Between the Shadow and the Soul - 28. The Intervention and the Key

January 20, 2017

Uncle Farid had prepared us, at least insofar as we could be prepared, by telling us to act normal, don't circle like sharks, try to direct the discussion toward Nate's feelings about Greg, be observant, be conversational rather than confrontational, don't pounce but don't be afraid of tough love, see what happens.

For me, however, he had different instructions: be a catalyst and a comfort, but otherwise don't participate since we'd already seen how Nate reacted when I pushed him. With such a simple role, why did I feel so nervous?

* * * * *

After dinner we settled in Mom's living room, Nate by my side on the love seat just like old times, shoulder touching shoulder and thigh touching thigh; Mom, Dad and Aunt Jan on the sofa; and Uncle Farid in the wingback chair near Aunt Jan. A warm blaze in the fireplace provided warmth and light as everyone sipped their adult beverage of choice.

"Fuck, dude, I've missed your cooking!" Nate enthused, throwing an appreciative grin in my direction as he rubbed his washboard abs like a bloated belly, looking rather sated in the process.

"I've missed cooking," I admitted, then dropped my head and mumbled, "especially for you."

Without thought, like we'd slipped back into the comfortable embrace of our relationship, he reached over and grabbed my hand, squeezing it. And not letting go. Unconsciously I flipped mine over and intertwined our fingers, letting the combined weight rest on my thigh.

Leaning toward me he quietly said, "Come home, G-Man."

Heat steadily spread from the contact, starting in my hand and traveling up my arm and filling my body. While we'd always been affectionate, touching and kissing and cuddling, I had to admit it wasn't innocent anymore, at least not to me, not since I'd dismantled my blind spot and rediscovered the greatest love of my life.

"I'm thinking about it," I responded quietly.

What? Since when?

Since now.

His smell was overpowering, that heady mix of musk and light sweat and pheromones and a hint of soap and man and him. Throughout dinner I'd repeatedly caught myself leaning or turning toward him and inhaling deeply, slowly, not obviously but still intentionally.

Fuck, Greg! This is precisely why you moved away from him. You can't think when you're around him. Like Uncle Farid said, your emotions overwhelm your intellect.

I really didn't care. Since the debacle that was my grand escape from Nate's orbit, I'd realized some important things. Like I couldn't live without him in my life. Like I was always desperate to hear his voice, to see him, to feel him. Like I needed Nate like I needed air. Like I was willing to make some sacrifices. Like I'd rather die an old bachelor than look for happiness without Nate.

"Have you lost weight?"

He glanced at Yvonne and shrugged through an abashed grin. "A little."

Well, doesn't that make me feel wonderful. Not!

"I think Greg has, too," Aunt Jan remarked.

Crap on a cracker, people!

Giving me a once-over, as though someone seated can be accurately surveyed, concern invaded his features when he asked, "Have you?"

It was my turn to shrug. "A little. Just stress. You know, work, the new business ..." Despite my mouth working for a second or two, my words faded, the real reason left unsaid.

Even as he blushed, the look he gave me was so full of understanding and compassion that I knew what he intended to say before he leaned over and whispered, "Five by five, G-Man." Then he squeezed my hand.

Yeah, he knows.

"You look tired," he mumbled, worried.

My whole body shivered when his thumb began tracing lazy patterns on the side of my hand. The hand he was holding. Holding tightly.

Lost in his unyielding gaze, those intense dark brown eyes so full of emotion and depth, again my mouth worked a few times before I shrugged, forcing myself to look away, mumbling, "Just stress."

He squeezed my hand again. A jolt of electricity bolted from the contact and raced through me.

"Are you seeing anyone, Nate?" Gavin asked.

It was one of those moments when time slows, a second that stretches into an eternity. The question hung in the air where Dad had tossed it. Nate glanced at me before looking down at our hands, still intertwined, still resting on my thigh. He glanced at me again, something akin to fear in his features. Then his fingers stretched open and he pulled his hand from mine.

With an awkward clearing of his throat, he used the same hand I'd been holding to reach across himself and fetch his beer, causing him to lean slightly away from me, adding a smidgen of distance between us that suddenly felt as vast as the Grand Canyon. With ale in hand, he settled it atop his thigh, essentially an obstacle meant to hinder any other such hand holding.

