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Summer lay heavy across Pennsylvania; the last week had been unusually hot and dry.
Hawk had done what he could to keep the house cool: windows thrown open at night, blinds drawn tight against the sun by morning. It hadn’t helped much. The heat lingered anyway, thick and unmoving, and the ventilator they’d bought, the one that was bound to send the electric bill clear out of proportion, did nothing but shove warm air from one corner of the room to the other.
He wasn’t even in the mood for sex, and that worried him more than he liked to admit. It was simply too hot. Even sleeping naked beside Tim did nothing for him. He felt slow, sticky, bone-tired.
Turned out he wasn’t built for heat.
Tim, on the other hand, seemed to take to it just fine. Winter had dragged on forever, and now, whenever he had the chance, he stretched himself out in the sun, lying in the grass with his sketchbook, drawing the ducks. Always the ducks.
And then there had been that time he “fell” into the pond. Hawk didn’t quite believe it had been an accident. Maybe Tim had tried to swim and been too embarrassed to admit that the pond was home to more than a few territorial ducks. He’d come up looking faintly green, tangled in weeds and likely duck muck.
Hawk had laughed. A lot.
He’d also reached for his camera, quick as anything, to capture the sight of a pouting, scandalized Tim.
In the middle of all that heat, his mother had decided to pay them a visit. Or rather, she had called Hawk and informed him he would be collecting her from her house and bringing her out to theirs. She had always been driven about, but Hawk had no intention of letting a stranger anywhere near the place.
Even the memory of Lucy’s visit sent a chill through him. How easily their freedom could be stripped away. How quickly their secret could be dragged into the light.
He tried not to linger on it. They were fine. They were careful.
The best part of his mother’s arrival had been the two handsome bottles of Italian red she carried in with her. The sort of wine Hawk used to buy without thinking, back when he had a steady income and a respectable apartment in Washington. These days he found himself dreaming about proper coffee beans. Good wine felt indulgent. Scotch wasn’t even worth considering.
“There he is,” his mother said the moment Tim stepped through the door after work. “My handsome son-in-law.”
Hawk went very still.
His heart kicked hard against his ribs. It was a joke. A kind one. Or perhaps it wasn’t a joke at all. And in the end that hardly mattered, because what it meant, plain and simple, was that his mother accepted them. Not in a quiet, don’t-ask-don’t-tell way. Not in a polite, I’ll-look-the-other-way fashion. But fully. Warmly. Without condition.
She embraced Tim, smoothed a hand along his cheek, and brought a blush up bright and immediate. Hawk found himself smiling before he could stop it, gratitude settling deep in his chest. Tim could never tell his own mother about them, Hawk knew that, and he saw, more often than Tim realized, how much he missed that steady, uncomplicated parental affection. He was young. Hawk sometimes forgot just how young.
They spent the afternoon outside in the shade of one of the many trees, Hawk and Tim hauling the table and chairs out onto the grass. The air hung heavy even there, cicadas humming in the distance.
His mother insisted on tea, of all things, in this weather, and though the very thought of it made Hawk feel warmer still, he went inside and put the kettle on.
“How have you two been?” she asked once they were settled, her gaze drifting to the cake she’d brought from the bakery.
“Good,” Hawk said, careful not to sound too eager. Cake was another thing they didn’t allow themselves very often.
It wasn’t that they were poor. They weren’t. But they both understood how quickly life could turn. They needed enough put aside to disappear if they ever had to. To begin again somewhere no one knew their names. The savings weren’t indulgence; they were insurance.
“No one’s bothering you?” she asked lightly.
“No,” Tim said with an easy smile. “We’re fine.”
She reached across and patted his hand. “I’m very glad to hear that. I don’t want the two of you getting into any trouble.”
Tim’s smile softened into something faintly sad. “We’re not looking for trouble either.”
“Oh, I know,” she said at once. “The world is simply too foolish to understand love.”
The words settled over them gently, and in that moment Hawk felt an almost aching urge to capture it. So many couples had family photographs: with parents, with spouses, with one another. Mantels and sideboards crowded with proof.
They did not have a single one.
