Archive of Our Own

During the eight years of his presidency, Affenlight had never once found a reason to spend the Christmas vacation anywhere but Westish College.

Pella, on her one winter visit to him over that period, had been horrified by the frozen silence of the lake, the cars stranded in their driveways, the few stores closed all week long. Her teenage disapproval both amused and astonished him. He’d always really rather enjoyed the quiet cold, either walking bundled up along the frosty pathways of the college, or reading in the steady warmth of his apartments in the company of a glass or two of scotch.

On Christmas Day itself he usually spent some time in the dining hall, where Chef Spirodocus was always hard at work serving those students who didn’t celebrate, couldn’t make it home for the holidays, or simply had no home to go to. Affenlight would sit and chat to some of the more miserable looking kids, and they’d all drink too much (nominally non-alcoholic) eggnog and try to remember the words to the fight song. When he’d actually been a student at Westish, he’d always taken the bus south to Madison and then hitched a ride out to the farm and the family dinners he hated: his father angrily denouncing governmental policies, his brothers ignoring everything he said. He’d been 6’1 and twenty-one years old during that last Christmas break, and they'd still seen him as nothing more than a child.

Now, forty years later, the weather was much the same as he remembered it, and certainly the same as it had been two Christmases ago – his last as college president. Last year he’d been in Tokyo visiting Owen, and he’d barely noticed the season, let alone the weather.

The fresh snow outside his Westish home was light in the early hours of Christmas Eve, but too unpredictable a surface for a morning run. So he walked instead, Contango the husky trotting happily over sidewalk and grass, both of them saying hello to the few neighbors they met along the way. Very few of the Westish locals really knew what to make of the cheerful former president who lived with a young African-American man and seemed to spend most of his days digging up a perfectly good lawn, but smiles and small talk went a long way to establish good neighborly bonds.

The house was still dark and quiet when he returned. Pella and Mike would probably be appearing at some point during the day, but for now it was just him and Owen, their home and their dog. The moments when that simple reality hit him were so almost physically painful in their intensity that he often had to go and lean against the doorway of their bedroom and watch Owen sleep, just to reassure himself that it was all real.

From the very first step inside the front door, however, it should have been obvious that he was no longer living alone. Left to his own devices, Affenlight invariably developed a home filled with disordered books and paper and precious little else. Owen, however, couldn't help but inhabit a world filled with vibrant color and rich textures: their many books had been accommodated in his designs, of course, but the furniture was much less likely to disappear entirely under their sprawl. During the day, music played that Affenlight was sure he didn’t appreciate, and in the evening Owen often burned incense or smoked a joint out on the porch, and the entire house seemed to fill with Owen-scents that Affenlight could just breathe in and savor.

Now there was no music, no fragrances filled the air other than slightly wet dog, and Owen was sprawled amid the various fluffy pillows of their bed, the soft, seafoam green comforter covering everything from his shoulders down. Usually he slept through Affenlight’s self-conscious, foolish reminders to himself, as utterly at ease in his surroundings as he no doubt was in any dreamland of his choosing. On this morning, however, one eye opened. A finger beckoned. “C’mere.”

“I have to take a shower.”

Owen raised his head just enough to avoid talking into a pillow. This also afforded him the ability to look at Affenlight as though he were dismissing a particularly ill-thought-out student argument. “Guert. No one else in the entire state is awake yet. More to the point, I can’t see you properly and you have all your clothes on, which is doubly unfair to me.”

Sometimes Affenlight wondered if Owen’s attraction to him could conceivably be an extravagant and presumably diabolical ploy rather than the genuine article. Fortunately, he could never quite make himself believe that anyone not actually, legitimately in love with him, no matter how unlikely the prospect, would ever be so eager to get him naked.

“You’re going to make me late,” he grumbled with a barely-disguised smile, stripping off various layers of clothing with as much alacrity as possible, given the frigid temperatures.

“Call Pella, tell her it’s an emergency and she has to do it instead.”

Affenlight slipped under the covers, the warmth of Owen’s body emphasizing just how cold it was outside. “Chef Spirodocus has her supervising the lunchtime shift now. Admittedly that’s only twenty or so students at this time of year, but apparently we’re not allowed to let them starve for budgetary reasons.”

“The trustees are so inflexible!” Owen said with a dramatic sigh, and tugged Affenlight in close enough to kiss him, hooking one leg over his hip and not even flinching at the frostiness of his skin. “My group should be done by early afternoon… I’d admire their dedication at staying on so late at Christmas, but perhaps they’re the same people making Pella work too.”

“Indubitably. You’re all in a conspiracy to make me pick your mother up from the airport.”

Owen smiled, eyes bright as he trailed fingertips over the morning stubble of Affenlight’s jaw. “I must admit, the comedy potential is appealing.”

“It’s two hours, O. My limit for polite conversation with people who hate me is ninety minutes, tops, and that’s only a result of all the trustee dinners I’ve had to go to.”

“She doesn’t hate you.” Owen squeezed his shoulder with the affect of a parent persuading his child to play with the other kids. “It’s just… an unusual circumstance. She certainly liked you enough the last time she visited.”

Affenlight ran a hand up over Owen’s thigh, feeling hairs prick up against his palm. “At that point I wasn’t sleeping with her son.”

“A minor point.” Owen pressed in even closer, sharing his warmth as they kissed. “But you'd thought about sleeping with me, back then.”

Now that Owen was such an ever-present part of his life, in his bed every night, it was difficult to cast his mind back to his private, barely-admitted thoughts of over a year ago. “I thought about holding your hand,” he said, wrapping his arms around Owen's slender frame. “Even that… for a college president, thinking about a student, it was as bad as wanting to make love to you... and about as likely to ever happen.”

He'd been an anxious, lovestruck wreck before every one of their meetings in his office, even though they'd been tightly scheduled, with Mrs. McCallister bustling around outside. Then, just hearing Owen talk, just being in the same room as him, had made Affenlight so absurdly happy he'd rebuked himself for hours afterward - until another reading list or additional thoughts from Owen popped into his e-mail inbox and he was a lost cause again. The fact that he would never, ever make a move on Owen had been a given. He would never hold Owen's hand or stroke his hair, much less kiss him the way Affenlight had so badly wanted to kiss him. Even though the finality of that knowledge, that nothing would ever happen, had been in many ways a relief, in more ways it had left a horribly aching pit in his stomach - or lower - that had only seemed to worsen with time.

Now, Owen gently kissed his throat. “Fortunately for you, I was hit by a baseball.”

