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After the rooftop, it seemed like things got easier; or maybe, John thought, they just stopped complicating them for no good reason.
Harold took him home that same night, to a quietly beautiful apartment full of bookcases and city views, and they spent the next three hours carefully peeling off wires and setting aside slabs of semtex until John could finally take the vest off. It was morning by then; he fell over on Harold's couch and slept nearly twenty-four hours, and woke to find himself covered with a blanket, shoes off.
When they left the library that night, they went to dinner together without the little dance they'd been doing where one of them mentioned getting something to eat, casually, making sure not to assume. John just looked at Harold and said, "Thai?"
"Vietnamese?" Harold suggested instead, and pho sounded great. Afterwards they got Bear and took a walk through the city together, shoulder to shoulder.
They had a free day the next week; when John got into the library and they'd sat looking at the silent phone for five minutes, Harold turned to him and said, "Would you like to go see a movie?"
"Sure," John said. They saw Rear Window at a revival theater in the Village. Afterwards they went to Veselka and had pierogi and coffee and blintzes and talked it over until the waitress started giving them looks; then John said, "Come over, I'll make you dinner."
"Shall we stop in at Kam Hing and get sponge cakes?" Harold said, pulling on his coat.
Harold worked on his laptop while John cooked; after they ate, they both dozed off on the couch and woke to the soft buzzing of Harold's cellphone. A new number.
They saw classic films. They both liked basketball. John bought a coffeemaker for Harold's apartment. There just didn't seem to be much point in pretending that they weren't in as deep as they were. John still woke up sometimes in the night with the bomb vest tight around his chest, the straps clenching the air out of his lungs. It didn't keep him up long. All he had to do was touch his chest and remember Harold laying hands on him, pressing keys one after another, and sleep came rolling back in easily. He was safe. He was saved.
They saw Wings of Desire in a one-day arthouse showing, the low humming of the old film projector behind them in the dark, the old seats crowded close together and small, the room cold: a noisy radiator had been turned off. They kept their coats on and pushed up the worn-velvet seat dividers for a little extra room. John gave up on the subtitles early on and let the German voices wash over him like music, words leaping out at him here and there, Peter Falk unexpectedly in English telling the angel how good it was to touch, to smoke, to drink coffee, to be here.
Their legs were pressed lightly together, knee to hip, warm. John could feel Harold breathing. He lost the thread of the movie. Harold's side was close, and John had forgotten how to pretend, how not to want things from Harold; he put his arm across the top of the seat, and let their bodies fit gently together.
He was watching the remote flicker of black and white playing over Harold's face, shadows and light. Harold blinked twice at the screen and looked back at him, bright reflections making his glasses opaque. John's breath caught, not afraid, but waiting; and then Harold reached over and cupped John's cheek in his hand. John leaned down to him, eagerly.
They kissed softly, not wanting to disturb anyone else; but they were sitting on the aisle, towards the back, and the theater wasn't crowded: it was the middle of the day. John nuzzled at Harold's temple and kissed him again; Harold was smiling under his mouth, helplessly, and the world on the screen was blooming into startling color, into life.
The faint scrape of Harold's beard, the prim crisp folds of his layers and layers. John stroked his fingertips over Harold's inner wrist just inside the circle of his cuffs, the heavy metal link cold against his finger. Harold, breathing hard, dug a hand through his coat and jacket, worried the knot of his tie loose and unbuttoned his collar.
They came out into the cold crisp air, pink color in Harold's cheeks, their mouths both red, holding hands. John couldn't stop smiling.