Chance To Make It Real

Sam
2001.

     You can hide 'neath your covers
     And study your pain
     Make crosses from your lovers
     Throw roses in the rain
     Waste your summer praying in vain
     For a savior to rise from these streets

BACK BEFORE HE and Josh had taken all of about a minute to make the
worst decision of their lives, Sam had known how to spot a compromise.
Sometimes he'd been wrong about how much the deal was worth, but he'd
always recognized the transaction for what it was. That was before he'd
learned to be vague about the things that mattered most, before he'd
fucked everything up.

Sam had once thought he would go to Harvard, had been sure of it
since he was 12 and his father had grudgingly admitted that USC, his own
alma mater, was not exactly the Harvard of the West. The thin envelope
had been a quiet disaster made loud by the downturn of his father's
mouth, and Sam had never quite regained the ground lost to that
disappointment. Which was nothing compared to his mother's sickened
shock that summer after graduation, when she'd walked into Sam's room
and found him with their Spanish exchange student, Marco. Her
expression had been so still, so devastating, that he'd begun to think
that she had turned to stone. Then she'd turned around and closed the
door behind her. When Sam tried to explain -- they had been comparing
scars, he'd said in his head, preparing the speech -- she had blithely
insisted that she didn't know what he was talking about.

And Sam had been sure several times that he was going to get
married, that he would find the stability that his parents so fervently
desired for him. But then Miranda decided she was a lesbian after all,
and he and Krissy never would have made it past planning the rehearsal
dinner, and Lisa... Lisa had decided that running off to New Hampshire
in the company of his old friend Josh meant he really was an incurable
faggot after all, a conclusion that -- having found the two of them
tossing a week's worth of clothes into a duffel bag, laughing and
counting shots like it was a game of one-on-one -- she chose to share
with their co-op neighbors and half of Manhattan by yelling down the
hall as they left.

"I'm sorry," Sam had said to Josh. If he could just get it right,
he could finally stop apologizing for all the things he could have done
better, for having thrown so much of their time away. "I'm sorry," he
had said again as they'd pulled out of the parking garage. "She runs
out of adjectives pretty quick."

It was weakly offered explanation, to which Josh had nodded slowly
and said, "Yeah," like he'd remembered something else, like it had been
the start of a sentence or something more significant, but then their
momentum had been halted by a homeless woman shrieking at the
intersection of 96th and Lex.

Sam's apartment had grown dark around him, and there was this
repetitive banging noise coming from the street. He flipped on a lamp,
crossed to the door and heard Josh's muffled voice. "Are you in there
or what?" Josh yelled, and Sam wrestled with the knob. When the door
popped open, he almost hit himself, and Josh came within an eighth of an
inch of knocking once more, right on Sam's forehead. They each took a
step away, and Josh backed off the stoop but didn't fall down.

"D.C. cellular sucks, man," Josh said, rearranging his limbs like
nothing had happened. "Where have you been? I've been calling and
calling, and it's just been busy. I thought you'd gotten DSL."

"Yeah," Sam said, moving out of the way.

"Yeah?" Josh had dropped his overcoat on the couch and was digging
around in the small kitchen's refrigerator, finally emerging with a beer
in each hand, which he held up victoriously in a mock-Nixon wave. Sam
had been living in the townhouse since a week before the inauguration,
and Josh always acted like he lived there, too, taking what he wanted
from the fridge, from the cabinets, turning on the TV without asking
what Sam wanted to watch. And then Josh went home at the end of the
night, and Sam usually slept alone. "So why was your phone busy?"

Sam looked down at his hand, saw he was holding the black cordless
phone from the bedroom. "I guess I forgot to hang it up," he said,
shrugging. He wondered if he had that stone-statue look that his mom
had perfected over the years. He wondered what she'd looked like when
the delivery guys realized they'd sent the bedroom set to the billing
address instead of the apartment she hadn't known existed, and if his
dad had had a reason. His dad had always had a reason -- not an excuse,
he would say, they're not the same thing. No room in that house for
excuses. At least now they knew why.

Josh set the beers on the counter and gave him a hard, serious
look. "What's going on?"

"What?" Sam's ears were buzzing, the operator's voice rattled in
his skull, and his foot was asleep. He flexed his toes and looked at
the Sam Adams bottle, trying to decide if he was thirsty or if he even
liked the taste of beer anymore.

"What's wrong?" Josh ducked his neck a little, trying to catch
Sam's eye. Sam looked away.

"Nothing." Sam wanted to put his head down and go to sleep. But
the question of whether or not he liked beer wouldn't let him alone,
worried at the edge of his cognitive skills and prevented his escape.
It was in his fridge, so he'd probably purchased it himself. So he must
like it. But he couldn't be sure. It could have been there for Josh.

"*Sam*." Sam's head snapped up and he stared at the middle of
Josh's chest, the place that had had a big hole a few months before,
when everything really had changed in an instant. Josh sounded the way
he did when somebody made a horrible mistake. He never used that tone
of voice with Sam, even when Sam was ruining everything, even when Sam
was standing in a hospital and couldn't figure out the right things to
say, the only sounds from beeping and wheezing machines. "What the hell
is happening?"

Sam put the phone down on the counter and took a sip of the beer.
It was reassuringly bitter, like the day had been. He finally met
Josh's eye and located a few of the words he could remember well enough
to speak aloud. "Nothing new," he said, and Josh flinched, and it was
possible Josh thought he meant about them, but he didn't, not really.

"What are you talking about?" Josh sounded scared, or maybe
angry. Sam wondered if he should be scared, too. Sam took another sip,
because the bottle was in his hand. He recalled as if from far away
that icy beer on a hot day could be the most refreshing drink. But it
was February. And his hands felt cold.

"I just..." Sam started to explain about the beer, about the cold,
about the black phone that he wished he'd never answered. "I'm sorry,"
he said instead, because excuses only satisfied the ones who made them.
"I don't think I can talk about this."

"Are -- are you okay?" Josh asked, and Sam remembered when they
hadn't had to ask that kind of question.

"I'm sorry."

Josh shook his head. "No, just... What's going on?"

Sam took a long swallow, wished he had a long-necked bottle so that
he could tilt it up and flash a smile at Josh like they were in some
bar, like he just had to figure out the best way to start a conversation
with an intriguing guy. That was the real purpose of beer. He tried to
smile. Josh reached out and touched Sam's hand and the transference of
warmth from Josh's skin to his own was like a jump-start. "I just -- I
found out -- my mother called..."

"Oh, God. Is it your dad?"

Sam nodded. He wished Josh would guess it all, so he could just
keep nodding and not open his mouth again. But now Josh had a glassy
look in his eyes and Sam could taste the fried chicken he'd eaten in
Illinois before they were dancing, before Donna grabbed Josh's arm and
told them why Josh's dad hadn't been answering the phone. "No, I mean,
not that," Sam said, feeling like an asshole. "He's okay. Well, not
okay, but he's fine."

Josh cleared his throat and closed his eyes for a second, as if,
because he couldn't see, the pain wasn't so evident on his face. Sam
pulled his fingers out from under Josh's hand, which he turned over like
a fallen leaf to let their palms rest against each other. "Sam?" Josh
was quieter now. "Sit down."

"Why?"

"Because you're, uh, you should tell me what's going on."

On the long list of ideals and people Sam had failed in his life by
compromising at all the wrong moments, Josh was first, and most of it
had been because they'd never talked about what was going on, not
really. He wasn't sure they could start now, even if the possibility
that Josh could help him forget for a while was tempting. Sam moved his
hand away. "Why should I sit down?"

"Because I'm, uh, starting to worry that you might, like, fall
over."

"Would you catch me?" Sam asked, hating how much he sounded like
his father, asking some stupid, redundant question. Once, when his mom
had been visiting and he and Lisa were fighting, she'd said, "You're
just like your dad." And he'd been confused, but vaguely proud.
Because there were a lot of ways that he was nothing like his dad,
especially after all those years. He hadn't been back to California
since Super Tuesday, except for work, because there were too many long
silences around the dinner table, too many moments when Sam thought
maybe his dad knew exactly what Sam had made of his life.

Josh nodded slowly, seriously. "I'd try," he said, before smiling
a little and stepping out from behind the counter. "But you might
injure something vital first. Come on, sit down."

Sam let Josh lead him by the elbow to his couch, and he let Josh
put an arm around him, because without the counter it seemed more likely
that he might actually fall. Sam sat there stiffly until he could
breathe in and out without thinking he might actually cry, and then let
himself lean into Josh's chest. He told the story in short, staccato
sentences: "Apartment." "Girlfriend." "Twenty-eight years." Josh
tightened his grip on Sam's shoulders and rubbed the back of his neck.

