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For all Adam’s talk of a Starbucks obsession, he reliably invites Michael to meet him in independent coffee shops with mismatched furniture and hideous local art on the walls. Michael can tell they’re meant to be homey, though they resemble no home he’s ever been in. Adam always looks perfectly comfortable in them.
“So why’d you become a priest?” he asks, his chin in his hands. He’s grinning, wide and open-mouthed, his tongue peeking out from between his teeth.
“I wanted to make my father proud,” Michael says, which is not what he usually says. Usually he says that he was raised devout, which is true, or that he felt a calling, which isn’t. Something about Adam makes him want to be honest. He became a priest because he thought it was what his father expected of him. Their relationship has always involved a lot of guesswork, and Michael has always managed to guess wrong.
“Oh.” Adam takes a drink from his mug and chases it with a bite of sourdough drowned in avocado. “Did it work?”
“I don’t know. He left before I finished school, and we don’t talk much now. He sends emails occasionally, but he’s busy.” Discussing his father feels strange, flexing muscles that creak with disuse. “So no, I suppose.”
Adam’s mouth is full again; Michael watches him chew faster, try to swallow, and finally say with a hand over his mouth, “Shit, I’m sorry.”
Michael wants to hide his face but settles for poking at his smoothie bowl. Adam ordered it for him because, supposedly, he makes boring choices when left to his own devices. It is true that he had been eyeing a cup of yogurt topped with a single strawberry before Adam nudged him aside and took charge. “There’s nothing to be sorry for. My father is spiritual in a way that is beyond me, and he was called to bigger things. It was difficult, but important things often are.” Michael is the only one Chuck said goodbye to. The others were too young to understand, he said, a comment that made it impossible for Michael to admit that he didn’t understand either. His father had been good at that, at making him feel like they were on a team apart from his siblings.
Adam says, with an anger Michael finds incomprehensible, “Bullshit! In what world is that an excuse for walking away from your family? From your kids? And you have three little brothers, right? How is it fair to make you take care of them?”
Michael can’t remember anyone being angry on his behalf before. He isn’t sure he likes it. “My youngest sibling had just turned eighteen. And we had money. We were fine.”
“Oh, ‘cause no one needs any support after the age of eighteen, right? Anyway, it wouldn’t kill him to call.”
Michael shifts in his seat. It is true that his father could call. He’s had the thought himself, has even, in weak moments, been angry about it, but he knows his father had to leave. Serving God is more important than raising children. Just having the conversation makes him feel disloyal, and with the disloyalty comes panic. His father left because they, his family, didn’t deserve him, and he won’t come back if they can’t learn to be better. Adam is leading him down an unsafe path, one that will ruin everything he’s worked for.
He says, “You’re projecting. I’m very sorry your father abandoned you, but that isn’t my situation.”
He only hears how truly awful the words are when it’s too late. Adam’s face, normally so open and lively, goes cold. He stares across the table without speaking. Michael should apologize. He knows he should apologize, but he can’t force the words out. Forgiveness feels unattainable, and since he will not be forgiven, since he will inevitably be left, there’s no reason to let Adam see how desperate he is. Besides, he still can’t shake the feeling that he’s somehow wronged his father by sharing the details that led Adam to speak this way.
Adam doesn’t do any of the things Michael expects him to. He doesn’t lash out with something proportionally hurtful; nor does he get up and leave. He just sits, watching Michael with an unreadable expression on his face.
After almost a minute of this, the air so thick with things unsaid that Michael thinks he might suffocate, he manages, “I shouldn’t have said that,” which is not an apology but causes some of the usual warmth to return to Adam’s face.
“You shouldn’t have. But I’ve decided I’m not mad at you for being a dick because obviously it’s a sensitive subject and maybe I was a little pushy. I think you deserve someone who shows up for you, but it’s not my business. Now do you wanna go get some ice cream?” He grins. “Your treat.”
Food is Adam’s solution to everything. It’s absurd, but Michael nods, grateful to be forgiven.
The ice cream shop Adam chooses is six blocks away, and he chatters the whole way there as if he’s forgotten what Michael said. When they arrive, he orders three scoops of three different flavors on an ungainly monstrosity of a cone and groans when Michael orders a single scoop of vanilla.
“I like vanilla,” Michael says.
“Okay, okay. It’s your call. But you have to at least try mine.”
