, he knows. To have a village, you have to be a villager, as his dad used to say. But his dad was also secretive and paranoid and being part of a community is what got him Squaded. If he hadn’t gotten married, if he hadn’t had Ray, if he hadn’t done all the normal dad things like coach his baseball team, if he hadn’t been sharing illegal publications with the neighborhood kids, if he’d just gone underground and avoided anyone and everyone — maybe he’d still be alive. He stood for something, something he wanted Ray to stand for, and chose that over everything else. How disappointed would he be in Ray, for giving up their cause for the love of one man? How disappointed would he be in Ray, for loving at man at all?
Or maybe he’d be proud. Ray, sticking it to the man, not conforming to the State-sanctioned standard. Queer as a political statement.
Well, it doesn’t matter what his dad would think. He’s gone. He’s been gone. And Ray’s disappointed in himself, for being such a burden on Pete.
Not just Pete. Mom, too.
But his mom is out on the town for the night, which means Ray can’t be a burden on her — and, even better, he and Pete have the whole house to themselves.
It’s a good time to show Pete what a good catch Ray can be. Or used to be. A proper Romeo and a proper date. It’s a good time to wine and dine him, show him how Ray would like to treat him, that Ray can do more, be more than needy and pathetic and exhausting. Ray can be romantic.
It would also be a good time to rid himself of his pesky, clinging virginity, but that’s not totally up to him.
Ray’s not even sure he technically counts as a virgin anymore. He remembers guys at school, in the locker room, saying that hands and mouths don’t count. If they’re to be believed, only going all the way really counts — and maybe if something in him didn’t fundamentally shift the first time he wrapped his hand around Pete and felt the sticky, pearly evidence of his love under his fingertips, maybe, just maybe he’d believe them. But Pete’s taught him that there are so many ways to love, so many acts of passion and so many positions and so many ways to lose yourself in another person. Falling in love with Pete was like waking up after a long, hard sleep through a strange and uncomfortable nightmare. Like, oh, the world is right again, this is how it’s supposed to be. Being in love with Pete, it makes him feel real again.
Those boys at school, they wouldn’t count anything he and Pete have done together. Not the handjobs or the blowjobs or the desperate, quiet dry-humping on the floor of their bedroom because the bed makes too much noise. None of it would count, none of it would be real, because none of it is with a girl.
Just because he’s not with a girl doesn’t mean he can stop behaving like a gentleman.
Which is where tonight comes into play.
Pete, he suspects, has never been on a date. Not a real one, anyway. He’s shifty about his past dating history, vague and deflecting, only ever says that he’s been with plenty of guys but that Ray’s the only one who really matters. Ray knows he’s experienced at sex — how could a guy who looks as good as Pete not be? — but all that talk gives him the idea that maybe nobody’s ever treated Pete right. Maybe he’s met men at bars or diners. Maybe he’s been taken out to dinner or bought a beer before. There were plenty of nights in the long autumn of his recovery where he and Pete sat on the couch together, with Pete’s arm slung around his shoulders, while Ray practiced his reading. At the time, he’d thought those nights were kind of like dates but, apparently, Pete hadn’t, and dates are supposed to be two-way streets. Pete hasn’t been romanced. He hasn’t been wooed. He hasn’t been anywhere long enough to be wildly and deeply in love before. And Pete deserves all that and more.
Well, Ray’s going to give it to him. Starting right now. Starting with the kitchen. Starting with the pasta spilled all over the floor.
Ray’s never thought much about the kitchen. It’s where he made cookies with his mom when he was small, but eventually that was a thing they stopped doing together. It’s where she sang to him, as a kid, and sang to herself, when he was too old for it. He used to sit at their kitchen table in his pajamas and watch her cook, wearing her best dress on Friday nights, and they’d all eat together, him and Mom and Dad, as a family.
After what happened to his dad happened, Mom had to work and Ray had to work and go to school, and family mealtimes fell to the wayside. Ray did what he could in the kitchen. He poured cereal into bowls and took chicken from the icebox to thaw. He mashed boiled potatoes and poured melted butter over them, ate them out of the pot over the sink with the wooden serving spoon. He’s never been much of a chef.
That’s part of what makes this so hard. He’s got no idea what he’s doing. The chicken is in the oven, pre-heated to the temperature his mom wrote down for him. She wouldn’t need a recipe so precise, not for something so simple, but Ray’s stupid now. The radio on the counter is crooning out some patriotic nonsense sponsored by the State and then slides into a love song about the wrong place and the wrong time. Under the warm yellow lights, he crouches down on his aching knees and picks up each noodle, one by one, and dumps them into the boiling pot of water he’s got simmering on the stove. Stirring slowly, he can practically hear what the Musketeers would have to say about this. Aw, look at you, Garraty, Olson would jibe. What a good little housewife you are.
He thinks, suddenly, of a woman named Clementine, who will never cook dinner for her wise-cracking husband again. Olson — Hank — his last meal was a stale piece of gum.
He doesn’t let himself be sad about it, about everything that happened on the Walk. It helps, that he doesn’t remember all of it. The nurses said it won’t do his recovery any good, to remind him of the bad things his Swiss-cheese brain keeps trying to forget. When the memories come, he only asks Pete if they’re real or not. And then, after, if Pete’s okay now. Nothing more, nothing less. But sometimes the memories are so strange or so unclear, like they’ve gone through a filter or been painted over with a translucent brush, he can’t remember if he remembered them before or not.