Sam exhaled, a deep Josh-sigh full of regret and lost years and the
taste of flat beer and cold fruit. Somehow, during a minute when he
hadn't been paying quite so much attention to his surroundings, he and
Josh had managed to convince themselves that there were more important
things, like running for president. And nothing had been the same
since, and it all defied reason.

"It's just, there are certain things you're sure of," Sam said,
feeling the steady rumble of Josh's patched heart through the wool suit
jacket.

"Yeah," Josh said, his voice distorted and sonorous. "Like
longitude and latitude."

"Yeah," Sam said, repeating that back to himself, knowing it was
something he could remember.

Josh
1997.

     Well now I'm no hero
     That's understood
     All the redemption I can offer
     Is beneath this dirty hood
     With a chance to make it good somehow
     Hey what else can we do now?
     Except roll down the window
     And let the wind blow
     Back your hair

THE DRIVE TO New Hampshire had been the longest 250 miles of Josh's
life. First they'd had to get out of the city, two hours of riding
bumpers and grinding gears inch-by-inch just to hit Westchester, which
put them in the heart of hellish I-95 Friday traffic under cover of a
spitting and sputtering storm. The rain clouds faded into a deepening
dusk and eventually a clear, starry sky glowed through the moonroof as
they circumvented Boston and caught I-3 where it split off to Nashua and
points beyond.

Later, Sam told Josh that he'd spent the night before toggling
between environmental disaster research and road maps that traced a
squiggling path up the Northeast coast, just in case he needed to make a
quick get-away. When he was a kid, Sam said, he had drawn a
10-year-old's sketch to navigate the suburban Scyllas between the
silences of his split-level three-bedroom and the Greyhound station --
neighborhood bullies and the house with a police cruiser parked out
front -- Just In Case. That was what he'd called the map, he'd
whispered sheepishly to Josh.

Just in case, Sam had figured out how to get to New Hampshire on
his own. Which was fortunate, because since their first abortive
attempt at apologetic conversation, they hadn't spoken a word. Not
one. At first, it had been kind of funny, like a game, like who would
blink first. And then Josh kept looking over at Sam, thinking that the
motion would be obvious in Sam's peripheral vision and he would turn and
say, "Hey," and all of it would be okay.

But Sam's hands were rigidly adhered at 10-and-2 and he kept
staring straight ahead as if the road might split open and swallow them
whole. As if the sleek Jeep Cherokee wouldn't protect them from the
nutcase weekenders. As if they had nothing to talk about.

When they passed the turnoff for his hometown, Josh almost asked
Sam to be let out. His parents would think he was nuts but they'd feed
him and let him spend the night and borrow a car. Because this -- this
part was all new to him, too, and *fuck* Sam for acting like Josh knew
what was supposed to happen next. Josh had thought that it would be
different this time, that the two guys voted most likely to bore their
girlfriends to death with incessant chatter might find just a few words
they could borrow for their own to talk about how everything had
changed. They'd give them back when they were done, he swore, if for
just two minutes they could admit they were both scared to death.

Yesterday, it had been easier. It had been three years and there
had been a lot that *wasn't* said, but they'd been able to conquer the
power of speech. Now they were in motion but silent like an old TV with
the sound turned off, like the end of The Graduate when Dustin Hoffman
and Katharine Ross were on the bus and seemed to realize that after all
that running around, they still had to find a way to make their lives
work together. He'd had an argument with his date at the film festival
in Cambridge, about how there was no way the panicked expressions the
characters had worn could be translated into a happy ending. He'd been
sure that if he had just the right look on his face when he tracked Sam
down again, they would somehow find themselves in New Hampshire and
happy together, all the rags of their other lives lying at their feet.

For a political strategist, he admitted to himself, closing his
eyes and letting the rumble of tread on asphalt rock him into a bleary
stupor, he could be unbelievably stupid about the way things actually
worked. He'd always considered it a strength -- that it was what
facilitated his undaunted leaps of faith, and that being so sporadically
fearless might be what made him brilliant in politics and not merely
good. But he wasn't feeling very smart just then. He was exhausted and
his skin itched and his suit felt like it had shrunk.

"You awake?" It was Sam, who hadn't lost his voice after all, and
everything would be okay if they were talking again. Josh sat up in his
seat, nodding. "We're in New Hampshire," Sam said, sounding somewhat
happy and a little tired.

Josh sounded a barbaric yawp and Sam actually laughed out loud.
This was where it was all going to start for real this time. Things
would make sense. "It's not far to Nashua," Josh said, squeezing the
arm rest and looking out the window over the fields lit by a half-moon.
He glanced at the clock. Eighteen minutes after midnight. Leo would
still be up when they got there. Josh had promised he was going to go
get them the world's best speechwriter, and he had.

And he had. He grinned widely at Sam, who cocked his head away
from the road for a moment to acknowledge his presence. Sam smiled
back, shifted his eyes to the rear view mirror. "Where are we going?"
Sam asked, as if maybe he was talking about more than just the road.

Josh couldn't remember the name of the hotel where the campaign
staff was staying. He wasn't sure he'd ever even asked, he'd blown out
of there so fast once he'd told Leo how right it all was, how he'd be
back with a secret weapon. "Uh..." Josh trailed off, afraid that the
wrong words might plunge them back into silence. "I should probably
call Leo." Sam nodded, pulled the cell off the charger between the
seats without looking and held the phone out in Josh's direction. When
he took it, their fingers touched briefly around the curved edges of the
plastic and nobody pulled back right away. Josh's hands shook a little
as he dialed. "Busy," he said aloud, hanging up.

"Well, there can't be that many hotels in a town the size of
Nashua," Sam said. "The population is only about 80,000." Josh wasn't
sure why he'd doubted that Sam could find the way. Sam always knew the
details, and his instinct about hotels was a nice little theory. They
went to the Best Western. The Econo-Lodge. And Marty's Seven-Dollar
Heaven, on the off-chance that Leo had lost both his mind and his
wallet. By then it was almost 2, and there were more places than they'd
thought, and Sam started calculating under his breath how many hotels
cities should have per capita. Leo's phone was still busy. Josh was
still waiting for his empty stomach to settle from the half-day spent
churning on the road.

He shook his head as he walked out of the third place, and he saw
Sam shrug through the front glass as the passenger-side window slid down
with an automatic hum. "Should we get a place to crash anyway?" Sam
asked, leaning across the seat. "We can find them tomorrow."

"Not here. The chick who helped me had dirt under her nails."

"So?"

"So I think she was also the cleaning woman. Let's go back to the
Best Western." Josh opened the door, climbed in. Sam hadn't really
moved back to his side and their shoulders collided as he settled into
the seat. "This isn't a sign," Josh said suddenly, needing to convince
them both.

"A sign?"

"You know," Josh said. "That this was, uh, a bad idea."

"It's not a sign."

"I know." Josh ducked his head and shook out his neck, not sure at
all.

"And it's not a bad idea, Josh. Seriously."

He sighed. "I know." He did. Hearing Sam say it made the
difference, though.

"We'll find them tomorrow."

"I know."

Sam leaned back, shifted the car into first and pulled out of the
circular driveway. Josh's window was still open and his hair blew in
the breeze manufactured by their movement down the road. He breathed
in, inhaling the smell of cut field-grass and maybe wheat, if he
actually knew what wheat smelled like and if they even grew it here. He
told himself that his eyes were wet because of his allergies and not
from some overwhelming sense that all was finally right in the world.

They cruised past an open diner and before he could raise the
suggestion, Sam was slowing down and making the turn. "We haven't
eaten," Sam said, and it was nice to let someone else decide. Josh
sniffed and blinked and nodded, still looking away. The restaurant was
empty except one night-shift cook and a young waitress with her blonde
hair in a ponytail. She waved her hands in the vicinity of the empty
dining room, looking for all the world like a spokesmodel at an auto
show. Josh wondered if she was registered to vote.

They settled into a booth by the window and ordered breakfast from
Steph, who had traded shifts with her boss and was still only 17, and
whose parents had walked precincts for Bartlet the first time he ran for
governor, she said. She didn't know where the campaign people were, but
she brought them hot, fresh coffee anyway.

"Every vote counts," Sam said. Steph carried over eggs and
pancakes and a newspaper. "Headquarters are in Manchester," she said,
pointing to an article. "You guys want real New Hampshire maple syrup?
I won't charge you extra."

"YOU DIDN'T CONSIDER that they could be in Manchester?" Sam was
enjoying this way too much. "You know, what with that being where he's
from and all?"