“Nothing about that was fortunate.” Owen's face this morning was beautifully unblemished by what had once resulted in horrific bruising, a brutal slash down his cheek. But the sight of him unconscious and bloody in the dugout had made Affenlight's heart stop. The paramedics had been perfectly frank with him about the possibility of bleeding on the brain, swelling inside the skull, a brilliant boy who might never wake up. Affenlight had little idea whether he could've been any more scared if it had been Pella being wheeled away for a CAT scan.

“Well, I thought about you,” Owen said. The press of his hips against Affenlight's was becoming more insistent, his arousal far more evident. “I thought long and hard about what it might be like to kiss you. But I could never figure out how to get you alone.”

“So you kissed me when your mother and my daughter were in the next room.”

“It wasn't ideal, but if I had done nothing, what then? Wait two months and go with you on a fishing trip? I barely made it two weeks, and even by then I was wondering if I'd imagined you kissing me back.”

Affenlight smiled. “You didn't imagine it. But you did have a significant head injury at the time.”

“You're almost too noble for words. I should've just stuck your hand down my pants at our first homework meeting, except I was worried what might happen when you realized I had a penis.”

“I think I was aware of the fact.” He slipped his hand between their bodies, stroking along Owen’s length. “Fortunately, your penis and I seem to get along incredibly well.”

“I have my suspicions that you’d get along incredibly well with tentacles if I happened to have them.”

“Mm, you may be right.” Affenlight kissed him in a way he felt could not possibly be dismissed as anyone’s imagination. More than eighteen months since that first tentative kiss, and kissing Owen still sent a thrill through him, as though it were all strange and new and somehow illicit. He encircled Owen’s penis with his hand and, as a greater inner warmth flushed through him, tried to persuade himself that he could make up time on the drive down to Milwaukee.

Owen’s mouth opened his, and Owen’s fingers were in his hair, and Owen rolled over on top of him and Affenlight relaxed. Good. It felt far nicer to have the decision made by someone else.

***

He was late arriving at the airport – inexcusably so – but immediately discovered via text message from Owen that his mother had missed her connecting flight due to delays, and that he in fact had another forty-five minutes to wait. Half an hour of it was spent in the bookstore, which had much the same populist stock as the shop on campus, with the rest anxiously whiled away staring at the arrivals board.

In the past eighteen months he’d spoken to Genevieve by phone several times, but only ever polite small talk before passing the receiver on to Owen. Surely her agreeing to visit over the holiday, and moreso Owen persuading her to actually stay with them, pointed to a world of positivity. But then she was still the mother of the young man he was sleeping with, and the idea of facing any in-laws at any time had never been an appetizing one, much less an in-law armed with a veritable bushel of his own failings and flaws.

Affenlight would have straightened his tie if he’d had one on. Instead he hooked his thumbs into the pockets of his slacks and considered whether the Audi could attain new heights of speed on the return journey northwards.

Owen's mother was certainly a very attractive woman. In another life, in a world in which Owen had never come to Westish and Genevieve had interviewed Affenlight in some stuffy news studio, they might have spent a very pleasant weekend in bed together. But, watching her come out of Arrivals with her wheeled case, he could be confident that not even in another life would her long, long legs and news anchor charm give him the deep sense of contentment he felt with Owen, let alone the desire that hadn't ever seemed to abate over the past eighteen months.

“Guert.” Her smile was wry, her eyes impassive in that journalist way, but she wrapped him up in a familial hug before Affenlight could worry about handshakes, kissed him on both cheeks, and then stood back, holding him at arm's length as though he were a child she hadn't seen in years. “You're looking well.”

He risked a smile. “Your son takes good care of me.”

“I’ll bet he does.” Her hand lingered on the sleeve of his coat before returning to the handle of her case. “Shall we? I remember your little college town is an ungodly distance from any major airport.”

“No bags to collect?” Affenlight asked. No one ever seemed to want to come to Westish with even half an idea that they might stay. Pella still had barely half a closet full of clothes.

Despite the fact that she was technically following him to the exit, Genevieve nevertheless managed to strike an imperious attitude in her stride. “Not this time, unfortunately. The station just can't survive without me, even when all we do over Christmas is repeat the same old stories with different kids. I think I may have crossed the age barrier into being distinguished.” She uttered the word with an air of conspiratorial horror. “A venerable old newscaster. Me. Just think.”

“I can think of worse candidates.”

He hadn't had to turn on his parent-persuading charm in more than a year, but apparently it still worked as Genevieve laughed and patted his arm. “So how is the lovely Pella?”

“She's hard at work, as is Owen. Honestly, these kids today and their jobs.” Affenlight smiled. “But she's great. She's doing very well in school, and it's nice that we're finally spending Christmas together after so long.”

“I know the feeling. Christmas just isn’t the same without O bounding down the stairs in his pjs at dawn… Not that he ever believed in Santa Claus, but he was just as eager to get new books as his cousins were to get toys.”

When they’d moved Affenlight’s various belongings from the college to the Bremens’ old house, Owen had seized upon the photo albums almost immediately as they unpacked. Affenlight had still been recovering from his heart attack at the time, but it had been comforting to sit with Owen on the couch amid chaos and talk him through what were mostly photos of Pella’s childhood while Pella herself unpacked and volunteered the occasional bit of context. For all the potential embarrassment that lay in the photographs, not to mention the worry that Owen really longed for the younger man Affenlight had once been, he’d loved to see how fascinated Owen was, how eager to know him.

He’d never had the chance to see photographs from Owen’s past, though, beyond the baseball snaps on Owen’s phone. And even as the image of an eager young Owen Dunne on Christmas made him smile, it seemed halfway wrong to do so, a reminder that very few years at all separated the Owen Affenlight went to bed with from the Owen who enthusiastically tore open presents under a brightly-lit tree.

“Pella was much the same,” he volunteered. “But it was usually just the two of us.”

“It is good to be with family at this time of year,” Genevieve said. “Even when that only means one other person. But O says Pella’s living with you? And Mike too?”

They’d reached the Audi in the parking lot, and Affenlight unlocked the trunk, scooping Genevieve’s case safely inside. “Intermittently. They have a place of their own, but Mike’s away quite a lot with the sports teams and Pella likes checking up on me. She and Owen conspire daily.”

“I can imagine. How is your heart, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Affenlight shrugged and slammed the trunk closed again. “The doctors say I’m a model patient. But there’s damage, of course. I won’t be winning the Tour de France anytime soon.”

“Ah.”

Genevieve’s expression was hard to read, so Affenlight simply got into the car. Two hours. Two hours and he’d find Owen or Pella to safely ward off all the conversational topics that rang of potential danger. Then again, after two hours they might have successfully covered each and every single one.

