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“Hey, Joe.”
George’s voice comes first from the bathroom, and then from much closer as he thrusts a fistful of something under Joe’s nose. It smells of such a combination of hair products that his eyes threaten to stream.
“What the hell, George?”
“Can I throw this little bastard away, or do you have bigger, better things planned for him?” George asks as the wad of drain hair in his hand drips onto the screen of Joe’s phone.
“Why are- throw it the fuck away,” Joe hisses, wiping his phone off on the sleeve of George’s outstretched arm. “Jesus.”
George yelps and scrubs at the shiny streak on his sleeve. “Watch it, this is my Sunday best,” he says, frowning at the spot in distress; his scrubbing hasn’t quite gotten rid of the stain, but at least it’s diffused it so that it’s not obvious at first glance, and then, only if you’re looking for it. When he’s apparently satisfied it doesn’t look so bad, or at least can’t look much better, he bends and plants a smacking kiss on Joe’s cheek. “You shed like a Newfoundland,” he tells him.
Joe swats at his shoulder, and then gets to his feet and stashes his phone away in his pocket. He’s been texting Bill for the past ten minutes. About what, that’s not important, and neither is Bill’s last text. Joe responds to it by changing the subject and telling him that he and George are leaving now and not to text him while they’re on the road, even if it’s country and the only other cars are likely to be on their way to the same place, and ignores the buzz from his pocket not five seconds later.
“You good to go?” he asks George, who’s just come back from tossing out the hair wad in the bathroom wastebasket and, presumably, washing his hands.
George shoots his cuffs and straightens his tie. He smells faintly of tinily-packaged hotel soap, which means he smells like something purporting to be rosemary and cucumber. “Yup,” he chirps, smoothing his jacket. He has a problem which Babe calls Sympathetic Groom Syndrome and Joe calls Regular Fucking George wherein he tends to act like every wedding is his own. Understandably, it’s only cropped up within the past few years, and has only had very little chance to rear its head as their mutual friends (and even friends-of-friends, if they’re being honest-- Joe thinks of Doc’s friend’s friend’s wedding and how George had sat teary-eyed through the speeches despite not being in on any of the inside jokes) pair off and hitch up. It’s not so much that he gets nervous jitters like someone’s going to slip a ring on his finger and make him cut a cake, but he gets swept up in the excitement of the occasion. He loves it, loves happiness, loves celebrating his friends. Loves a good slice of cake with a fat frosting rose, too. At Lip and Ron’s wedding the year prior, they had to practically scrape a sugared-up and liquored-down Luz off the dance floor with a spatula. It shouldn’t’ve made Joe want to kiss him like it did, but there you have it.
He shouldn’t expect this wedding to be any different. If anything, it’ll probably be worse, since Dick and Lew are the de facto parents of the group whether they like it or not, and they all feel it’s been a long time coming. This wedding in particular feels like a culmination, both the closing and the opening of something at the same time and a testament to the existence of love in the world.
“Never thought I’d see the day,” George remarks as they lock the door to their room and head out to the street where Joe’s car is parked. The little bed-and-breakfast where they’re staying is a fifteen minute drive from the Winters family farm, and the key has a wooden fob dangling from it that was probably carved by someone with overalls and a magnificent beard.
Joe gives him a side-eye. “They’ve been in each other’s pockets for as long as we’ve known them,” he reminds him. “As long as anyone’s known them. Even when what’s-her-name was in the picture.”
“Well, yeah,” says George, “but didn’t it kinda feel like it was gonna stay that way?”
Joe has to think about that one as he gets into the driver’s seat. Neither Dick nor Lew ever seemed like the long engagement kind of people, but that was mostly because it feels like their whole relationship up to their inevitably saying “I do” has been just that: one long engagement. “I figured they were gonna disappear for a week and then show up again to tell us they’d eloped,” Joe admits with a shrug.
George snorts. “That too,” he agrees, and Joe feels his eyes on him, like a thumb pressing into his cheek. It ought to be disconcerting, he thinks, but can’t help but scoff a grin as he passes George the aux cord.
