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Nicky can tell the weather forecast was right from the moment he opens his eyes. Something about the quality of the light, the way the pale morning sun seems to refract through the blinds from the ground up. The way the city—which always seems to be in motion, on a normal day, even if this is the Second City, and not the City that Never Sleeps—has gone muffled and quiet around the edges in a way it seldom does.
“Joe,” Nicky turns his head to kiss the cheek of the man curled around him, unable to resist the urge to nuzzle at his beard as he does so. “Joe, I think it snowed last night.”
Joe mumbles something unintelligible and wraps his arms tighter around Nicky, twining their legs together so he can warm his feet against Nicky’s calves. His feet are always cold, and for a moment, it takes Nicky’s breath away that this is the sort of thing he knows, now: that Joe’s feet are always cold when he wakes up in the morning; that somehow he ends up in bare feet even if he went to bed wearing socks. That he puts two whole sugar cubes in the tiny cup from the copper and lazuline set he brought from home before filling it with the fragrant coffee he makes on the stove. That the only time he sings is in the shower, because he’s shy about his singing voice, even if Nicky thinks it’s lovely.
I never thought I could have this, he’d told Joe the first morning they’d woken up together. It had been almost too much for him to say, even with his back to Joe’s chest; an emotional stripping down that left him nearly as vulnerable as when Joe had undressed him the night before. But Joe had simply turned him around, pressed him into the mattress, and kissed him breathless, and Nicky had been filled with a hope so keen-edged it was almost a prayer: that he might be able to keep this. That he might be able to keep Joe, warm and kind and romantic and tender, like something Nicky had conjured up out of years of lonely dreams, only better.
There had been many mornings, since then, days of drifting between Nicky’s apartment in Boystown and the row house Joe shares with Andy and Quynh in Andersonville, lugging duffel bags of clothes back and forth from Nicky’s practicum or Joe’s job at the Art Institute until Nicky had finally worked up the nerve to offer Joe the use of a drawer. The smile on Joe’s face, and the speed with which he’d reciprocated the offer, had put paid to any remaining doubts Nicky might have had about whether it was too soon, even if they’d had to put up with relentless trolling from Andy and Quynh about whether Nicky and Joe were doing something called “U-Hauling.”
If it were a different morning, he would allow Joe to cosset him back to sleep, content to burrow under the blankets with him until his alarm went off, or until Joe woke him with a kiss to the shoulder and a hand dipping suggestively below his waistband. But this morning, there is snow, and Nicky wants to see it before the rest of the world wakes up. There’s something about it that still feels like a moment of grace, to Nicky—like the world is being held, briefly, by something bigger than itself, something new and forgiving and still unbroken, for however long it lasts. And so he lifts Joe’s hand to his mouth and presses a kiss to the palm before sliding slowly out of bed, shivering as his feet touch the wooden floor. He pads over to the window and peeks outside.
There are three inches of snow on the sidewalk, at least, and it’s still coming down. The street shows signs that a snowplow has been through sometime in the night, but it’s already completely white again, and none of the cars parked on the side of the road look like they’ll be moving anytime soon. The meteorologist—a word Nicky loves in both languages, for the way it rolls off the tongue, and because it’s a cognate—called for seven inches or more, and Nicky would be lying if he said he wasn’t hoping “more” would win out, in the end. There is nowhere else they need to be, today.
“Look at you, walking around in bare feet in the middle of winter,” Joe tuts at him from the bed as he sits up, his hair still tousled from sleep. He leans over to rummage in Nicky’s dresser, tossing a pair of wool socks to Nicky before taking out another pair for himself. “You’ll catch a cold.”
“I don’t think that’s how colds work, Joe,” Nicky points out, putting the socks on.
Joe winks at him. “Don’t tell that to my aunts.”
Nicky smiles. “I won’t,” he says. “If I ever…”
“When,” Joe corrects, pulling a moth-eaten sweater over his head and walking over to join Nicky at the window. “When you meet them.” He nudges Nicky’s nose with his own before he kisses him.“It’s ok to plan for things, you know.”
“Hmm?” Nicky has lost the plot, for a moment, lulled by the kissing and the slow circles Joe is rubbing on his back, and by the snow eddying outside.
“It’s ok to make plans,” Joe repeats. “About us. For us. In case that’s something you were worrying about.”
For a moment, Nicky is back at seminary again. If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans, one of the priests used to say. But it hadn’t felt like laughter when, only a few months later, Nicky found himself with no career, no home, and no family that would acknowledge him, standing at the front desk of a third-rate motel while the clerk told him his credit card had been declined. It had felt like something much darker than that.
“I haven’t had much luck with making plans,” Nicky says, fidgeting with the cord on the blinds. “Historically, I mean.” He can’t seem to manage more, just now, but Joe seems to intuit it anyway, because he pulls Nicky in closer and runs a hand through his hair.
“That’s fair,” Joe says. “How about this, then: I know I want you to meet my family, whenever we can make that happen. And I’m not going to change my mind about wanting you to meet them anytime soon. You can be certain of how I feel, even if you don’t feel certain about anything else.”
Nicky wants to lean into him, then, wants to lean into all of it: this feels like forever, and Joe is offering it freely. But maybe that’s the problem—Nicky has learned just how fragile a thing forever can be. The church that baptized him will not be the one that marries or buries him. The snow that is pristine now will be gray by tomorrow, smeared with exhaust and treacherous to walk on. There are only so many promises the world can keep. And so—
“It’s only been six weeks,” Nicky says, swallowing the lump in his throat. “You don’t have to promise me anything.” As soon as the words are out of his mouth, he regrets them. He shuts his eyes, worried that he’s ruined everything, that this will be the thing that leads Joe to throw up his hands, and walk out the door. But when he opens his eyes, Joe is still there. If anything, he’s moved even closer than he was before. He takes Nicky’s face between his hands.
“Who are you trying to protect when you say that, hmm? Me, or you?” Joe asks softly. “Because if it’s me, I don’t need protecting. Not from this. Not from us. And if it’s you…” Joe pauses, searching out Nicky’s eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to protect yourself, Nicolò. You have more cause than most, I think. All I ask is that you let me protect you, sometimes, too.” He strokes his thumbs across Nicky’s cheekbones. “I would keep your heart safe, if you’ll let me.”
It’s not that a switch flips, exactly, at Joe’s words. There’s no dam that breaks, emotional or otherwise, to wash away all the painful parts of Nicky’s past in the rush of its waters. What happens, instead, is something quieter, if no less profound: Nicky makes a choice. He lets himself lean in, this time; lets himself be held, and soothed, and kissed, as the world around them fades away.
Soon enough, someone’s stomach will growl, and pull them back into the present. Nicky will put the kettle on while Joe pulls out their favorite mugs from the cabinet, and they will have breakfast, and coffee, and fragrant cups of mint tea. They will fold the futon out so it’s lying flat, and pile it with blankets, and prop Nicky’s laptop on a stack of books on the coffee table, so they can curl up together and watch episodes of a show neither of them will remember later. Later still, Nicky will lie with his head in Joe’s lap as he reads aloud from a book of poetry, his strong artist’s fingers twining through Nicky’s hair, and his last thought before he falls asleep will be that he should tell Joe how much he loves him.
But right now, they are kissing, and the snow keeps on falling outside.