“I’m going to get my camera,” Hawk said, rising with a small smile.
Tim groaned. “Hawk.”
His mother laughed softly. “My son is getting sentimental. I think that’s a very good sign. This one”, she pointed at Hawk while looking at Tim, “has been far too serious all his life.”
“I didn’t have much choice,” Hawk replied, one eyebrow lifting.
“But now you do,” she said with a shrug. “Look at this. A beautiful house, hidden by trees, and no one even knows it’s here. Do people ever wander out of the woods and stumble onto your property?”
“No,” Tim answered quickly. An old disagreement, that one. “No one ever comes out here. Except the postman. And the company that brings oil for the heating and gas for the stove.”
“And they only ever see one of you, I imagine?” she asked carefully.
“They see me,” Hawk said, his tone firm. “And only by appointment.”
She smiled. “Then I suppose there’s nothing to worry about.”
Hawk couldn’t have disagreed more. There was always something to worry about. But perhaps — and it was a very large perhaps — they might be left alone here for a long while yet.
He turned away and went to the bedroom for his camera.
The night before, he had quietly photographed Tim asleep. Most of the exposures on the roll were Tim. He had carved out a small darkroom space in the attic, chemicals and proper lighting cost more than he liked to admit, but he could not risk sending the film elsewhere. It was too personal. Too revealing.
If the images were going to exist at all, he would be the one to develop them.
He took a few pictures of his mother and Tim together, then lowered the camera and hesitated. Finally, he stepped toward her and held it out.
“Would you take one of us?” he asked.
Tim’s eyes widened. Then his whole expression softened: open, luminous, almost painfully sweet.
“Of course,” his mother said gently, accepting the camera.
Hawk rose and moved his chair closer to Tim’s. Close enough that their knees nearly touched. And before he could reconsider it, before caution could speak, he slipped an arm around Tim’s shoulders.
Tim turned toward him, eyes already shining. Hawk felt the familiar, helpless fondness rise in his chest. How was it that he always made his boy cry?
“Smile into the camera for me, please,” his mother instructed warmly.
They did.
The shutter clicked.
And just like that, there was proof.
One photograph of them together.
Hawk would buy a proper frame for it. And perhaps he would even find the nerve to set it on his nightstand.
Later, after he had driven his mother home and the daylight began to fade at last, Hawk set about lining candles into their mismatched collection of jars — jam, mustard, honey — and carried them out behind the house.
It was stifling indoors, and the evening promised to stay clear and warm. They might as well sit beneath the open sky.
He spread an old blanket on the grass near the pond. The ducks were still muttering to one another, though a few had already tucked their heads beneath their wings. Frogs called from somewhere beyond the reeds. A handful of birds carried the last of the daylight in their song.
Hawk brought out two glasses and one of the bottles of wine, setting them carefully beside the blanket before heading back to the bedroom.
Tim had only meant to take a short nap, but an hour had passed without him reappearing.
“Hey, Skippy,” Hawk murmured, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Wake up.”
Tim lay tangled in the thin sheets, dressed in striped pajama trousers and a loose white T-shirt. The heat had left his cheeks flushed, his hair mussed against the pillow.
“What?” he asked, voice thick with sleep.
“I thought we might sit outside for a while. If you feel like it.”
Tim nodded, rubbing at his eyes before reaching for his glasses. The moment he settled them on his nose, he looked up at Hawk and smiled, open and bright.
“Today’s nice.”
“Yeah?” Hawk asked, brushing his fingers gently along Tim’s warm cheek.
“Yeah.” Tim’s smile softened. “You’re sweet.”
Hawk leaned in and kissed him, slow and unhurried, waiting for that familiar, quiet hum Tim always made when their mouths met like this.
Truth was, Hawk always wanted to be sweet with him. To shield him from the world. To keep him safe from anything that might bruise him. And sometimes, when the love felt too large to contain, when the fear of losing it tightened in his chest, he slipped back into his old, gruff habits instead.
“Come on,” he said softly when they parted.
