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The summer heat settled thick and soft on Davey’s skin, then washed away in the evening breeze rustling through the tall grass on the dunes. The lake lapped at the beach, shallow waves rocking the world to sleep while the sun sank below the horizon, painting the sky in a rich myriad of blues and golds and purples.
Normally, Jack wouldn’t pass up a chance to paint something like this, but just tonight, he was, instead opting to nap with his head in Davey’s lap, the cool sand falling from his skin where it had caked itself on earlier in the day, clinging to the water that had long since dried. Davey was absently carding his fingers through Jack’s hair, marvelling at both the sunset and the shadows it cast across the face of his sleeping fiance.
Fiance, Davey thought to himself in amazement, twisting the slim metal band on his ring finger. They were going to get married. Jack had proposed earlier that afternoon, after all the families had packed up their baskets and left for the day. Once Davey (and Jack, though he’d never admit he’d started in the first place) had stopped crying, they settled on the sand, Davey tucked under Jack’s arm, the sun warming them from the outside-in, and their happiness warming them inside-out. Jack rambled through dozens of “do you remember” stories about them, and Davey listened contentedly, humming his affirmation when he did, in fact, remember. Jack had spilled stories that Davey hadn’t thought about for ages, and that’s when he realized something new.
Jack Kelly had been made to love.
Everyone had a capacity to love, yes, familial, platonic, or otherwise, in the same way that everyone had a capacity to learn, to create, to teach, but not everyone was made to love. Academics that haunted the library in the wee hours of the night and morning were made to learn, the fourth grade teacher that made all the difference in this subject or that was made to teach, and Jack, he was made to love.
He was made to love in the way he remembered every detail of stories about friends and family, in the way little doodles showed up in Davey’s notes when Jack knew he had been having a rough day, in the midday texts checking that whoever was in the middle of testing hadn’t forgotten to eat. He was made to love with the little kindnesses that he gave his all to.