“So,” Genevieve said once they were underway. “As we have some time to kill, shall I be blunt?”

“Please.”

She smiled. “Don’t worry, Guert, I won’t stop your heart or run you off the road. I wish we’d been able to talk sooner, but maybe if we had I really would have been too harsh. Then again, most of what I felt when I first found out still applies. Owen’s my only child and he’s still very young. And what you did, for whatever reasons, is simply inexcusable for any educator, any administrator in your position.”

“I lost my job,” Affenlight said. It sounded like a childish protest.

“Yes. And you almost died, which makes it hard for me to be too hard on you, even though that has very little to do with Owen. There was a point when I would’ve been happy to see you in prison, but then Owen’s not a child anymore, is he? And I wondered to myself, if I fell for some young man Owen’s age, would it be so bad? I would have reservations of course, but love is love…”

She sighed and looked over at him. “It’s a good thing for you that, despite divorcing Owen’s father, despite my currently single status, I’m still, somehow, a romantic at heart.”

“I do love him.”

“You’re forty years older than him, Guert. Forty, and you’ve already had a heart attack. Do you know what that’s going to do to him, when you die in five or ten or twenty years and leave him alone? Not to mention how he’s reduced to being a nurse in his twenties.”

This, here, was the real way to wound Affenlight. He swallowed. “He’s not a nurse. He’s teaching, he’s doing his master’s, he’s writing his plays… I’m not his entire life.”

“For how long? Until you’re seventy? Until your next heart attack?”

He would have hung his head if he didn’t have to drive. “What would you suggest I do? Break his heart and mine too?”

“Of course not. It’s far too late for that – he quite clearly adores you if he decided to come back to you after nine months in Tokyo, and I have to believe you adore him too. But you have to think, Guert. This little idyll of yours won’t last forever, and I can’t stand the thought of O being devastated like that before he’s forty.”

“Believe me, I’m doing my very best not to die.”

“Aren’t we all?” Genevieve patted his thigh. “Just… be good to him, Guert. You’re not the worst son-in-law I could’ve imagined, and I’m glad O’s happy. I just need you to do everything you can to make sure he goes on being happy.”

She cleared her throat. “Now, isn’t that better? Owen tells me you like opera… Anything you’d like to play for the next couple of hours?”

***

Only Contango was home when they arrived there, but he was more than good enough – a lovable, friendly husky who inquisitively sniffed Genevieve’s hand and deigned to let her pet him before Affenlight had even closed the door.

“Aren’t you a cutie!” Genevieve crouched down to scratch behind his ears. “What happened to his eye?”

“I’m not sure… He more or less came with the house.” Dog. House. Family. Last year had apparently conspired to give him the sort of conventional domestic bliss he’d never even bothered to dream about before.

She stood up again as Contango, not wishing to outstay his welcome, padded off into the kitchen. “Well, I can see Owen’s been decorating.”

Affenlight had long ago given up wishing that it wasn't so plain to see. Anyone who had visited him in his apartments at Westish couldn’t help to notice the difference. Some of the furniture was the same, with the same books and photographs, but Owen had an influence that went far beyond a few bonsai on the windowsill. Affenlight’s sole obvious contribution presently was the glittering tree by the couch – objected to as “too religious” by his boyfriend and “too childish” by his daughter, he was convinced they loved it anyway.

“You’ll be staying upstairs, in Pella’s territory,” he explained. “Owen and I are just along the hall… Bathrooms upstairs and down, and the kitchen of course… It’s a bit cold at the moment for the shed out back.” It wasn’t such a big house that he could really give her a tour. “I’m sure Owen will be home sooner or later.”

Once he showed Genevieve her room, which usually served as Pella’s storage closet and still contained most of her growing book collection, Affenlight retreated to the safety of his study, switching on some light music and checking his e-mail before continuing to type up the book introduction he’d committed to a month or so before. His back was to the door, but a happy bark from Contango was good enough warning before gentle hands were laid on his shoulders and Owen leaned in to kiss him.

“So, you’re still in one piece!”

Affenlight could swear Owen made his blood pressure go down a good ten points. “Your mother’s upstairs.”

“I’ll say hello in a moment.” Owen’s fingers drummed over his deltoids. “She really did a number on you, didn’t she? You’re so tense. Stop typing for a second.”

“How was your class?” Affenlight asked, letting his arms drop by his sides as Owen dug thumbs and fingers into his shoulders, painful but good.

“Highly productive. And it seems all my students have somewhere to spend the holiday, so no one will be sleeping on our couch. They all wish you a very merry Christmas, by the way, President Affenlight.”

“Oh, to be famous in my own time.” Owen’s students were mostly freshpersons and sophomores, none of whom had ever even known him as president. But he was on campus often enough, at the library and occasionally in the back of Owen’s rehearsals, and Westish didn’t have enough gossip to completely ignore the former president when he walked around hand-in-hand with his lecturer boyfriend.

“And Dr. Sobel's still on campus. She asked me to ask you something...”

“My my. Doesn't my little boy look good in a suit, Guert?”

“Mom!”

Affenlight swiveled on his chair to see Owen hugging his mother with the intensity he usually reserved for Affenlight himself, or occasionally Contango. Genevieve was a little shorter than her son, but the heels made up for that, and they were both equally slender under well-tailored clothes. Only their skin tones really differed substantially, and given the Irish descent of Owen's perpetually-absent father, that wasn't such a mystery.

“Well now,” Genevieve was saying, affectionately patting Owen's head. “I haven't had a 'mom' out of him since he was about twelve.”

“That's not true,” Owen protested into her shoulder.

Affenlight shared a smile with Genevieve, but this was one family encounter he felt he was intruding upon, together with their reminiscences about the past, even more so because in that past Owen was always a child. At best it made him feel terribly old. At worst, guilty.

When Owen finally released her and straightened the jacket of his charcoal-gray suit, absently wiping away what might have been tears from his eyes, he looked between them and smiled knowingly. “So she didn't rip you to shreds, Guert. Any occult pacts I should know about?”

“Oh, stop,” Genevieve said. “Although we did listen to opera, and who knows what that might have committed us to? It's all rather diabolical.”

“What do you think of the house?” His voice, if not his manner, betrayed some of that childlike anxiousness to please.

Genevieve picked white husky fur from his lapel. “It's very you, dear. And I see what you mean about it being a white whale of a place, from the outside at least. I've barely even seen the lake yet.”

“You didn't show her your shed?”

“O, there's about a foot of snow back there.”