“Pete,” he calls out.
From the couch, where he’s been insisting Pete stay: “Yeah, baby?”
“Was the b-b-b-b-baby born yet?”
The couch creaks when Pete stands up and the floorboards creak, too, when he crosses to the kitchen. Everything in the house creaks. It’s old and Ray’s dad wasn’t much of a handyman, more of an intellectual type. Pete keeps offering to fix things — or to pay to fix them — but Mom keeps refusing. Says she doesn’t want charity, like Pete’s not part of the family now, like Pete doesn’t live here, like Pete doesn’t have more money than the rest of the town combined now. Untold riches, that’s what the Walk promises to the winner.
Pete pokes his head into the kitchen with a furrowed brow. “What baby, baby?”
“Olson’s baby.”
“Oh. Didn’t know you remembered about that.” Pete walks into the kitchen like he doesn’t even notice the nice table setting or the unlit candles between the plates. They’re not nice, fancy candles, but they’ll do for a little ambiance. He leans back against the table, arms folded over his chest, and shakes his head. There’s something so warm and inviting about him in one of Ray’s old sweatshirts, the way it cuddles close to his skin like Ray wants to. “No, baby’s not born, not yet, but any day now.”
Ray stirs the noodles in the pot. They’re still too hard to be cooked all the way through. “H-how will we know?”
Pete grins. “Don’t you worry. Missus Olson’s got our number. We might not know until a day or two after, but we’ll get the call.” He pushes off from the table and comes up on Ray’s scarred side. His eager hand wiggles up the back of Ray’s sweater to settle against the small of his bare back, tracing the distance between moles from memory. “She’s awful grateful for the diapers and baby formula we sent her way.”
“We did?”
“We did.” Pete watches the wooden spoon go around and around in the pot of water. He sniffles. His nose has been running all week, on and off, because of the cold. “You wanna know what she’s gonna name the baby, if it’s a boy?”
A shrug. “Hank?” A lot of people do that, don’t they? Name sons after their fathers. Name babies after those who have died. That baby’s going to be fatherless, just like Ray, just like Pete. Maybe it’s better that way, to start off missing someone you never knew, instead of losing them halfway through when you already know them and love them and need them.
“Art,” Pete says. “Well, Arthur. But she’s gonna call him Art. Ain’t that nice?”
Ray nods. Something in his chest feels warm and heavy. “Yeah. Yeah, it sh-sh-sure is nice, Pete.”
Art would probably like it. He and Hank — well, they weren’t exactly like him and Pete. They didn’t fall in love on the Walk, but they fell into something. Something reliant and supportive, all four of them together. The Musketeers.
“Now,” Pete’s chin settles on Ray’s shoulder. With his free hand, Ray reaches up and cups the back of his neck to keep him there. “Can I ask what it is you’re doin’ in here that I’m not allowed to know about? Playin’ husband and wife is all well and good, ‘til you got me in another room with a beer while you’re workin’ in the kitchen. I don’t like the idea of you at the stove all by your lonesome.”
Huffing — or maybe it’s more of a sigh — Ray rolls his eyes. “I’m a gr-grown man. I can use the st-st-stove by myself.” Okay, maybe he usually needs some supervision. He’s no cook. And his coordination is shit now. But he has his mom’s recipe and she’d walked him through it twice, even wrote the grocery list for him so his shaky handwriting wouldn’t ruin it. He’s still learning how to write properly again. “I’m making you dinner. We’re gonna have a d-d-date.”
Pete’s eyebrows lift in interest. No, in surprise. “A date?”
Pride swells in Ray’s chest. Pete’s not easily surprised. Sometimes it feels like he’s ten steps ahead of Ray, not just in recovery but in life, like he’s got in all figured out and he’s just waiting for Ray to catch up.
“A date,” he confirms.
“Well,” Pete says, hushed and reverent, “I’ve never been on one of those before.”
“Good.” It’s gloating, pleased. “Then I get to be your first s-s-something, for once.”
“Oh, Ray, you’re the first in every way that matters.” A kiss glances off the rough stubble at Ray’s jaw. “Is this why we tried out the grocery store again?”
The grocery store has become Ray’s own personal hell. All the lights. The sounds. The people. The stares. It’s overwhelming. Everyone he’s ever known is in that store, every time he goes. Neighbors, teachers, classmates. And they all look at him, at his scar, and they look at Pete like he’s the scum on the bottom of their shoes, even though the last Walker is usually treated like a goddamn national hero. Their first visit had him running clumsily for the parking lot in a panic and crying the whole way home; it was the first time he understood Barkovitch’s tendency towards hitting himself. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Going to the grocery store, something he used to do all the time, feels harder than the Walk now. Nearly impossible to survive.
But he did survive, second time around, made it through the checkout line and everything — even though they’d run into Jan and her mother.
She’d stopped dead in her tracks when she saw him down the aisle, like seeing a ghost. And he must’ve looked like one, too. Always paler in the winter, with no sunburn to warm him up, on top of being so sick and bedridden for so long. He was surprised she recognized him at all, with the ugly, jagged scar down his face from the doctors digging the bullet out of his skull.
Ray, how nice to see you! her mother chirped. But she was tense all over, her hand clutching her basket for dear life, and her smile seemed frozen in place like an electric shock. Ray’d sunk in on himself, his shoulder knocking Pete’s, their arms slotting together. That only brought her attention to Pete, though it would take a blind woman to miss such a handsome man, even all bundled up in Ray’s dad’s old winter coat. And your friend . . .