Adam holds out his cone when he gets it, but not before taking a satisfied lick. Michael’s cheeks burn. He feels like everyone else in the shop is staring at them, though a glance around assures him neither the bored teen behind the counter nor the family in the corner care what they’re doing. He leans in and licks the top scoop, which is a vibrant purple.
“It’s good,” he says, though he can’t taste anything, his entire mind occupied by the way Adam stares at him. “Thank you.”
“That’s the face of a man who still prefers vanilla.” Michael wants to protest, but Adam continues, “Nothing wrong with that. I just. I don’t know, I get the feeling you don’t try new things all that often.”
Michael can’t tell Adam why he has to keep himself so rigidly under control, so he just smiles at the thought of Adam worrying about him. As they walk outside, he feels warm in a way that has nothing to do with the sun beating down on them, and so he can finally say, “I’m sorry for what I said earlier.”
Adam shrugs. “It’s all right. The shit with my dad sucks, obviously, but I guess I’m as over it as you get.”
“It isn’t all right. My relationship with my father is complicated, but it was wrong of me to lash out. You were being kind.”
“Trying, anyway.” They lapse into a silence that Adam breaks only when his ice cream is gone; he tosses the last soggy bit of cone into his mouth and swallows it whole. “Hey, I guess this is a stupid question, but do priests have to do confession?”
“Of course. We are as human as anyone else.”
“That makes sense. I guess I just can’t imagine you doing anything wrong.”
Michael is so overcome with self-loathing that he freezes in the middle of the sidewalk. He’s been deceiving Adam, and the parish, and Raphael, and his father’s voicemail box. Everyone except God, who can see exactly what he is and will not forgive him. He has never even asked for forgiveness. He doesn’t confess Adam because he knows Adam would find it hurtful. This shouldn’t matter, not in the face of his vows and his eternal soul and the thought of someday being good enough to bring his father back, but somehow it does. He has always been weak that way. Emotional, his father used to tell him. No matter how hard he tries to be strong, there’s something soft at his core, not soft the way Adam is, not gentle and kind and good, but soft like rot, like something being eaten away from the inside.
Adam turns to look at him from half a block away, then jogs back and loops an arm through his, tugging him into motion. “That was mostly a joke. I just meant you’re really nice. And, y’know, uptight.”
“Am I?” Michael asks. It’s too hot for this kind of contact, but he doesn’t pull away. “Nice, I mean? Most people would say cold. Or severe.”
Adam pulls them both to a halt and evaluates Michael, his gaze searching. Michael tries not to squirm. “I can see that,” Adam says, which is not what Michael wants to hear. He fights not to droop, but he must fail because Adam smiles at him the way he once looked at a puppy in a pet shop window that hadn’t yet learned how to work all four legs in unison, like Michael is somehow both charming and pitiful. Adam starts walking again, and Michael, still in his grip, has no choice but to follow. “I just mean you have sort of a shell. But if people are too stupid to figure out how to get past it, that’s their loss. You’ve been a really good friend to me. All the stuff with my mom—“
“I was just doing my job.”
Adam laughs. “Michael, I might be a severely lapsed Catholic, but even I know confession isn’t supposed to turn into a free-wheeling conversation about life, death, and unjustly-cancelled sitcoms. You helped me. I’m saying thank you. Say ‘you’re welcome.’”
“You’re welcome,” Michael says obediently. Adam bumps his shoulder with his own. He’s smiling his widest, most guileless smile, the one that usually makes Michael relax against his will. Now it just makes him even more miserable. Adam imagines he was acting out of kindness or friendship, but the truth is that he had needed Adam to keep talking to him, needed it like he had never needed anything before, and in his desperation, he cheapened a sacred ritual and took advantage of Adam’s pain. He should tell the truth and accept the consequences, but he knows he’ll never be quite strong enough.
As the weather grows colder, Adam suggests they move their meetings from coffee shops to his cozy one-bedroom. This strikes Michael as dangerously intimate, but he can’t come up with a reason to refuse, so he walks up the four flights of stairs to Adam’s apartment like he’s headed to the gallows.
Adam opens the door in mismatched pajamas, hot air spilling into the hall. He tugs on Michael’s scarf, grinning. “Sorry to make you come out in the cold.”
Michael ducks lower into the mound of his scarf and upturned collar. “I don’t mind. I like winter.” This has never been true before, but in this moment, with Adam leaning into him, he finds that it is.