"No," he muttered, a twitching shrug playing along his shoulders. Louder he repeated, "No, I'm not seeing anyone right now. I haven't met anyone who interests me. Besides, I'm too busy getting the second gym ready to open." A surreptitious glance at me, peripherally yet obvious, then: "Maybe when things calm down a bit."

I couldn't hide the hurt I felt, though I turned away from him in an attempt to shield him from it, reaching for my own beer and taking a sip.

Before my fifteenth birthday, he and I had been as tactile and affectionate as early teen boys could be, albeit with more enthusiasm and fewer limits than most. But after the catastrophe of that assault, I'd woken in the hospital with Nate by my side, holding my hand in both of his, tears streaking his cheeks as he watched me. From that point forward, we became unflinchingly tactile and unapologetically affectionate. Hugs, kisses, touches, embraces, holding hands, holding each other in slumber ... None of it was verboten, none of it avoided. And we didn't care who saw or what they thought. Such intimacy simply threaded its way into our relationship, forever altering the substance of our souls.

It was like the threat of losing me broke something loose inside both of us, more so in him than me since I was already so smitten that any contact with him was welcome. But that bloody encounter definitely changed things between us, giving us a newfound freedom to show love and closeness in ways most male friends would never consider.

Which makes one wonder, does it not?

It was a new depth of bonding created by shared trauma. That's all.

That's what you said when the blind spot was in full force. What do you say now?

Under different circumstances I'd have an answer, but at that moment I had none, at least none that accurately fit the evidence.

Unless you account for Richard and his tinkering.

Yeah, unless I accounted for that.

Pinning Nate to the spot with a direct glare that wasn't so much unkind as unflinching, Mom asked, "I'm sorry. I think I just realized what was said. Did you ask Greg to move back home?"

He glanced at me quickly before meeting her gaze. His cheeks darkened beneath a blush. "Yeah." Waving his hand in my general direction he added, "I know. He said we can't be friends anymore. But I think—" Another glance at me, this one hopeful. "—I hope maybe that's changed."

"He told you how he felt, didn't he?" Aunt Jan inquired.

Nate dropped his head. "Yeah," he mumbled.

"If you were in his shoes, what would you do?"

He looked at Yvonne, head tilted, considering. "I understand why he did it. I don't agree with it." Another hopeful glance at me, then: "I believe with all my heart that we can find happiness without sacrificing each other in the process."

"If you were madly in love with somebody who wasn't in love with you, if you'd spent more than half your life with unrequited love, wouldn't you consider getting away from that person so you could hopefully find someone who could love you back?"

Defiance flared in his eyes when he looked at Uncle Farid. "I do lo—" Nate began in a near shout before his mouth slammed shut, his face dropping so he could stare at the beer in his hand. Quietly he muttered, "It's just ... You know ..." Then he shrugged.

The knowing look that passed around the room held weight.

"Do you think Greg deserves to be happy, Nate?" Dad asked gently, probing.

"We are happy!" Dark eyes glistening but cheeks still dry, Nate guzzled the rest of his beer. It's doubtful anyone else heard the sigh that followed.

Slowly, as though sneaking up on a rabid skunk, I slid my hand over, pushed the beer bottle into his other hand, then intertwined our fingers again, squeezing. He looked down, looked at my face, looked down again, then squeezed my hand in return.

Again a knowing look made a quick circuit around the room.

In a voice so full of love it could sooth the crankiest of babies and so full of maternal instinct it could reap the truth from a field of adolescent lies, her eyes misted with adoration and upset, Mom asked in a tone barely above a whisper, "How do you feel about Greg?"

"I—"

"Right now, Nate, without thinking about the answer, tell me how you feel about him. No, don't think, don't consider, just say it." Her expression softened such that it brought tears to my eyes. "Tell me, Nate. Just tell me, baby boy."

She hasn't called him that since we were kids. He's only a month younger than me, but she always called him her baby boy.