Yeah, friend. Sure.
Number Twenty-Three, Jan had said, in a numb sort of way. Like Pete was a pretty girl on the cheerleading squad who said something rude about her lipstick application, someone she was too nervous to look in the eye. Peter McVries.
Because she knew. Of course she knew. Some part of her, somewhere deep down, she knew about Ray, knew what Pete means to him. How could she not know? She’s a perceptive girl.
And perceptive girls don’t date nancy boys for so long without having any kind of idea of what’s hiding underneath.
He figures everyone kind of knows, now. He’d said it on live television, after all: That’s why I love you. I love you, Pete. He’s surprised they haven’t been reported for it, honestly. Didn’t everyone see, the way he became real when Pete touched him, when Pete wished for him? But, then again, he assumed Pete knew how he felt and, boy, he’d been wrong about that. Maybe everyone in town — in the country — maybe they all assume it was an act of momentary insanity, Pete wishing for him, and it’s some kind of brothers-in-battle bond, like soldiers have. Maybe nobody thinks about them at all, but to wince at their matching scars and thank the lord or the Major or whoever is listening that it didn’t happen to them, to someone they love.
“Yeah,” Ray says, “it is.”
“Aren’t I special?” Pete croons. His voice is so smooth, like silk, and it wraps around Ray like a caress. Nobody’s touched Ray like Pete has, but the first thing that really touched him was that voice. The encouragement on the killer hill. The laughing in the sunshine. The poems that spewed from him like he couldn’t keep them inside if he tried. The way he started calling Ray baby, all low and secret just between them, even with the Musketeers around them on all sides. That voice kept him going. A finger flicks the neatly folded collar of his shirt. “Is this somethin’ I should be dressed up for? I can go put on my good pants.”
Pete only has two pairs of presentable pants. A new pair of denim jeans and a new pair of cargo pants. The hospital had thrown out what they wore on the Walk and neither of them have bothered to buy more more. Pete’s been mostly living in Ray’s things, sharing everything down to their underwear. It’s disgustingly domestic. He really hopes it never stops.
“No,” Ray says. “You’re perfect.”
A harsh snort rushes from Pete’s nose. Like it’s ridiculous to have Pete and perfection in the same thought, when he’s the most wonderful person Ray’s ever met.
“Alright,” Pete says with a smile in his voice. “Can I do anythin’ to help?”
Ray shakes his head. “Nope. The p-p-pasta just needs to cook and the chicken is in the oven.” He’s using a canned sauce. Mom would’ve tried to make it fresh, from scratch, but that’s a little above Ray’s ability. Hell, boiling water for pasta is a little above his usual ability. He should not be chopping vegetables with his shaky hands. He can barely stir the noodles right.
“Then it’s a waitin’ game.”
“Mmhm.”
The wooden spoon is plucked from his hand and set to the side. “You don’t have to stir the whole time, baby.” Pete reaches over him and adjusts the temperature. “You set a timer?”
Ray nods.
“Good,” Pete praises. He takes Ray by the hips and spins him until his back presses into the handle of the oven door.
Manhandling isn’t something Ray ever thought he’d be into. It always ticked him off when his mom used to grab him by the back of the collar and yank him into place, when he was younger. And when older guys shoved him and the other younger kids around, guys built like Stebbins going after guys built like Curly and Rank, it always made him mad with rage. But maybe it wasn’t so much the being moved against his will that bugged him, as much as the intent behind it. Because when it’s Pete’s hands? His body gives up all control and lets him do as he pleases. It was like that even on the Walk. Where Pete wants him, Ray will go.
Pete’s strong arms wrap around his waist and draw him into his chest. Ray laughs, head tipping back, grabbing him by the biceps. And what goddamn glorious biceps they are. Firm and bulging under his fingertips. It’s dark and cold outside, a winter evening in Maine, but it’s warm in Pete’s arms.
“What are you d-d-doing, Pete?”
“Dancin’ with my man,” Pete grins. They start to sway to the radio — unsteady, unbalanced, barely moving because they’ve both got two left feet since the Walk. “C’mon, baby, dance with me. They’re playin’ our song.”
Ray wasn’t aware they had a song. But any song can be their song, as long as Pete keeps holding him so close.
In the kitchen, with their food bubbling on the old stove, under the hazy yellow light, they dance. Ray’s danced with another person before, of course. He took classes, when he was younger. He took Jan to prom, where they stayed a respectful arm’s length apart during the slow dances. It was . . . forgettable. Boring, honestly. And a little performative, the way she kept smiling up at him and telling him how handsome he looked, because then he had to come up with a new way to say she looked beautiful in her Sunday-best dress. When he’d driven her home before curfew in his mom’s rusty old car, she’d kissed his cheek and invited him inside, but he had a curfew, too. The whole town did. He’d gone home, and only realized after that she was hoping to move the relationship forward, into the kind of dance he was trying to avoid.
But this — this is different.
Ray can barely walk right anymore, let alone dance. Neither can Pete, for that matter. They’re both relearning how to move like people. None of that seems to matter. Pete’s hand slips into his. It’s a slow rocking, pressed close, cheek-to-cheek. God, it’s romantic and sensual and fucking chaste, the way they’re just holding each other and breathing each other in — and still it’s the kind of thing they could never get away with at a school dance or on any dance floor in America. Men don’t dance with men. Dancing like this, it’s more dangerous than wishing for a carbine.
