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+
Mostly, they were best friends glued at the hip. You rarely found one without the other nearby. It had been that way for six years.
It started with the ordinary stuff. Bikes left sideways in the grass. Popsicles melting down wrists in the summer heat. Josh showing up at Tyler's kitchen door without knocking because at some point everybody had stopped pretending he was company. Tyler climbing through Josh's window after dark because the walk to the front door felt dramatic when the window was right there and always unlocked.
They did homework at the same table and copied off each other badly enough that both of them got caught. They fought over whose turn it was to pick the movie. They had entire arguments that started with one of them breathing too loudly and ended with them sharing a blanket because the house got cold at night.
When Tyler got quiet, Josh noticed first. When Josh got overwhelmed, Tyler somehow ended up beside him before anybody else understood there was anything wrong.
It was not perfect. They bickered like it was a hobby. They hurt each other's feelings sometimes in stupid ways and fixed it in even stupider ones. Once, Josh got mad enough to refuse to speak to Tyler for almost an entire afternoon, and Tyler responded by sitting next to him on the porch swing and narrating everything Josh did in an old man voice until Josh laughed so hard he nearly fell off.
That was them.
There was always room for laughing. There was always room for coming back.
+
Josh finally convinced Tyler to join the choir while Tyler was spinning round and round on the tire swing in Josh's yard.
"People should hear you," Josh said. "Not just me."
"I don't know 'bout all that."
Tyler kept spinning. He wasn't dismissing the idea, not exactly. He had just never really thought about singing in front of anyone who wasn't Josh.
After several beats, Josh let out a frustrated little noise and grabbed the tire with both hands, stopping it all at once.
"Whoa!" Tyler yelled.
His eyes went slightly out of focus, dizzy from all the spinning, and Josh leaned closer like he could argue him into steadiness.
"Ask them. You have the most beautiful voice ever, Ty."
Josh's eyes were so sincere that Tyler's cheeks burned. Tyler decided to push the feeling down and be difficult.
"You're biased."
"You're frustrating."
"Doesn't change that you're biased."
"When they hear you, they'll become biased too."
It was such a Josh answer that Tyler let out a sudden laugh. Josh started turning the tire swing the opposite way Tyler had been spinning moments earlier.
Every time Josh pushed the tire a little faster, Tyler laughed harder. He closed his eyes, held on for dear life, and tucked his legs in.
At first, it was fine. Tyler had always loved when Josh did this. But after all the spinning he'd done on his own, it became too much a lot faster than usual.
"Oh my God! Stop right now."
"Say yes!"
"No!"
Tyler's full-on laugh made Josh laugh too, but he still didn't stop spinning him.
"Joshua, stop!" Tyler yelled. "I can't hold on much longer."
"Say you'll ask to join the choir."
"Okay, yes. Yes, I'll ask."
Finally, Josh slowed the tire until it was turning gently enough for him to stop it. Tyler was breathing hard, still smiling, eyes squeezed shut.
"You squished my brain to one side of my skull."
"Did you just say you'd ask because you wanted me to stop?"
Tyler caught his breath for a few moments before opening his eyes and nodding.
"Kinda. But I really will ask if it means that much to you."
Josh's whole being lit up. He reached over the tire and hugged Tyler awkwardly, with the rubber rim caught between their chests.
Tyler laughed and hugged him back.
"Only because I'm afraid of what you'd do to me next if I don't."
"Hang you from the ceiling by your toes."
"That's awful."
"Maybe duct tape you to a wall."
"Joshua, that's too far." Tyler tightened his arms around Josh's neck. "Get off me."
"You're the one holdin' on now."
Tyler blinked.
"Oh yeah. I forgot."
He loosened his arms, and his hands found the rim of the tire as he leaned back. There was the softest smile on Josh's lips.
There was that something in Josh's eyes again, the thing that sometimes made Tyler's chest feel like it was inflating with hot air. He had never known what to call it. He had never known what to do with it.
So he did nothing, and when they walked home, he walked closer to Josh than he needed to.
+
The first time Tyler sang with the choir during service, he thought he would be more nervous.
Something about standing with the rest of them eased him in a way he couldn't explain. His nerves stayed low.
Then they disappeared completely.
It was the teeth Tyler saw first.
Josh, absolutely beaming like a proud parent.
It was ridiculous, really. But Tyler's chest did that stupid hot-air-balloon thing anyway.
Josh waved. Tyler couldn't help laughing as he waved back.
Instead of making him nervous, the way Josh watched from the pew made Tyler feel strangely confident. Joshua Dun had never given Tyler a reason not to feel that way. Josh's confidence in him seemed to radiate straight across the room and settle under Tyler's ribs.
There was pride on Josh's face, but it was more than that too. He listened with his whole body instead of just his ears. Tyler caught his eye while the choir sang, not singing to Josh exactly, but not not singing to him either.
Josh looked moved. Open. Almost vulnerable. There was so much in his eyes that Tyler had to look away before all that hot air in his chest lifted him clean off the floor.
After that, Josh became unbearable.
Not unbearable in a bad way. Unbearable in the way only Josh could be, which meant loud without raising his voice and proud without having any shame about it.
He told Mrs. Caldwell that Tyler could carry the tenor section if she needed him to, even though Tyler had been in the choir for exactly two Sundays.
"Joshua," Tyler hissed at him afterward.
"What?"
"Stop volunteering my vocal cords."