The impact on Nate was immediate and potent. His voice cracked, tears welled, lips trembled. Interspersed with glances at me, each longer than the last, he answered, "I miss him. It's a constant pain because I miss him so much. It's like I can't breathe sometimes because the pain in my chest is too much. There's this massive hole in my life that only he can fill. Every moment of every day I want to see him, I want to hear his voice, hear his laughter."

Staring into my eyes he continued, "I want to feel his arms around me, his hand in mine." He punctuated that by squeezing my hand. "He says he doesn't want me around because he loves me too much, but I can't stand it, Mom! I can't stand it at all. I miss him so much. It's hard to sleep, it's hard to eat, it's hard to focus."

His gaze filled with a sorrow too meaningful to do anything other than punch me in the gut. He said, "I want him to be happy so I should stay away like he asked. But I need him, Mom, I need him. I feel so empty ... I feel so bad ... all the time so bad ... But I want him to be happy ..."

"Do you think you could make Greg happy?" My mother's voice was soft, gentle.

"Of course I—" His teeth clacked with the force he used to cut off his own words. Eyes squinted with frustration and nostrils flaring, Nate let his gaze wander about the room, face to face. Quietly he said, "Not the way he needs. I need to find a woman I can build a family with, have a home with, a woman who I can love and who will love me. At best he'll always be just a friend. Because he's too good for me and I can't be what he needs."

You could've heard a pin drop on the plush carpet. Not even a single breath sounded in the room.

Holy fucking shit, he's essentially quoting Richard.

Sounds familiar. You've been known to do that when screwing up your life and the lives of those around you.

I could only stare as tears tracked down Nate's cheeks. His breathing was ragged, brutal and desperate and so full of need.

"Hey ..." I mumbled, using my thumb to caress his hand.

When he looked at me, tears stained both cheeks. His inflamed eyes had glazed over, so lost, so lonely, so full of pain and fear. My heart broke as his mouth opened, closed, opened, then an agonized groan escaped his lips as his expression crashed into utter torment.

Yanking my hand from his, I wrapped my arm around him and pulled him to me and nestled his head against my neck, then felt utter despair when he began to cry. Body shaken by sobs and breathing stuttered with weeping, he slowly let his arms encircle my frame as he shuddered and sniffled.

"I got you," I whispered in his ear. "I got you, Nate. I'm right here, dude. I'll take care of you." We both shook with the force of his broken inhale.

With his face against my neck, he sniffed once, twice, three times—

"I love you, Nate," I whispered in his ear, causing him to shiver.

—then he inhaled deeply, a slow draw of air through his nose accompanied by the press of his face further against me, against my bare skin. His hands gripped my sweatshirt in fistfuls, he pulled me tighter against him, and he inhaled again, slow and ... sensual. Sending a chill up and down my spine, his lips pressed against my throat, quivering, needy, wanting.

"Greg ... I ... I ..." he moaned against my neck, the vibration causing my eyes to close and my breathing to momentarily stop.

I held him tighter, having no clue what the fuck was happening. After that migraine-inducing diatribe about finding a woman, then this ... this unmistakably erotic embrace with his lips lightly working my skin and his breathing intent on taking in my scent and his arms struggling to keep me against him and—

As if lightning struck, Nate released me. More like pushed me away, his eyes wide and his skin flushed. Jumping to his feet, all he said on his way to the door was "I have to go."

Standing, intending to follow him out, at least walk him to his car, hopefully delve deeper into what just happened, I offered, "I'll go with you."

"No!" he snapped, swinging around as he pulled his coat from the closet by the front door. Tears streaming down his cheeks, confusion running rampant throughout his features, frustration and anger and ... something like desire fighting to be known. Then unadulterated fear surfaced, washing away anything else he felt, roiling like pure terror in his eyes. "No," he repeated through gritted teeth.

As I took a step both Uncle Farid and Dad stood, holding their hands out to stop me, to restrain me if necessary, though both together couldn't accomplish that task if I pushed. Aunt Jan and Mom simply stared, dumbfounded and wounded and hurting on Nate's behalf. And mine.

"Nate," Uncle Farid began, turning toward the door, "if you walk away now, like this, imagine how you'll feel in a week. In six weeks. In six months. Is that really where you want to go? Is that really where you'll find happiness?"