Whisper-thin and soft, Pete starts to sing along to the radio. His hot breath wafts by Ray’s ear. “You are my destiny. When you hold my hand, I understand. The magic that you do. You're my dream come true . . .”
Ray turns his face just enough to feel the friction of their noses, foreheads, chins dragging together before his lips find Pete’s and they’re kissing. The song slides smoothly into another, the radio crackle between tracks distant like a far-off bad memory, and all he can hear for a split second is the wet sound of their mouths separating and coming back together.
Kissing Pete is like being kissed for the first time, every time.
Now, kissing a man isn’t all that different from kissing a woman. A bit pricklier, if one of them hasn’t shaved in a while. A bit more all-consuming, like Ray could spend his whole fucking life on it, but that’s probably has more to do with the fact that Ray’s more used to closed-mouth kissing than the open-mouth devouring he and Pete get up to when they’re alone in bed together. Ray never had too much interest in kissing, before Pete, except when he closed his eyes real hard and blanked his brain. He always tried to be polite and gentlemanly, with Jan. He never wanted to seem like he was pushing too far or making her uncomfortable. He would’ve felt like a real heel, if he did. There’s still that undercurrent of don’t ruin this, I can’t ruin this that comes with every kiss, but it’s playing to a different tune now.
No, kissing a man isn’t all that different from kissing a woman — and Pete is all fucking man.
There’s something about Pete that has all of Ray’s instincts going haywire. Everything he’s ever thought about himself and his life, it’s gone right out the window. There used to be righteous dreams of dying like his father, changing the world and passing on the old ways. A rebel soldier boy. He wanted to shoot the Major in his fucking skull and listen to the bones explode, the way the Major made him watch it happen to his dad. And, then, he figured he’d die. But now . . . a simple life at Pete’s side is enough for him. He wants to do sappy shit like dancing in the kitchen while their dinner boils, like falling asleep with Pete’s heartbeat under his ear, like growing old together. He wants to give Pete all the softness and stability he’s lacked in his life. He wants to be a housewife, cook Pete meals and massage his feet and greet him with a kiss at the door. He wants to be a provider, work hard hours so that Pete doesn’t have to do anything but sit pretty. He wants to be a cat, stretched out and lazing with Pete in his lap, scratching softly around his ears. He wants to be a dog, crawl to Pete on his hands and knees and lap at his fingers, say yes, sir and no, sir and be told he’s a good boy. Oh, god, he wants to have sex.
Sex used to be something abstract to him. Something a girl lets you do, if you’re a good enough guy or insistent enough. Something he had vague intentions towards pursuing, one day. Not to say he didn’t want it. Fuck, he wanted it. Morning, noon, and night, he wanted it. He fucked his hand raw in the shower, squeezing his eyes shut and telling himself to think about his girlfriend. It just always left him feeling small and ashamed and wooden. It will feel right when I finally do it, he promised himself. When I do it, it won’t be so scary anymore. Because he was scared of it, when he thought about it before the Walk, like a monster at the end of a book, like this huge thing that would change him as a person. But Pete’s already changed him, already peeled back the layers and shown the soft belly underneath, already stripped him to the soul.
It won’t be scary with Pete. Nothing ever is.
Even the Long Walk was better, not so terrifying, with Pete walking next to him. If they could just go on walking together for the rest of their lives, Ray doesn’t think he’d ever be scared again.
He followed Pete out of hell. He’ll follow Pete anywhere, for as long as Pete will have him. Orpheus and Eurydice, if it had a happy ending. If Orpheus got to lay her down on an old, soft mattress and kiss her battle scars and could bring himself to not be disgusted by the corpse he’d dragged back to life, even though it’s different now. Pete doesn’t seem disgusted by him, not the freshly puckered bullet holes in his stomach or the unintelligible stuttering or the clumsy hands. Maybe Pete would even want to go all the way, to make love the way Ray wants to.
Maybe even tonight . . .
“Pete,” he whispers against Pete’s lips.
Pete hums in response, kissing him again.
“I want you to—“
The timer for the chicken buzzes, loud and clear, just as the front door opens. They jump apart like a record scratch, and Ray throws himself in the wrong direction: towards the door, instead of towards the oven. For a moment, he thinks it’s his broken brain, moving his feet the wrong way, but his body recognizes his instincts before he does. Protecting Pete, that’s what he was trying to do. Putting himself between Pete and the door, between Pete and the unknown, between Pete and the Squad surely come for them. The pot of noodles starts boiling over. Pete slides over like nothing’s ever startled him, all calm and cool and collected, and takes the pasta off the burner.
“Ray, honey,” Mom’s voice calls from the door. “Peter? Anyone home?”
“In the kitchen, ma’am,” Pete calls. He always calls her ma’am or Missus Garraty, no matter how many times she’s told him to call her Ginnie.
