“I’d do it,” Seth said frankly. “I’d give up everything and serve my time if it meant we could be together—”

  Kelly shook his head. “It would just mean we could never be together,” he said. “Go. I’ll take her.”

  Seth gave a little whimper. “We just met,” he said wistfully, looking at her sleeping face. “Maybe we can meet again.”

  “Don’t give up on me—”

  “Never,” Seth said. “I’ll be here for you as long as you need to be here for them. I swear, Kelly. I’m not… not always here in the present—”

  “That’s not true, mijo. For me, you are always here.”

  Seth kissed his forehead and handed him the baby carrier. “You know where I’ll be.”

  Linda had broken away from the officials by then. “You’ll have to leave her here—”

  “He knows, Mom,” Kelly said patiently, and Seth took this moment to look her in the eye.

  “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Cruz. I’m so….” He couldn’t. “Very sorry,” he croaked, and then she hugged him, just for a second, and he’d never forget that, because her world was crumbling around her ears, the foundations of her heart ground to powder by the last twelve hours, and she still had a moment for him.

  “We’re grateful for your help,” she said softly. “But you’re right. You should go.”

  Seth nodded and turned to leave, pausing for one more look at the baby. “You have a good home,” he said. “It’s good that you’re keeping her. She needs you like I did.”

  And then he was gone.

  The buses weren’t running anymore. He had to call a car. The Lyft driver didn’t seem to expect a lot of chitchat, which was fine, because Seth’s throat was too swollen and his ears hurt too bad to even think of talking.

  WHEN HE got to the apartments, he went straight upstairs to knock softly. The picture of the Cruz family—taken right after baby Agnes was born—that sat on the far wall hit him like a slap in the face as his dad opened the door.

  Xavier Cruz had been a good man. The best. Fuck.

  “Kelly didn’t come with you?” his dad asked, his voice pitched low enough for Seth to figure out the girls were asleep already.

  Seth just shook his head. Later he would brief his father on the whole thing. On Matty’s monstrous decline, on the things he’d say if he saw Seth again, of how Seth couldn’t be seen with the Cruz children for their own good.

  Of how the future he’d envisioned, of him and Kelly being grown-ups together, having a life, being lovers—all of it—had suffered a terrible blow tonight, when it had been so very fragile in the first place.

  Later he’d tell his father these things.

  Later.

  At that moment, all he could do was look at his father mutely, inexpressibly glad that he was there.

  He fell into his father’s arms and cried.

  SETH DID a lot of work behind the scenes over the next few days. He took a car and went grocery shopping for the Cruzes while his father watched the girls. He helped keep their house clean and cooked, when only Kelly was home, exhausted and needing to spend time with his sisters in grief. He looked through closets and found funeral clothes for everybody—including Linda, whose outfit had needed dry-cleaning and mending, but she was too busy getting Matty enrolled in rehab to even mourn her own husband.

  Vacuuming the rug, dry-cleaning, casseroles—Seth made sure all of that was done.

  And then he disappeared down the stairs to his apartment when the whole family was there, or when the social worker visited.

  Fortunately he wasn’t able to make it downstairs when Isela’s father came to try to pray with the family and get them to admit that the children picked up drugs from Linda and Xavier.

  He was the one who held Kelly back as Kelly launched himself at Mr. Cortez’s throat, screaming about how his stupid church fucked up his brother and now it was like he was dead too.

  Mr. Cortez took off right quick after that, and Seth just stood there, his arms wrapped around Kelly’s shoulders, until the fight went out of him and he sagged against Seth helplessly.

  Linda looked at him then, as though seeing Seth and her son for the first time.

  “Seth?”

  “Mrs. Cruz?”

  “You’ve been wonderful. Could you take my son the hell out of here for an hour or two? The funeral is tomorrow and… and you’ve done so much. God. Go downstairs. Practice. You must be itching for it. Play us something beautiful, okay? Javi—he used to wait by the heater to see when your music would seep out. Just… both of you, go pretend to be boys for a little while. It will make me happy.”

  It was such a kind thing to say.

  He’d never tell her, or Kelly, but one of the hardest things he ever had to do with his music was play something beautiful that didn’t sound like mourning.