They park in a dirt lot much like the one they left fifteen minutes ago, sandwiched between Babe’s battered Prius and Web’s rented Nissan, which is in rather better shape. The fence is all done up with decoration, wound with ribbon and with delicate bundles of wildflowers tied at each post, leading the way to where the ceremony is to take place. George and Joe arrive neither early nor late, and have plenty of company to catch up with, milling about while there’s time to kill. Out a ways there’s a small structure, like a tiny house with one tall window and the curtain drawn, and a trail which leads through the grass from the door to the aisle.
A string quartet plays, but Joe’s never been one for lowercase-or-uppercase-C classical. He recognizes his friends, lets George rope him into introducing himself to the people he doesn’t. Most of the unfamiliar faces are relatives or family friends of Dick. Most of them have heard something or another about him or George, if only just their names. He doesn’t run into anyone who introduces themselves as Lew’s family, and that’s just as well, he figures. There are no sides to the aisle, even if there is an aisle and two sections of seating; the guests sit where they please, and everyone ends up with a stranger on at least one side of them. The whole place smells of grass.
“Thought this was supposed to be a farm,” George remarks, shaking his wrist out. Some cousin of Dick’s has just shaken his hand like she was trying to get water out of him. “Nary a single animal in sight, unless you want to start counting the humans.”
“What, you think they’d make us sit in chicken shit?” Joe returns, and George laughs, returning his hand to his side, maybe a little protectively.
“Who’re you calling chicken shit?” He nudges Joe with his shoulder.
The band strikes up a new tune and the guests rise as Dick and Lew emerge from the little building arm-in-arm, carrying a bouquet between them. They wear matching tuxes and matching smiles-- one of the most remarkable things about them is how their grins are lopsided on opposing sides, as if the universe is trying to prove some kind of point-- and walk in step with one another along the path and then down the aisle.
“Fuckin’ finally, huh?” George whispers to Joe, and Joe whispers back, “Fuckin’ finally.”
The happy couple hadn’t wanted a lavish ceremony. They didn’t want to finance the operation with any of the Nixon family’s money, didn’t want to spend their first kiss as husbands knowing the flower-strewn arch behind them came from such unsavory pockets.
When it came to the reception, they held no such reservations.
It takes place in what used to be a barn but is now used for just this purpose-- wedding receptions, that is. Ceremonies, too, apparently, if the weather calls for it. Right now, the place is done up in the same fashion as was the ceremony site, decorated simply and punctuated by bundles of wildflowers. Large, round tables line the room, with a space in the middle for dancing. There’s a bar off to one corner, with a chalk sign listing virgin cocktails on offer. Slowly, the guests migrate towards the tables, like barnyard animals themselves, mulling around until finding their seats.
Joe and George are each other’s plus-ones, despite both being invited separately. Plus-one means date, you know, Bill had told Joe a week after RSVP’ing. No it doesn’t, Joe had told him; Yes it does, he had told Joe, and then, Unless dating’s not what you’re doing, which was close enough to the truth not to merit further response. It shouldn’t surprise him now, then, that when George touches Joe’s shoulder and tells him he’s going to go hunt for some wild drinks, Bill’s the one who suddenly appears beside him in the spot George has just vacated.
“There he is,” he says with an easy grin, looping an arm around Joe’s shoulder and squeezing. Joe mirrors the gesture with a grin of his own, and pats Bill’s nearer shoulder.
“Good to see you,” he tells him.
“Yeah, good to see you,” Bill replies, releasing him but keeping right there, practically in Joe’s armpit. “About fuckin’ time, yeah, those two?”
“Almost thought they were married this whole time.”
“Almost thought they got divorced,” Bill counters with a joyful lift of his eyebrows. “Not these ones, though. Gonna have to figure out what kind of presents you’re supposed to give for each anniversary.”
They shoot the shit for some time. On his way to or from the bar, George has gotten swept up in conversation with Malark, Skip, and Penkala, and Joe can see him from halfway across the room, gesticulating with a drink in each hand. The glass is sweating as the ice melts. His drink’s going to be room temperature by the time it comes his way.