For an unimaginably short yet interminably long time, Nate stared, first at the others, then at me. He looked so wounded, so unbelievably sad, so desperate to connect to something he couldn't quite reach. My heart broke for him.

Without another word he left.

I fell back to the love seat and let my tears flow, stunned, a blinding pain in my chest and a vast emptiness in my soul.

* * * * *

"He's repeating nearly verbatim the same response he's given each time—"

"He's quoting Richard!" I interrupted Uncle Farid's words.

Why is my voice raised? I'm almost shouting. Fuck, Greg, they heard it as well as you did.

I ran a hand down my face, my palm coming away moist with a stray tear or two. All I could do was shake my head.

"Rote memorization."

"I beg your pardon?" Dad appeared unsure of Uncle Farid's meaning aside from the definition of the words involved.

With a sad frown my father's brother-in-law expounded, "If Richard repeatedly evoked emotional turmoil in Nate followed by the mantra with which he wanted to seed his son's thoughts, intellectual filters would fail to intercept it, even if Nate knew the information to be invalid. Assuming Nate's account of the time involved is accurate, over the course of a few years Richard was able to ingrain in his son the precise response he wanted him to think and feel."

"Just like me ..." I groaned, horrified at the seemingly unending impact Richard continued to have in our lives.

The Fiend definitely earned his name.

Aunt Jan sunk into the sofa with a defeated expression and a sad little sigh. "He looked panic-stricken even as he said it."

"Oh heaven help me ..." Uncle Farid muttered with a shake of his head.

"What?" Mom snapped.

"It was fear."

"Of what?" I asked.

"Of losing you."

"Oh fuck ..."

"Right. Oh fuck indeed. Richard used fear with Nate, the same as he did with you, except he used a mirror image of the approach."

"What does that mean?" Gavin asked worriedly.

Uncle Farid glanced at dad and explained, "In Greg's case, Richard used his love of Nate as a weapon, convincing Greg that Nate could never feel the same and that, if he discovered Greg's feelings, it would rip them away from each other. Knowing he couldn't convince Greg that his feelings were wrong, he instead convinced him to hide those feelings lest they engender ruin.

"In Nate's case, however, likely because Nate himself was unsure of his feelings and Richard cared little to determine the truth, he convinced Nate through fear that, were he to develop feelings for Greg, it would devastate their relationship. Utilizing fear, he planted the seed and nurtured the idea in his son that feelings for Greg could never happen without destroying what they had.

"Clearly it was the best weapon to use against both boys, the threat of losing each other. And in Nate's case, losing Greg reinforced it, made it stronger, validated its existence. That's why it's so powerful. He almost lost Greg once before due to Richard's assault. He almost lost him again when Greg decided to walk away from their relationship. Both served to cement this paranoid psychosis in place."

"So any hint of how he feels about Greg makes it rear its ugly head because he fears it means losing him."

Nodding to his brother-in-law, the psychiatrist answered, "Irrespective of what he feels, that is the unfortunate truth."

"We're still missing something, aren't we?" Aunt Jan asked.

"Isn't there supposed to be some kind of key to help unlock his feelings so he can move on with the truth rather than sheltering beneath Richard's lies?" I sounded frustrated, flustered. Maybe a little pissed. Mostly depressed.

"Indeed," my uncle agreed sadly, "we still seem to be missing something important."

"You said it was related to Greg. Could it be how he reacts to him?"

I answered my mother's question: "No. If it was just me, I'd've already pushed him through to the other side. But no matter how hard I try, we always hit the wall and screech to a halt."

But that moment ... that moment while his head was tucked into my neck, shielded from their view. There was something in that moment, something important. It was ... intimate, longing.

He was crying. That's all.

No. I don't think so. I just don't know what it means.

* * * * *

February 1, 2017

Keigan sipped his coffee and continued staring at me.

"Kyle's flying in Friday afternoon. I'll pick him up at the airport and take him straight to the Omni." Though sounding tired, I accomplished my goal of using a voice that didn't waver, didn't hitch. It had actually sounded almost ... normal.

"Is he staying there all weekend?"

"What?" I glanced at him. "No, not at the Omni."

"Then shouldn't you take his bags to the hotel where you're staying so they're not sitting around all evening?"

