during the long run
I was waiting for the leap year and got caught out in the rain
Singing like a sparrow, always planning my narrow escape
Chris adds the column again, and then once more. Lance's block-lettered note in the margin says "half" and he's right, Chris can get by with almost half as much rum until the thermometer hits at least seventy-five and there are three consecutive days without spring rains. It's just too fucking wet in late April for people to want piña coladas. The phone on his desk buzzes and he holds the register tape steady and picks up the call without looking away. He really kind of hates this part, and it was hard enough not to lose his place when he was used to doing it every day.
It's the first week Lance is working at home for real, behind his big imported desk that faces Chris' like they're going to play Battleship between conference calls. Chris misses him nine kinds of itchy, raw ways, like how he put his hand on the empty passenger seat on the drive down that morning because Lance's thigh wasn't there to get in the way. Smooth calfskin that's nothing like even the expensive leather pants Lance would be wearing on their way to some party.
Chris used to be able to work, he used to be able to get through the day without getting distracted by anything more complicated than Russian novels. Lance is talking, the sound is in Chris' ear and if he's sounding like that he's probably saying something important. All Chris can hear is the way Lance pants deep in his throat when he's close to coming. The night before, with Chris' heels pressed into Lance's shoulders, Lance had gasped and thrust and Chris had almost broken their headboard, he grabbed the railing so hard.
Lance says Chris' name now, but shortly, impatiently. Not like he's trying to get somewhere, not exactly. "Yeah, honey," Chris says, squinting at the calculator.
"So I'm just going to call a different guy," Lance says, "because this one didn't know anything about my car and I don't want him fucking up the lock."
Chris looks at the phone. "What?" He looks back at the total order and realizes he's not sure where he left off.
"You are not listening to me at all," Lance says.
"What's wrong with your car lock?"
"Nothing," Lance says, and then he laughs a little. "Pay attention. Nothing's wrong except that my keys are inside, and it's not like I can just call up the dealer and have them send a new set over."
"Told you to buy some little Japanese thing, man."
"It's a classic. It's -- look. My point here is that I don't know how long I'm going to have to wait. Before I'm done."
Chris feels in his pocket, pulls out his keys and centers them in the middle of his desk blotter. "I'll just go to the party for a little and then come home," he says. "Tell me where you are and I'll come drop off the house keys so you don't have to kill any more time."
Lance is quiet and Chris can hear the wave of a passing car with booming bass lines.
"Or you can just come meet me?" Chris can't quite tell if Lance is having a bad day. It's just his car. It's not a work thing. Usually Chris knows right away but frankly he's a little tired what with all the sex they've been having and every once in a while he misses a cue.
"It's fine, whatever," Lance says, so clearly it's not.
Chris imagines Lance sitting on the front stoop with schoolbags strewn around his feet, twelve years old and locked out and lonely and miserable. Chris used to pass this kid Danny on his way to work whose mom was always forgetting to pick him up for things. Maybe Danny's mom thought he'd just be a little kid and play and forget all about the time.
"I'll come give you my keys," Chris says. "And, I mean, I can blow this thing off, it's no big deal."
"It's dinner with the next mayor of Chicago, and you're going, and it's fine," Lance says, and Chris starts to interrupt but Lance cuts him off with a tight little sigh. "I've got your keys, anyway," he says.
Chris doesn't care whose dinner party it is, he doesn't want to go without Lance. No one really gets his sense of humor, but they laugh anyway, and maybe that's all politics is but at least with Lance there he can distract them both with bad First Lady jokes. "Hey," he says, leaning back a little and spinning his keys around like a dancing starfish. "Have you heard the one about Lady Bird and the binoculars?"
"No," Lance says, but Chris is sure he's smiling despite himself.
"So, LBJ takes her out on this lake on a picnic," Chris starts, and when he turns his chair to look out the window it's dark and cloudy and all he can imagine is Lance caught in the downpour, hair sopping wet and locked out of the car. "Hey," he says, "why aren't your keys with your other keys? Your house keys. Why aren't they locked in the car?"
"Your keys are in my pocket," Lance says.
"You have separate key rings?" Chris frowns. Three months of Lance emptying his change out on the nightstand and if they were on the Newlywed Game he'd really have just screwed up their chances of winning.
Lance says, softly, "It's your house, Chris."
Chris swallows. "Tell me where you are," he says.
It only threatens to rain and when Chris pulls into the gas station lot, Lance is sitting on the silver hood of the car, reading a newspaper. He doesn't look like a lost kid, he looks like he walked out of a Robert Redford movie, one of the ones where Redford winks and laughs at all the men and steals their girlfriends before they even realize they're distracted.
Chris clenches his fists and tries to remember that tearing off Lance's clothes right there would pretty much end this crazy politics plan before it even had a chance to start. The keys dig into his palm. Lance looks up over the paper and smiles a little sheepishly.
Chris walks over and puts his hands on Lance's legs, right above the knees. "We'll find another one if you want, if that means you'll --" Chris stops and leans forward to kiss Lance. "Don't be an idiot here," he says, pressing the keys into Lance's thigh.
"Don't be a jerk," Lance says, but he loops one finger into the metal ring.
Chris rests his weight on either side of Lance's body, palms against cool steel of the car. Almost three months of waking up with his fingerprints on Lance's soft skin and it's like he's just now figured out it's not a race. He knows that by any measure they're slow and steady and stuck like glue. "I want it to be your home, too," he says.
"Don't even listen to me," Lance says. He tips his head, burying his face in Chris' neck. "I'm just having a bad day."
Lance's birthday is next week. Chris is forty and Lance will be thirty-three and Chris isn't sure but it's been such a long year, he thinks they should be celebrating their fiftieth anniversary any minute now. Maybe he'll buy Lance a house. Maybe they'll buy one together somewhere they've never been, like North Dakota, and Chris will tell everybody they eloped on account of Lance locking himself out of his car.
Maybe one day it will all feel so slow and stuck together that he'll tell the whole story like it's a joke, like happily ever after is a punchline. Lance will shake his head and say, "No, you attacked me, you old freak," and kiss Chris on the cheek on his way back to the kitchen. Chris will wait until he's out of earshot to tell the story of how it really happened.
END
Credits: Title/lyrics by Patty Griffin, "Go Now."