Josh looked offended. "I'm supporting you."
"You're embarrassing me."
"Those are cousins."
Then there was the afternoon Tyler practiced in Josh's kitchen while Josh's mother made banana pudding, and Josh sat at the table with his chin in his hands like he had paid for a front-row seat. Tyler kept losing the line because every time he looked at him, Josh was just sitting there, glowing.
"Quit lookin' at me like that," Tyler said.
Josh blinked. "Like what?"
"Like I'm about to part the Red Sea."
"Can you?"
"No."
"Then sing the bridge again."
Tyler threw a dish towel at him.
Josh caught it and applauded anyway.
That was the thing about Josh. He did not know how to be quiet about Tyler. He could be quiet in a room, sure. He could sit still. He could hold his tongue when he had to. But his face never learned restraint. Whatever Tyler did, however small, Josh seemed to receive it like it mattered.
And Tyler, who had spent most of his life pretending he did not need anyone to hear him that closely, had no idea what to do with being heard.
+
Josh had been right. The congregation seemed to love Tyler's presence in the choir.
It wasn't long before he was offered a solo. Pastor Dun and Mrs. Caldwell asked him into the office after rehearsal, and at first Tyler thought he had done something wrong. He felt small sitting across from the desk, hands folded too tight in his lap.
He wasn't thrilled by the invitation in the way he probably should have been. Mostly, he thought of Josh.
Josh would love it.
Tyler had already stepped out of the office when he turned back into the doorway.
"Pastor Dun?"
"Yes?"
"Can you not tell Josh? I wanna surprise him."
The pastor gave him a small smile.
"Of course."
On Sunday, Tyler stood one step ahead of the choir and tried not to look directly at Josh until the music started. The first note came out steadier than he felt. The second came easier. By the time the song opened up around him, Tyler stopped thinking about his hands, his knees, the congregation, the pastor, even the fact that everyone was listening.
He just sang.
And then he saw Josh.
Josh wasn't smiling like before. Not exactly. His face had gone still in a way Tyler couldn't read, his eyes fixed on Tyler with something bright and startled and almost pained.
After service, Tyler found him near the back hallway.
"I did good, right?"
Tyler knew the answer. Josh had never left any real question in his mind that he loved hearing Tyler sing. Still, he wanted to know.
Josh's mouth opened and closed. His eyes were lit with naked sincerity, but no words seemed strong enough to explain it.
Then Josh grabbed Tyler's wrist and led him away, pulling him into the church broom closet and shutting the door behind them.
"Tyler." Josh's voice shook. "I'm sorry."
That was the only warning he gave before he pushed Tyler's back to the wall and kissed him.
Tyler was shocked. He had to be. But it wasn't some fireworks moment, not exactly. There was something unnamed behind the kiss, something that felt less like a surprise than a truth finally stepping out where he could see it.
By the time Tyler got himself to respond, Josh was already starting to pull away. Tyler followed him at once, hands finding Josh's cheeks, drawing him back in.
There was no time to explore what the kiss meant. All Tyler knew was that somehow, strangely, impossibly, it felt familiar.
He deepened the kiss, and Josh followed easily.
It should have felt awkward. Shouldn't there have been something clumsy in the newness of it? Shouldn't Tyler have had to learn him?
Instead, Tyler saw Josh sitting in the pew, watching him sing with those passionate eyes. Listening with his whole being.
Josh kissed with that same passion.
At the realization, Tyler felt like he had been holding his breath for years. He broke the kiss, and Josh went tense, like he was waiting for something between them to change into something terrible.
"Joshua," Tyler breathed.
He listened to Josh breathe.
In.
Out.
Josh said nothing.
"Why'd... why'd you go and do somethin' like that?"
Josh let out a shaky breath.
"I needed to feel the mouth that voice comes from."
There it was again, that feeling like Tyler's chest was going to make him float away. Only now the hot air had turned warm and fuzzy, filling him so fast it almost hurt.
It began to make sense. Not all the way, maybe, but more than it ever had before.
Tyler couldn't form words, so he leaned back in. This time, the kiss was softer. Slower. Josh followed that too, his arms wrapping around Tyler's waist.
Tyler pulled out of the kiss and wrapped his arms around Josh's neck, burying his face between his own arm and the side of Josh's throat. Josh squeezed him tighter.
It was just a hug.
It was more than that.
It was an answer to the feelings they had shared for years without naming them. There had always been love, multiple forms of it. Sometimes it was loud. Sometimes it was quiet. They had never needed to say the words to each other, because the words were in the full days spent together, the nights too, every stupid argument, every shared silence, every time one of them turned and expected the other to already be there.
And now there was another layer.
+
They didn't talk about it after they left the church and went to their own homes.
Things felt a little too raw. They hugged goodbye. Tyler thought about kissing Josh again.
He didn't.
Too much too soon.
They both thought about it, though.
A lot.
Tyler wasn't entirely sure what to do with the information. But the way his whole body seemed to go weak every time he remembered Josh's mouth on his made all those strong feelings he had never been able to name start taking shape.
They didn't meet up the next day. It was the first full day they'd spent without some form of contact in a very long time.
Space was probably necessary. That didn't mean either of them had to like it.
Tyler lasted until eight o'clock before wandering over to Josh's house. The light was on in Josh's bedroom, but when Tyler peered in, Josh wasn't there. Then he noticed the thin strip of light under the bathroom door.