Bill catches him looking and follows his gaze. “What would we do without George Luz,” he says lowly. Then he turns his eyes to Joe. “What would you do without George Luz?”
Joe sticks him in the side with his elbow. It only serves to encourage him, but then again, most things do. “Oh, come on,” Bill says, patting Joe’s arm again. “Give us one of those world-famous Joe Toye smiles.”
Joe glares.
“There we go.” Bill sighs, somehow mollified, and casts a glance around the room again. “Good thing you still got your sense of humor. Hey!”
At the opposite side of the dance floor is Babe Heffron, looking adrift, though not out of place, seeing as he’s in the middle of what might be the highest concentration of redheads outside of Ireland. He doesn’t seem to notice Bill calling, or doesn’t realize he’s calling to him, so Bill shouts again, “Hey, Babe! Come and say hi to your old Uncle Bill!”
Babe startles, narrowly avoiding spilling his drink, and crosses the dance floor towards the two of them with a relieved smile. “Heya Bill, Joe,” he greets them, claps on the backs all around like a bunch of heterosexuals. “My god. You wouldn’t believe how many people’s cousins I got mistook for in the past ten minutes.”
“You never know, maybe there’s a Heffron branch of the Winters family tree,” offers Bill. “Your date wander off?”
“I don’t have a-”
“Your plus-one’s your date,” Joe tells him flatly, and adds, “At least, that’s what Bill thinks,” just before Bill can open his mouth to say I told you so.
Babe gets a stricken look on his face. “Ah, he’s catching up with a friend,” he explains. Of course, he’s talking about Gene, who’s nowhere in sight-- probably at the opposite side of the room, by the wall, where things are quieter. He prefers quiet, doesn’t willingly venture into dense crowds like this one. “You know. Renée, she transferred to the clinic downtown a few months ago.” As he says it, Babe can’t quite keep the mournful tone out of his voice, and he looks over to the far wall, presumably in the general direction of Gene’s last known location.
Joe looks over there, too, and can’t see anyone who looks distinctly Doc Roe over the heads of the rest of the crowd-- they call him Doc, even though he’s a paramedic, but he still has his sights on the possibility of medical school in the future, and that’s reason enough. “Isn’t that where her girlfriend works?” he asks.
Babe blinks. “Girlfriend?”
“Yeah. Doc mentioned it a while back,” Bill chimes in, nodding. “‘Course, you were probably too busy staring at the side of his face and pouring maple syrup into your own lap-”
“-Hey!”
“-to hear a single fucking word he was saying.” He pats Babe’s shoulder; he’s been patting shoulders a lot today. Weddings are probably prime shoulder-patting venues, come to think of it. “Happens to the best of us.” If he gives Joe a pointed look then, Joe ignores it just as pointedly.
Babe blinks again, his eyes darting quickly towards where he had been looking for Gene and back again to Bill and Joe. His grip on his drink tightens, and he takes a sip to soothe himself. Looks that way and back again. “I should ask him out,” he says, and takes another sip, smacking his lips like it’s some strong stuff rather than an Arnold Palmer. “I’m gonna ask him out.”
“Atta boy,” says Bill at the same time that Joe says, “Not at a fucking wedding.”
There’s a beat where they both turn to Joe, slowly, like owls. He frowns. “Not at a wedding,” he says again.
“Why the hell not?” asks Bill, mirroring his frown. Babe follows suit: “Yeah, why the hell not?” he asks. “It’s a wedding. There’s love in the air, and all.”
“Yeah,” Joe replies, “for them.” He inclines his chin in the direction of the large barn doors, through which they can see Dick and Lew having their pictures taken. Right now, they’re posing by the fence, with Lew sitting up on it and Dick holding his hand. Even from this distance, they look utterly smitten. They haven’t looked any other way with each other.
Babe’s still on the lookout for Gene, practically giving himself a hernia trying to act casual. Bill comes to his defense. “So, what, just ‘cause it’s someone else’s big day means everyone else has to put their romance on hold?” he challenges Joe.