  He found Irish sea shanties. Sometimes they were remarkably complex, and playful, and dancing, like waves. And sometimes they were plaintive laments. The arrangement he had veered from one to another, just like his own emotions, and he found he could share that from his heart.

  It was all he could do.

  He played each one fast, then slow, adagio, adante, forte, pianissimo, playing with interpretation, with mood. Kelly sat on the couch, his arms wrapped around his knees, eyes feasting thirstily on Seth’s face.

  Drinking him in like he was preparing for a drought.

  Seth finally put the violin down, arms aching a little from the weight, and realized that Kelly had moved next to him, sitting on the back of the couch. His face was tight and wet, like he’d gone swimming and not wiped it off.

  “Where’s your dad, mijo?” Kelly asked into the heavy quiet.

  “Work. He’ll be home at—”

  “Seven thirty.” Kelly’s mouth twisted. “We have two hours. Set your alarm, Seth.”

  Seth did, his skin prickling with knowledge of what this meant.

  “Now come.”

  Kelly grabbed his hand and led him to the bedroom, where they both stripped down awkwardly. The memory of where they’d been two years ago versus where they were now made their fingers stiff, and the action of being alone, naked, with each other, a painful rediscovery.

  “Your chest grew,” Kelly said softly, coming to put his hands on Seth’s shoulders.

  “I had to work out,” Seth admitted. “So I could hold the violin longer.” He grimaced. “And because my arms were developing differently, and it was weird.”

  Kelly laughed, and some of the newness faded.

  Seth traced fingertips along Kelly’s jaw. “Stubble.”

  Kelly rolled his eyes. “Pita.”

  And then, because Seth had realized he found these things fascinating—and had been to the beach enough times to be fascinated by them in other bodies, even though he hadn’t said anything—he skimmed his hands along Kelly’s ribs to the V cut of his stomach muscles.

  “You work on this,” he said softly, and a sudden pulse of heat told him Kelly was pleased.

  “Jimmy Durreson told me I’d never keep a boyfriend if I got fat,” he confessed, and Seth grinned.

  “I’d love you fat,” he said, his fingertips pushing gently against the muscle to see how—ooh!—hard it was.

  “But you like me now!” Kelly laughed, and Seth saw him then, the laughing boy, as though the pain had fallen away like an empty shell and what remained was the soft bubble of now that would protect them until his alarm buzzed.

  “I love you now,” Seth corrected, and then lowered his lips to Kelly’s clavicle, teasing with his teeth.

  Kelly gasped, and Seth kept going, the ache in his groin blooming with the suddenness of a blow.

  Kelly’s nipples. Ah! He could have stayed there forever, teasing, pulling, the sweetness of Kelly’s skin on his tongue. But Kelly tugged at his hair—growing long, the ringlets hardly tamed by oil right now—and Seth fell to his knees and looked up, asking permission. Kelly feathered a touch along his cheekbone, then skated his fingertips along Seth’s lips.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  Seth remembered how to do this.

  He licked first, and tasted, and stroked. He squeezed slow, long, and hard. He hollowed his mouth and took Kelly in, pushing his head down as far as he could.

  This time—this time, it went all the way.

  Kelly gasped and started to shake, and Seth cupped the backs of his thighs so he could help support his weight.

  “I’m gonna—ah! Seth!”

  And Seth tasted, bitter, he’d forgotten how bitter, and earthy. And salty. And good.

  Kelly sank to his knees on the patterned rug of Seth’s room, resting his face against Seth’s throat and laughing shakily.

  “Augh! Oh my God, mijo. I’m not sure I can stand.”

  Seth’s next sound was a whimper, because he was still hard and aching, his cock jutting from his lap like a jousting lance. He dropped his hand to it, and Kelly stopped him.

  “I may not be able to stand,” he said, his voice a low, gruff rumble. When had that happened? When had Kelly’s voice sunk to gravel? “But I am going to taste you. I am going to take you apart.”

  Seth shivered. Helpless. He could be helpless in front of Kelly. Kelly would guard him when his mind flew to the stars and his body shattered into glitter and twinkle-dust.

