Page 24 of Spread Your Wings
“He’s the reason I have a spare ticket to the concert,” Sammy said. “If you’d like to join me.”
Mustafa’s fake smile melted into a real one. The hard lines between his eyebrows and the corners of his mouth softened. Helooked even more devastatingly handsome. “I would love to join you. Did you know George Michael will be there? And Guns ‘n Roses? Extreme?”
Sammy laughed. He’d given Mustafa the rundown of the celebrity song list at the bar last Tuesday night. “Sounds like a fun time.”
“As long as I’m not imposing,” Mustafa said. “I can pay for my ticket.”
“Not at all. Like I said, I have an extra one.” Sammy stuffed his hands in his jacket pockets. “If you don’t have anywhere to be, you could stay with me in London.”
Mustafa nodded. “I’d like that.”
Something in Sammy’s chest loosened, like a breath he didn’t know he was holding, or a wish he didn’t know needed fulfilled. Mustafa would stay with him in London and join him at the concert. Hopefully, Mustafa would stay in Atlanta, too, and they could see each other again.
Sammy found a bookstore and bought the latest Michael Crichton novel. Once they boarded the plane, Sammy didn’t want to read on the flight to London. He and Mustafa adjusted their seat-backs to the tune of, “You are now free to move around the cabin.” He leaned over and grabbed a notebook and pen from his backpack. “Do you mind if I ask you some questions about the war?”
“Isn’t it a little late for that?” Mustafa asked. “Now that I’m free?”
“What does that mean to you, freedom?”
“Free to survive without the daily threat of death for being who I am,” he said without hesitation.
“For being Muslim?”
“Muslim, gay, you name it.” Mustafa’s voice was so low, it was almost drowned out by the engine noise. “Neither are respected by the Serbs.”
“Are you out to your family?”
“Yes.”
“Tima said her family took it better?”
“They were always worried for me. I don’t want them to worry.”
“Do you want to be out in the States?”
Mustafa shrugged. “Are you?”
Sammy laughed. “I was at school. I am at work. I’m not out to my mom.”
“And the rest of your family?”
“My mom is my family,” Sammy said. “She’s the only one who matters, anyway. My grandparents abandoned her when she had me. They wanted her to have an abortion.”
“I thought you were Catholic.”
“Not all Catholics are pro-life, at least, not where their daughters are concerned.”
Mustafa nodded. “Do you practice your religion?”
“Who’s interviewing whom?” Sammy laughed. He wanted to share, something he’d never felt with any of his college boyfriends. “No,” he said. “I stopped going to church every Sunday when I went to college. The nearest church is a seven-minute walk from Yale, which seemed too far.”
Mustafa cocked his head. Sammy realized how poor the excuse was. They’d walked over a mile to the steakhouse in the snow.
“I haven’t been to confession in six years,” Sammy continued. “I still go to church when my mom asks. Christmas and Easter, that sort of thing.”
“Do you believe in Allah, in God?” Mustafa whispered, his lips only inches from Sammy’s ear.
Sammy nodded.