Joe sighs. “All I’m saying is it’d be weird getting asked out at someone’s wedding.”
“Reception.”
“Oh,” says Babe, his face falling minutely but steadily. “Yeah, you’re right. I- yeah, I’d better hold off on it.”
Bill frowns sharply. “Wait, wait, wait,” he interjects. “Okay, so let’s say you don’t ask him today. When’re you gonna ask him out, then?”
Joe raises an eyebrow at him while Babe flounders, and can’t help but get the impression Babe’s not the one Bill’s really talking to here. Finally, Bill takes pity on him and tells him, “Look, Babe, you do what you want. All’s I’m saying is, you’ve wanted to ask him out for a while and you’ve finally found the nerve. Fantastic. Get him someplace quiet where you two can hear each other and ask ‘im out, you know the newlyweds’re the last folks who’d mind.”
“But the wedding?” asks Babe, nevertheless looking relieved.
“Ah, fuck the wedding,” Bill says, and then looks at Joe until he rolls his eyes. “Fuck the wedding,” he echoes.
Babe smiles tentatively, raising his glass. “Yeah, fuck the wedding.” He sips at his drink again, and when he looks up, the crowd has parted, and his face lights up. “Uh, I’m gonna go-”
Bill nudges his shoulder. Joe can tell he’s barely restraining himself from shoving him outright. “Break a leg, kiddo,” he tells him, and Babe’s off, striding with every ounce of confidence he can muster straight across the dance floor towards where Gene has reappeared. “Gene!” he’s calling. “Hey Gene, you got a sec?”
Bill wipes an imaginary tear from his eye. “Young love,” he says, and then rounds on Joe. “So.”
“So.”
“You and George.” He looks him up and down like he can find some kind of quantifiable evidence on his person, like a borrowed shirt or an engagement ring. “You two still fucking?”
Joe rolls his eyes again and refuses to dignify him with a response. Unfortunately, Bill takes that as an answer in the affirmative.
“Speaking of asking someone out at a wedding-”
“No.”
“Look, I’m only-”
“Yeah, I get what you’re-”
“Joe, for the love of god, will you let me make my fucking point?” Bill claps his hands on Joe’s shoulders and holds him at arms’ length, fixing him with an expression that makes him feel like he’s going to speak to him in rapid Italian and hit him with a spoon. Luckily, he doesn’t think Bill knows anything past arrivederci. “I dunno if you’ve got one big excuse for not asking George out or if you just make up a bunch of little ones depending on the day but what I do know is you’re gone on him enough that fucking’s not the only thing you wanna do with him. Don’t gimme that look, you know I’m right and I know you know I’m right.”
The horrible part is that he is. The other horrible part isn’t that fucking’s enough, but that it should be enough. It ought to be enough. Joe tells himself it is, anyway, because it’s what’s always been enough for him. He doesn’t like to entertain the thought of anything more with someone because that means he has to want something more. Wanting means there’s stakes. It means he’s got skin in the game. He doesn’t like it when he can’t shrug it off.
Bill must be able to read something telling in his face, because he nods to himself and goes on. “You’re a sweet guy,” he says, to which Joe rolls his eyes. “No, I know you are. If you try to argue I’m gonna make everyone tell you what a fuckin’ sweetie pie you are, okay?”
Joe scowls, but says nothing and protests with his eyes as loudly as he can. The Winters-Nixons or Nixon-Winterses are still outside, smiling more for each other than for the camera. He wonders what George is doing, and finds him out of the corner of his eye, playing some sort of charades game with a group of little kids. Something melts in his chest. He wants to run out to the car and blast the radio until it’s time to leave.
“Jesus,” Bill mutters, seeing the same thing Joe’s seeing, and then focusing on him again. “Look, whatever’s stopping you, it doesn’t have to stop you. Take that how you will.” With a final pat on Joe’s shoulder, he lets him go again. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I gotta go check on Casanova over there.”
Joe snorts. “Make sure he’s not trying to speak French again,” he tells him, and Bill laughs, turning away. A beat passes. “Hey,” Joe adds, making Bill pause and turn to him again, brows lifted in question. “You give good advice.”