Two sets of footsteps — Mom’s sensible heels, low to the ground but fancy enough to wear out, and a pair of worn loafers, by the sound of it — trample through the living room and through the doorway to the kitchen. Mom and Doctor Patterson. John, he’s always telling Ray to call him. His mother’s special friend, like Pete’s his special friend. They’d been keeping each other company, widow and widower, for about a year or so, before Ray applied for the Long Walk. They were always quiet about it, like they didn’t want to hurt Ray’s feelings by liking each other. It didn’t feel like a betrayal of his dad’s memory, but like a sign Ray could leave her behind to avenge it. If he failed, if he died on the Walk, she wouldn’t be totally alone. And Doctor Patterson’s a trustworthy enough guy. He was Ray’s pediatrician, when he was a little boy. At least . . . he thinks he’s remembering that right.
“You’re home er-er-early,” Ray says. His face is red. He just knows his face is red. He’s still standing there useless, with his hands empty at his sides. The oven door creaks behind him, a rusty moaning noise, as Pete takes the chicken out of the oven.
Mom’s hand curls around his shoulder sympathetically, gives him a little squeeze before she lets go. She knows perfectly well what she’s messing up. “Well, when John heard you were making dinner tonight, he didn’t think we should miss it.”
And she couldn’t think of a reason to do otherwise, without telling him about Ray and Pete, what they are to each other. She’s not like his dad; she knows how to keep her mouth shut.
“It’s a milestone in your recovery, Raymond!” Doctor Patterson crows. He takes off his suit jacket and hangs it over the back of the chair at the head of the table. Dad’s chair. The one Pete’s been sitting in, so he’s close enough to help Ray cut up his food without slicing off a finger. “Not something to be missed!” He turns to Pete, hands on his hips. “And you must be the winner!”
“Peter McVries, sir,” Pete says, offering his hand for a firm shake. The way he holds himself, so confident, so cool, it always shrinks a little when he meets someone new. Like a dog that’s been kicked too many times. “Nice to meet you.”
“John Patterson,” Doctor Patterson says, shaking Pete’s hand with both of his. “I’ve heard so much. So much.”
Ray blinks. “You have?”
Doctor Patterson laughs. He’s always been a jovial sort of fellow. Or — Ray thinks he always has been. The memories are fuzzy. “Winner’s always all over the papers and the radio, Raymond! Hard to miss! Though your Mister McVries might be the most mysterious of them all. Not interested in doing appearances or interviews?”
“No, sir,” Pete says. He puts himself at Ray’s side, their shoulder brushing. Platonic. Casual. Like friends. Just minutes ago, they were dancing. “Focusin’ on gettin’ healthy, right now. Gettin’ Ray healthy.”
“And you seem to be doing a bang-up job. Do we have two more plates?” Doctor Patterson asks. Mom sets her bag down and hustles across the kitchen to bring two more plates down from the cabinet. They start to shuffle the place settings around. All his hard work, rearranged. It’s a tornado, a hurricane, moving around him while he stays stuck in place. Mom, putting the jarred sauce in the pasta, bringing the chicken over. The candles get moved to the counter, unlit and unused.
“It — it was just sup-p-p-posed to be for me and Pete,” Ray says, helpless. His eyes hurt, like he could cry. Their first date. Pete’s first date. Ruined.
A hand presses to his shoulder, smoothes down the line of his back. When he looks away from the table, he meets Pete’s smiling, understanding eyes. Like everything about Pete, they’re warm and dark and lovely. He really is the most handsome man in the world. Even his scar just adds a rugged boyishness to the look of him. What’s a guy so beautiful and so good doing wasting his time with someone like Ray? “That’s alright. We can share, can’t we, Ray?”
Sitting down around the table, Ray has a sudden, terrible sense memory rush over him. They do that, break over him like waves. It’s Stebbins, this time, broad and blonde and bitter, nose and eyes red and dripping, saying all he wants is a seat at his father’s table. I’m the rabbit. I’m the fucking rabbit. It’s awful — everything at the end was awful — but it makes Ray smile all the same. Stebbins, always so philosophical. Such a fucking pain in Ray’s side, with his jelly sandwiches and his riddles and his stupid little hat. Handsome, too, Ray’s comfortable enough now to admit that to himself. A chuckle shakes his shoulders.
“What? What’s so funny?” Mom asks.
Ray looks to Pete. “Stebbins. The rabbit.”
Pete laughs, too. It’s all part of their game: real or not real. “A weird son of a,” Pete catches himself, “gun, wasn’t he?”
“Yeah,” Ray says. Laughing with Pete, it can make all the bad things feel so far away. Laughing with Pete, it’s how he got through the Walk. “It’s too bad—“
That Stebbins is dead now. That he was gunned down on his father’s command. That all he wanted was to meet his father and sit at his table. That he died sickly and scared. That all the boys died, all but the two of them. That they couldn’t all go home to safety and security and love, like Ray did. Stebbins and Art and Collie and Barkovitch and Olson and Harkness and Rank and Curly and all of them, all the boys with names he never learned —
“Too bad. May he rest easy,” Pete says, with all the weight of a pastor at a funeral. He and Doctor Patterson reach for the serving knife at the same time, but Pete’s hand finds it first. There’s a momentary standoff. Pete’s the man of the house these days, for all intents and purposes. He’s such a fucking charmer, Mom doesn’t even seem to mind them playing husband and wife. Husband and husband. Whatever. But he hesitates for just a second, like he doesn’t know if he should hand it over to Doctor Patterson to do the serving.
It’s Mom who breaks the tension. She nudges her plate towards Pete softly, with an encouraging smile. “Go on, honey.”