"Huh? Oh, no. It's possible—probable even—that we'll stay at the Omni after the party. No sense in cutting short the fun so I can be a designated driver. I figure we'll spend the night there and migrate to the other hotel on Saturday."

Nodding, he agreed, "Okay. That makes sense."

"I do occasionally make sense, K." I rolled my eyes for effect, though both it and my words lacked energy, not to mention interest.

He smiled, his dimples on full display. "Yannis and I are looking forward to your big bash."

"Good," I muttered.

"Yeah, we're thinking about showing up nude to see what kind of reaction we get."

"Sounds good."

"It'll be fun to dance with it all hanging out, don't you think?"

I shrugged. "Maybe. Yeah, I suppose so."

"Sex right there with all your guests watching will be absolutely thrilling."

"Huh?"

"You're not listening, Greg."

"Sure I am."

"Trust me when I say you're not."

Finally lifting my gaze from the latte I kept spinning in a circle, I met his worried gaze. "You said, and I quote, 'we're thinking about showing up nude to see what kind of reaction we get.'"

"Huh ... And what else?"

"'It'll be fun to dance with it all hanging out.'"

"And then?"

"'Sex right there with all your guests watching will be absolutely thrilling.'"

"Jesus, Greg, do you remember everything you hear?"

I tapped the side of my head with my index finger. "My own mental tape recorder, as ..." I inhaled sharply. "... as Nate always said."

"Everything?" Keigan's eyes were wide with interest, his face overflowing with curiosity.

"Only words and numbers, K. Everything I read, see and hear, but only words and numbers. Everything else ... not so much."

"That's impressive."

I gave a dismissive shrug. "It is what it is." After taking a sip from my latte, my attention returned to spinning the cup on the tabletop and watching the invisible patterns it traced there.

He sighed. "You're pretty shook up still."

"Pardon?"

"For the last week and a half you've been in a funk, a pretty serious one."

"Yeah, I know."

"No progress yet?"

"Nope. He acts as normal as he can, but it's there, lurking in the background, this shadowy specter that we can't deal with and he can't see beyond."

"You said he was pretty upset after the ambush."

"It wasn't an ambush," I groaned, sounding petulant.

"What would you call it?"

"It was a ... Well obviously ... I mean seriously, K, anyone could see ... Ah fuck it. Isn't an intervention an ambush by definition? Yeah, I thought so. Thus, as you so wisely pointed out, it was an ambush." Dropping my head in my hands, I moaned, "Fucking hell ..."

"You caught him by surprise. Honestly, from what you've told me, it sounded like a good plan."

"Since nothing else had worked. And now our brilliant approach, after failing miserably, accomplished what therapy and asking couldn't do."

"Send him running?"

"Hurt him, K. I think we hurt him."

"Do you think that's what it is? Or was he forced to think about things, maybe moping around now with the knowledge that things upstairs are a bit of a mess?"

I huffed, exaggerated yet necessary, a sound filled with incomprehension and worry and a low, thrumming, abyssal ache. "Until we can get him to face this thing, I guess we'll never know."

Never know? Who are you trying to kid here? There was that moment. Don't you think that might have forced him to deal with the wall in a direct manner? He wasn't exactly stuttering and muttering when he was sniffing your neck and working his lips against your skin.

He was crying! Fuck, how hard is that to understand?

Quietly bouncing the empty paper cup on the table, I shook my head, trying to understand why that encounter in the parking garage felt relevant, just as relevant as the kiss on the bed and the moment at Mom's during the disastrous intervention. For some reason I couldn't fathom, my mind kept circling those events like they should mean something.

Feeling baffled and tormented and feckless, if not a bit impotent, a noise of disgust erupted from my mouth before I mumbled, "Between the shadow and the soul my ass ..."

"What did you say?" Keigan stared at me with keen interest.

"Just nonsense."

"What did you say?"

"It's gibberish, garbled communications if you will."

"Greg, repeat what you said." He looked rather occupied with my senseless rambling.

"I misunderstood something Nate said once. I kept thinking it was important, but it's meaningless because I didn't hear him correctly."