“Great.” Adam pulls Michael into the apartment by his coat sleeve. “Lemme give you the tour.”
The tour, it turns out, is just Adam pointing at the bathroom, gesturing to the refrigerator and telling Michael he’s welcome to anything in it, and tugging the bedroom door shut before Michael can get a look inside. Much of the living room is taken up by a lumpy green couch that tries to swallow Michael when he sits down on it.
“This baby’s been with me since college,” Adam says, slapping the back of it. When he sits, the couch tips them toward each other, and Michael has to scramble to keep from ending up in his lap. “Sorry,” Adam laughs, a dusting of pink along his cheekbones. Michael shifts until they’re no longer touching, and Adam shifts until just their shoulders are.
“What do you want to watch?” Adam asks, and Michael wants to protest, to say that Adam invited him here, the invitation carrying the implication that he would take charge and make all the difficult decisions. Michael has never been good at thinking for himself. Raphael flung this accusation—barely an accusation, an observation—at him the one time they fought, a fight that birthed a year of silence and then a reconciliation that wasn’t. They moved forward without ever talking about the things they had said, or the fact that Raphael had used the year to grow their hair out, buy a new wardrobe, and begin going by “they.” The unacknowledged change was less jarring than the fact that they were happy, allowing Michael to see that they had never been before, and that he still was not.
Adam watches him, waiting for an answer that will not come. After a prolonged pause of Michael’s making, Adam offers, “Action? Romcom? Documentary?”
Michael is comfortable wielding authority, but only when it’s bestowed from above—the responsible brother caring for his wayward younger siblings, the priest shepherding his parishioners to salvation. Something this simple and insignificant and wholly individual is impossible for him.
“I don’t really watch movies,” he says.
“Oh! Well, no problem. Do you want to do something else? I know I have some board games somewhere.”
Michael thinks of all the empty space that would need to be filled during a game. Even after months of friendship, he’s still uneasy sometimes, on guard for what might slip out. “No, let’s watch a movie. You choose.”
Adam opens a streaming service and starts to browse, occasionally asking for Michael’s feedback but knowing better than to wait for a response. After several minutes of scrolling and commentary, he settles on a wildlife documentary. Michael wonders whether this is something he likes or something he thinks Michael might like, one of the new things Adam wants so badly for him to try.
Michael likes Adam a lot. More than he should, more than is safe. Watching a movie with him, though, is so unbearable that he can almost remember what it was like to feel normal and not overwhelmed with affection. Adam never stops talking: about what they’re watching, about his coworkers, about his grocery list for the coming week. About a book he read and would like Michael to borrow but has long since lost. About the dingy water leaking out of the back of his refrigerator. About playing dodgeball in middle school gym. Trying to keep up gives Michael whiplash.
Adam’s always been more energetic than Michael; after listening to one of Michael’s stories, Raphael let their lip curl and said, “He sounds—peppy.” Which Michael had to concede was accurate. But this level of energy is unusual even for him. He won’t stop moving, leaning forward to grab things off the coffee table—the remote, a stray mug, a pen leaking a puddle of ink onto the scratched-up wood. He never seems to have a plan for any of these items once he has them; after upsetting the careful equilibrium of the couch so that Michael has to tense every muscle to keep from falling into him, he just holds whatever he’s picked up and then either replaces it or stands to put it somewhere else in the apartment, though never the right place. The mug doesn’t make it to the sink; the pen is redirected to the windowsill. As he moves, Michael cranes his neck to keep him in sight.
“Hey,” Adam calls from the kitchen, a beer in each hand. It’s the fourth time he’s gone for snacks. The first was popcorn; he told Michael not to pause the TV, but the overactive kernels made it impossible to focus. Then two sodas, then a third soda because he’d chugged his, and now, apparently, alcohol. “Do they let priests drink?”
“They do, but I shouldn’t.” Michael feels plenty out of control without introducing intoxicants to his system. He worries that Adam will think he’s boring, but Adam just puts the beers back and brings over another two sodas, though Michael still has half of his. Adam’s careful to return to his seat in a way that doesn’t send Michael tumbling into his lap again, but their shoulders still end up pressed together.
“Sorry,” Adam says, handing Michael a can he doesn’t want. “I’m being a pain. I don’t know why I can’t sit still.”
“I don’t mind,” Michael says, and finds that the saying makes it true, that he really doesn’t mind. His time with Adam is precious, even peppered with disruptions as it is now.