She says it like she would say it to Ray. It’s just too easy to love Pete. Everyone folds eventually. Even Mom, who wanted him to call Jan just a month ago. He gives her her half-portion first, like he always does, like Ray’s father used to, and then gives Patterson his. One piece is cut into two for he and Pete to share and the way Pete looking into his eyes feels as romantic as dancing close with him had. It’s almost nice enough to have Ray forgetting about their ruined night — almost, but not quite.
“Now,” Pete says with a wink, “Ray worked real hard on this, so everyone be nice.”
It turns out no one needs to be nice and spare his feelings, because he actually did an alright job. The pasta cooked just long enough. He didn’t even burn the chicken too badly. No one has to scrape any nasty bits off or politely fake being too full to finish. It’s stupid to be so happy about it, but he is. Look at Ray! He can make a meal! He can be something other than a burden! Everyone descends into silence to eat their small portions, chewing quietly and humming happily.
It’s just pasta. Some breaded chicken. Canned sauce. Nothing special. Hard to fuck up. More than anyone expects from him, though. Watching Pete enjoy the food he made for him — actually enjoy it, not just pretend to — is a triumph.
Even if they have to split it four ways.
“So, Number Twenty-Three,” Doctor Patterson says.
“Pete,” Ray corrects.
“Right, Pete. Tell us about yourself, Pete.”
Pete takes a long, slow sip from his glass. It was supposed to be for wine. Because this was supposed to be a romantic dinner for two. “Not much to tell, sir.”
Patterson chews eagerly. His a wiry sort of guy, not at all like Ray’s dad. William Garraty was built like his son, a little hefty and hard to push around. Doctor Patterson’s skinny and frail looking, like Mom. “What a curious accent! Where are you from, again?”
“John,” Mom says, like he’s being too nosy. Nosiness is what got her husband killed, neighbors sticking their nose into their business. I heard William has unauthorized books, Ginnie, is that true? You got to be careful; all that talk is gonna give Ray ideas. It’s the same tone of voice she used to use on Ray, the one that says it’s time to stop asking questions.
“Georgia, sir,” Pete answers. “Then Jersey. Now Maine, I guess.”
Doctor Patterson hums curiously, wiping at his mouth with a napkin. “You planning on settling down here?”
Pete shoots Ray a smile across the table. “Plenty to like in Maine, I found.”
His face goes hot and pleased, red like a ripe strawberry. He’s never had one, but he’s read about them. Sweet and sour and pink. He grins down at his plate.
“Nothing tying you to Georgia, then? Or New Jersey? I hear the drivers there are terrible.” Patterson takes a sip of his water. It’s like he doesn’t know when to shut the fuck up. “You don’t have any family? Or a girl?”
It’s painful, the awkwardness. The way Pete winces just a little, the napkin Mom uses to cover her mouth, the urge in Ray to burst out screaming that there’s no girl and there never will be a girl because he and Pete have each other and that’s enough and anyone who doesn’t like it can go to hell. The doctors said that an inability to control his temper is to be expected. But Ray doesn’t like being an angry man. He just wants everyone to leave them alone. If the whole world were just he and Pete and his mom, that would be alright by him.
“No, sir. No, I don’t.”
“Pete’s an orphan,” Ray says. And he doesn’t need a girl. I’m his man.
“Oh.” Patterson puts his fork and knife down. “Well, that’s just awful. I’m sorry to bring it up.”
Pete shakes his head. “No, it’s alright. I — uh — I been on my own longer than not.” Under the table, his socked foot touches Ray’s. “Not so much alone anymore, though.”
“No,” Ray latches both of his clumsy, aching, broken feet around Pete’s ankle. “Not so much.”
“No,” Patterson chuckles, “I suppose not, the three of you squeezing into this little house. Are you looking to get a place of your own, Pete?”
The idea of Pete being somewhere else, living somewhere else, somewhere without Ray — well, he doesn’t like it one bit. Pete could afford it, for sure, could buy up half the homes in town and not put a dent in his winnings. But then there’d be space between them, no excuses for shoving their bodies together in his old childhood bed, for being in the bathroom together, for standing so close. God, even the thought of Pete being in a different room makes Ray feel like he’s going to disappear.
“Pete doesn’t need to get his own p-p-place,” Ray bites. “He’s st-st-staying here.”
“And Peter can stay as long as he’d like,” Mom says, and she places her soft hands over theirs, one on his and one on Pete’s, atop the table. “There’s no outwearing his welcome in this house.”
Pete smiles at her, closed-mouth and crooked. “That’s very kind of you, Missus Garraty.” He turns his face back to Doctor Patterson. “I’m not lookin’, sir, not right now. Like I said, we’re focusin’ on gettin’ Ray healthy at the moment. I figure I’ll be here as long as he needs me.”
It’s hard not to come right out and tell Pete he’ll always need him, always and forever, every moment of every day. I need you. I’ll always need you. I needed you before I ever knew you. He squeezes his swollen feet around Pete’s ankle and hopes that’s enough.
“I guess that’s something you’d be invested in,” Patterson muses, “considering you used your wish on him.”
Mom and Pete go quiet, but Ray laughs — this weird, disjointed chortle. He snorts into his empty plate. The portions were too small for four people. “Yeah,” he says, running a finger over the scar on his forehead. It’s a mindless movement, the kind of thing he finds himself doing when his hands have nothing else to do. “Yeah, he’s p-p-probably a little invested, right? I mean, I was f-f-f-f-f-fucking roadkill.” In the corner of his eye, Mom flinches. “And then Pete wished me b-back to life. Now I’m a real boy again. Almost.”
