Page 17 of A Christmas Harbor

So Paul was between books, floundering for direction. Would that frame of mind make him latch onto someone who seemed steady? When he found his way again, next week or next month, would David seem like an atypical intermission?

He was getting way ahead of himself. They hadn’t even kissed yet, much less spent the night together. Paul might not even want to stay until morning.

As they approached the Annapolis Yacht Club beside the bridge, Paul said, “Seeing that Alex Haley memorial got me thinking about, you know, America.”

“Specifically?”

“Um…honestly, I don’t remember every station my mind stopped at between there and here, but eventually I wondered what it was like for you to serve under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. So I guess I was thinking about equality. Or something like that.” He sidestepped a large puddle. “If you’re able to talk about it.”

Okay. He could handle this. Probably. “Honestly, the Don’t Ask part was a relief at first. The policy was enacted when I was in high school. I’d heard horror stories about the military investigating people they suspected weren’t straight. No way was I signing up for that life, even though I’d always wanted to join the Navy. So when I heard they were going to stopasking, I decided to pursue my dream.”

“Good for you.”

“It was good at the beginning,” David said. “I was just thankful to be there. I couldn’t be my 100% real self, but at the time, I didn’t even know who that was.”

“Did you date women?”

“Not for real. I had a couple of close female friends, Shannon and Marisa, who knew I was gay. They saved my ass so many times, going with me to high-school dances so my parents wouldn’t figure me out. When I left for the Academy, they gave me pictures of themselves looking cute and affectionate—blowing a kiss at the camera or doing that pouty thing over the shoulder.”

David demonstrated the pouty thing, then immediately felt stupid, even though it made Paul smile.

“Did it work?”

“For a long time. But by my late twenties, most of my peers were getting married and starting families, and there I was with nothing but photos of fake girlfriends.” A gust of wind came up, and he curled his arms around his own waist. “One of our core values is honor, and part of that is honesty. But the Navy made me lie every day to keep my job.” That sounded so disloyal. But it wasn’t even the worst truth. “And the punchline? The military started discharging gays and lesbians faster than ever, because it was nowofficiallyagainst regs instead of just an unspoken policy. Those years were really…stressful.”

Stressful. Had a word ever fallen shorter of the mark?

“God, I’m so sorry.” In the corner of David’s eye, Paul started to reach out, then dropped his hand, which made the wind feel even colder. “What about after they ended Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell? Were you like, ‘Yay, I’ll haveallthe boyfriends!’?”

“I thought I would. But there was the not-so-minor matter of me being incommunicado during seventy-day patrols. At best we could send and receive short emails through VLF signals every few weeks. But no phone, no texts. I never found anyone willing to put up with that.”

“But now you’re ashore for good. So what’s stopping you?”

David’s steps slowed, and not just because they were beginning the ascent on the drawbridge. It was the weight of memory, of that last two-year shore duty, when he’d finally had the time and freedom to build a life with someone. After that period, after four promising but ultimately disastrous relationships, he’d had no one to blame but himself. “I’m what’s stopping me.”

“How?”

He turned to Paul. “I suck at togethering.”

Paul shook his head. “As a writer, I must officially protest the verbing oftogether.”

“You just turnedverbinto a verb. You literally verbedverb.”

Paul held up a finger, then dropped it. “Fair point. I’ll allowtogethering.” He looked down at his shifting feet. “You know, I’m not one of those folks who go up to military people and say, ‘Thank you for your service,’ but…”

With the slowness of stone against stone, David reached out. Paul took his hand gently, wrapping his gloved fingers around David’s bare ones. With a raindrop perched on one eyelash, his gaze met David’s.

A horn blast crushed the night air.

Paul jerked at the noise, dropping David’s hand. “What the fuck was that?”

The sound of terrible timing.

“Drawbridge raising.” David pulled his watch from his pocket. “Can’t believe someone’s sailing through at midnight on Christmas Eve.”

“How long will it take for it to pass?”

“Only five or ten minutes.” Still, that was five or ten minutes they weren’t warm and dry—and on their way to naked oblivion?—in his home.

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