“Which only adds to the romanticism. I'm reasonably sure you built it precisely so you could write out there in sub-zero temperatures.” Owen turned back to his mother. “Guert put it together all by himself. It's a sort of Thoreauvian experiment - writing without the benefit, or distraction, of modern technology.”

Genevieve eyed the computer on Guert's desk. “That looks modern enough.”

“I have to type things up afterward,” Affenlight admitted. “The publishers might not appreciate receiving all my work in longhand.”

Contango, who was both overjoyed and mystified by the comings and goings of the day, barked again at the sound of the front door opening. “Dad?” Pella's voice. “You have got to teach me to drive in the new year… Cycling on these roads is just crazy. I literally fell on my ass twice, it's just…” She pushed open the door to the study. “Oh, you're all here. Genevieve, hi! How was your flight?”

They hugged tightly as Genevieve explained the winter delays. Pella, who had evidently come straight from the kitchen, was bundled up in enough layers of mostly Westish-branded clothing to make sure no cold could penetrate or road bruise any flesh that happened to collide with it. It was a stark, practical contrast to Genevieve's newsreader chic, however.

“Have you heard from Mike?” Owen asked.

Pella pulled up the sleeve of her jacket, and then her sweatshirt, to see her watch. “He's still on his way – driving from Chicago,” she added for Genevieve's benefit. “I bet the traffic's horrible, but he'll be here pretty soon. Maybe he'll have heard from Henry. So… what are we doing? Anything?”

“Guert should drive us to Carapelli's,” Owen suggested. “We can talk, and more importantly get some hot food.”

Hot food, and especially of the variety none of them needed to cook, did sound appealing. But… “Are you sure you don't want to catch up privately?” Affenlight asked. “You and your mom?”

“Oh, nonsense.” Genevieve was brushing snow from Pella's sleeve. “You're family now, both of you, and O e-mails me about everything he's likely to tell me anyway. I want to know more about Pella's culinary adventures.”

Despite Mrs. Carapelli's initial reservations about Pella replacing Henry as Mike's frequent companion at the restaurant, she'd soon warmed to her as Pella's appetite and enthusiasm for Italian food grew. When Pella had started inviting her father and that father's male partner to join them, the reservations had returned – Affenlight wasn't sure that Carapelli's had ever played host to a gay couple before, let alone one that included Owen Dunne, who not only kissed his boyfriend in public but also rejected the very concept of pepperoni. Mrs. Carapelli's love for Mike had certainly been strained over the last couple of years.

Still, she was all smiles for the four of them when they entered the blazing, pizza-scented heat of the restaurant, even without Mike in tow. With the students gone from the town, she had very few lunchtime guests and didn't even interrogate Pella too much about Mike's whereabouts.

“So… pizza?” Pella asked. “It's hot. We can share.”

“As long as it's vegetarian.” Owen wiped his glasses on a napkin. “Genevieve, you may have noticed this is carb central, and Guert shouldn't be having anything. Maybe a lettuce leaf.”

Genevieve nudged him. “It is Christmas, dear. I'm sure as long as none of us inhales an entire pie we'll be fine.”

“Oh, Guert… Dr. Sobel,” Owen said later, when a steaming and extremely large pizza had been delivered to their table, layered with cheese, tomato slices, mushrooms, and green peppers, much to Mrs. Carapelli's apparent despair. “Apparently the English Department's in a state of disarray at the moment.”

“When are they not?” Affenlight took up the pizza cutter to do battle with some relentlessly stringy cheese and serve slices to each of the ladies and then Owen and himself. Even when he had been president, staffing had always been an issue. Few professors were truly eager to come and live two hours' drive from a major city, and many were simply biding time at the college until they could find a more prestigious, not to say central, position.

“A reasonable question. However, on this occasion it might be to your benefit rather than distress. Dr. Sobel begged me to prevail upon you to at least think about teaching the Melville seminar next semester.”

“Next semester? You mean in two weeks.” The point was irrelevant; Affenlight could teach the class in his sleep. “I'm not on staff.”

“No, but you're one of the world's foremost experts on nineteenth century America, and you live right here.”

“And they made me resign in disgrace, do they remember that?” Affenlight was usually more than amenable to the college and its staff, particularly those who had had no part in the premature closure of his term as president, but old wounds were easy to reopen.

Owen's hand was a calming pressure on his shoulder. “Guert, don't get upset. They think the world of you at Westish, you know that. So you broke the college code, who cares? You could've done that by doing too much Xeroxing. You didn't cheat or embezzle or abuse anyone. We fell in love, and we're still together, and everyone knows it. I wouldn't be surprised if they've been looking for an excuse to get you back for a while.”

“Do the deans know about this?”

“Maybe not, but Sobel and Professor Eglantine will go to bat for you, and honestly they're not going to have much choice. It's not as if they can just drop the course on Melville, of all people, and who else is going to be available to teach in so little time? It's a way back in, Guert, and we all know you love teaching more than spending all your time worrying about budgets.”

Affenlight gazed at the pizza on his plate. His appetite seemed to have been lost in a haze of new worries. “But they didn't come to me with this.”

“Because they know you're virtuous and honorable to the point of extreme stubbornness,” Owen's mouth quirked in a smile and he squeezed Affenlight's shoulder. “Just think about it, okay, baby? No one's making any decisions until after Christmas.”

“Would I get to take the class for credit this time?” Pella asked. “Because I am so signing up if so.”

Owen grinned. “Me too. I'm sure I can wrangle some class credits out of the University of Milwaukee for my MA.”

“The two of you could pass the exam now, and the thought of your papers is already giving me a headache,” Affenlight grumbled, but that baby from Owen, sappy as it was, had melted away most of his resistance. “All right, I'll consider it. Emphasis on the 'consider'.”

“Good boy,” Owen murmured, and kissed him.

“Aren't they cute?” Genevieve remarked to Pella. “When are you going to propose properly, Guert?”

“My dad's allergic to marriage,” Pella said.

Affenlight thought very seriously about whether now would be a good time to start drinking again in earnest. “The state of Wisconsin seems to be allergic to gay marriage too.”

Pella nodded. “Congratulations, you finally got into a relationship where it's actually illegal for you to get married. Although if we ever go home to Cambridge you're in trouble.”

***

Affenlight scrolled to the last page of the introduction he had been working on, silently read the final paragraph to himself and, with a sigh that might have been approval or resignation or both, e-mailed the draft off to the publisher. Doubtless no one would read it until after Christmas, or possibly even the New Year, but at least the responsibility was off his hands and he could get back to his novel… Or possibly typing up a reading list for Melville and His Times, as it seemed increasingly unlikely that he would turn down the opportunity.