Bill gives him a grin. “I do, don’t I,” he says. “Maybe you should take it someday.”
With that, he lets the crowd swallow him like a wave. Joe’s just started thinking about finding a seat when there’s a familiar presence by his side and a lukewarm glass pushed into his hand.
“What’s this I hear about you taking it?” George asks cheerfully.
Joe grumbles, but lets his hand settle at George’s hip briefly as he passes him. “Nothing,” he says. “Let’s find a table.”
“Aye, aye.”
Not too long after, Dick and Lew show up, arms linked as they were when they had walked down the aisle together. The guests stand again and clap, and the two of them smile and smile and smile. Dick kisses Lew’s cheek. Their faces are happily pink, and they can’t seem to manage to be more than a foot apart from one another.
Next to Joe, George whistles like he’s calling a horse and claps loud enough so that it hurts to stand beside him. If he stands a little closer to Joe than he was a minute ago, the fact is of no consequence. He very nearly doesn’t even realize it in the midst of George’s infectious happiness. It’s the kind of joy that sweeps up everyone within its radius like a whirlpool and doesn’t let them out again until they’re breathless from laughter.
Sometime during all of theis George looks up at the same time Joe looks down, and they meet each other’s eyes. Joe doesn’t know what possesses him to do it, but he puts his arm around George’s waist and gives him a squeeze before they sit down again. While they’re seated, George knocks his knee to Joe’s good leg.
At the middle of the long table set up at the far end of the barn, Dick and Lew take their places. Harry darts over to the sound equipment and grabs a microphone, which he hands over the table to Lew; when he takes it, Dick covers Lew’s hand with his own. It’s a very sweet sight, especially with how Lew casts him a glance over his shoulder.
They thank everyone for coming, first and foremost. There’s a long list of names they recite, thanking the caterers and the florists and the musicians and everyone who set up and everyone who would later take all the decorations down; they thank relatives and friends and well-wishers, and recall the staff of the shop where, separately, they had both gone to purchase engagement rings for each other without any idea the other planned to propose as well.
“They can probably guess how we’re doing now,” Lew remarks.
“Still, we’ll be forever grateful for their help, as well as their discretion,” Dick adds graciously, a smile lingering in the corners of his mouth. The guests laugh and toast with flutes of sparkling cider.
Harry is next up to speak. He was the first of the bunch to marry, and has probably given the most wedding speeches out of any of them. On top of that, he’s the oldest mutual friend of both the grooms, and their joint groomsman, and takes it upon himself to pick at once the most embarrassing and most sappy story there is, and takes barely-hidden glee at how Lew covers his face with his hands.
There’s a rustle of paper as George pulls out a stack of index cards from his pocket and gets to his feet, heading to the front near the table but not at center stage. Harry hands off the microphone to him; scattered chuckles ripple here and there as he taps it and makes a show of testing the sound. “Hey, everybody,” he says, waving with the hand holding the index cards. “You may know me from every other wedding this group’s had-- there’s been a few. Really looking forward to seeing who catches the bouquet later on.”
Bets have already been placed. There’s some speculation about Web and Liebgott, who seem to be circling closer and closer to it. George checks the price of flights to San Francisco weekly. Joe would know, since when he Googled it himself, the search box auto-populated. He reminds himself to tell George to delete his cookies before they really do have to fly to the West Coast.
“There’s no way anyone couldn’t have seen this coming,” George goes on to say, gesturing with his cards at Dick and Lew. “Just look at ‘em. This is what they’ve been like since the day I met them-- hey, Lew, how’s it feel knowing you can call your husband a dick and he won’t get mad at you even a little?”
“Thanks, George,” says Dick dryly, one arm still around Lew’s shoulders, where it will probably remain for the rest of the evening, and George grins.