“Best decision I ever made,” Pete says. Across the table, Mom squeezes his hand. “No decision at all, really.”
“Like the b-b-b-blue fairy,” Ray says. “Kissin’ Pinocchio into a real boy.”
Pete’s trying not to smile, mouth curving down, lips curling in on themselves. He sputters, holding in his laugh. Maybe calling him a fairy at the dinner table isn’t the best idea. “Don’t know that I know that one.”
“I’ll tell it to you later,” Ray promises. They can even act it out all over again. Dead thing, brought to life by goodness, by real love. Actually, that might not be the way that story goes. He hasn’t read it since he was small. He doesn’t remember. Pinocchio. Eurydice. Snow White. Ray’s all the mythological, fairytale damsels, rolled into one. And Pete’s his savior, his prince, his true love. He turns to Patterson, who’s looking a bit ashen. “Pete’s a poet, d-did you know? And a s-s-songwriter.”
“I’d like to be,” Pete corrects. He can’t help his smile now. It spurs a matching one on Ray.
“No, you are. He is. He was r-riffing for me the whole Walk. Did they show a-a-any of it, on the television?”
Patterson clears his throat and wipes at his mouth with a napkin. “Yes, I think we heard a bit of that.” Good. Then the whole nation knows how beautiful Pete is, brain and body, inside and out. “Don’t know too much about poetry, myself. It’s not typically . . . approved of.” His eyes slant to Pete and then to Ray with worry.
Like Pete’s a corrupting influence for being a poet, when Ray’s been an anarchist since he was seven years old, when Ray’s been a fucking fruit his whole life, when everyone in town knows why Ray’s father was Squaded.
“Boys,” Mom says, standing like a stalk of corn, all golden and tall at the top and skinny all the way down. She leans over and starts collecting both their silverware, their plates, their glasses. “Why don’t you head up and get ready for bed?” Like they’re children, not grown men. Little boys being sent to their room for being naughty. She stacks their plates on top of hers. “I’ll get all of this cleaned up.”
“No, Mom—“ Ray made the mess. He should clean it.
“I can help, ma’am,” Pete protests.
“You made dinner,” she interrupts, sharp. And then she softens. “A wonderful dinner. Now, let me take care of the rest. Go on up to bed.”
They say their good-nights and their good-byes. Pete shakes Patterson’s hand again and says good to meet you, sir. The stairs groan and complain like tired children beneath them as they trudge up them to the second floor. It’s a slow climb, because they have shitty legs and worse feet now, but they make it up there eventually, Pete’s hand braced protectively at the small of Ray’s back to keep him from falling. He wants to sit at the top of the stairs and listen close for any arguing, any misplaced concern from Doctor Patterson, the way he used to when he was little and his dad would come home late. But Pete shoves him softly towards the bathroom and disappears into their bedroom.
He’s trying to let Ray be more independent. Put the toothpaste on his own toothbrush. Wish’s his own face. That sort of thing. The nurses said it would be best for his recovery.
He’ll only get better if you let him, they like to remind them. He can’t relearn how to use his hands if you do everything for him.
Well, Ray’s relearning how to use his hands. Pete likes them just fine, the way they wrap a little clumsy around his cock and drag him towards the finish line. And Ray might not talk so good anymore, but his mouth works well for other things. The triumph of the human spirit, that he’s still horny despite everything. God, he really thought tonight would be — that they would — that they might go all the way.
When he makes it to their bedroom, Pete has his pajamas laid out for him, an old matching set in shades of blue and white. He’s all cozied up in his own sleepthings, wool socks and a heavy sweater and flannel pants. Still not quite used to the cold of a Maine winter. Ray’s nice date outfit, his collared sweater and his neat denim pants, gets tossed to the side, kicked over to pile up beside the hamper. He’d hoped, earlier, it would hit the ground for a different reason. Tonight, he mourns, was supposed to be special. Pete’s first date. Their first date. All of it, fucking ruined.
“Sorry,” Ray says, standing pathetically between Pete’s legs as he buttons up Ray’s shirt for him, “about t-t-tonight.”
Pete frowns at the buttons. They’re old and a little loose on their strings, but the pajamas are warm and they still fit alright. “What’s there to be sorry for?”
“D-doc,” Ray sighs, “and my m-mom. It wasn’t sup-p-posed to be like that. It was gonna be our date. We were gonna have a r-r-r-r-r-r-r—“
“Breathe, baby,” Pete instructs.
Ray drags in a hard, long smoker’s breath. He’s no smoker, never has been, but his dad didn’t mind a cigarette from time to time. He remembers the smell, so bitter and heavy in the air of the backyard, but more than that he remembers the way he breathed, deep and soothing.
“I wanted,” he says, very slowly. It’s easier to get his words out, when he talks slowly. “To woo you.”
Pete’s whole face lights up. It stretches and scrunches his scar, showing off his unbrushed teeth with a little fleck of something green from the sauce stuck to his front tooth. Ray wants to lick it off. He’s kind of disgusting now. “Woo me?”
“Fuck you,” Ray laughs. Pete’s hands come out to tickle him, shoving up his shirt to his stomach, his chest, his armpits. He shoves at him, uselessly, because he really doesn’t want Pete to stop touching him. He squirms right into his arms, hugging him around the shoulders, one knee on the mattress. Pete’s face smushes right into his chest. He burrows deeper, nestling his nose into the soft give of his body.