The room seemed much, much darker when he stood up from the screen. It was the early evening, and an hour or so ago Genevieve had excused herself for a nap before dinner, while Pella and Mike sprawled around the living room, reading companionably in between checking on Pella's various culinary experiments in the kitchen. Owen, Affenlight had assumed, was doing much the same, but instead he was to be found standing alone on the porch, smoking a joint in the cold air and gazing out at the darkness of the street. “The lake would be nicer to look at,” Affenlight said, coming up behind Owen and wrapping his arms around him.

“But truly pitch black at the moment.” Owen leaned back against him. “Now this is why I’m glad I’m with a big manly man. Hugs on cold winter nights.”

Affenlight chuckled. “A manly man? Sweetheart, I’m a literature professor.”

“A manly literature professor who genuinely puts up shelves for me. Clearly the height of masculinity.” Owen took a draw on his joint and proffered it over his shoulder.

Affenlight took it with a sigh. “If you get me high while your mother is here…”

“Not at all. In any case, it’s very, very bad for you.”

“And you too.”

“You have a heart condition. I have a need to relax. Give it back.”

After a solitary draw, the joint was returned to Owen’s fingers. Affenlight laid his head on Owen’s shoulder, one hand sliding up under his sweater, feeling the hot skin of his belly beneath. “Perhaps I really should be a professor of manly literature.”

“You already are. A novel almost entirely absent female characters about a ship full of men desperate to plunge massive phalluses into a creature in search of sperm? It’s the most manly thing I can think of.”

“God,” Affenlight muttered. “I’m even gayer than I thought.”

Owen kissed his ear. “Nonsense. You can make love to me in a very heterosexual manner in a few hours.”

“With your mom upstairs?”

“We frequently make love when your daughter's upstairs. Besides, I'm sure my mother would be gratified to know we have a healthy sex life. As would your doctor. Regular ejaculations promote excellent prostate health.”

“My doctor will no doubt be thrilled to know how concerned you are about my prostate.”

“It's true. Your doctor loves me.”

“He thinks you're my son.”

“He does not.” Owen sighed against Affenlight’s throat. “Well, if he does, he also thinks we’re a particularly incestuous family.”

The night was still, no cars daring to venture out unnecessarily on an icy night like this, but there was a faint crunch-crunch of footsteps in the snow. Perhaps a dog walker… But no, as a figure emerged out of the darkness and was outlined by the streetlight, there was no dog to be seen, just a boy carrying a bag. A neighbor’s son or grandson returning from college? The boy stopped at their gate, turned his head, and stared. Affenlight dropped his hand from inside Owen’s sweater, but stayed where he was. Maybe the kid was just lost…

“Owen?”

Owen jerked his head up. “Henry?” He loosed himself from Affenlight’s embrace and flung himself off the porch, skidding along the path to seize the young ballplayer in an enthusiastic hug. “Henry! How are you even here?”

“Um, I caught the bus from the airport…” Henry looked up as Affenlight walked down the stairs toward them. “Sorry if I’m intruding. I just hoped… I mean, I didn’t think I was going anywhere for Christmas, and then I was getting sort of stir crazy, and I didn’t really want to go home, so…”

“There's always a place for you here, Henry, you know that.” Affenlight shook his hand, which seemed absurdly formal, but Henry would probably cringe if he attempted a hug. “We were just about to have dinner… which you should probably have at least three servings of, you’re freezing. Come on, O, let’s get him inside.”

If any conversation topics had been lacking, Henry suddenly supplied enough for an entire evening as they gathered around in the living room and ate the piping hot Greek-inspired vegetarian meal Pella had whipped up for them in the kitchen. She’d fortunately made enough for a small army, which was generally what the former Harpooners resembled. Everyone was very eager to see Henry eat, but their questions – about his Minor League career, his family, and a dozen other things – usually interrupted him before he could get a fork to his mouth.

“Where’s he going to sleep?” Pella whispered, dumping the last of the plates on the coffee table and plunking down next to Affenlight on the couch.

“Right here, I imagine.”

“Right here, here?”

“Well, what else would you suggest? I could take the couch and Henry can share with Owen.”

“The couch is fine!” Henry said, with half a mouthful of tzatziki. “Really. I’m so tired I could sleep on the floor, and you’ve all been so kind already. I wish I’d given you some warning instead of just dropping in.”

Affenlight smiled. Even though this was nominally his house, he’d always purchased it with the intent that it would also be a home for Pella and Owen and their families, which included Henry whichever way you looked at it. “You’re always welcome here, Henry. Always.”

“Wouldn’t be the holidays without you, Skrim,” Mike added, and clapped him on the shoulder. “Try the pepper, it’s really good.”

After dinner they settled down to watch DVDs Owen had liberated from the drama department’s supply – despite Affenlight’s long-held dislike of movies, it certainly seemed nicer to watch with Owen’s arm around his shoulders and Pella next to him, Mike balancing on the arm, Henry in one armchair, watching intently as if there might be an exam, and Genevieve in the other, Contango at her feet.

Family. He’d never really experienced it as a child, his brothers always out with their wives or girlfriends, his parents too worn out to do much with him, and then he’d done more or less the same to poor Pella, leaving her to find a family of sorts among the students and staff of Harvard. Now, even if they had their disagreements and their problems, they had an entire room of people who loved them.

He’d sent his usual holiday greetings cards out a couple of weeks before, mostly to friends in the faculty of either Westish or Harvard, as well as some former students and rowing buddies now dotted throughout the US, Europe, and East Asia. Often in the past he’d written from “Guert and Pella”, even when Pella was neither living with him nor in the same state, simply to forgo any questions regarding her health, occupation, or whereabouts. This year he’d written “Guert and Owen”, which had already generated a few polite queries by e-mail and return card, but he’d only really hesitated over the cards intended for his two surviving older brothers and his various nieces and nephews. Eventually he’d written it anyway, to hell with the lot of them, who already thought he was a decadent elitist liberal, or something along those lines, and received only cards addressed to him in return – with the optimistic exception of a reindeer-festooned card from his nephew Peter, who was, he said, studying engineering, but had nonetheless very much enjoyed a copy of The Sperm-Squeezers he’d found in the college library. Owen had read the card, grinned, and wordlessly pinned it to the wall over Affenlight’s desk.

A couple of hours into the movie, his head resting against Owen’s shoulder, it was evident that he’d begun to stop focusing on the plot quite a long time ago, and fatigue was beginning to overtake him.

“I’m going to go to bed,” he whispered to Owen. “But stay up as long as you want.”

Owen blinked at him. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Just tired.”

