I needed to hear it again. I was still mired in this disbelief that any of my partners wanted to get too close to me; that any of them wanted to weave themselves into my real identity.
“Yes, of course! I’ve been curious about them for a while…” Luke admitted. “Plus, I want to know about you. I want to be a part of your life.”
I melted, smiling stupidly, “You have no idea how happy that makes me,” I said, surprised I wasn’t actually glowing.
“Okay then, it’s settled,” I declared, “You’ll come with me up to the farmhouse as my date!”
* * *
That evening, we didn’t even have sex. We just cuddled and watched T.V., had dinner together and kept talking late into the night. I learned so many things about Luke, and the more I learned, the more I wanted to know. Every single thing about him was addicting.
I learned that he was getting a degree in English, but that he wasn’t really passionate about it.
“Why did you go into it, then?” I asked as I cuddled him under a cozy blanket on the couch. Then I softened my words, realizing that I might be being a little too harsh. “I mean, there must have been something that sparked that idea in you.”
He was quiet for a few seconds, thinking. I could feel his heartbeat on top of me, slow and steady. It was so nice to see him calm and relaxed.
“Well, I’ve always liked writing. And I thought it wouldn’t be so bad if I became a teacher. I kept taking classes that were geared towards that, and before I knew it, I almost had an English degree.”
“You like writing? I never would have thought you were the creative type!” I said playfully.
“Shush. I’m plenty creative!” he said teasingly, leaning back to give me a kiss on the lips. “But… I’m not really that passionate about it. Not like the way that you are about being a police officer…”
“What are you passionate about?” I asked, him.
“Nothing, really,” he answered.
“I used to be like that,” I said. “It took me forever to find my identity.”
“Really?!” Luke asked, sitting up. “But you seem so sure of yourself!”
“It wasn’t always that way,” I said, closing my eyes, letting the memories swim before me. “There was a time when I didn’t have any direction in my life. There was nothing that really set my soul on fire, you know?”
“Haha, I know what that’s like,” Luke said, flopping back down on top of me.
I cuddled him closer, pressing my beard into the side of his face.
“And, I had all the money I could ever want, too. My uncle died and left me and all of my siblings a sizable inheritance. So I wasn’t really super into becoming a lawyer anymore like I wanted.”
“You wanted to be a lawyer before?”
“Yeah, I really liked the idea of the paycheck from that, to be honest. And I had this sense of justice that I couldn’t shake. Like, growing up, whenever my friends or siblings would do something wrong, I’d force them to come clean about it.”
“Oh, so you were the tattle tale,” Luke teased.
“Not really,” I said, trying to think of myself as that shy, sad kid I’d nearly forgotten about. “I would confront them first, and explain why what they did wasn’t right. And also ask them how it made the other person feel.”
“Wow, that’s an impressive maturity from a kid,” Luke said, giving me a kiss on the side of my face.
“I guess so,” I said.
Then there was a pause.
“When I was younger, my family was middle-class. We didn’t really want for anything, and financially we were okay. There were times when money was tight, but those were few and far in between. Then when I was sixteen, my great uncle died. Everyone thought he was this old miser who lived in a shack out in Oregon. But no— turns out he was socking money away his whole life. He never showed it though. He always drove a used car that was at least ten years old, lived in a modest house, and constantly complained about money.”
“Didn’t he have a wife? Kids?” Luke asked, keenly interested.
“No, he never married. The rumor is that he was gay before society was mostly okay with it.”
Luke blinked a few times, then said, “I can’t imagine what it was like to be gay back then. Back when it was even more intolerant than it is now.”
“Yeah, I think about that sometimes too,” I admitted. “It was probably hard for him to even leave his house. Especially back in the eighties and everything…”
“Anyway, so he passed away,” Luke said, getting me back on track.
“Oh, right. He passed away and left a bunch of money to my family. All of a sudden, the sixteen-year-old me didn’t have to worry about money so much. Becoming a lawyer began to sound like a bunch of bureaucratic nonsense. I decided pretty quickly that it wasn’t for me.”
Luke chuckled.
“What?!” I asked, nuzzling his neck with my beard.
He chuckled some more, the sound of his giggling giving life to the big empty house. “I just pictured you in a courtroom, in a suit. Ooh— you’d look so sexy in a suit…” he groaned.
“Ha!” I said, “The only times I wear suits are for weddings. Other than that, it’s just black T-shirts, jeans, and my cop uniform.”
“Wait, seriously?” Luke asked, his mouth popping open in surprised.
“If your mouth keeps coming open like that, I’ll be forced to cork it with something…” I said, throwing a devious look his way.
He smirked, and his eyes glimmered.
He was tempted.
“Maybe later. But what I want to see right now is your closet.”
* * *
A few minutes later, we were in my master bedroom while Luke inspected my walk-in closet.
“Adam!!” he cried, going through the clothes, “Why do you have polo shirts in here that look like this?!” He threw a yellow-green thick polo shirt onto my bed.
“What’s wrong with it?”
