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Caleb raises an eyebrow. He knows my track record too well to miss this seismic shift in my dating life. He gets up from the table where he was wiping makeup off his face and steps right up to Luke, sizing him up. Then he sticks out a hand.
“Then it’s nice to meet you, mystery dressing room man,” he says. “Be good to Sebastian, okay? He deserves a nice guy.”
Luke shakes. “I’ll try.”
“You’ll do better than try or you’ll have all of us hunting you down.”
The other dancers nod in agreement.
“Okay, okay, relax,” I cut in. “Don’t scare him away.”
“Oh, this one isn’t getting scared away that easily,” Caleb says. He smirks like he knows a secret I don’t.
I don’t ponder it, instead seizing my opportunity to get us out of the dressing room and the club. Luke’s car is down the block. My ears ring when I slide into the passenger seat and the tumult of this night quiets to silence.
Luke weaves his way out of Seattle, which is a maze of lights and convoluted, intertwining streets even in the middle of the night. The moment he hits the highway, however, he scoops up my hand, clasping it in his as we head north toward Tripp Lake.
The connection hums through me. The warmth of his hand seeps upward like sunlight sneaking in through a window, warming me from my toes all the way to the top of my head. Slowly, it melts away all my fear, all my old hangups about guys never really wanting me.
“Thank you for all of this,” I say.
Luke shakes his head. “Don’t thank me. It took me this long to realize I wasn’t treating you the way you deserve. I almost ruined this, and for what? Just so I could feel safe.”
“Feeling safe is important. You weren’t ready.”
He shoots me a look. “I should have been.” He refocuses on the road and goes on in a soft voice, like he’s confessing his secrets to me. “I know some people have good reasons to never come out, but I feel like all I’ve been doing is hurting myself and sometimes other people. I have my brother’s and boss’s support. I know there are other openly queer teachers at my school. Yet I kept forcing you to do things my way because … because sometimes it felt easier to keep being scared instead of taking a chance.”
“Hey, you saw your brother get kicked out when you were a kid,” I say. “That’s traumatic shit, Luke. You don’thave to magically be okay about it.”
“Sure, but I also don’t have to hurt someone else because I’m hurt.”
My throat goes tight. Those words strip us both bare. We can’t avoid acknowledging that some of Luke’s actions hurt me. They did. That was real. Even if I always understood that he was trying his best.
“I don’t blame you,” I say. “We can go at whatever speed you need. I just want a chance to be in your life.”
Luke squeezes my hand in his. He’s quiet for so long that I glance over at him. The lights flashing past on the highway paint him in flickering portraits. His eyes remain fixed on the road, but his throat bobs and his mouth presses into a hard, tense line. Finally, he speaks again.
“You haven’t been treated the way you deserve, Sebastian, and I want you to stop tolerating that. You deserve better. You deserve someone who really wants you. Not for a night. Forever. Has anyone ever taken care of you?”
It’s my turn to go silent for too long. His words cut through all the layers of deception and bullshit I’ve buoyed myself up with over the years.
“No,” I say.
There’s nothing else I can say. It’s the truth. Everything in my life has been temporary. Even when I dated people, it was brief and casual, a series of hookups held together with flimsy bedroom conversation. It was never real.
“I want that to change,” Luke says. “If you’ll let me try, I want you to have better than that. I want to do better. For you. For James. For my kids at school. Can I have that chance?”
The highway is empty. We’re a comet blazing through the dark, burning more brightly than everything around us. Luke looks at me as we speed toward Tripp Lake.
“Of course,” I say. “Yes. Yes, I want you to do that.”
I catch the flicker of his smile before he has to turn back to the road. We don’t speak the rest of the way to his house, but we don’t really need to. It feels like all the words that needed to happen did happen. I’m not sure if I could summon more even if I wanted to. My head swims with vertigo. I’m Dorothy landing on the Yellow Brick Road, going from black and white to full technicolor. I’m a stranger stumbling into a completely new world, and even when Luke parks in his driveway I still haven’t quite gotten my bearings.
I started this night as some guy he knows, some guy he sees in secret. Now he’s helping me out of his car and leading me into his house as his … as his something. I don’t know what word to use for this yet, and I’m scared to even think one that might not be true, but this is more than a hookup. It’s more than nothing. Maybe we’ll find the word for that tomorrow.
“I need to text Virginia and let her know I won’t make it in tomorrow,” Luke says as we enter his house. “Will you stay here tonight?”
The words almost take me off my feet. The world tilts for a moment. This is all so new, so different from everything I’ve ever experienced. He isn’t asking me to stay for sex. He’s simply asking me to stay. Nothing more will happen tonight, but he wants me in his bed, in his arms. A … a partner and not a mere companion for the night.