He kissed Pella on the cheek, raised a hand of farewell to the others, and made his way just down the hallway to the bedroom he shared with Owen. With the door closed he could still hear the TV, but it wasn’t going to be enough to keep him awake, not with this leaden feeling in his legs that was slowly creeping into his brain too. Usually he was good at staying up, but it had been an eventful day and the kids were probably hopped up on caffeine as well as youth. Or maybe that one lungful of pot had had more of an effect than he’d thought.

He’d pulled on a clean t-shirt and sweatpants for bed – Owen liked it too cold for him to sleep nude, at least without another warm body beside him – and was getting under the covers when the door opened and Owen slipped in. “Guert? Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine, I’m just…” Affenlight gestured. “Wiped out. You know how I get sometimes. The old parts don’t work like they used to. I’ll be fine in the morning.”

Owen sat down at the edge of the bed, taking one of Affenlight’s hands in his. “You know we talked about this. No being brave and noble. You have to tell me if anything’s wrong.”

“I’m not having a heart attack, O. I haven’t had any pain. I’m breathing just fine. I’m tired, that's all. Go watch the rest of your movie. You can check to see I’m still alive later.”

“That’s not funny.” Owen stood up and flicked off the light. “Lie down. I’ll hold you for a little while, okay?”

“I could be persuaded.”

How many nights had they lain here like this now, Affenlight facing the window, looking out toward the stars and distant lights over the lake, Owen curled against him, an arm around his ribs. No matter that Owen was a little shorter and quite a lot lighter, there was something about his presence that made Affenlight feel safe, ever since their first night together at the motel.

“Your mom talked to you too, didn’t she?” Affenlight murmured after a while.

Owen stirred slightly. “What do you mean?”

“You’re not usually this worried.”

“She… may have raised some concerns.” Owen’s fingers explored up under the hem of his t-shirt, brushing the hairs below his navel. “So that’s what you got all the way home today.”

“Not all the way home. Five minutes was enough.”

“That’s my mother. Short and to the point, and then you feel guilty for hours.” Owen kissed the back of his head. “You’re not going to die.”

“Well… Not yet.”

“Not anytime soon.”

Affenlight breathed in. Breathed out. Somehow, now that he was lying down, warm and comfortable, it was easier to stay awake. “But you know she’s right. Sooner or later, things are going to get bad for us. For me.”

“Which could be in twenty years, Guert. Thirty, forty even. Or, yes, it could also be tomorrow, but tomorrow I could get hit by a car and Pella could have an aneurysm, or the whole house could be crushed by a meteorite.”

“Merry Christmas,” Affenlight said dryly.

“I don’t want to spend the time we have together, however long that might be, worrying about something that might happen one day.”

“I know. But there are some things I can do, for your future, that might make your mom happier, and I don’t even want to think about a world where either you or Pella die before I do.”

“Guert…” Owen sighed. “We’ve talked about this. You and my mom seem to think I'm some sort of glorified child prostitute. I’m not going to be poor and homeless… And I don’t want to take anything away from Pella. She’s your daughter, I’m just some guy you’ve been living with for six months.”

“Some guy I could be married to if we lived in another state, and would be in a heartbeat.” Affenlight laced his fingers through Owen’s. “It doesn’t mean leaving Pella poor or homeless either, and I’ll talk to her about it before I do anything, but it might give your mom some peace of mind, and me too. I’m not going to have you end up as my nurse, even if it means finally finishing this book and teaching that damn Melville course.”

“Which you would relish every minute of.”

“With you in the front row with ten books, and Pella in the back? She’s sat through every lecture of mine about twelve times over since she was five years old. You can both out-quote and out-think me. You might as well teach it yourselves.”

“But neither of us looks quite so good in a suit.” Owen propped himself up on an elbow. “Guert, if I can track back for a moment... You’ve been thinking about getting married?”

“Well, we did talk about it.”

“We joked about it. And I’m not convinced you have any good reason for us to have a legally-recognized partnership that isn’t based on something to do with hospitals or death.”

Affenlight focused on the stars outside. They really should lie back in the yard when the snow cleared. He loved that sheer blackness untainted by much artificial light, had spent several evenings as a young man hiking out as far up the lakeshore as he dared, just to sit and stare. On some nights the cloud cover meant he was almost blind stumbling back, gashing open his shins on rocks and fallen branches, but it was worth it.

Better, though, was stretching out a hand in that darkness and having someone take it.

“I don’t know, O. I just know I’ll never be with anyone else for the rest of my life, and I hope that means I’ll be with you.”

He heard, or thought he heard, Owen swallow. “You know I’m just some dumb kid, right? Some kid who read a lot of books. A dime a dozen at Harvard or Yale… Lots better looking than me too. Guys with biceps. Guys with trust funds.”

Affenlight smiled and turned over so he could cup Owen’s cheek. “From one dumb kid who read a lot of books to another, I’ve met and taught and played football with and dated the sisters of many, many dozens of intelligent, good-looking men over the years. I choose you. Now and tomorrow and next year and every year after that.”

“So, from one simple savage to another…”

“We are bosom friends, and I would gladly die for you, if need should be.”

Owen smiled. “Your heart beats in my ribs, and mine in yours… Should I get some chowder and a pipe?”

“You’ve smoked quite enough already.” Affenlight kissed him, softly wiping away dampness from his cheeks. “Go finish your movie and then come to bed. I promise I’ll still be breathing. And then we can wait for Santa to come.”

“If he shows up tonight he’s liable to get a baseball bat to the head with Henry sleeping on the couch.”

Affenlight considered this. “You have a point,” he said.

***

As occurred every morning, regardless of the occasion, Affenlight was woken up by Contango, who was eager to go and sniff around in the snow around the neighborhood. Owen, despite his general enthusiasm for both Christmas morning and Affenlight in general, simply groaned loudly and pulled a pillow over his head while Affenlight pulled on boots and a coat and headed out into the gloomy morning.

By the time he'd showered and shaved, Contango happily nosing his breakfast in the kitchen, there was still little sign of life from the rest of the house. Usually at this time Affenlight would retreat to his study and get a little work done, but the sparkling tree suggested that this wouldn't properly be in the spirit of the holiday. Henry, bundled up under blankets on the couch, didn't seem in much of a hurry to tear open presents either.

There was a creak at the top of the stairs. Yawning, Pella wandered down, sweatpants and a t-shirt under her robe. “Hey Dad. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, sweetheart.” They'd been getting better at hugging ever since his heart attack. Well, ever since she'd been persuaded he wouldn't break at a touch.

She kissed his cheek and looked around blearily. “I guess we're the only ones up?”