When his hand grabbed mine and stilled its nervous bouncing, I jerked my head up and met a steady, serious, inquisitive gaze.

"Tell me what you said," he instructed, enunciating each word clearly.

Pulling my hand from his and waving it in the air with surrender, I said, "I asked him about his feelings. I got the usual. I pushed in close, almost kissed him, asked him one more time about his feelings. Everything about him indicated he wanted me to kiss him, the tremble, the fluttering eyes that closed, the parted lips, the expectant breathing, all of it. Instead of aborted sentences amounting to nothing, though, he said something, more like breathed the words out because he didn't actually say it. I don't think I heard him correctly. But fine, you want to know, so I could've sworn he said 'between the shadow and the soul.' How's that for hokum?"

Keigan's expression slowly shifted from curiosity to consideration. He settled back in his chair as he asked, "Do you read poetry, Greg?"

"Sometimes."

"Do you speak Spanish?"

"Uh ... No."

"Does Nate?"

Growing disinterested in the random nature of his questions, I inquired, "What does that matter? What does any of this matter?"

Leaning forward again and grabbing both my hands, holding them gently yet firmly, he met my gaze with a comforting look as he responded, "Just trust me on this, Greg. Please."

After a deep breath I acquiesced. "Fine," I moaned, again sounding petulant.

"Good. Does he speak Spanish?"

"Yeah. Or he did. He took four years of it in school. I'm not sure how much he's used it since then."

"Does he read poetry?"

"Yes, no question there. Nate loves poetry."

Releasing his grip on my hands and settling back, Keigan had the look of a man pleased with a recent discovery. He closed his eyes and sighed contentedly. Then he chuckled, briefly shaking his head.

"What, K? What's with the twenty questions?"

"Greg," he began, meeting my gaze, "have you ever heard of Pablo Neruda?" He began typing madly on his cell phone.

"Uh ... I don't believe so. Is he someone I should know?"

Smiling, his dimples looking cute and obvious, he explained, "Pablo Neruda was a Chilean poet. I believe he died back in the seventies." He waved away his own sidebar with hurried intent. "One of his works is Cien sonetos de amor. We studied it at UCLA for advanced Spanish."

"Wait. You speak Spanish?"

"Yes, if you must know."

"Why didn't I know that?"

"It never came up before."

"Huh ..." I stared at him for a few seconds. Then: "Huh! Well, that's awfully damn cool."

"Greg, listen to me." His voice had taken on a note of urgency, as if sharing the winning lottery numbers, his eyes filled with thrill as he read his phone. "Cien sonetos de amor translates to 100 Love Sonnets. It was a book Neruda wrote."

"Full of love sonnets ..." I mumbled, suddenly feeling Keigan had important information to share.

"Right. It happens to be a favorite of mine. I've read it repeatedly, at least once a year for several years." Again waving away his unnecessary prattling, he explained, "One of the sonnets in the book, the seventeenth sonnet—well, technically Sonnet Seventeen—goes like this:" Looking down at his phone, he read, his Spanish accent perfect, "'No te amo como si fueras rosa de sal, topacio / o flecha de claveles que propagan el fuego / te amo como se aman ciertas cosas oscuras / secretamente, entre la sombra y el alma.'"

My eyes had glazed over. "Okay, sure, that's nice. Now that useless information will forever be stuck in my head simply because you said it. But since I don't speak Spanish, do you mind giving me the English version?"

His smile beamed and his eyes sparkled. "In English, Mr. Beaumont, the first stanza of Sonnet Seventeen goes something like this:" Again he looked at his phone. I suspected he was translating on the fly. "'I don't love you as if you were a rose of salt / topaz or arrow of carnations that propagate fire / I love you as one loves certain dark things / secretly, between the shadow and the soul.'"

Keigan's phone hit the table as he grabbed my trembling hands. "The sonnet gets even better, Greg, especially if Nate said that to make a point."

I could only stare, mouth agape, eyes wide, body shivering.

"Greg ..." he said softly as he moved around the table to sit next to me, still holding my shaking hands. "Greg, look at me."

My eyes snapped to his, having focused on nothing in the middle of nowhere, or at least the empty space he'd just vacated.