"Okay, yeah, very funny, we've established that I'm an idiot. Can
we just pay the bill and go get a room now?" Steph smiled at their
bickering. She thought they were cute, Josh realized, and then she
actually said so.

"Cute like a married couple, I mean," she said, like that cleared
things up. Josh let her have all the change even though it made a
ridiculously large tip and headed for the car.

At the Best Western, they left the Jeep in the parking lot, not the
driveway, and Josh sent Sam to check in. "I already woke the guy up
once," he said, plopping on the small couch in what passed for a lobby.
He picked at the taupe-and-blue paisley pattern, rolling nubs of pilled
fabric between his short nails and palm and trying not to fall asleep.

Sam called his name and pointed at the elevator and he somehow
managed to rise to the occasion. The doors opened at four -- probably
because Sam had pushed the button, Josh thought groggily -- and he
followed down the hall to the left. He'd avoided hotels for a while.
They felt too much like liaisons, like overpaid executives meeting
under-appreciated girlfriends between business meetings. Hotels were so
depressing and, if everything went as planned, he'd be living in one or
another for the next year. With Sam, no less.

Sam handed him a key. "Where's your room?" Josh asked, immediately
feeling sleazy for asking, like he was going to get drunk off the
mini-bar and come banging on the door at 5 a.m. Just because they were
finally alone together didn't mean that he hadn't walked away from what
they could have had years before, or that Sam would still want it, or
that either of them could so easily dismiss the reasons that some of the
letters went unanswered. Even if everything he'd done in the past 48
hours had been with Sam's voice in his head.

"Same as yours," Sam said. "I got us a double."

That woke him up. He wasn't so sure anymore where either the
conversation or night was heading, and he kind of wanted to be in charge
again. "Uh, on campaigns like this you usually get your own room."

"Well, I paid for a double --"

"A double bed?" His voice cracked. "Wow, go all out there, Sam."

"A double *room*. Typically furnished with two beds. You want to
go back there and wake the guy up again --"

"This is fine." It could be better than fine. What the hell had
just happened? He realized Sam had stopped walking and was standing in
front of a door, fumbling with the lock. Josh went back down the hall
toward him. "It's only for a few hours anyway," Josh said, "just so we
can shower and change and maybe take a nap." And he hadn't at all meant
it to sound that he assumed they'd be doing those things together, but
there wasn't a good way out of that one.

"Yeah." Sam opened the door to reveal a small room with two double
beds and one truly ugly painting of a grizzly bear hung above the center
nightstand. "Do you even have any other clothes?" Sam asked as Josh
dropped his backpack on the far bed.

"Uh-huh." Sam raised a questioning eyebrow. "On their way," Josh
said. "After I told Hoynes I was jumping ship I somehow convinced my
secretary --"

"Former secretary --"

Josh grinned. "Yeah," he said, and then swallowed his smile.
"Yeah, I, uh, convinced Janet to go to my place and pack some stuff."

"I hope you didn't have her send it to Nashua."

Yeah, that Sam, the one who never let him get away with just being
clever. Josh laughed to himself.

"You didn't, did you?" Sam asked.

"I told her to call Leo first."

"What a brilliant idea. You think he'll tell her to send the stuff
to Manchester?"

"Shut up."

"We sound like a married couple, Josh. Do you think that's a
problem?"

"I'm taking a shower," Josh said, scratching at his neck, not
answering because he figured it was his turn to be silent. "Do you
think they have acid rain in New York?"

"They have everything else."

When he got out of the shower, Sam was propped up on Josh's bed, or
the one he'd thought he claimed with his backpack, wearing dark red
boxers and a white, short-sleeved undershirt. He was watching Headline
News.

"There's nothing on," Sam said pre-emptively. "I checked."

"Is there, uh, something wrong with the other bed?"

"No."

"Oh."

"Oh -- the swivel thing on the TV stand is broken. I couldn't get
it to turn."

"'Kay." He walked around the bed Sam was sitting on and grabbed
his bag, taking it back with him to the other bed. Some red-headed
anchor, not Lynne Russell, a different one, was talking about nuclear
waste.

Josh was wearing the same boxers he'd had on for two days, since
he'd left D.C. at the crack of dawn on Tuesday morning, and even having
rinsed the sludge from his hair he felt a little grimy. But he'd shaved
on auto-pilot, and he suddenly remembered a clean shirt in his backpack,
which was only a little damp from when the bag had been soaked through.
He sat on the edge of the bed as he pulled the soft cotton over his
head, sucked in his gut a little and tried not to feel old and worn.
The red L.E.D. of the alarm clock read 3:30, which meant that for over a
day he'd been running on little more than some kind of crazy renewed
faith in politics and love and the possibilities the world might yet
have to offer him in his late thirties. But he was still tired.

Sam swung his legs over until they were facing each other across
the narrow aisle of blue patterned carpet, which was cut of the same
cloth as the couch downstairs. Josh stood up, not sure where he was
going, and Sam rose, too.

"Josh."

"Uh, yeah."

"I just wanted to say --" Sam walked over and turned off the news,
came back to face Josh again.

"Yeah."

"No, I mean. I want you to know..."

Josh nodded. They had to admit that whatever it was they'd saved
each other from would have been much worse than the frightening blank
slate that lay ahead. "I do," he said.

"If you hadn't come back to get me, I would have come anyway," Sam
said. "If I knew you were here."

With the TV off, it was completely silent. "Really?"

"Yeah."

They were only maybe 18 inches apart, their bare feet practically
touching on the thinly padded floor. Through the V-neck, Josh could see
the tanned, smooth skin of Sam's chest and he avoided Sam's eyes by
staring at the tender ridge of collarbone as it disappeared under the
hem. God, he was still so beautiful. There were times when the most
shocking thing about the two of them was that Sam had ever given him a
second look. Let alone a second chance. He still couldn't believe he
was trying to ask for a third.

"I couldn't stay there. It was... I was just dying, working for
those people. And getting married? I mean, it's not like Lisa and I
were -- we weren't very committed to the whole thing."

So she *had* meant something by that, Josh thought.

"It was just --" Sam shook his head. "That doesn't matter. I'm
not sorry I left. I couldn't have seen you yesterday like that and
*not* left. I just wanted you to know that."

Josh wanted to say thanks. Or, please don't let me fuck this up
again. But there weren't any words in his throat, and his knees were
almost bumping Sam's across the narrow aisle between the beds, and he
sighed like there would be an answer at the end of the breath.

And then he kissed Sam, just barely, just letting the top part of
his lips catch the bottom of Sam's, and it was possible his legs were
shaking. He could feel Sam's hands on his just-shaven cheeks and his
own tongue pressing into Sam's syrupy mouth and the heat of their chests
approaching each other. But then it was too hot. It felt like a fever,
or a summer night in D.C. without air conditioning. He was dizzy, and
he broke away and sat down hard on the bed.

Josh was trying so hard to make the vertigo stop that he'd
sacrificed control over the rest of his body. He could feel the muscles
in his stomach twitching and he was getting hard, and then Sam's hand
was on his thigh and he looked up. Sam was squatting on the floor in
front of him, one arm out to keep from falling over, and he was saying
"I'm sorry," and Josh shook his head emphatically because, damn it, Sam
hadn't done anything wrong.

"No," Josh said. "No. Don't --"

"It's just -- maybe we should wait. I thought you -- I don't
know."

Sometimes, it was like Sam thought Josh had all the answers, and
that was never true. With Sam, he didn't know what the hell he was
doing most of the time, but he knew he wasn't very good at stopping.

"No," Josh said again, surprising himself with how much he did
*not* want to wait anymore. What had he thought was going to happen
once they got to New Hampshire? He'd had some vague mental image of the
two of them poring over position papers and speeches and travel
itineraries, and maybe sometimes being the last guys standing, the ones
still hyped up at 3 a.m. who went to go get a beer together. And,
maybe, sometimes, letting what happened happen. But it was happening
already.

"Because, you know, this time yesterday I was lying awake on the
couch in my office, thinking about you, and now --"

"I know," Josh said, and this time he did. Together they'd been
able to figure out a lot, and this couldn't be so much more difficult.

Sam sat up on his knees and pulled Josh down into a hug, letting
his mouth slide into Josh's neck like how they'd held each other for a
second in Sam's office the day before, but not letting go. And then
Sam's hand was sliding up under Josh's shirt, and they were kissing
again, but even Sam's tongue was moving slowly, like Josh's whole mouth
was unexplored territory, and Sam pushed Josh back up onto the bed but
didn't increase the pace. Josh tucked his fingers inside the elastic
band of Sam's boxers but didn't pull them down. They'd never done it
like that, casual and patient, like they knew they had all night and
maybe the next, too. Sam was running his hand up and down Josh's arm,
not quite tickling him, and when Josh closed his eyes for a second he
thought he might fall asleep, and that might not be the worst thing that
had ever happened when he was with Sam.