  Kelly started at his throat, and bypassed the nipples so he could concentrate on Seth’s arms.

  “I have a confession to make,” he whispered, licking a line down Seth’s bicep.

  “Yeah?”

  “I really love guys with guns.”

  Seth chuckled. “Lucky me.”

  Kelly propped up on his chest, looking suddenly concerned. “No. Not lucky you. Lucky me. I… in a thousand years, Seth, I could never doubt you love me.”

  “Don’t.” Seth bit his lip. It would feel like a thousand years, wouldn’t it? “Ever. Don’t ever doubt I love you.”

  Kelly nodded and kissed his chest, and finally took in a nipple.

  He sucked until Seth bucked his hips up and back, shaking with desire, aching with need.

  And then he moved, spreading Seth’s knees, propping his thighs up, and grabbing Seth’s own hands to put on his backside.

  “Spread ’em,” he demanded tersely, and for a moment Seth wanted to roll over, because… because… but Kelly put his mouth on Seth’s cock and shame went out the window, or slid down the floorboards.

  Kelly’s mouth was magic, and the spit and precum sliding down between his cheeks tantalized, and then… oh my God, Kelly touched him, right there.

  Seth spurted a little and then whimpered when Kelly pulled away. “Getting excited?” he teased.

  Seth opened his mouth to say yes, but Kelly’s finger kept touching him, sliding softly, teasing, penetrating. Oh my God, was he doing what Seth thought he was doing? And what came out of Seth’s mouth was fractured, gasps and groans, little grunts and whimpers, and Seth gripped his bottom and spread it, begging.

  “More?” Kelly taunted.

  “Nungh!”

  Another finger, two of them, spit-slickened, stretching. Seth’s brain was exploding, his body shaking with sweat, and he wanted more.

  “Kelly!” He was lost, adrift, pleasured without an endgame, drowning in sensation without a tether to hold him to earth.

  Kelly sucked him in hard and then released him. “Stay right there,” he muttered, and then pushed up and disappeared. Seth wanted him back, but he was shaking too hard, too dazed and empty to think about what he was doing.

  Kelly came back with a pillow, a box of tissues, and a jar of cocoa butter that Seth used for his skin. Seth went to prop himself on his elbows, but Kelly’s hand in the middle of his chest stopped him.

  “Let me do this,” he whispered. “I’ll make it good. I know I’m young, but—”

  Seth stroked his hand and settled back down, trustingly. Kelly was the oldest of the two of them. He always had been. Seth knew that.

  “I’ll be careful,” Kelly promised, and then nudged his hips up, and the pillow under them was a welcome relief.

  Some of Seth’s brain function was returning, and as he sank onto the pillow and reached down to hold his cheeks open again, he said, “Hey, we could have moved this to the oh my God bed. Fuck don’t stop!”

  Kelly’s throaty chuckle was as earthy a sound as he’d ever heard, and his fingers, slick with the cocoa butter, stretching, spreading. Seth floated, his body shaking, until Kelly pulled out again.

  “Mm….”

  “You need me,” Kelly told him, positioning his body carefully.

  Seth stared at him, suddenly frightened. “So much.”

  “You work so hard,” Kelly whispered, “taking care of us. You need me to take care of you.”

  Seth swallowed, naked and spread out, vulnerable on the floor of his childhood bedroom. “Yes.”

  “Remember me inside you when you’re gone.”

  And Kelly slid inside him, the pinch and ache and burn of him delicious.

  “Deeper.”

  Ah! Kelly thrust a little harder, a little deeper. Seth tightened, fighting to relax around the invasion, and he froze.

  Kelly fell forward, slicking his sweaty hair back from his forehead. “It’s okay, baby. I’ll take care of you. Just let me in.”

  Seth bit his lip, closing his eyes so he could concentrate, like when he was playing. He sank into the music of his own flesh and began to fly.

  “Oh….” Kelly’s low moan echoed through his body, and he nodded.

  “Faster,” he begged.

  Kelly would do anything for him—here, now, flesh to flesh, Kelly would do anything.