“‘Thanks, George’-- I rest my case,” he announces with a flourish. “So happy my parents are finally getting married. Anyway, if there’s any better picture of true love, look no further than these fellas. When they announced their engagement, it was honestly more of a surprise to learn they hadn’t been married all this time. That’s just how they were. That's just how they are. You meet them and suddenly you find yourself believing in soulmates. I don’t think any of the guys knew one without knowing the other. They’re a package deal. Buy one, get one free. If I were a meaner person I’d probably take some time now to speculate about what kinds of petty arguments go on behind closed doors, but that’d be cheap and untrue. What you see is what you get with Dick and Lew.”
He turns, appraising the two of them where they sit. They look back at him, amusement in the lift of their brows, their quiet smiles. It’s that watchful patience that’s earned them the position of the parents of the group, even if they’re not quite the oldest of the bunch.
“So let’s look at them,” says George. His voice has taken on a different quality now; more serious, more earnest. Less of the showman that he usually is. There’s something about it that makes Joe want to get up and stand next to him, wrap an arm around him and let him lean against him. Despite George’s instructions, Joe can’t take his eyes off of him. “It doesn’t seem out of place at all to see them with wedding rings. This kind of happiness suits you guys, I really mean it, and I think I can speak for everyone here when I say we’re so damned glad to be here, watching you get hitched and toasting in your honor. You’ve taught us all a lot about love and knowing what to do with it.”
For a moment, he’s quiet, contemplative in a way they rarely see him, and then he’s grinning, raising his glass. “Can’t get enough of these,” he says. “Let’s hear it for Dick and Lew!”
Dinner is great; the cake is better. The newlyweds forgo the whole production of smearing it on each other’s faces, but Lew does put a dollop of whipped cream on Dick’s nose, innocent as anything. They’re one of the few couples who can make a roll of the eyes look like a declaration of love.
George carries a plate with about one part cake to two parts frosting. When he sits again, he tucks into the rose immediately, and it’s halfway gone by the time Joe even picks up his fork.
“Go easy on that,” he tells him. “I don’t want you getting carsick on the way back.”
“I never get carsick,” George lies, mouth full. “Since when do I get carsick?”
Joe rolls his eyes. He wonders how much like a confession that looks to anyone watching, and scrapes the frosting flower off his own slice of cake and deposits it onto George’s plate. The music has gone from something that fits calmly in the background and doesn’t impose to something which demands more attention, and more action. The guests trickle onto the dance floor, slowly at first, and then more and more at a time. The Welshs can’t resist dancing together, fast or slow, and they’re one of the first couples out on the floor. Renée and her girlfriend-- Augusta, if he’s remembering right-- are swaying together, and Joe sees Babe tugging Gene out by the hand. When they dance, they have their hands at each other’s waists, hesitant but clearly smitten.
George looks the same way. In the same direction, that is, because if there’s anything George has never been, it’s hesitant. The smitten part is debatable. “Hey,” he says, elbowing Joe in the side and jerking his chin at them as if Joe hasn’t seen. “Joe, look. Babe and Gene.”
“Yeah,” Joe replies.
“They’re dancing,” George says. “Babe and Gene.”
“Yeah, you said.”
He feels it when George turns to look at him. The weight of his gaze is something he’s had lots of time to get used to. Lots of time to enjoy. “You knew about this?”
“Bill had a talk with Babe earlier,” Joe tells him.
“Yeah, apparently a talk you were in on.”
He can’t argue with that, and doesn’t try to. “He thought Gene was dating that nurse,” he says instead. “Babe thought, I mean.”
They watch the two of them a little longer. Babe dances like a high schooler at prom when he’s sober, but that doesn’t seem to be any problem for Gene, whose dark eyes are focused on Babe’s face the whole time. It would probably be unnerving for anyone but the guy he’s dancing with.
“Hey, Babe,” George calls, “save room for Jesus!” and it’s only due to the respectable company that Babe doesn’t cuss at him. Joe catches Bill’s eye and nods, just once, to tell him good job. Even if he’s rough around the edges, he gives good pep talks, Bill does; prefers his friends feeling their best and says what he can to get them there.
George leans back in his chair, placing his napkin beside his empty plate.