He leaned closer, his voice hushed. "Greg, you told me he locks up when you ask about his feelings. You told me no matter who pushes or how they ask, he locks up, can't talk, speaks garbled sentence fragments. You told me you were losing hope because you didn't know what's hiding behind his inability to talk about it."

"Yeah ..." It came out on a breath, like a word-flavored sigh.

"Greg, what did you do to make him mumble this to you?"

"I ... I was going to kiss him. I couldn't help myself. I was going to kiss him, but I stopped at the last second, my lips against his, and I asked about his feelings, breathing into his mouth, the movement of my lips brushing against his. I was going to kiss him ..."

Then I yanked my hands from his and covered my mouth with them. The pieces were falling into place.

The kiss on the bed left him breathless, senseless. It took more than a few seconds for him to recover.

The moment at Mom's house. I held him close, hugged him to me, tucked his face into my neck, told him I loved him. The next thing I knew he was responding, but not like a man weeping but instead like a man with hunger who just found the meal he wanted.

The meeting in the parking garage when I almost kissed him, and in response his eyes fluttered closed, he tilted his head just so, his lips parted with anticipation. He shivered bodily when my lips touched his.

The time in his bedroom when I was helping him get dressed for a date with Rita and I got sidetracked and intoxicated by his smell, leaning into him and nuzzling his neck as I inhaled deeply and repeatedly, lost in the essence of him. He blushed, caressed my skin with intimate movements of his fingers, stumbled through admitting it was flattering and hot the way I responded to him.

"Oh fuck ..."

"What, Greg? What is it?" Keigan looked positively buoyant and giddy, a kid in a candy store. He was practically bouncing in his seat.

"It's me ..."

"What's you?"

"The key."

"What key? Wait, you mean—"

"The key to unlock Nate's cell, the cell Richard built in his head to trap him with his own feelings."

Looking confused, he sat back, scowled, scrunched his eyebrows together, crinkled his forehead. "But you've tried. Right?"

"Yeah ..." I was breathless, dazed, thrilled. And wary. I didn't want to jump to conclusions, but the evidence sure seemed to support my hypothesis. "Yeah, I've tried before. I've tried asking. But I don't think it's the asking that helps."

Grabbing his hands and holding them tightly I explained, "Words can only convey so much. I think eliciting a heightened emotional state overrides the mess Richard made in his intellect, which is what he targeted. I think the key is making Nate feel what I feel, showing him I love him, not telling him. I think the key isn't about me, it is me, especially when I let him feel what I feel not by saying but by doing."

Smacking myself in the forehead, I shook my head despite the huge smile on my face. "It's my love for Nate, my desire to be with him ... I think that's what helps him. That's why he crumbled momentarily in the parking garage, why he's always been responsive to my kisses and touches. Even if Nate couldn't say what he felt, he showed it the moment I was intimate with him. He's shown it every single time. I just didn't realize what I was seeing."

I grabbed Keigan's face and pulled him to me, planting a big sloppy kiss on his lips before resting my forehead against his. "Thank you," I whispered. "Thank you so much, Keigan. Thank you."

"You introduced me to Yannis, which is really going well by the way, so let's call it even," he joked.

I kissed him again. "Awesome. Still ... Thank you!"

If I'm wrong, nothing changes and hope moves closer to death. But if I'm right ...

* * * * *

February 3, 2017

I made my way around the maze that is DFW International Airport as I hunted for a place to park so I could get into the terminal before Kyle meandered out of the secure area and, finding me absent, decided I'd abandoned him.

Once parked, I paused momentarily, considering my options, then I grabbed my phone and dialed. It rang only once before I heard his voice.

"G-Man?"

"Yeah, Nate, it's me. I've been worried about you."

He sighed. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It's all good, Little Big Man. All I care about is that you're okay."

"But I—"

"Nate?"

"Yeah?"

"Just promise me you'll be at the Omni tonight."

"Are you sure you want me there? I mean, after—"

"Nate?"

"Yeah?"

"There's no one I want to see more than you. Please promise me you'll be there."

I could hear the grin in his voice as he said in a lighter, happier tone, "I'll be there, G-Man."

My steps bounced and my smile never faltered as I entered the airport. A profound sense of hope permeated my soul.