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It is still night as Lee lies awake. He is partially wedged between the back of the couch and Richard’s body. One leg is thrown over Richard’s thighs. One arm is trapped underneath Lee’s body, while the other one is lying across Richard’s chest, the fingers absently toying with sparse hair he finds there. His face is nestled in the space between shoulder and neck. He is awkwardly positioned and it is far from comfortable, but Richard is content so Lee will suffer just for that because it matters to him.
He wonders as he lies silent and still about a few things. How two men well over 6 feet tall can even sleep on a couch together is one thing while another is what happened to the half eaten bowl of popcorn and when exactly did one of them turn off the TV. But those are minor things in the waves of his thinking, the most predominate being Richard.
What is the other man thinking? What thoughts are running through his head when he is looking at Lee when he thinks Lee can’t see that he is? What trail his mind leads him down when he is away from Lee?
Lee knows the older man good enough to know that he doubts this, doubting them and what they have together. He is more-than-likely waiting the day when it all comes to an end and they go their separate ways like they never were anything other than colleagues and friends.
But that is not Lee’s intention or belief at all. Far from it. He may be younger than Richard, but he knows the truth when he sees it, and he does not suffer from the insecurities that complicate the older man’s thoughts and thinking. He knows when something is pure, and right, and rare.
He knows what love is.
He has known it for some time. Maybe since the first moment they met. With some certainty from the first night they spent together. He also knows that love is just more than physical. It is emotional and spiritual. It is understanding and compromise. It is devotion and sincerity. It is acceptance and freedom, trust, and caring about someone else so much that you sacrifice for them, whether it is monetary, material, or even of one’s own self. It is all of that and more. It is how you feel when they are around you and how much you miss them when they are not. It is gentle caresses and warm smiles, deep-from-within laughter and tears of joy.
Yes, Lee knows what love it. He feels it when they touch. He sees it, hidden though it is, in eyes so blue. He feels it when he is alone and craves it like air. He certainly knows what love is because love is Richard, and being with him, and touching him, and talking to him.
Love is where they are, though he does not believe that Richard thinks they are. Or if he does think so, he doesn’t believe it will last. But it will. Lee knows this. He just has to convince his partner, friend, companion, heart, soul, lover of this.
And he will. It may take a while, but he will.
In the dark, he whispers against Richard’s skin. His fingers trace it out on his chest, over his heart.
“I love you.” He says. He engraves.
And above all else, he believes.