“It is quite early.”

“Mm. I'm going to make some coffee… maybe some eggs?”

“I feel like a terrible host, having my daughter slaving over a hot stove for the entire holiday.”

She shrugged. “You want Mike to cook, we'll be eating el cheapo cornflakes for every meal. But Owen was saying something about making brownies later on. I know, I know, it's still the girl and the gay guy in the kitchen. How stereotypical. You and Mike should probably go throw around a football so the neighbors think we're totally normal.”

“I'm not a gay guy?”

“You… subvert the paradigm.” Pella waved her hand. “Whatever. Coffee.”

She disappeared with a flutter of her robe, leaving Affenlight to sit down on the edge of the couch and touch a hand to Henry's shoulder. Even with the Cardinals' professional trainers and dieticians, he still seemed small and skinny under one of Owen's fuchsia blankets, innocent and vulnerable in sleep. “Skrimshander,” Affenlight said.

Henry stirred, finally opening an eye. He yawned. “Oh, hey President Affenlight.”

“Thought you might want to get a shower before Owen gets up. Don't be too scared of all his organic, non-toxic, ethically-produced products. They haven't turned my hair green yet.”

“I know.” Henry wriggled into a sitting position. “He used to get this stuff from, like, Uruguay? It smelled pretty good.”

“I forget you've lived with him longer than I have.”

“Does he clean the grout here too?”

Affenlight smiled. “He finds it relaxing, apparently.” In the kitchen, the espresso machine was beginning to whistle and splutter. “Henry… Is everything all right? As I said, you're more than welcome here, and I fully understand not always wanting to go home for the holidays, but… You know we all worry about you.” He'd feel worse saying that if he didn't know they all worried equally much about him too.

Henry rubbed at his eyes. “Um. Everything's okay… I mean, training's hard, it's going to be a tough season, there's a couple of really good shortstops I know we're looking at.” He pressed his lips together. “Sophie's spending Christmas at her boyfriend's place in Sioux Falls. I didn't really want to spend a bunch of time alone with my parents.”

“I know the feeling,” Affenlight said. “And, as a parent, I'm sure they understand you need your space.”

Henry narrowed his eyes, looking at him a little anxiously. “I mean, they're good people. They've always been really, really supportive.”

“I'm sure they have been.”

“It's just… They don't like some of my friends so much.”

Affenlight's mouth quirked just a little. “You mean me. And Owen.”

Henry looked guilty enough for his entire family. “Well…”

“Did I hear my name?”

Owen might not have bounded into the room, but in his gi pants and one of Affenlight's old Harvard rowing sweatshirts he still looked more awake than either of the other youngsters. “Merry Christmas, one and all. Merry fifth day of Hanukkah, Mike. Or Merry Sunday, as it happens to be. Do you mean to say you're not going to mass, Guert?”

“He hasn't been since about 1967.” Pella had reappeared, warming her hands with an espresso cup. “We're converts to the Reform Church of Melvillania. And you're the only one who gets him down on his knees these days.”

“Pella.”

She winked. “There's coffee if you guys want it. Cereal. I'm going to make some eggs, but there's no bacon for some inexplicable reason. There may be a mushroom or two.”

“Maybe I should take a shower,” Henry said, stepping out from his mass of blankets. “Unless you're going to, Owen?”

“No, no, please be my guest. But aren't we opening presents? Where are Mike and my mother? Are they conscientious objectors to Christmas?”

Pella shooed Contango out of the kitchen. “Your mom was in the shower. Mike's still in bed. But they probably wouldn't mind if you started without them.”

Owen sat down on the couch instead as Henry, rubbing his eyes, wandered into the bathroom along the hall. “No, we'll wait. Honestly, you're all worse than the Harpooners. It's like marshalling a small army around here these days.”

Half an hour later, when some people had showered and some had eaten breakfast, but all were gathered in the living room while cartoons played on the television (“for the ambiance,” Owen explained), they finally delved into the stack of gifts under the tree. Unsurprisingly, a full three-quarters of the gifts were books: textbooks for Pella, sports biographies for Mike, fiction of the twenty-first century for Affenlight, who had admittedly exhausted the nineteenth and much of the twentieth century long ago. Everyone gave Owen candles, toiletries, and incense sticks, giving him license to burn yet more things inside the house. Genevieve received an entire wardrobe of Westish-branded clothes from the bookstore. And Henry...

Henry looked at the package in his lap with puzzlement and confusion. “But you didn't even know I was coming.”

“We'd have mailed it to you,” Owen said, passing candles to Pella and Mike to sniff. “Open it!”

“And I didn't get any of you anything.”

Genevieve ruffled his hair, which these days was cut just slightly longer than it would be in boot camp. “You're here. That's what counts.”

“And you'll be getting us tickets for the playoffs, right?” Mike gave him a grin.

“When you put it like that…” Henry carefully worked loose the tape and opened up one end of the package, peering in, and then upending it so the book slipped out. He turned it the right way up. The Art of Fielding. “Oh.”

Affenlight and Owen exchanged a look. “Maybe turn to the title page?” Owen suggested.

Henry did, but cautiously, as if something were likely to jump out at him. Instead, there was fluid handwriting in indigo ink: “To Henry,” he read, “Who never fails to astonish. I look forward to following your career still further. Aparicio Rodriguez. P.S. Throw with the legs.” Henry looked up, eyes wide. “Oh wow. Oh wow oh wow.” Then he looked down, reading it again in case he'd imagined it.

“You can blame Guert,” Owen said. “He was in New York last month for a conference, saw that Aparicio was going to be delivering a talk, grabbed a book and somehow got the great man to sign it.”

Affenlight shrugged. “He remembered me, which helped. And of course he remembered you.”

Henry winced. “I didn't really want him to.”

“And how many games have you played since then?” Mike said. “A whole season in college, and now the Minors. Everyone screws up, Skrimmer. Everyone has their problems. It's how you come back from them that counts.”

“And you haven't hit anyone in the face in years,” Owen said, rubbing a finger against his cheekbone before leaning in to give Henry a hug. “I hope you like it, Henry.”

“I do!” Henry glanced round. “Maybe I should get President Affenlight to sign his book for you…”

“For a small fee,” Affenlight joked. “Do you think you could maybe try calling me Guert, Henry? I haven't been president in a while.”

Henry thought about it. “Doctor Affenlight?”

“Well, it's a start.”

***

The next week passed in the traditional family style, with ongoing lines awaiting entrance to either bathroom, pitched battles in the kitchen and over the TV remote, and a few bickering arguments that never quite turned into fights. Contango, for one, was delighted to the point of ecstasy with his many friends, which meant much more food and far more companions for walks through the gradually melting snow.