Tim stayed in his light sleep clothes; anything more would have been unbearable in the heat. Hawk had changed as well, trading his day trousers for thin linen and wearing only his undershirt — something he never would have considered once. But they were alone here. Only the ducks as their witnesses.
And the ducks did not care.
“Hawk,” Tim breathed when he stepped outside and saw the scene: the candles flickering in their jars, the blanket spread in the grass, the waiting wine.
“You like it?” Hawk asked.
“I love it,” Tim sighed.
They settled onto the blanket, and Hawk poured them each a glass of wine. As usual, whenever Tim liked something, he drank it too quickly. The color in his cheeks deepened; the wine loosened him, made him a little tipsy, a little soft around the edges. Perhaps even a touch foolish.
Hawk adored him like that. In those moments, worry and anger slipped clean out of his mind.
“You know what I was thinking about?” Tim asked quietly.
“What’s that?” Hawk replied, smiling into his glass.
“The other day, I rode past the bookshop on my bike. They had those fifty-cent paperbacks in the window. The love stories.”
Hawk smirked. “You want to read about a secretary falling for her executive?”
Tim shook his head. “No. Not really. But…” He hesitated, then pressed on. “I would want to read about people like us.”
Hawk reached over, resting his hand gently on Tim’s shoulder. “Oh, Skippy.”
“Is that so wrong?”
“No.” Hawk shook his head at once. “It’s not wrong at all.”
For a brief second he feared the subject might darken Tim’s mood, but instead Tim only smiled, wistful, almost dreamy.
“I’d buy a fifty-cent paperback about an intern from the mailroom who meets a handsome politician in the park.”
Hawk laughed, his hand slipping into Tim’s short hair despite himself. They were exposed out here and he ought to remember that. But he couldn’t quite make himself pull away.
“Oh, would you?”
“Yes,” Tim said brightly. “Or about a singer at a nightclub who falls for a mysterious journalist. Or”, his grin widened, “where the secretary doesn’t fall for the executive at all, but for the other secretary two floors down.”
“Let me guess,” Hawk said dryly. “The singer and the journalist are two devastatingly handsome men. And the two secretaries are just as devastatingly handsome women.”
“You understand me perfectly,” Tim said, grinning as he took another swallow of wine.
“You should write those,” Hawk said, pointing at him with his glass.
“What?” Tim laughed, then shook his head. “They wouldn’t even get published. They’d be illegal. Probably banned outright.”
“You’re right,” Hawk agreed, nudging his foot lightly against Tim’s.
“But I am going to write something soon,” Tim went on, smiling. “Marcus found a paper that wants to print that article I wrote.”
Hawk lifted an eyebrow. “He did?”
“Yes.” Tim nodded eagerly. “Some Washington publication. More of a leaflet than a proper paper. They leave it around for free, hoping it might sway a few minds.”
“That sounds dangerous.”
“Well, they’re already wanted, of course,” Tim said, lowering his voice a little. “But they’re careful. I wouldn’t use my real name. I chose a pseudonym.”
Hawk smirked. “Look at you. What did you pick?”
Tim glanced down into his wineglass, suddenly shy. “David Hawkins.”
For a moment, Hawk said nothing.
Their names. Woven together like that. It was ordinary enough. Safe. And yet it carried both of them in it, quiet and unmistakable.
“I can change it,” Tim said quickly. “If you don’t like it.”
“I like it,” Hawk rasped, then cleared his throat. His mother’s voice echoed faintly in his memory: my handsome son-in-law.
“It’s safe,” Tim continued. “I mail the pages in. They don’t know who I am, and I don’t know who they are. There’s no trail back to me. They just liked my voice. What I had to say. They want it out there.”
“I’m proud of you, Skippy,” Hawk said softly.
There it was again, that private little smile. The wine was catching up with him now, loosening him further.
“So I’ll start with articles,” Tim went on. “Before I shock the world and write love stories about men loving men.”
“Shocking the world with love,” Hawk murmured, amused.
“Apparently that’s the most scandalous thing a person can do these days,” Tim grinned.
Their bare feet brushed again, skin against skin, and Hawk leaned back on his hands, looking up at the darkening sky.
“Hawk?”
“Hm.”