So Tyler opened Josh's window, climbed inside like usual, and sat on Josh's bed to wait.
Josh didn't even startle when he came back and saw Tyler there. For a moment, he only stared, and it felt like a tension they had never known before was trying to worm its way between them.
It was not part of the language they spoke.
It was stupid, and it did not belong.
Tyler gave Josh a small smile.
"Hi."
The corner of Josh's mouth turned up.
"Hi."
Josh sat down beside him. Tyler breathed out long, then took in a longer breath.
"Okay. We need to work this shit out, because I am not puttin' up with another day like this one."
Josh let out a sharp, surprised laugh.
"It really sucked," Josh agreed.
They both scooted backward over the mattress and leaned their backs against the wall. Tyler folded his legs up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them without thinking.
"So," Tyler said.
"So," Josh said.
They both huffed out a small laugh and let the sound float between them before Tyler spoke first.
"I don't wanna stop bein' best friends just because you kissed me."
"You kissed me back."
"I know I did."
Tyler wrapped his arms tighter around his legs and leaned his shoulder against Josh's.
"How long you been thinkin' 'bout doin' that?"
"Long time."
Tyler sighed at the vague answer.
"It just kinda finally bubbled over, I guess," Josh said. "The solo just kinda... I don't know. Maybe I was too caught off guard to stop myself, or to think, or to... I don't know."
"Do you regret it?" Tyler asked softly.
"Kind of hard to regret it since you kissed me back."
"You thought I wouldn't."
"I wasn't sure. Sometimes it felt like you felt like I do, but you're my best friend. It was easy to write it off because of that."
Tyler wasn't sure what to say to that.
"Did... did you ever think about it?" Josh asked quietly.
Tyler had to think about the answer.
"Not exactly. Sometimes I'd feel more than I knew how to feel. I didn't really understand what was goin' on. All I've ever known is that I'd never feel for anyone the way I do for you."
He sighed, trying to find the words without being embarrassed by the truth.
"You're my other half. If you go one direction, I'm gonna follow. But until you kissed me, I hadn't thought about it the same way you say you have. Not exactly. In my own way, I guess maybe I did."
There was a long silence.
"I still wanna be best friends with you too," Josh said lowly. "But what do I do if I can't help but wanna kiss you again?"
Tyler thought for a moment, but there was really only one answer he could give. He looked at Josh until Josh met his eyes.
"Then ya kiss me."
Josh laughed, soft and disbelieving.
"How'd you go and make somethin' that felt so complicated feel so simple?"
Tyler shrugged the shoulder pressed to Josh's.
"Cuz it is."
They didn't kiss. Tyler laid his head back down on Josh's shoulder, and Josh rested his cheek on Tyler's hair.
They stayed like that for a while.
+
"Does it bother you that us bein' together is a sin?"
Tyler's first answer was a joke because the real one had weight.
"There's nothin' in the commandments about best friends shalt not be best friends."
Josh didn't laugh much, only pressed his shoulder harder against Tyler's.
So Tyler tried again.
"I think it should bother me more than it does."
He let that settle, then kept going.
"God doesn't make mistakes. You're not a mistake. I'm not a mistake. The direction we're headin' doesn't feel like a mistake. I don't know why He'd put us together for no reason."
Josh looked down at his own hands.
"What about you?" Tyler asked.
"Less than I thought it would."
The answer came out so small that Tyler almost wished he had not asked. Not because he did not want to know. Because Josh looked like he was standing in front of something too large for either of them to move.
"I know the verses people reach for," Josh said. "I know what folks say. I know what my dad has preached, and what he hasn't preached, and what people think even when they don't say it out loud."
Tyler stayed quiet.
"But I also know you," Josh said.
That was when Tyler's throat got tight.
Josh turned his head and looked at him. "Knowin' you never made me meaner. Lovin' you, whatever kind of love this is, it never made me worse."
Tyler tried to swallow around the ache in his throat and failed.
"If it did," Josh said, "maybe I'd be more scared. If I was usin' you, or lyin' to you, or makin' you smaller so I could feel better, maybe that would feel like sin. But this just..."
He shook his head.
"This just makes me wanna be careful with you."
Tyler looked away because if he kept looking at Josh, he was going to do something inconvenient, like cry in Josh's bedroom over a boy being kind.
Josh noticed anyway. Josh always noticed.
He bumped their shoulders together. "Hey."
"Don't hey me."
"I'm gonna."
"Don't."
"Hey."
Tyler laughed once, wet and unwilling, and Josh looked so relieved that the laugh had happened at all.
"I don't have all the answers," Josh said. "I just know I don't feel far from God when I'm with you."
Tyler closed his eyes.
There were things in the world bigger than them. Rules and verses and people's mouths. Families. Church pews. Eyes. Tyler knew that. Josh knew it too.
But in that moment, pressed shoulder to shoulder on Josh's bed, the biggest thing in the room was still gentleness.
+
"You never gave me a real answer," Tyler said.
"'Bout what?" Josh asked.
"How long you thought about kissin' me."
"Yeah, I did. I told you. A long time."
Tyler looked at him.
"Then when was it that you first... thought of me like that?"
Josh went still and quiet for several seconds.
"You remember when I got real, real sick with that fever that wouldn't break?"
"Oh, yeah. We were 'bout fourteen or fifteen, right?"
"Fifteen. You 'bout worried yourself to death. My parents and yours tried their damnedest to keep you away because they didn't want you to catch it."