Because Josh was exhausted, but he was sober and this wasn't
something that he could fake his way out of in the morning. He knew
he'd still have to see Sam the next day, because they'd run too far
together to take off alone. So that meant breakfast, and then finding
Leo, and then finding a way to make all the rest of it work. It meant
saying yes to all the things he'd spent so long refusing. And he wanted
to say yes -- he did -- but he wasn't sure if he had ever known what was
supposed to come after that.

Sam was lying there on his side, looking at him like they had
forever, running a hand through the fine brown hair on Josh's stomach,
not rushing anything or asking for too much, and Josh's heart surged.
All the questions, the midlife confusion -- that was all about this
man. This was where Josh was supposed to be, with Sam, in New
Hampshire. They were going to get a good man elected president, and
they were going to find a way to do it together.

"It's different now, isn't it?" Sam asked, in that tone of voice
that only exists in bed at 4 a.m.

"Yeah," Josh said. "This time it's the real thing."

Sam
1991.

     Show a little faith there's magic in the night
     You ain't a beauty but hey you're all right
     Oh and that's all right with me

THE BEER WAS flat. Sam hated flat beer more than just about anything in
the world except, possibly, songs by the Pet Shop Boys. But despite the
presence of both, he had to admit that he was having a decent time.
There were worse things than being young and on his own for the summer.

He had six more weeks of working for Matthews, who unlike the
other, much more sensible congressmen, took only a week's vacation in
late August. On the plus side, a summer aide actually had a chance to
do some work. And then Sam was off to New York, where his sojourn into
Beltway business would undoubtedly be eclipsed by 100-hour weeks and
decent suits and overpriced apartments and rampant crime.

But that would all be in the fall. The influence that being a New
York lawyer would have on who he'd be in 10 years was still an unknown
factor, he thought, nodding along to the dance music and watching Josh
drink his beer. They were supposed to be meeting Harry here, because
he'd declared -- somewhat dramatically, Sam thought -- that it was the
only place where they might all be drunk enough to agree to the bill.
So Sam and Josh were drinking at JR's, this gay bar off Dupont Circle,
and trying not to admit that there was no chance in hell benefits for
gay partners of civil servants would make it out of committee, let alone
past the CBO or to the president, certainly not that president.

But, whatever, he was young and a little drunk, and the more flat
beer he drank, the less he cared it was flat, and the more he danced
around a little bit against his slice of wall, the less he cared if Josh
could tell how much he envied the good-looking men their ease of touch,
the casual way a hand would wander from waist to ass to the back of a
neck without anyone looking both ways. There was a monstrous elk's head
hung above the bar and the brick walls were pocked with stained glass
windows, and everyone was too busy to notice either. The Pet Shop Boys
stopped abruptly and there was a momentary battle between the air
conditioner and the circuit breaker, and if they had to choose between
the atmosphere being cool or loud, Sam would have gotten rid of the
music in a second. But then everything whirred into place again, and
Sam smiled almost unabashedly, because he had been babbling about Thomas
Jefferson, for Christ's sake, and even bad music was better than that.

Josh leaned in to be heard over the noise. "You're in a good
mood," he said, and his breath danced around Sam's cheek and Sam
shuffled his feet and tried to concentrate on the reason they were
there. It was good to know someone as brilliant as Josh, someone who
obviously would be only more powerful in the years to come. Someone
that far up the food chain really had no reason to have spent the past
two days trying to convince Sam he might have more to offer to the world
than an affinity for contract law, but he had, and Sam kept trying to
listen, because he sensed that Josh what was trying to tell him was
important.

Sam nodded, held up his empty glass and lobbed a silent question in
Josh's direction before moving off to the bar for refills, where he ran
into Harry. Who was otherwise occupied with a cute, short, Latino guy
wearing a fishnet top that made him look like a Madonna backup dancer.
Sam leaned over, shouted an order to the bartender and finally tapped
Harry on the shoulder.

"There you are!" Everything about Harry was oversized -- he was at
least 6'4", maybe 250 pounds, and he had a voice that could have been
heard in Virginia if the Erasure song hadn't been turned up so high.
"Where have you been?"

"Over there --" Sam shouted, pointing at Josh, who was leaning
against the picture window and coolly appraising the scene as he tugged
at the fraying edges of a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers T-shirt.

"He doesn't seem like he's having a very good time," Harry said.

Sam shrugged.

"You're having fun," Harry said, not asking. Sam shrugged again.
Josh had spotted them and was weaving his way over, but it was a long,
narrow, crowded bar, and by the time they were all assembled, Harry's
friend had wandered off and the new beers were waiting. Before Josh
could say hello, Harry had followed the guy and it was just the two of
them again.

"Well, that went well," Josh said, leaning in again. "I think our
total inability to express anything about the bill should go a long way
toward them signing on."

"I'm still not completely sure I understand why they wouldn't," Sam
said, and he bent in, too.

"Because they know as well as we do that it will never go
anywhere. It's not the real thing. You've got to have a great idea --
great, not just a compromise -- and you find a way to make it work in
the real world. That's real. Harry knows they'd rather not waste what
little clout they've gathered on something that's not."

Josh always got the big picture, Sam thought. Josh staring at the
bartender, who was leaning over the counter and making out with some guy
in a cowboy hat. "Speaking of clout," Sam said, a little too loudly,
trying to recapture Josh's attention, "what's up with this Pete
Williams thing?" It was the open secret of Washington that summer, that
there was going to be some big expose of the Cheney aide's closeted gay
life. If any of the press corps would take it on, which seemed
unlikely, as all the reports so far kept naming the same anonymous
"Pentagon official."

Josh rolled his eyes. "Whatever," he said. "If the Secretary of
Defense wants to have a gay spokesman while thousands are getting their
asses kicked right out of the Army for doing the same thing in the
privacy of their own homes --"

"It's wrong, Josh." If he couldn't say that much while standing in
the middle of a gay bar, he really shouldn't even think twice about
politics.

"Yeah," Josh said. "It sucks big time, and it's only gonna get
worse." Sam got that Josh liked to play the wizened, cynical old
staffer, but sometimes he couldn't tell if it was because Josh truly
didn't care or if he was trying to say that governing was more difficult
than it looked. Sam smiled, just happy to be there, having the
conversation. "Let's have another beer," Josh said.

After two more, Harry stopped by to say he'd decided they were
"cool enough" to call him on Monday and get down to business. Outside,
the warm, humid air made the alcohol's effect seem more pronounced, and
Sam stumbled over his feet as they walked toward the parking lot. And
that was enough for Josh to convince him he'd be better off not driving,
and for Sam to agree that he could probably crash on Josh's couch in the
name of pedestrian safety.

The one-bedroom apartment was small and a little messy, and he
spent 10 minutes on the bare wooden floor gulping water from a gallon
jug Josh had handed him before realizing there was no furniture. He
could see a mattress on a metal frame through the bedroom door, and a
desk lamp plugged in beside it, resting on a stack of books. There were
a lot of books, and some unpacked boxes.

"You don't have a couch," he said as Josh sat down beside him with
a bag of Granny Smiths. Josh gave him an apple in response, and for a
while they didn't speak, just sat in a silence punctuated only by the
electric hum of the window box fan and the crunching of tough
apple-skin. The fruit was cold and tart and seemed to anchor his
spinning thoughts, and Sam felt like the summer was suspended in motion,
like New York was just a shimmery dream in another life and he could
stay there with Josh forever. "You don't have a couch," he said again,
and Josh nodded, standing up to refill the water.

"I'll sleep on the floor and you can have the bed," Josh offered,
not quite sounding as if he meant it. Sam stood up, waited to see if
his legs would be shaky and, when they weren't unduly so, took a few
steps. Josh turned around from the sink, his reddish-brown hair a
little matted with sweat where it wasn't frizzy from the wet air, and
just stared at him. The jug was in his hand, elevated a few inches
above the counter, and Sam could see the line of Josh's bicep curve past
the T-shirt's sleeve. Sam felt a trickle of sweat slide down between
his shoulder-blades and stared back. Josh's face was frozen in a
half-smile that was somewhere between quizzical and aw-shucks, and Sam
wondered if Harry had been right, if Josh had been uncomfortable. It
didn't seem like it to him, especially just then.

Josh finally brought the water to his lips and drank, swallowing
again and again. Sam took another step. He had to say something. He
was good with words, that was what everybody -- even Josh -- said about
him. He just couldn't think of any at that particular moment. "So, did
you have an okay time tonight?" he asked finally, and Josh, after a
moment, nodded as he wiped his mouth.