On one afternoon they walked into the college, which looked postcard-picturesque with snow on the chapel, and the boys threw some balls around while Affenlight sat and watched with Genevieve and Pella. Owen was rusty, Mike was suffering from old injuries and too many good meals. Henry was strong, pinpoint accurate, even more of a force of nature than he’d been the first time Affenlight had seen him play. Perhaps he was now a force of nature with a good diet, excellent training, and the world’s best competition keeping him on his toes.

“I think I need to start going running with you,” Owen said, hands on his knees as he thought about puking up his Christmas dinner into a heap of snow.

“You should stop smoking first,” his mother mentioned, immediately going back to her animated conversation with Pella about 19th century feminists and abolitionists.

Affenlight looked up from his book. “Maybe I should be the one taking out a life insurance policy on you.”

“You’re all against me,” Owen said, and jogged back a little wheezily to first base, slapping his glove against his thigh.

After the New Year, during which Pella came up with numerous devious plots to set up Henry and Genevieve, the two singletons in their midst, Mike offered to drive them both back to the airport in Milwaukee to catch flights back to San Jose and St. Louis, just in time to get back to their glamorous daily occupations. Pella went too, planning to catch a movie in the city with Mike once both flights had been called, and, following hugs and kisses and promises to call, Affenlight and Owen were left alone on their porch, Contango whining longingly after their departed guests and all the many treats and ear-scratches they had brought with them. Despite weather forecasts warning of imminent doom, the snow in the garden was clearing and the sky looked a little brighter.

Affenlight clapped a hand onto Owen's shoulder. “Come help me knock snow off the shed?”

Owen's eyes were a little bright as he looked at him sidelong. “You're insane. We'll have hail in two minutes.”

“No time like the present.” They made their way through the house, which still contained more than a few traces of the holiday – blankets stacked up on the couch, Christmas gifts on the coffee table. “So your mom wants us to go to California in the summer?”

“We should go in the winter,” Owen protested. “Who wants to be in Wisconsin in the winter and California in the summer? You'll burn to a crisp.”

“Pella might. I'm not quite that pale.”

“The point remains.”

In the backyard, Affenlight's vegetable garden looked a little frosty, his stack of lumber still lined with snow. He gave the door of the shed a good kick. A layer of snow slid lazily from the roof. The interior was still very much a work in progress, as he had yet to spend very much time there, but it was big enough for the two of them to squeeze in alongside a stool, a small writing desk, a stack of books, and a small heater that was not presently working.

Owen gave the two side walls, neither door nor window, a thump. “Seems pretty sturdy. And dry. Nice job.”

It really was a nice job, Affenlight thought. Naturally his father would have poked around and pointed out a dozen faults, or things he should've done better, but it certainly wasn't a bad effort for someone who'd spent thirty years devoted to purely mental feats of construction. Maybe he should try to teach Pella a few things. She might not be the most obvious choice to pick up a saw or hammer, but even these rough skills had served him well.

He sat down on the stool, gazing out at the lake. “I guess I should give Dr. Sobel a call.”

“Only if you want to.” Owen draped his arms around Affenlight's neck.

“Oh, who am I kidding? A chance to get paid for talking about Moby-Dick a couple of times a week?”

“You also get paid for suffering through thirty undergraduate papers on the theme of obsession, most of which were written the night before, heavily under the influence of cheap beer.”

“Remind me to haggle over my salary.”

Even in the winter the shed was pleasantly warm with their bodies heating up such a small space. Owen reached over him, pulling out the drawer of the desk. Inside were a couple of hundred mostly typewritten pages, many of them older than Owen himself. “How about you finish this thing by next year? I already have too many copies of The Sperm-Squeezers. Henry can get you to sign a first edition of Night of the Large Few Stars for me. Call it a wedding present.”

“You're betting Wisconsin will ratify same-sex marriage before I finish?”

“Anything's possible at the rate you write.” Owen kissed his temple. “Now that our relatives are gone, at least for the moment, perhaps we should make proper use of the couch?”

Affenlight gave a deliberately exaggerated sigh. “O, you have the libido of a horny sixteen-year-old.”

“Which is keeping you from an early grave, dear heart. But, as a matter of fact, that was not the act to which I was referring, and your mind is once again in the gutter.”

“There are only so many Bill Murray movies I can watch.”

“Actually I was thinking that I could help you prepare for your class. Maybe you could find one of your many copies of The Book and read to me a little? That’s if you even need the book.”

Affenlight turned a little to look at him with a smile he couldn’t help. “You want me to read to you?”

“You love it. And now that I don’t need to lie there worrying about either my skull cracking in two or whether you would ever just kiss me, I’ll love it too.”

“I hope this doesn’t count as me doing your homework for you. Besides, you read it to me in the hospital.”

“I wasn’t focusing on it much then either.” Owen straightened up. “So I have a boyfriend with a sexy voice. Sue me.”

Affenlight did in fact find a copy of Moby-Dick that was suitable for such a banal everyday task as reading – he had several that were simply too nice to remove from the bookshelves, others littered with notes from periods ranging from his undergraduate years to his time teaching graduate seminars, and still others that were really falling apart yet stuck around as it seemed almost sacrilegious to throw them away.

Still, as he sat down at one end of the couch and Owen, slipping out of his shoes, arranged himself with his head propped up against Affenlight’s thigh, he barely needed to look at the pages of the first chapter. He hadn’t called many places home in his life – the family farm was where he was perpetually unwelcome, his parents longing for him to grow up and go to college, his years exploring the maritime world had left him without much of a home on land or at sea, and even the townhouse in Cambridge had never really acquired a sense of permanence, presumably because both he and Pella had generally lived within an atmosphere of barely-contained chaos.

But, ever since he had showed up at Westish College, barely eighteen, he’d had a home there, and ever since he’d found the Melville speech in the depths of the library he’d had a home in Moby-Dick too – an allegiance he’d had etched onto his arm and never regretted. And, because his life seemed to work like that, the book he’d written, inspired by Melville, had eventually inspired another lonely young man to come to Westish and given them both a home in each other.

Midway through chapter three, with its talk of the “Skrimshander” and a certain “dark complexioned chap” who would be his roommate, Affenlight gently brushed his fingertips against Owen’s hand. “Are you asleep?”

“Not at all.” Owen’s eyes opened, looking up at him. “A little more? Tell me all about how no man prefers to sleep two to a bed.”

With a smile, Affenlight turned the page, let his fingers entwine with Owen’s, and continued to read.