"But I did come down with it by the time you started feelin' better."
"Because you kept breakin' back in." Josh smiled fondly. "I was so damn mad at you for bein' so reckless with your own health."
"Joshua, your fever was 'bout a hundred and five at one point. Even after the doctors gave you meds, that fever barely broke for more than a couple hours. I had to be there."
"Had to?"
Tyler scoffed.
"What's that got to do with my question?"
"You kinda, like... cuddled me and hummed real soft."
"You told me you liked it."
"I know," Josh looked down at his hands. "But it was back then I realized I might like you more than I thought I should."
"That was... four years ago, Joshua."
"It just kept goin' like a snowball."
In that moment, Josh looked so vulnerable that Tyler turned and wrapped both arms sideways around his shoulders, pressing his nose against Josh's temple.
"I like you exactly as much as I should," Tyler said softly, "and it's okay to like me exactly as much as you want to."
Josh's hands came up to grip Tyler's forearm, and Tyler kissed Josh's cheek.
And that was all.
Not all, maybe. Not really. Something had shifted between them, something quiet and enormous, but it did not turn the rest of the night strange. It did not make Josh stop being Josh or Tyler stop being Tyler.
They made pizza rolls.
They bickered over which kind was better, because Josh was wrong and Tyler was determined to tell him so.
"They're the same thing," Josh said.
"They are not the same thing."
"They're tiny bread pockets full of lava."
"That's the category, Joshua, not the flavor."
Then they bickered over the last one until Josh sighed, picked it up, and split it in two.
Tyler stared at him.
"Look at you," he said. "Mr. Problem Solver."
Josh rolled his eyes and handed him half. "You're welcome."
They played cards after that, sitting cross-legged on Josh's bedroom floor, accusing each other of cheating like they always did. Tyler absolutely cheated once. Josh cheated twice and looked far too pleased with himself about it.
The night wound down slowly.
Not with a decision. Not with another conversation that needed both of them to be brave. Just softer voices. Slower movements. Tyler's shoulder pressed against Josh's while they cleaned up the cards. Josh yawning so hard his eyes watered.
"You're sleepy," Tyler said.
"Yes."
Tyler watched him for a second, then looked down at the cards in his hands like the question might be printed there.
"Can I stay?"
Josh's answer came easy.
"If ya sing me somethin' pretty."
Sharing a bed was not out of the ordinary for them. It could have felt heavier after everything that had happened. It could have turned awkward or careful.
It didn't.
They still curled up facing each other, each of them on his own pillow, knees brushing now and then under the blanket. The room was mostly dark, except for the pale streetlight slipping through Josh's window and laying itself across the wall.
Tyler sang softly with his eyes closed.
His voice was quiet, barely more than breath, but it still went all the way through Josh. It always did. His whole body seemed to respond before his mind could catch up. His shoulders loosened. His breathing slowed. Something inside him leaned toward Tyler like a plant toward light.
He wanted to touch him.
Not because he needed anything. Not because the night had to become more than it was.
Just because Tyler was right there.
Tyler's forearm rested outside the blanket, his hand tucked under his pillow. Josh looked at it for a long moment before he reached out and brushed his fingertips over Tyler's skin.
Tyler's voice faltered.
Josh froze.
Tyler smiled without opening his eyes and kept singing.
So Josh did it again.
This time Tyler's smile got wider. His voice wobbled around the next line, but he pushed through it, stubborn and soft and pretending Josh was not ruining him on purpose.
Josh traced the tips of his fingers along Tyler's forearm, slow enough to feel the goosebumps rise.
Tyler opened his eyes.
They smiled as much as his mouth did.
"Aren't ya gonna kiss me goodnight?" Tyler asked.
His voice was so soft Josh barely caught all the words.
But he heard them.
Warmth flooded through him, gentle and bright. He did not question Tyler's question. He did not make it complicated. He only pushed himself up onto one elbow and scooted closer.
Tyler turned onto his back, looking up at him with a silly, giddy little smile that made him look pleased with himself and nervous and happy all at once.
It was so stupidly cute that Josh cracked.
He laughed.
Tyler's face changed at once. "What?"
Josh tried to answer and couldn't.
"What?" Tyler asked again, half laughing now too, half offended. "What's funny?"
Josh dropped his forehead to Tyler's chest, laughing harder.
"Nothin'," he managed.
"Joshua."
"It's not bad."
"Then why are you laughin' at me?"
Josh turned his face enough to speak against Tyler's shirt. "Because you looked so proud of yourself."
"I did not."
"You did. You looked like you practiced that line in the mirror."
Tyler gasped. "I did not practice."
Josh lifted his head, still smiling. "You asked me to kiss you goodnight like you were tryin' to be smooth."
"I was smooth."
"You were adorable."
Tyler's mouth snapped shut.
That did it. That sweet, embarrassed little silence. Josh's laughter softened into something else.
He looked down at Tyler, at the pink in his cheeks, at the smile Tyler was trying and failing to hide, and the whole room seemed to go quiet around them.
"You are," Josh said, softer. "You're adorable."
Tyler swallowed.
"Shut up and kiss me goodnight, then."
So Josh did.
It was a soft kiss. Barely more than a press of mouths. Gentle enough that it still felt like part of bedtime, like the blanket pulled up warm around them, like the last little light from the window.
When Josh pulled back, Tyler's eyes were still closed.