When he twisted back to the sink, Sam let his feet carry him where
his vocabulary couldn't and, in slow motion, slid his right arm around
Josh's waist. Josh froze at first, then Sam could feel the man's
stomach muscles relax again as he leaned back almost imperceptibly. He
smelled like Mennen deodorant and beer and the fecundity of a southern
summer and, in what felt like fractions of millimeters, Sam moved closer
until he could reach around and capture Josh's mouth with a simple,
momentary kiss that deepened into breathless exhortations.

They stumbled their way into the bedroom and onto the mattress and
through a couple of mumbled rounds of Have You Evers, and they both said
they had, so Josh's shirt came off and the taste of apples in Sam's
mouth was subsumed by the saltiness of Josh's skin. And Josh wasn't
being quiet anymore; he was whispering Sam's name and groaning and
pulling at Sam's hair and Sam realized that he could have gone right to
New York, could have missed all of this, could have forgotten what faces
men made at their most beautiful moments, but he didn't, he hadn't, he
wouldn't, and then Josh was pushing at his forehead and saying, "Wait,
wait, wait," like a chorus, like the incessant beat of some stupid dance
song.

Sam fell back onto the bed with a groan. "What?" he said, not a
little aware of the exasperated whine his voice held. "What?"

"Sam..."

"What? Do you want to stop?"

"Yeah. No." Josh rolled onto his side to face Sam. "This
isn't... It's not that easy."

Sam couldn't help grinning. "Yes it is," he said, letting himself
flirt a little. He was, after all, in Josh's bed. He could probably
admit now that he liked Josh, had been trailing along after him all week
on the off-chance that he hadn't been misreading the occasional,
scrambled signal.

Josh shook his head. "I can't..." He sighed. "I can't have you
think this is, uh, going somewhere."

"I'm going somewhere," Sam said. "In September."

"No, I mean, um, go anywhere. Look, you were the one who brought
up, you know, uh, Cheney."

"Josh, I don't think... I mean, he's DOD. It's not like I think
every Congressional staffer should have their own parade or something."

"It's not that simple," Josh said. "I mean, I'm not... There's a
bigger picture here." Sam put his hand on Josh's naked waist and Josh
didn't shrug it off. Sam tilted his head up and kissed Josh lightly,
then more severely, until he was shifting his weight to lie on top of
Josh. When they broke away, Josh opened and then closed his eyes again,
gathering some kind of strength.

"Look," Sam debated. "Is there anything anyone could say that we
could reasonably disprove? We can't change the fact that we got this
far."

"I don't, I'm not saying... Just, am I -- I'm not a horrible
person for wanting this, am I?"

"No," Sam said firmly, kissing his neck, running his hand down the
outside of Josh's thigh. "Absolutely not."

"No," Josh said, and Sam had never really heard him sound confused
before, but he did. "For wanting *just* this," he said, like Sam would
actually know the right answer, would set them on the right path.

"Just this?" Sam asked. Josh nodded. "You mean --" Josh's eyes
were squeezed closed, and Sam wondered if it was because Josh didn't
want to see what they were doing. "Just now, you mean, just tonight?"
Josh nodded again. Sam stopped kissing him, leaned over to turn off the
light, and then started again, harder and deeper and lower. Setting a
deadline meant there was more to do, more to be done quickly, and he'd
always gotten an A in More. It would be good. It would be fine.

In the morning, in the bright light shining through a thin sheet
hung as a curtain, Sam woke first. Josh looked almost happy, the
caustic shield softened into restful content. Sam pulled on his
underwear, wandered into the other room, where the bag of apples still
sat in the middle of the empty floor. He went to the bathroom and then
over to the sink, where he found the discarded jug of water and rinsed
out his mouth. When he turned back to the bedroom, Josh was leaning
against the door frame, wearing a pair of boxers and the Tom Petty
shirt. Sam extended the water; Josh shook his head.

"I'm going to get dressed," Sam said, and when he saw Josh it all
came back, and he couldn't quite remember when he'd lost his clothes, or
why they'd made a deal. Josh didn't say anything, watched as Sam found
and put on his pants and shirt. They stood facing each other, not
speaking, and Sam tried to convince himself that just because it
wouldn't happen again didn't mean they'd done something wrong. Josh
sighed. Sam leaned in and kissed the corner of Josh's mouth. Josh
nodded, and Sam left. Josh let him.

Josh
1991.

Come take my hand
Riding out to case the promised land

THE MORNING-AFTER feeling had lasted longer than the hangover, just
barely, and not really in any of the ways Josh had expected. He could
still taste Sam's sour-apple mouth and feel Sam's toned arms gripping
his back as he'd come, and even a second cup of coffee wasn't doing much
to clear the haze. He knew that he should call, should find a way to
put the crashing want into words, should say something as simple as
"Come back here."

Sam had tripped off the curb and yelled, "Catch me," and he had.
He knew Sam was the stronger one, and that it had been Josh's idea in
the first place. But the part of him that always chose the underdog had
wanted at least one of them to have the guts to say, fuck it, it can be
more than that. We can be more than just that, and the rest of the
world can just go to hell. He wanted to devour Sam whole, to send their
bodies hurtling into some other time-space continuum where their suns
fed off each other's energy and the orbits crossed every thousand
light-years.

And then it was Harry on the phone, and Josh remembered why they'd
made the promises in the first place, and that Sam was practically still
a kid, and he couldn't keep pretending he hadn't turned 30 and things
weren't different. Josh wanted to slam his head onto the old metal desk
until he had a concussion and could convince himself it had all been a
dream, that there wasn't some bigger picture.

"So, I've got a meeting this afternoon to talk about the bill,"
Harry said in his booming voice, and Josh had to hold the phone away
from his ear and work on separating the personal from the political,
because he was a Democrat but he wasn't that kind of Democrat.

If he closed his eyes, Sam was nibbling on his neck, his naked legs
sprawled on Josh's thin mattress, dark against the off-white sheets. It
was only the tan that made Sam seem like a California boy, Josh had
decided that first day in Matthews' office when they'd met. That and
the half-mouthed grin and the confident but gentle way he'd shaken
Josh's hand. He was a California boy from a Bret Easton Ellis novel,
not a Beach Boys song, less surfer than social sycophant. But in a sexy
way.

"Josh?"

"Don't," he said.

"What?" Harry was a few decibels short of a shriek.

"Don't have the meeting," Josh said, and then scalded the roof of
his mouth with the coffee. "I'm, hmmm, not sure it's such a good idea."

"Josh, I'm being serious. In two hours I have to go convince them
this thing is going to work."

"It's not going to," he said. He kicked his foot against the
bottom drawer of the desk. Should he have said no? Sam had all but
invited himself back to Josh's, like they were swaggering through the
quad after a frat party and might just accidentally wind up in the same
bunk bed, and really, why the hell not. Josh's mom had always told
Joanie that all you had to do to get a boy to kiss you was look him in
the eye long enough. And she had been right.

"Is he pulling out?" Harry asked, and Josh got the feeling that if
he answered wrong half of Queer Nation would be outside the
congressman's house by morning.

"No, he's not pulling out. He just..." The congressman was in
Florida and Josh hadn't even talked to him since Thursday. But that was
his job, to figure out what was worth their time. At some point he
really had to start making decisions like this on his own. "Harry, he
just really doesn't give a shit. And I -- honestly? -- I can't, like,
figure out why you do either."

"Oh, you know, just those little things like *health insurance.*"
That felt like a slap, and Harry's outrage kept building steam. "What's
going on? Friday you were all over this. Friday you would have made
out with me if I had just said we were in."

"Harry, I'm not -- I'm not saying gay partners shouldn't get
benefits."

"Yes, you are. That's what you just said."

"I said I didn't think this bill was a good idea." It had all been
a profoundly bad idea. He tried to focus, sat with his elbows on the
desk and rubbed his face. Being alone, in his office, made it easier to
see the uselessness of what they'd been trying to do. "I think you know
I'm right," he said. "We've got, what, *one* potential co-sponsor?
Who's from Massachusetts and will always get re-elected even if he
supports gays. We're not going to get a third of the Democrats, let
alone more than maybe one Republican if we're *supremely* lucky, and for
the next year you're going to be reading angry letters to the editor
about how the homosexuals want special rights again."

"That's bullshit."

"You know that, and I know that, Harry, but do you really think the
Wall Street Journal editorial board knows that? At best, no one notices
because they're too busy fighting about gays in the military. At worst,
your guys look crazy and radical and it will take you months to make up
the lost ground. It will be Christmas before anyone will even take your
calls."