“You’re a fucking saint,” Adam says. “I’m not going to move again, I promise.”
“I really don’t mind. I’m having a nice time.” This feels horribly revealing, but it makes Adam smile and lean back, finally ready to enjoy the movie, which ends as soon as he’s properly settled.
“Oh shit, I saw like, none of that. Do you want to watch something else, or do you need to get going?”
Michael checks his watch though he knows he’s going to say yes. Adam’s face splits into an un-self-conscious smile when he agrees. Adam picks another nature documentary, and this time he’s quiet and still, except for one gasp when a lion takes down the gazelle it’s been stalking through the Sub-Saharan grasslands.
With the exception of these few hunting scenes, the movie is quiet and slow. There are a lot of close-ups of grass blowing in the wind while the narrator’s low, gentle voice drones on and on. Michael can feel himself sinking deeper and deeper into the couch. Each blink seems to last longer than the last. He fights to swallow his yawns.
He wakes up with Adam’s head on his shoulder and Adam’s hair fanned out along his collarbone. He should nudge Adam awake, or at least put some space between them, but instead he sits still and allows himself this moment of uncomplicated contact. Usually when he prays, he prays for strength and clarity, for purity and forgiveness. He prays for some kind of message, a guiding light, a burning bush. He prays for his father back. Now he prays for time to hold still, for this moment to go on and on. His skin burns with want, for once undisguised and undeniable. He wants Adam, and he wants this life, the life that is warm and comfortable and full of affection. He wants to stay here with the kindest person he’s ever known.
Adam sleeps for nearly an hour, and Michael feels each second as it slips away from him. He watches the alley outside Adam’s window darken, and he watches the space on the couch that separates Adam’s hand from his.
Adam wakes up all at once, lurching upright and scrambling to the other side of the couch. “Shit!” He runs a hand through his rumpled hair. His face is a very, very bright red. “Oh my God, wow, I am the worst host. Please tell me I didn’t drool on you.”
“You didn’t.” Michael turns his face away, afraid to see disgust in Adam’s eyes, though his gaze is drawn back to Adam soon enough. Michael can never keep from looking for long.
“Well, thank God for small favors. How long was I out?”
“Not long,” Michael lies. “I fell asleep too. I just woke up.”
“Okay, good.” Adam grins. For all his suffering, he’s still so open and unguarded. Michael wants, too often, the dirty human things he is supposed to be above, but he also wants just to hold Adam, to protect him from the things that threaten to dull him, and to perhaps be protected in turn.
“Do you need to go?” Adam asks. “‘Cause you could stay for dinner if you wanted. I mean, I’m a disaster in the kitchen, but I can promise you something technically edible.”
Michael wants badly to agree, but he’s afraid of what Adam might see in his eyes, the feelings he can’t hide. “I should head home,” he says, and doesn’t have to work to put regret in his voice.
“All right.” Adam frowns.
Michael pulls himself free from the couch, which threatens to suck him back in. Before he can get far, Adam grabs his wrist and looks up at him. “Hey, I’m sorry this was so weird. I think like—After my mom died, I sort of isolated myself for a while. You’re the first friend I’ve really made since then, and having someone in my space is clearly throwing me off. But I’m glad you came. Next time I’ll be so normal you won’t even believe it.”
Michael can’t suppress a smile at the sound of next time. “I’m glad you invited me. I had fun.”
Adam beams. “You’re such a liar. I like that about you.” Michael tries not to wince at this unintentional truth, to focus on the second sentence. Adam’s kindness feels like a miracle, like salvation. When they first spoke, he was miserable and angry, struggling to process the violent death of his mother, and still he has always treated Michael with gentleness and patience. He let Michael into his life and his home. He is good in a way few people are, a way Michael surely isn’t.
Adam trails Michael to the door, still smiling, and watches as he winds his scarf around and around his neck. “God, you look like you’re going dogsledding through the Arctic. Thanks for braving the cold just so I could talk your ear off and fall asleep on you.”
Michael pauses in the doorway, hoping and fearing that Adam will adjust his scarf again, his fingers coming perilously close to the sensitive skin of Michael’s neck, but he just smiles and says, “Drive safe.” Michael tries not to feel bereft. He has gotten, in this one evening, more than he ever thought or hoped to have. He shouldn’t risk it by wanting more.