Josh settled down again, close enough that their knees touched under the blanket.
Tyler opened one eye.
"Goodnight," Josh whispered.
Tyler smiled.
"Night, Joshua."
+
After that, they learned how to be almost normal.
Almost was a dangerous word, because from far away they looked the same. They still walked too close. Tyler still came through Josh's window instead of the front door. Josh still stole fries off Tyler's plate and acted surprised when Tyler slapped his hand. They still bickered in the church kitchen while helping Josh's mom stack paper plates for potluck, and they still got assigned the same chores because everybody knew trying to separate them took more effort than it was worth.
But up close, everything had changed.
There were small kisses now. Not many. Not enough to make either of them reckless. One in Josh's room before Tyler climbed back out the window. One behind Tyler's house, hidden by the shed and the overgrown fence, quick and laughing because Tyler nearly stepped on a rake and Josh had to clap both hands over his mouth to keep from giving them away.
There were touches too. Josh's fingers brushing the inside of Tyler's wrist while they sat side by side in the choir room. Tyler's knee pressing against Josh's under the fellowship hall table. Josh leaning against Tyler's shoulder during movie night like he always had, except now Tyler's whole body knew the difference.
None of it felt like rebellion.
That was the strange part.
If it had felt ugly, Tyler thought maybe he would have known what to do with the guilt. If it had felt like taking something that did not belong to him, or twisting Josh into something Josh was not, maybe he could have understood the fear people wanted him to have.
But mostly, it felt like coming home and finding the porch light still on.
It felt like Josh laughing into his neck.
It felt like being known.
And being known, Tyler was learning, could be terrifying.
+
Church made it harder.
Not bad. Not impossible. Just harder.
At Josh's house, Tyler could kiss him goodnight and then complain that Josh stole too much blanket. In Tyler's car, parked behind the grocery store after buying sodas they did not need, Josh could hold his hand between the seats and trace the lines in his palm like he was memorizing a map.
But at church, Josh had a last name that echoed.
Dun.
Pastor Dun's son.
Everybody knew him. Everybody had watched him grow up. Women in the congregation still told stories about Josh falling asleep under the front pew when he was six. Men still clapped his shoulder and asked whether he was helping his dad with youth group. Little kids ran to him because he would get down on their level and let them stick foam stickers to his shirt during Sunday school.
And now Tyler knew what Josh's mouth felt like.
Which made sitting beside him in the pew feel a little like holding a candle in dry grass.
They were careful.
Josh was careful with his hands. Tyler was careful with his eyes. They stood a little farther apart when people were around. They did not stop being themselves, exactly, but they became edited versions. Softer in public. Less obvious.
Or Tyler did.
Josh was terrible at it.
He tried. Tyler could see him trying. Josh would sit with his hands folded and his face deliberately calm while Tyler sang with the choir, but within thirty seconds his whole expression would start betraying him. The corners of his mouth would lift. His eyes would go warm. His shoulders would drop like the sound of Tyler's voice had physically taken the weight out of him.
It was beautiful.
It was a problem.
After one service, Mrs. Caldwell caught Tyler by the elbow near the choir room.
"You sound more settled lately," she said.
Tyler froze, because guilty people heard judgment in everything.
"Ma'am?"
She smiled. "Your voice. It has more peace in it. Whatever you're doing, keep doing it."
Across the hallway, Josh looked up at exactly the wrong time, wearing his whole heart on his face like an idiot.
Tyler's stomach flipped.
Mrs. Caldwell followed his gaze.
Only for a second.
Long enough.
Then she patted Tyler's arm and said, "He is proud of you. Always has been."
Tyler did not know whether to laugh or throw himself through a window.
"Yes, ma'am," he said.
Josh caught up to him outside by the side door.
"What'd she say?"
"That my voice has peace in it."
Josh smiled immediately. "It does."
"Joshua."
"What? It does."
"She saw you lookin'."
Josh's smile fell just enough.
"Lookin' how?"
"Like I hung the moon and then harmonized with it."
Josh made a face. "That is an unnecessarily pretty accusation."
"Stop bein' cute. I'm serious."
"I know." Josh glanced toward the church doors, then back at Tyler. "I'm sorry."
Tyler expected the apology to make him feel better.
It didn't.
He hated it.
He hated that Josh had to apologize for looking happy.
He hated that the easiest thing about them in private became something both of them had to manage in public. He hated the little sting of fear that came with being seen.
"Don't be sorry for lovin' me with your face," Tyler said before he could think better of it.
Josh went very still.
Tyler's own words caught up to him, and his ears burned.
"I mean," he said.
Josh's smile came back slowly. "No, say it again."
"Absolutely not."
"Tyler."
"I will walk into traffic."
"There's no traffic. This is a church parking lot."
"I'll find some."
Josh laughed, but it shook at the edges.
"I am sorry," he said. "Not for that. For makin' you scared."
Tyler looked at him, at the face that had always given him too much and not enough room to hide.
"I'm not scared of you," he said.
"I know."
"I'm scared of everybody else."
Josh nodded.
That was the truth, and it hurt less once it had air around it.
+
The hurt came properly on a Wednesday night.
It was not dramatic. Tyler almost wished it had been, because then he would have had somewhere to put his anger. There was no shouting. Nobody called them out. Nobody pointed.