"Is that a threat?"

"Oh, for crying out loud, like I have that kind of power." His
chair squeaked. "Listen to me. I'm -- I'm on your side here."

There was a long silence, and then Harry said, quietly for once:
"That's what I'd heard."

"What?"

"That you were on our side," Harry said, sounding a little
wounded. Josh wanted to call him a drama queen but wasn't sure if he
was allowed.

"Harry, you know -- you *know* that I support gay rights. You know
my boss does." Harry *still* wasn't talking. Josh leaned back and
played with the phone cord. Belatedly, it dawned on him that they
weren't having the same conversation. "Uh, what are you saying?"

"You've been to JR's before," Harry said.

"Uh, yeah." It was true. He'd gone with Gary and Matt once in the
spring and then met them again after the pride parade. "Was that
supposed to be, like, a secret?"

"You tell me."

"You know, I have, I've got gay friends other than you, Harry."

"We're not friends."

"No kidding," Josh snorted. Harry was just being a drama queen.
And it *wasn't* a secret, damn it. "I went to JR's twice, maybe three
times, with some guys I know from the Hill. And once, I think, to that
other place over on P Street -- uh, Badlands?"

"Good for you," Harry said, sounding sarcastic, bordering on mean.
Josh sighed. It was going to be okay, if Harry could be sarcastic.
"You're so progressive," Harry continued. "You should get a special
medal. It's like your dad going to Selma to register black voters, only
sexier. You're a fucking radical. *Excuse me.*"

"Harry, what the hell?" It hadn't ever been about being a
radical. It was just about Sam. Maybe. Maybe it was just about being
30.

"What's your little friend think about all this?"

"Who?" The question was out of his mouth before he realized.

"The cute one." Josh made a noncommittal noise and tried to play
dumb, which he'd long ago learned was a lot easier to pull off over the
phone. "Sam," Harry said at last.

"What about him?" He was trying so hard to keep his voice even,
which probably meant he sounded like a 15-year-old caught doing
something that still seemed a little wrong.

"You think he only goes to JR's with his gay friends? What's *he*
think about dropping the bill?"

Jesus. He was *not* going through this whole conversation again,
not over Sam. It was time to cut and run. "Harry, you think if
Matthews thought this was so great he'd send some kid? I'm telling you
what you already know -- it's *not* a great idea, and it's going to cost
you way more than you'll get in return. Don't put this out there just
to be able to say in some fundraising letter that you got two
co-sponsors. That's just embarrassing. Let's wait another couple
years, or go after the military thing. Let's do it right."

After a minute, Harry grunted in agreement. It was over, then.
Good. He sat back.

"You want to go to JR's tonight?" Harry asked, in what Josh could
only hope was a peace offering.

"Is this a test or something?"

"No."

"Harry, it's been a long week."

"It's Monday."

"Still?" Josh smiled and put his feet up on the desk, wondering if
he had to be gay to get called a drama queen.

"Yeah."

"Next time, okay? Really."

"All right."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. We better get your backing on the military thing."

"Okay."

"You should really be on our side, you know."

"Harry --"

"Yeah, I know." The call clicked off, and Josh let his neck hang
over the back of the chair in exhaustion. What a nightmarish
conversation. The phone rang again. Josh yelled out his door to Maria
to pick it up and grabbed the day's Post, scanning headlines.

Maria ducked her head around the door. "It's someone from
Matthews' office."

"Who?" Josh asked, but he knew.

"He didn't say. Want me to find out?"

"Take a message." She wasn't at all intrigued. Josh still
couldn't believe they'd managed to get the least curious, least
likely-to-gossip secretary in the city.

She came back in a minute and handed him the top copy from the
carbon pad -- "Sam Seaborn, W/R/T legislation" -- and went out to get
him a sandwich. With regard to the now-dead legislation, Josh thought,
and realized this meant he didn't have to see Sam again. Didn't have to
or didn't get to? He wasn't sure which was better. He wasn't sure it
was anything more than just a drunken, stupid night.

Again, the phone. He let a deliberating hand hang over it. Shit.
He was a congressional staffer. He couldn't just avoid the phone.
"Josh Lyman," he answered.

"It's Matt."

"Hey," Josh said. Matt Skinner had spent 15 weeks in Con Law
defending Bowers v. Hardwick and Josh had almost never forgiven him for
it. But Matt was smart and, well, his dad had always said that if you
didn't know your enemies they weren't enemies, they were just excuses.
He looked down at the pink message slip. "You're not going to believe
the conversation I just had with --"

"Josh, did you see The Advocate?"

"Uh, no, Matt, I don't really --"

"They did it. About Williams."

"You're kidding." Josh had been so surprised to have had Sam
mention Pete Williams. Where had Sam heard about that? Gary and Matt
had told Josh in May that a reporter was calling, and he'd thought it
was one of those open secrets that only people with the same secret got
to know. Josh wasn't sure what that meant about him.

"It names him, and it has all these quotes from guys whose friends
slept with him. I can't believe they ran it."

"Has anyone picked it up?" Josh flipped through the front two
sections of the Post. Nothing. He wondered if Maria would go get a
copy of the magazine for him.

"I don't think so. This guy I know at Defense says no one even
asked a question at today's briefing."

"Well, that's... good."

"Yeah," Matt said. It took Josh a second to realize that Matt
sounded scared. "Anyway," Matt said, "I just thought I'd give you a
heads-up."

"Uh, why?"

"Because, you know." Josh didn't know. For a deranged moment he
wondered if he and Sam had been followed, if someone had seen Sam leave
his place Saturday morning. He was overreacting. He was totally
overreacting. "Because you guys have talked about the military thing,"
Matt said. "And Cheney's been strangely all over the map on that. So
you might get a call or something."

"Oh," Josh said, feeling stupid and paranoid. "Yeah. Thanks."
Pause. "You okay, Matt?"

"I'm fine."

"You sure?"

"Yeah." Josh didn't believe him. "Well, Gary's in it."

"What?"

"Gary. Is one of the guys who says he knows someone who slept with
Pete."

Josh put his feet back on the floor, leaned over the desk. "Pete?"

"What?"

"You just called him Pete. Do you guys know him?"

"No. Uh, Gary used to go to these dinner parties at this guy's
house and he was there sometimes." So it was a lot of dinner parties.
Josh hated dinner parties.

Maria walked in, balancing a turkey club on a can of Tab and
somehow managing to set them both on his desk without knocking anything
over. Josh waited until she left. "Shit. Have you talked to him?"

"Not yet."

"Wait, he's named?"

"No. But I know it's him."

"Maybe it's just someone who sounds like him."

"Josh..." God, could it really still be Monday? He unwrapped the
sandwich and popped open the can. "Josh," Matt started again. Matt
sounded like such a bitchy fag, Josh thought, not at all fondly. He was
such a hypocritical asshole.

"What?" he asked, crossly.

"It was me."

Josh swallowed the bite of turkey, heard the phone on Maria's desk
ring. "What was?"

"I'm the guy Gary knew."

Josh sat up. "Wait," he said. Jesus. "You're saying -- you're
one of the guys who --"

"Yeah."

"Wait, you --" Maria bent around the door, making some kind of
hand movement that looked like half a round of Charades. "Hold on," he
said to Matt, hoping he didn't sound rude. "What?"

"Sam Seaborn again."

"Fuck." He crunched the aluminum can between his fingers, thought
about throwing it.

"Josh? Does that mean take a message?"

"It means tell him to fucking grow up and just wait for a minute
while I deal with an actual problem."

"You want me to say that exactly, or can I paraphrase?"

"Shit."

"I'll take a message." She gave him a questioning look.

"Like, now," he said sharply, the picture-perfect asshole boss he'd
always sworn he'd never become, the old white guy in a tie who had no
appreciation for his administrative assistant's dry wit and eternal good
nature. She left, and he sighed. "Matt?"

"Yeah."

"Sorry."

"What was that about?"

"Nothing. Nothing." He pushed the food away, feeling sick to his
stomach. "When did this happen?" he asked wearily.

"It was a while ago. Before Gary and before, you know, he was
always on TV."

"I didn't mean..." Josh rubbed his temples, looked at the closed
office door. "Matt, can I tell you something?"

"Yeah," Matt said, sounding distracted.

"I -- ah, nothing," Josh said. "Never mind. It's going to be
fine."

"Probably."

"Yeah. Go call Gary."

"Yeah," Matt said. "Thanks. See, this is why I have straight
friends. Guys make a lot more sense when they're not hung up on other
guys."