“Fuck me is right! You’re a proper gentleman, aren’t you?” Pete teases. “Take a boy to dinner first and everything, hm? I’m feelin’ very wooed. I’m feelin’ romanced.” He fits his teeth around the fabric over Ray’s heart, growls like a dog playing tug-of-war. When he lets him go, the pajamas are wet with spit. His fingers curl around Ray’s thigh, encourage it up onto the bed so he’s practically sitting in Pete’s lap. There’s a flash of panic over being too heavy, but it fades when Pete doesn’t so much as wince. “You’re a dear boy, Ray. What makes you think I haven’t been wooed? You had me at hello.”
Ray can’t help but smile. Pete’s voice, muffled against his shirt, is too goddamn fond. “It’s not ab-bout winning you o-over. It’s about — you deserve to be wooed. You deserve to be treated like — like — like you’re m-magic, Pete. Because you fucking are. I just want to make you f-feel the way you make me feel.”
The way he feels about Pete — it’s a fucking wedding vow, just saying his name. Peter McVries, Peter McVries, Peter McVries.
And Ray. Well, Ray wants to be nothing more than—
“Baby,” Pete breathes, mouth against Ray’s sternum.
Yeah. That. Baby, that’s his name now. That’s all he wants to be, all he needs to be. Pete’s baby. Pete’s man. Pete’s.
He drags his hands down the back of Pete’s neck, over his shoulders, thumbs fitting in the string divot of his collarbone. “And I was h-h-hoping we would make love tonight.”
That gets Pete’s attention, head popping up like an alarm has sounded. Warning, Number Twenty-Three. A big, stupid grin slinks slowly over his mouth. “Oh. Oh, you wanted to — to —?” Pete licks his lips, like he’s struggling over the words, and nods suddenly, very quickly. “Mmhm. Okay. You wait to bring that up until after I get you all dressed in these pajamas?”
“Well, we can’t do it now,” Ray protests. “My mom’s down the hall. She’ll hear us.” Pete opens his mouth, but Ray shakes his head. “Don’t say we can be q-q-q-quiet. You know I can’t.”
Finding out he’s noisy in bed was kind of mortifying, honestly. It just doubled the embarrassment he felt about being naked and hard and wanting with another person there. Like it made it so obvious how green he was, how untouched, how happy to be touched at all. Except Pete liked it so much — and told him so, in an awful lot of words — and that only made him louder.
“And anyway,” he continues, “it w-w-wouldn’t be right, now. It was sup-posed to be special.”
“Baby,” Pete says, like he knows it melts Ray’s spine every time he hears it. “You wanna wine and dine and woo me first, that’s fine. But that’s not what’s gonna make it special.” He presses a kiss over Ray’s heart. “Whenever and however we do it, it’s gonna be special. ‘Cause it’s you and me.” Another kiss. “You know, Ray, I ain’t ever made love before.”
Ray shoves at his shoulders. It just takes them both down to the mattress, sinking into the sheets, all his weight on top of Pete. “Shuh-shuh-shut up. Yes, you have.”
Pete shakes his head, hands skimming up Ray’s thighs, over his ass, under his shirt. He likes to have his hands on Ray’s skin, he’s noticed. “Nuh-uh. I’ve fucked, Ray, and I been fucked. But makin’ love? Well, baby, I never made love to anyone.” He smiles. “You’ll be my first.”
Leaning down on his elbows, he puts his nose to Pete’s. Their smiles almost meet. “Really?”
“Really. You can teach me how.” Pete shakes his head, rubs their noses together. “I never loved anyone the way I love you. You mighta been in love before, with Jan and all—“
Maybe, once upon a time, he thought it might be possible. Maybe, when it seemed like the only way forward for him, after everything with his dad. But now? Now he knows better. “Pete, I’m queer.”
“There are queers who like women.”
“Yeah, I think they’re c-called lesbians.”
Pete laughs. It’s hot and slightly sour with pasta sauce across Ray’s mouth. He doesn’t mind. “Men who like men and women.”
“I don’t think I’m one of those, Pete.”
A blink. Another. “No?”
“No.” Ray sinks down at the knees, pushing himself into Pete’s warm, waiting chest. “But even if I was, it w-wouldn’t matter. All that matters now is you.”
“Aw, baby,” Pete’s hands slip under the waistband of his flannel pants, of his cotton boxers. His wide, flat palms fit to the curve of his ass. It’s a good thing Pete’s got such big hands. “All my time walkin’ and wanderin’, I think I was lookin’ for you.”
“You found me,” Ray whispers.
Pete hums, his lips brushing up against Ray’s. “Sure did.”
Their tongues touch, glance off each other, toothpaste and pasta sauce. He should really get up and let Pete finish getting ready for bed. “W-whuh-what are you gonna do with me? Now that you f-found me?”
His hands squeeze. Ray does his best not to moan. Even if he did, it wouldn’t matter, because Pete kisses him quiet. And it feels, again, like Ray’s never been kissed before. Every moment with Pete always feels so fresh, so new. Maybe it feels the same way for him, too. “I think I’ll keep you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. What do you say?”
Ray grins against Pete’s mouth. He feels solid, for once, and alive, so fucking alive. His heart skips a beat in his chest. This must be what it’s like to be a real boy. “Sounds like a plan.”