Pastor Dun taught from the front of the fellowship hall while the youth group kids sprawled in metal chairs and pretended not to be tired. Tyler was helping Josh in the back because Mrs. Dun had asked them to pour lemonade and keep the snack table from becoming a war zone.
The lesson was about truth.
Not them. Not anything close enough to accuse. Pastor Dun talked about the difference between conviction and shame, about how shame made people hide from God while conviction called people back toward Him.
It should have been comforting.
Maybe it was, for everyone else.
But Josh stood beside Tyler with his hands flat on the folding table, staring at the plastic cups like they had personally betrayed him.
Tyler knew that stillness.
He hated that he knew it.
Afterward, while the kids ran around outside and the adults cleaned up, Josh disappeared.
Tyler found him in the sanctuary.
The lights were low. Only the cross at the front was lit, pale and steady against the dark wood. Josh sat in the second pew with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped too tight.
Tyler stopped at the end of the aisle.
"Josh?"
Josh did not look up.
Tyler walked down the aisle slowly, giving him time to tell him not to. Josh didn't.
When Tyler sat beside him, Josh let out a breath that sounded like it hurt.
"I'm sorry," Josh said.
The words went cold through Tyler.
"For what?"
Josh shook his head.
"Joshua. For what?"
"I don't know."
That was worse.
Tyler turned sideways on the pew. "Look at me."
Josh tried. He really did. He got as far as Tyler's chin before his eyes dropped again.
"I don't know what I'm supposed to feel," Josh said. "That's the problem. I keep waitin' for it to feel wrong enough that I can understand why everybody says it is. And then I'm with you, and it doesn't. Then I'm here, and I think maybe that means I'm broken."
Tyler's whole chest ached.
"You're not broken."
"You don't know that."
"Yes, I do."
Josh laughed once, without humor. "Ty."
"No." Tyler's voice came out sharper than he meant, and Josh finally looked at him. "No, I know that. I don't know everything. I don't know Greek or Hebrew or why folks pick the verses they pick and skip the ones that would inconvenience them at lunch. I don't know how to argue this with somebody who has a whole Bible study ready to throw at me."
Josh blinked.
Tyler's voice softened.
"But I know you."
Josh's mouth pressed tight.
"I know you," Tyler said again. "And you are not rotten because you love me."
Josh closed his eyes.
"I don't want to pull you away from God," Tyler said.
Josh's eyes opened fast.
"You don't."
"I don't want to be the thing that makes your life harder."
"Too late."
Tyler flinched.
Josh caught it and immediately looked wrecked.
"No, no. I didn't mean it like that." He reached for Tyler's hand, then stopped himself because they were in the sanctuary, and that little aborted movement hurt worse than if he had not moved at all. "I mean life is already hard. Everybody's is. You didn't make it that way."
Tyler looked down at Josh's hand, hovering between them.
Then he took it.
Josh stared.
Tyler held on.
"We're in church," Josh whispered.
"I know where I am."
"Tyler."
"If God strikes me down for holdin' your hand while you're hurt, then me and Him were gonna have words anyway."
Josh made a helpless sound that was almost a laugh and almost a sob.
Tyler squeezed his hand.
"Listen to me," he said. "If this starts makin' you cruel, I'll worry. If it makes you lie in ways that eat you alive, I'll worry. If it turns you against yourself, I'll worry. But you lovin' me has never made you mean. It has never made you smaller."
Josh stared at their hands.
"It made me gentler," he said.
His voice was rough.
Tyler's eyes burned.
"Yeah," he said. "I know."
For a while, they sat like that in the low-lit sanctuary, holding hands in the second pew like two boys who had no answer big enough for the whole world but had enough for the next breath.
Pastor Dun found them there.
He did not gasp. He did not shout. He did not say their names like a sentence.
He only stopped at the end of the pew.
Josh's hand went rigid in Tyler's.
Tyler let go at once, not because he wanted to, but because Josh looked like someone had opened the floor beneath him.
Pastor Dun's eyes moved from Josh's face to Tyler's, then to the space between their hands.
The silence stretched so long Tyler could hear the air conditioner click on.
"Your mother is looking for you," Pastor Dun said.
Josh swallowed.
"Yes, sir."
Pastor Dun looked at Tyler again. Not cruelly. That almost made it worse.
"Tyler, your voice sounded good Sunday."
Tyler could not understand the sentence well enough to answer it.
"Thank you, sir," he managed.
Pastor Dun nodded once and walked back up the aisle.
Josh did not move for several seconds.
Then he dropped his face into both hands.
"Oh God."
Tyler sat very still beside him.
The words could have been a prayer.
They could have been fear.
Maybe they were both.
+
Pastor Dun did not say anything that night.
That was somehow worse than a confrontation.
Josh went home with his parents. Tyler went home alone. He did not climb through Josh's window because he did not know if he was allowed to anymore. He did not call because he was afraid Josh would not answer. He did not sleep because every time he closed his eyes, he saw Pastor Dun looking at their hands.
At one in the morning, his phone buzzed.
Tyler nearly dropped it on his face.
Josh: I'm okay.
Tyler stared at the words until they blurred.
Then another message came.
Josh: Not good. But okay.
Tyler typed, erased, typed again.
Tyler: Do you want me to come over?
Josh: Yes.
Then, a second later.
Josh: No.
Then.
Josh: I don't know.
Tyler sat up in bed, heart pounding.
Josh: Dad didn't yell.
Tyler waited.
Josh: He asked if I was safe.