“Can I rest my head on your thighs?” Tim asked quietly.
Hawk glanced at him. “Skippy, we’re still outside.”
“No one will see. We’re alone. Do you really think anyone’s taking a stroll at,” He tilted his wrist toward the candlelight. “Half past ten?”
“Probably not,” Hawk admitted. “But it’s also a fine hour for spying, if someone had the mind to.”
Tim sighed dramatically. “Do you imagine there’s a police officer in the bushes? Or Senator McCarthy himself perched in a tree?”
Hawk let out a quiet laugh. “Unlikely.”
“Please,” Tim said again.
And when Hawk looked at him, he saw those eyes — dark, pleading, impossibly open. Tim looked so soft like that. So hopeful. Hawk had never stood much of a chance against that expression.
“Come here, then,” he said, shifting upright.
Tim didn’t hesitate. He settled at once, wiggling into place until his head rested warm and solid in Hawk’s lap.
Hawk let his hand drift through Tim’s hair, along his cheek, down the line of his jaw. Tim looked up at him with that open, unguarded expression, love plain across his face, and sometimes Hawk truly wondered how this bright, good young man had chosen him in the first place.
“You’re beautiful,” he said before he could stop himself. He must be getting tipsy too.
Tim’s lips curved. “So are you.”
Hawk found himself wishing for the camera, wishing he could catch Tim’s face in the unsteady candlelight. So sweet. So gentle. Instead, he simply looked at him, trying to fix every line and angle in his memory. He could stare at Tim for hours and sometimes suspected he already did.
They stayed like that a long while. One candle burned down, then another. The wine was gone. Tim’s eyes kept slipping shut where he lay in Hawk’s lap. For a moment Hawk thought about leaving everything outside and just carrying him to bed, but he couldn’t.
What if the mailman saw.
He gathered the glasses and the empty bottle, snuffed the candles, and brought everything inside. The door had barely closed when Tim wrapped his arms around him.
“I love you,” Tim whispered, and kissed him.
The kiss was soft and unhurried. Tim tasted faintly of wine.
“Love you,” Hawk murmured against his mouth, not ready to pull away.
Tim gave that small giggle he always did when he was tipsy. “Your mother called me her son-in-law.”
Hawk smirked. “You liked that?”
“I do.” Tim nodded and kissed him again.
Hawk held him close. “And then you go and take my first name for your pseudonym’s last.”
“I did that.”
They kissed again, slower this time. Hawk let it deepen, his tongue brushing lightly over Tim’s lips. He felt the small shudder that ran through him and tightened his hold at his waist.
When they parted, Tim was a little breathless, looking up at him with those eyes.
All brown. All beautiful.
“Do you want me to make an honest man out of you?” Hawk asked lightly.
Tim blushed, his cheeks turning pink in the low light. “I mean, what would my parents think? Me living with you unmarried.”
Hawk chuckled and stole another quick kiss. “We can’t have that.”
Later he would blame it on the wine, or the candles, or the heat that still lingered in the house. But he did not let go of Tim’s hands when he stepped back and lowered himself onto one knee.
“Timothy David Laughlin,” he began.
“What are you doing?” Tim’s eyes went wide.
“Will you marry me?”
“What?”
“As soon as it’s possible. If it ever is. It might be a decade-long engagement. Or a forever one.” His voice softened. “But I mean it.”
Tim’s eyes filled with tears again. “Are you serious?”
“I am.” Hawk brought Tim’s hands to his lips and kissed them. “I want to be with you. I’m not going anywhere. If I could, I’d marry you tomorrow.”
Tim’s lips began to wobble.
“What do you say?” Hawk asked.
“Yes.” Tim nodded, a small sniff escaping him. “Yes. Of course, I say yes.”
They kissed and kept kissing. Hawk lifted Tim and carried him into the bedroom, laying him down carefully before settling between his open legs. He needed to feel him close and warm, to rest his head on Tim’s chest and let Tim’s fingers move slowly through his hair.
Someday he would call Tim his husband. For the first time, he allowed himself to believe it might truly happen, even if it still felt far away. But he hoped. And that feeling was new.