Josh grunted. He didn't know many men who weren't hung up on their
boss, their dad, whoever had played quarterback to their second-string.
He said goodbye, hung up and yelled Maria's name. He wondered why she
never mentioned going out with guys. She came to his office door,
looking like she was considering something violent. "I'm sorry," he
said, meaning it for a lot of different reasons, most of which he knew
she'd never get.

"I took a message," she said.

Sam
1994.

     The radio plays
     Roy Orbison singing for the lonely
     Hey that's me and I want you only
     Don't turn me home again
     I just can't face myself alone again

MIKE AND MELISSA had gotten a new apartment in the Watergate building.
It was 2,000 square feet, with a book-lined office for Melissa and a
studio with an adjoining darkroom for Mike. There was a guest bedroom,
in which Sam and Krissy's matching Armani luggage rested. There were
two full bathrooms and a covered balcony. Sam was leaning over a
wrought iron railing, and to his right there was a stainless steel
mini-fridge, the kind that came with a wet bar, plugged into the
external outlet. There was a flower arrangement, something with
eucalyptus, on top of the fridge. There was an insulated chrome ice
bucket and four cut-glass tumblers on a small table beside it. There
were two sleek black chairs. There was a view of the Lincoln Memorial.

The housing market was a good reason to live in D.C., Sam allowed,
not that he ever thought of giving up New York anymore. Passing the
three-year mark had felt like a coming of age. It was like a sign that
he'd been right to stay through that first rough year, when everything
seemed to revolve around being overworked and feeling lonely and having
sex that rarely took place in a bed or lasted longer than a few
minutes. Then he'd met the right people, and now he had a better job at
a better firm, a better apartment, an enviable social circle with old
names and new SoHo lofts, and a fiancée who was both smart and
beautiful. And, better, she understood him.

The party was far more lively than the weeknight wine tastings to
which he'd grown accustomed. Through the closed glass sliding door, Sam
could hear Tony Bennett's Unplugged album and people getting drunk. He
was more than a little wasted himself. Krissy hated it when he got
plastered. Sam didn't care enough to argue about it, especially given
how rarely they fought about anything. That's how he knew it was right
that they were getting married.

But tonight, he'd felt a little worn out from a day in the car and
three before spent on the beach in the sun, and he'd let himself have
Jack and Coke instead of Chardonnay. That had been his drink in law
school, Jack and Coke, or sometimes, if he was feeling reckless, lots
and lots of beer. But he didn't drink beer anymore, unless he was
traveling or in some Village dive when Kris was out of town, because
beer always wound up tasting like men's spit, and usually it was easier
not to have that flavor in his mouth when he was kissing his
girlfriend. Fiancée. Yeah. He was getting married. That part was
still new. He was glad about it. They were going to have a tastefully
huge wedding where his mother and Kris' mother could cry together.

The night was cool, for mid-August, and there was a little breeze
off the Potomac. Sam stretched his torso out over the railing and let
the wind play across his face, thought about the guy from Oil and Gas on
the eighth floor who'd jumped out of his Fifth Avenue penthouse co-op.

He tried to remember where he'd met Mike. Probably at Tracks,
because Sam knew it was in those weeks when he had stayed out all night
fucking anything that moved, trying to convince himself that one night
spent with some self-deluding, second-tier political hack who'd never
even called him again was not going to be worth remembering in the years
to come. It wouldn't even be worth remembering his name, so Sam tried
to convince himself he didn't, and still every time he was in D.C. it
was all he thought about.

Someone pulled the door open behind him, and Sheryl Crow was
wondering again if she should leave Las Vegas, and when the glass slid
shut, he could hear Krissy's voice over the dimmed chatter.

"Sam, you know how you always say this is such a small town?" He
turned toward her, smiling, because it was just like her to gently bring
the party to him if he was going to be so reclusive and self-absorbed.

"Hey," Josh said, looking a little embarrassed. He was wearing
dark dress slacks and a light blue button-down, undone at the neck, like
he'd come right from work. His smile was loose and maybe a little
drunk, and the dimples were as deep as they'd been that first day they
met. Sam had been in Matthews' office when this unfurled mess of legs
and arms and crazy hair had flown into the room and immediately taken
over the conversation. Josh was like a Woody Allen movie, his speech
dyspeptic and his brilliance translated through a filter of neuroses,
but when he'd shaken Sam's hand and smiled, his cheeks had dented into
parentheses and Sam had needed to sit on the edge of the congressman's
desk because he'd felt dizzy.

Sam sputtered a little, tried to remember how men said hello.

"I was just talking to this nice woman" -- Josh leaned his head
toward Krissy, who had her hand tucked in the bend of Josh's arm -- "and
she tells me that her, uh, boyfriend --"

"Fiancé," Krissy said, laughing, as if they'd already run through
the scene once and Josh kept getting the same line wrong.

"Fiancé," Josh said elaborately, doing a passable imitation of
Krissy. "Excuse me, that her *fiancé* is this lawyer named Sam Seaborn
who I just *have* to meet right away." Whom, Sam thought, making
himself smile. He took two steps and reached out to shake Josh's hand.

"And then he said you two had already met!" Krissy came over and
wrapped her arm around Sam's waist, pecking him on the cheek. He'd
forgotten, in an hour, how small she was, how skinny, how suddenly
insubstantial in form.

"It really is a small town," Sam managed, wondering how if that was
true six weeks had passed in which they had not once seen each other.

"Josh works for Congress. For..."

"The minority whip," Josh finished, nodding at Sam like of course
*he* would understand what that meant, and for a second Sam was annoyed
on Krissy's behalf, because she wasn't stupid.

"Yes, sorry, right," Krissy said. "I -- I hope this isn't rude,
but do you think the DUI is going to make it difficult for him to get
enough votes on the Mayh amendment for the bill to pass?"

"Uh, you know, uh --" Josh looked at Sam. Later, Sam would want
to say that he hadn't looked back. "I can't really, I'm, you know, it
was a long time ago. I mean, he was 19. He didn't lie about it. And,
I mean, nobody knew who he was back then."

"That's great, Josh," Sam said, reaching back to steady himself
against the railing. "That's great for you. You've done well." He
tried to remember what floor the apartment was on, how high up they
were. If it was really true that people suffocated before they hit the
ground.

"Well..."

"Look at him, Mr. Modest." Krissy squeezed his waist and detached
herself. "I'll let you two catch up, then. I'm supposed to go talk
dresses with Melissa."

"Dresses?" Sam asked, only half-listening as he took in that Josh
looked aged but not old, tired but not worn. He'd lost a little hair,
maybe, but appeared wiser for it. There were brackets around his eyes
to match the lines left by dimples. He looked fit. He looked good.

"Wedding dresses," she said, heading for the door. Krissy was as
happy in that minute as she had been in the little seafood restaurant in
Hilton Head, eggshell blue box laying open on the table. He felt
light-headed and a little nauseous.

Sam turned to look back out over the city, trying to breathe
evenly, as she disappeared back inside. After a minute, Josh came and
rested his elbows beside him.

"I have to warn you," Josh said. "I'm a little drunk. There was
this thing after work and then Melissa has been force-feeding me
martinis." It was the kind of thing people said only when they felt
like somehow they needed to prove it.

"No reason to stop now, then," Sam said. This was what men did:
They drank together, and it was not a disaster. It was the way the
world had worked for eons. It had been three years, and they were both,
in a manner of speaking, professional conversationalists. He walked
over to the mini-fridge, and bent down to see what it held. "Uh, gin
and tonic? Or there are these little bottles of Glen Ellen Chardonnay."

"White wine is for yuppies."

"Gin and tonic it is." He wondered if knowing it wasn't even good
white wine made him a yuppie. His fingers stumbled over the ice tongs
and he rose with a drink in each hand. The gin was still only lukewarm.

"So..." Josh trailed off as he accepted the glass and took a long
sip.

"So," Sam said. He couldn't look at Josh.

"So, how do you know Mike and Melissa?"

"Uh, I know Mike," Sam said. "From, um, I don't know. A while
ago. You?"

"I know Melissa."

"Oh really?" Sam asked, as if it were so interesting. "From
where?"

"Probably the racquet club," Josh said, and Sam was opening his
mouth to ask which racquet club, but Josh hadn't been serious. Sam
laughed a little, to show he got it. Josh turned toward him a notch and
reached out to finger the edge of Sam's cuff; when he brushed the
button, he pulled away like he'd touched something hot. "Uh, nice
shirt," Josh said hoarsely.

Sam's chest felt magnetized, adhered to the railing through an
electrical field that stilled any movement in return. He whispered,
"Thanks." And, before he could stop: "Calvin Klein."

"Oh," Josh said, standing up straight. "So, uh, what does Krissy
do? She couldn't, uh -- she couldn't stop talking about you long enough
to tell me."