Tyler frowned.
Josh: Not like that. He meant with you. I said yes.
Tyler's breath left him all at once.
Josh: He said he needs time.
Tyler pressed the heel of his hand to his mouth.
Josh: I don't know what that means.
Tyler: It means he didn't throw you away.
The three dots appeared, vanished, appeared again.
Josh: I know.
Tyler: Do you?
Josh: Trying to.
Tyler looked toward his window even though Josh was not outside it.
Tyler: Sing you something?
The answer came fast.
Josh: Please.
So Tyler called him.
Josh answered on the second ring. Neither of them said hello.
Tyler lay back down, phone against his ear, and sang quietly into the dark.
He did not pick a church song. He couldn't. Not that night. He hummed first, then found something simple and old that his mama used to sing while washing dishes. No performance. No pretty phrasing. Just melody, soft and steady, threaded through the phone line.
Josh cried without making much sound.
Tyler knew anyway.
He sang until Josh's breathing evened out.
He sang until his own throat hurt.
He sang until the dark no longer felt like something waiting to swallow them.
Before they hung up, Josh whispered, "I love you."
Tyler closed his eyes.
The words were not new, not really. They had been saying them without saying them for years.
Still, hearing them changed the room.
"I love you too," Tyler whispered back.
Then he stayed on the line until Josh fell asleep.
+
Sunday came like it always did.
That felt rude to Tyler. The whole world should have paused out of respect for the fact that he was losing his mind, but the sun rose anyway. His shirt still needed ironing. His mother still told him to hurry up. The church parking lot still filled with cars. The bell over the side door still stuck halfway through its ring.
Everything was normal.
Tyler hated normal for a while.
Josh was already inside when Tyler arrived. He was standing near the hallway that led to the classrooms, talking to his mother. He looked tired. His hair was messier than usual, and there were shadows under his eyes.
But when he saw Tyler, his whole face changed.
Not all the way. He held some of it back. Tyler watched him do it, watched Josh pull a curtain over the brightest part of himself because the hallway was full of people.
Tyler hated that too.
Then Josh smiled at him anyway.
Small. Careful. There.
Tyler smiled back.
Pastor Dun saw them.
Tyler knew he did because Pastor Dun paused by the office door, one hand on the frame. His eyes went to Josh first. Then Tyler. Then away.
Not approval.
Not rejection.
Time.
Tyler could live with time, maybe.
He had to.
Mrs. Caldwell caught Tyler before service and told him one of the choir members was home sick.
"I may need you a little stronger today," she said.
"Yes, ma'am."
"You all right?"
Tyler looked at her.
She was not smiling this time. Not quite. Her eyes were gentle, but they were too sharp to be accidental.
"Yes, ma'am," Tyler said again.
She nodded like she did not believe him and did not plan to embarrass him by saying so.
"All right," she said. "Then sing like you are."
Tyler almost laughed.
He took his place with the choir.
The first hymn started. Tyler opened his mouth and found, to his surprise, that his voice was there waiting for him.
Not perfect.
There was a tremor in it at first, a thin place where fear had rubbed him raw. But then he looked out.
Josh sat in the pew with his mother on one side and an empty space on the other where Pastor Dun would sit after announcements. His hands were folded. His face was careful.
Then Tyler sang a little stronger.
Josh's careful face cracked.
Just a little.
Enough.
His eyes warmed, and that was all Tyler needed.
The song rose around him. Not as escape. Not as proof. Just sound. Breath. Something alive moving through a room full of people who did not know everything and maybe never would.
Tyler sang.
Josh listened with his whole being.
And nothing struck them down.
+
Pastor Dun asked Tyler to stay after service.
Tyler's stomach tried to leave his body.
Josh, standing beside him near the choir room, went pale.
"Dad," he said.
Pastor Dun held up one hand. "I'm not asking him to the office like he's in trouble."
"Then why are you askin'?"
"Because I would like to speak with him."
Josh's jaw tightened. Tyler could see the fear turning into something protective and stupid.
He touched Josh's wrist, just once, quick enough that only Josh would know.
"It's okay," Tyler said.
"You don't know that."
"No," Tyler admitted. "But I'm gonna act like it is."
Josh looked at him like he hated that answer and loved him for it at the same time.
Pastor Dun led Tyler not to his office, but to the empty sanctuary.
That helped a little.
Not much.
They sat in the second pew, the same one where Pastor Dun had found them Wednesday night. Tyler wondered if that was on purpose. He decided not to ask.
For a while, Pastor Dun said nothing.
Tyler stared at his own hands and tried not to imagine every possible version of the next five minutes.
Finally, Pastor Dun sighed.
"When Josh was little," he said, "he used to cry if the choir sang anything in a minor key. Didn't matter what the words were. If the music sounded sad, he was done."
Tyler blinked.
That was not one of the possible versions he had imagined.
Pastor Dun looked toward the front of the church. "He has always felt things with his whole body. Joy, grief, worry. Love. He never learned how to do any of it halfway."
Tyler's throat tightened.
"No, sir," he said. "He hasn't."
Pastor Dun nodded slowly.
"You are very important to him."
It was not a question.
Tyler made himself look up. "He's important to me too."
Pastor Dun's face moved, something pained and careful passing through it.
"I know."
Tyler did not know what to do with that.
Pastor Dun folded his hands. "I am not going to pretend this is simple for me. It isn't. I have beliefs I have carried a long time. I have responsibilities to this church, to my family, to my son. I cannot sort all of that in a night."