“You gonna go dance?” Joe asks him, remembering the conga line he started at the last three weddings they’d been invited to, and how no one seemed to bring themselves to resent him for it. But, to his surprise, George takes a moment to respond, and when he does, it’s a frown and a shake of his head.
Instead of answering, he asks, “So what’d Bill say to light a fire under Babe’s ass?” and there’s something contemplative hanging around his face that Joe can’t quite identify, but he knows it’s there, the same way you can feel when someone’s behind you even if you can’t see them. There are very few faces of George’s that he can’t decipher.
“I dunno,” he replies. “Babe thought Gene was dating that nurse, we told him he wasn’t.”
“Yeah, I- I know that,” says George with a snort. “But if that’s all you’d told him, he’d be sitting somewhere over there-” he gestures over at one of the corner tables nearest the speakers, where the music is loudest- “trying to drown his sorrows in a virgin margarita, not dancing with the man of his dreams.”
Joe sighs. It’s late but nearing summer, so even now that it’s evening, the sun drags its heels when it comes to setting. What light still comes through the open doors and the high windows is purplish and refreshingly cool in a way that makes people want to stand by each other, get warm with someone they love. It’ll be nice driving back to the B & B, he thinks to himself. “Said if he’d wanted to ask him out for a while and finally worked up the nerve, he should ask him,” he says.
George chews on that a while. “And what’d he say to you?” he asks, after he’s done with it.
“Huh?”
“What’d he say to you?” George asks again, turning to sit sideways in his chair to face Joe. “I saw you two talking, even after Babe left. Looked pretty serious.”
Joe feels heat creep up his neck. He’s not used to being embarrassed, and not used to recalling hearts-to-heart for the benefit of others. “Why’re you on about this?” he tries, balling up his napkin and shoving it next to his plate. He’s not prepared to feel George’s hand on his arm, the touch feather-light, like he’s not sure he’s allowed to put his hand there but he’s willing to try breaking the rule to see if he can. Without looking for him, Joe knows Bill is watching them.
He gives good advice. Too good not to take.
“He called me a sweetie pie,” is what Joe grumbles out. Immediately, the touch disappears. That’s what makes Joe hurry up and add, “And he said whatever’s stopping me doesn’t have to stop me.”
“Yeah?” George asks, looking the same way Babe did when he had explained where Gene had gone off to. It’s a look that makes Joe want to grab him by his stupid novelty necktie and haul him in for a kiss.
It’s a bad idea, isn’t it?
It isn’t such a bad idea.
“Oh,” says George, slightly cross-eyed and very pink-faced. His tie hangs out of his jacket, and he doesn’t bother tucking it back. Maybe he hasn’t noticed.
“Yeah,” says Joe. There’s an insistent pull at the corners of his mouth, threatening a smile. “That’s what we were talking about.”
“Oh,” says George again. “So if I…”
The second kiss is slower, softer. It doesn’t pull either of them halfway out of their chairs so that they have to right themselves in a rush, but it’s okay. There’s time for those kinds, too.
“He asked if we were still fucking.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Joe thinks he might finally get it, this habit of couples in their newness holding onto each other as if by reflex. If he could, he would pull George into his lap, but he settles for sitting at the very edge of his chair while George does the same, so that they can put their heads together and talk in the space between. Maybe this is what George meant by love and knowing what to do with it.
“You gonna go dance?” asks Joe after some time like that. Their faces are warm from each other’s breath. They can hardly hear the music anymore, even though it’s just as loud as it has been.
“Nah, I’m good like this,” says George. “You?”
“I’m good.”
For all he was apparently looking forward to seeing who ended up catching the bouquet, George is entirely occupied, as is Joe, by the time Dick and Lew finally get around to tossing it. It sails in a dramatic arc over the heads of the guests until Buck, baseball star that he is, makes a wild jump to catch it and ends up batting it right into Web’s arms. Web stares open-mouthed at the poor, battered thing as if he can’t quite recognize how it got there until Liebgott grabs it and thrusts it skyward with a victorious shout that snaps everyone out of everything.
On the drive back, Joe reminds George to delete his cookies.