  He pulled back and surged forward, and again, and again. Slowly at first, then building as they both got used to the mechanics. Back and forth, until their bodies oiled each other, adapted, learned the pathways of pleasure and trust.

  And faster.

  Seth kept rising, past the ceiling, past the sky, up into the stratosphere, where he could see Sacramento, then California, then the continent and the sea. Higher, higher, his breath laboring, the oxygen thin, until the earth spun beneath him, blue and lovely, all problems too small to see.

  His chest ached, his body pulled tight, and he exploded, pulled back to earth, back to himself in a heartbeat as his physical self exploded into orgasm, and he pitched off the shelf of climax in time to hear Kelly groan.

  Seth opened his eyes and caught his lover, his heart, as Kelly came undone.

  Here, anchored to reality, he felt the pulse and throb of Kelly inside his body, the heat and wetness as it flooded him. His own cock lay flat against his abdomen in a cooling puddle, and Kelly fell on top of him, trembling and lost.

  “You need me,” Kelly whispered.

  “Forever and ever,” Seth told him. “I love you.”

  “Forever and ever.”

  That’s all they could say for a while.

  THEY WASHED up. Kelly showered while Seth cleaned the carpet, and when he was done he stepped into the shower and let Kelly take care of him.

  Washrag, everywhere. Kelly’s touches, gentle, reverent, in all the places he’d been.

  “Sorry,” Kelly murmured, standing behind him, arms around his waist.

  “For what?”

  “You had plans for my birthday, all pretty.”

  “I still do.”

  Kelly shoved at his hip and turned him around. “Yeah?”

  Seth nodded. “That’s how we’ll do this,” he said. “We won’t miss a day, even if it’s just a text. We won’t miss a week, even if we just Skype. And you will come visit, whenever you can. You will come see me, and we will… we will shove all the things we want to be to each other into that week, that month, whatever. That’s how we’ll do this. That’s how we have to.”

  Oh no. He’d been so strong, all week. Kelly was the one grieving. Kelly was the one making the sacrifice. Seth didn’t get to do this. This wasn’t his time to mourn. This wasn’t his—

  “We have to,” he repeated, voice creaking. “We have to, because I need you, and we have to make this work.”

  “Shh….” Kelly kissed him, water and brine running into their mouths. He pulled away, his eyes as red-rimmed as Seth’s felt. “It’s a good plan,” he said, his voice rusty. “We can make this work.”

  Seth closed his eyes and nodded, knowing the odds were against it. Knowing they were too young to promise forever. Knowing all the reasons he should just say goodbye now.

  But he couldn’t. It would be like amputating a limb.

  The water ran cold, and they got out, toweled off, changed back into their clothes. By the time Seth’s alarm went off, they were dozing in front of the television on the couch, lost in stupid TV.

  Seth picked up his phone to turn it off just in time to get a text from his dad.

  I’ll stop for takeout. How many?

  “Dinner with my dad?” Seth asked, and Kelly nodded.

  “Yeah. Let me text Mom.”

  Seth’s phone buzzed again.

  I’ll bring some for upstairs.

  Seth laughed a little. “Tell her Dad’s bringing dinner.”

  Kelly laughed too and texted, and the rest of the evening went like that. Quiet. Like normal. Like tomorrow they couldn’t be saying goodbye to Xavier Cruz, one of the best men Seth had ever known.

  Like tomorrow, Seth wouldn’t be walking away from the boy he loved and leaving him to grow up alone. Like they wouldn’t be breaking all the promises of hope they’d made to each other’s hearts since the day Seth had looked at him sleeping and fallen in love.

  It had to be normal, Seth figured. Anything bigger than normal would destroy them, pound them into dust, break them into a thousand pieces.

  They couldn’t do this in a thousand pieces. Someday, Kelly would be free. Someday, Seth would be able to take him away to whatever world awaited.

  Someday they would be together.

  If they were going to make it to someday, they had to be whole today.

  It was the only way this would work.

  May to November

  SETH’S DAD gave the eulogy, and when Kelly’s uncle Beto from El Paso asked, “Who the hell is that guy?” under his breath, Kelly realized he could be an asshole to family.