Page 32 of Margins

“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.”

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