"She's an editor. With Simon & Schuster. She's great."

"Ah, yeah, she seems great."

"Yeah, she's great." Sam had made a double and he was still almost
done. He bit into an ice cube, felt the frozen shard disintegrate in
his mouth and swallowed hard. The cold left a sharp path down his
throat.

"And she said you have a good apartment."

"Yeah, it's great." He searched for synonyms. "It's huge,
actually. Great location." Great. "Uh, wonderful building, nice
doorman. You know, the holy grail."

"The holy grail?"

"Uh, yeah," Sam said. "You know. Location, staff, size. The
troika of Tribeca real estate."

"How could I forget?" Josh was looking at the river, his
enunciation flat. "Who knew all you'd be giving up by going corporate?"

Sam struggled for a word of protest. Josh sounded like Selden,
from Edith Wharton, that queen of aristocratic suffocation. Brilliant
Selden and poor Lily and "Why do you make the things I have chosen seem
hateful to me if you have nothing to give me instead?" It was always
the men in her novels who were the real fuck-ups, full of lust and
insight and never an ounce of courage. It was the women who wanted to
transgress their painted fortunes for the sake of grand love.

"Yeah," Sam said. It was the men who were too scared to ask for
what they wanted, even when it was standing right in front of them.

"And you're getting married." Josh swirled the liquid around in
the glass.

"Yeah," Sam said, wondering if anyone read House of Mirth anymore.
"Uh, probably in April, maybe May if we can't get the church she wants."

"Well, good for you."

Josh was a really bad liar. "Yeah," Sam said. It *was* good. It
was what he wanted. There was nothing to be given him instead, and it
was what he had chosen, and it wasn't a damn American tragedy. It was
his life, and he could do much, much worse.

Josh reached out again and touched his wrist, briefly. "I'd just
never quite pictured you married, Sam." Josh was swallowing his words
as he spoke, and Sam wondered if that was out of some kind of anxiety or
just the way he'd always talked.

"Really?" Sam asked, and then groped for anything that would cover
the sound of such an obvious question. "I never told you about Miranda?"

"Uh, no," Josh said, looking away. "Who's Miranda?"

Sam, belatedly, was grateful to Josh for not pointing out that they
didn't really know each other all that well. The way he'd remembered
it, they had communicated those kinds of histories to each other, even
when they hadn't spoken. "She was my college girlfriend," he said. "We
almost got married my first year at Duke."

"So what happened?"

"Well..." Shit. "Well, she was a lesbian, actually."

Josh laughed. "Well, that -- that'll do it," he said.

"Yeah, well, it wasn't like that, you know."

"Wasn't like what?"

"At first, I mean. I mean, it wasn't like she fell in love with
some woman while we were together or anything. We just didn't think it
mattered."

"You didn't think it mattered?" Josh laughed a little. "Sam.
Come on."

"We just thought... We didn't know that there was a difference
between caring about each other and sometimes wanting to mess around and
building a relationship together, that's all."

Josh sighed. Sam loved how Josh was always sighing, these deep
weight-of-the-world exhalations inflected with subdued desire. "That's
a lot," Josh said, and Sam put a hand on Josh's back. Josh was turning
around, and Sam's hand came to rest on Josh's stomach, and he still
didn't want to take it away. Sam thought maybe he was drunk enough to
have lost that valve between wanting something and doing it, or at least
that was what he'd be able to tell himself later. He tackled Josh
against the railing, kissing him like it was the only thing keeping them
both from hurtling over and Josh was biting his lip and Sam didn't care
if someone was watching or he was sloshing his drink against his shirt.
He had enough left in him to be stifled and care about those things or
to keep touching Josh, and it wasn't much of a contest.

His hand descended from Josh's abdomen down against the front of
Josh's pants, where he could feel enough of an erection to think he
should keep going, so he did, cupping his hand around it as best he
could through the fabric. He could taste vermouth as their lips moved
across each other's mouths and somewhere in the distance he could hear
Stephen Tyler singing "Crazy" and that was how he felt just then,
completely crazy for this man.

And then Josh was pushing him away, hard, and grabbing him under
the armpits and shaking him a few times -- "He's, uh, having a little
trouble standing up," Josh was saying in his ear, too loudly. "I think
he's had too much to drink."

He could smell Krissy's hair as she grabbed him around the waist
and slipped her slender shoulder under his. "Thanks," she said, he
guessed to Josh, before stage-whispering to him, "Someone needs to go to
sleep, I think." Krissy wasn't strong enough to move him against his
will, and finally Josh took her place and walked him back into the
apartment.

"Don't make a fool out of yourself," Josh hissed at him as they
opened the door, and Sam tried very, very hard to walk in a straight
line back to where he'd left the guest bedroom. He stopped at the door,
and when he turned he could see Krissy still standing at the end of the
hall, shaking her head to herself before turning around and leaving them
alone.

"She's gone," he said, turning the knob and staggering into the
room, where he tripped over a suitcase and fell face-first onto the big
bed. He could hear Josh sigh. The hall light was cut by the angle of
the closing door, and when Sam managed to roll over it was dark and he
could barely make out Josh's silhouette.

"You're drunk," Josh said, sitting on the edge of the bed.

"So're you. And I'm not that drunk, I'm, I'm just happy."

"You're happy?"

"Yeah."

"This -- this is what you look like happy?"

"It's been a while," Sam said, and he didn't want to remember how
long that meant, because he *was* happy, damn it, and why shouldn't he
be for a change? He was tugging at Josh's belt to pull him closer.
"C'mon. Come over here."

"I'm drunk, Sam."

"Yeah, so am I. It doesn't matter."

Sigh. "I guess it doesn't."

The fact was, it didn't matter because they didn't want it to, Sam
understood later, when he could remember most of what had happened but
seemed to keep confusing the things they'd said aloud with what their
bodies had been talking about. But there were things he knew for sure:
Josh had laid flighty little kisses across his chest before going down
on him. Josh hadn't let Sam take their pants off all the way, even
though he'd kept trying. Josh had buried his face in one of the
goose-down pillows when he was coming, trying to stay quiet even though
the music had still pounded through the bedroom walls.

When he'd awakened, Krissy was sleeping next to him, and they were
both on top of the covers, probably because he'd been too heavy to
move. The sheer curtains didn't block the brightness at all, and it
felt like he'd stretched a muscle in his thigh.

NEW YORK WAS reassuring in its frenetic pace and matter-of-fact
declarations, and being back in a city where happiness mattered less
than success helped him keep his mind on what had made him excel in the
first place. He was checking messages on the hall phone while Krissy
immediately started unpacking, like always, and when he fumbled for a
pen, he cut his finger on a business card in the pocket of his suit
jacket. He made himself wait two days.

"This is Josh." The voice interrupted six minutes' worth of
Schubert through the speakerphone, and Sam sat straight up at his desk
and pawed for the receiver.

"Uh, hi."

"Oh," Josh said.

"It's Sam."

"Yeah, I know. Sorry, I think my secretary's on strike or
something. She stopped announcing my calls yesterday, just out of the
blue. You, uh, back in New York?"

"Yeah, since Sunday."

"Ah..."

Shit. Sam gripped the edge of the ebony table and made himself
take a deep breath. "I found your card," he said, because in the 10
seconds since Josh had picked up he'd started thinking that maybe Josh
had given it to Krissy and she had put it in the coat, and it didn't
mean anything, and now he had to know at least that much or he might go
crazy again.

"Yeah," Josh said.

"I wasn't sure..."

"No, I'm glad. I mean, I thought..." He trailed off. "So, how's
your job?"

"My what?"

"Your job. Uh, Krissy said you're really happy at this new firm,
uh..."

Jesus. "Gage Whitney," he said, not wanting to think about Krissy.

"Yeah, right. How's that going?"

"It's... It's fine, Josh."

"I just, we, uh..." Was Josh nervous? "We didn't really talk.
About what we've been up to."

"No, no we didn't." Josh didn't speak, so Sam went on. "Uh, it's
a big firm. But it's good. The people are... They're fine."

"That's good. That's -- shit. Can you hold on?" He could hear
Josh wrap a hand around the mouthpiece and, through his fingers,
fragments of yelling -- "What do you mean he's changed his goddamned
vote?" -- and Sam felt a sudden nostalgia for people who argued about
things that mattered. Then, "I'm back."

"Hey..." Sam said.

He could hear Josh smile. "Hey..." It was one drawn-out,
three-letter word, and Josh was letting it last forever, like a gift.

"You have to go," Sam finally said, saving him the apology.

Josh sighed. "Well, yeah, I do."

"They don't call him a whip for nothing, right?"