Tyler nodded because his voice did not feel available.
"But I asked Josh one thing Wednesday," Pastor Dun said. "I asked if he was safe with you."
Tyler looked at him sharply.
"He said yes," Pastor Dun said.
"He is," Tyler said.
It came out rough.
Pastor Dun looked at him then, really looked. "I believe that you believe that."
Tyler's fingers curled against his knees.
"I do more than believe it."
Pastor Dun was quiet for a moment.
"All right," he said softly.
The words were small. They did not fix everything. They did not bless them. They did not solve every sermon, every verse, every person who might someday look at them and decide they knew the shape of their hearts better than God did.
But they were not nothing.
Tyler breathed.
Pastor Dun looked down at his hands. "People can be cruel when they are afraid. Sometimes they call it righteousness. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn't. I have been trying, these last few days, to tell the difference in myself."
Tyler did not move.
"I don't know where I will land," Pastor Dun said. "Not fully. But I know I do not want fear to make me cruel to my son. Or to you."
Tyler's eyes burned.
"Thank you," he whispered.
Pastor Dun nodded once.
Then, after a pause, he said, "For what it's worth, your voice did sound peaceful today."
Tyler let out a breath that almost became a laugh.
"Mrs. Caldwell said I should sing like I was all right."
"Were you?"
Tyler thought about lying.
Then he thought about Josh, who felt everything with his whole body and still kept trying to be brave.
"Not all the way," Tyler said. "But enough."
Pastor Dun accepted that like it was an answer he understood.
+
Josh waited for Tyler outside by the tire swing.
It was not the same tire swing from when they were younger. That one had finally split after one too many summers and one too many bad ideas. This one hung from the same branch, newer rubber, newer rope, same patch of worn-down dirt beneath it.
Josh stood beside it with both hands in his pockets, looking like he had aged three years in twenty minutes.
When Tyler came around the side of the house, Josh straightened.
"Well?"
Tyler walked closer.
"Your dad told me you used to cry at sad choir songs."
Josh stared.
"He did not."
"He absolutely did."
"I'm leaving the state."
Tyler smiled.
Josh's face crumpled with relief so quickly it almost hurt to watch.
"You're okay?" Josh asked.
"Yeah."
"He wasn't mean?"
"No."
Josh looked down.
Tyler stepped into his space, not enough to be reckless if someone looked out the kitchen window, but enough that Josh could feel him there.
"He said he doesn't know where he'll land," Tyler said. "But he doesn't want fear to make him cruel."
Josh closed his eyes.
For a second, he looked younger. Fifteen again, maybe. Feverish and scared and held together by somebody humming softly beside him.
"That's not everything," Josh said.
"No."
"But it's something."
"Yeah."
Josh nodded. Then he opened his eyes and looked at Tyler with that same naked sincerity that had started ruining Tyler's ability to act normal years ago.
"I'm tired," Josh said.
Tyler's mouth lifted. "That your way of askin' me to sing?"
"Maybe."
"You got a real problem."
"I've been told."
Tyler glanced toward the house. The curtains in the kitchen window moved, then settled. He pretended not to notice.
"Sit down," he said.
Josh blinked. "On the tire?"
"Unless you wanna stand there lookin' tragic."
"I wasn't looking tragic."
"You were about three seconds from a dramatic rainstorm."
"It's sunny."
"You'd find a way."
Josh laughed, and the sound loosened something in Tyler's chest.
He sat on the tire swing. Tyler stood in front of him, one foot braced in the worn dirt, and took hold of the rope above Josh's hands.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
Then Tyler nudged the swing gently.
Josh swayed back an inch and forward again.
"Careful," Josh said. "If you spin me too fast, I might promise to join the choir."
"You can't sing."
"Rude."
"Accurate."
Josh smiled up at him.
There it was. His whole heart. Right on his face.
Tyler loved him so much that it scared him clean through.
He sang anyway.
Softly, because the kitchen window was open. Softly, because this one was not for the whole church. It was not for Mrs. Caldwell or Pastor Dun or anyone else who might need time to understand. It was for Josh, who had asked first and kept asking, who had believed Tyler's voice belonged in rooms bigger than the two of them long before Tyler believed it himself.
Josh closed his eyes.
The swing rocked gently.
Tyler sang until the fear in Josh's shoulders eased. He sang until the air between them felt warm again. He sang until Josh opened his eyes and looked at him like the world had not ended, like maybe it had only changed shape.
When Tyler stopped, Josh was quiet.
"What?" Tyler asked.
Josh shook his head.
"Joshua."
"I'm just proud of you."
Tyler laughed softly. "For standing in your yard?"
"For all of it."
The words landed tender and heavy.
Tyler looked down at the rope between his hands.
"You can't keep sayin' stuff like that and expect me to survive it."
Josh smiled. "You've made it this long."
"Barely."
Josh reached out, careful and slow, giving Tyler time to move away. Tyler didn't.
Josh's fingers curled lightly around Tyler's wrist.
"Sing me somethin' pretty, Ty," he said.
Tyler looked at him.
At his best friend. His other half. The boy who had loved him first in a fever room, loved him quietly for years, loved him now with fear still in the room and gentleness bigger than the fear.
Tyler's chest filled with that old hot-air-balloon feeling.
Only now he knew what to call it.
"All right," he said softly.
And he did.