Page 123 of The Bartender Special

Benny felt his smile come back.

The rain was still going.

Thunder was still booming.

But Jack was there too.

“And I’m not sure why I told you this now, but you said you like noise and, I don’t know Jack, I guess I’m kind of sad you won’t ever get to hear theirs.”

Sometime within his retelling, Jack found a flashlight.

He clicked it on with his free hand.

The beam poured into the sink and illuminated the bartender’s silhouette.

Benny couldn’t tell if he was smiling or not.

His voice, however, was soft.

What he said was also simple.

“If you’re the apple, then I’m sure I would have loved the tree.”

The rain continued.

Jack’s hand was warm.

The light stayed an afterthought.

Benny let himself be kissed right where his parents used to stand.

It was a long, deep twirl through the pain of living.

When Jack ended it, Benny could still feel his breath against his face when he spoke.

“Can I take you to your room?”

It was a beautifully simplistic question.

Benny nodded.

“Please.”

The flashlight was enough to get both men back to the bedroom.

It was enough to close the door behind them.

It was enough to see the bed.

What Benny couldn’t see just outside of the limit of its light were the details of his life before now.

The Smallville poster on his wall that Ethan had bought him for a birthday, the family pictures his mother had taken and hung on nails he and his father had bought at the hardwood store, the rocks he and Cal had painted like superheroes one summer when it had been too hot to go outside years before they had become the only family they’d had left.

And, as Jack dropped the flashlight and it rolled somewhere under the bed, taking the light with it, something deep inside of Benny took the moment to appreciate that fact.

The proof of his existence surrounded him but, as the light strobed until it became trapped beneath his childhood bed, all Benny saw was Jack.

He took Benny’s face in his hands and pushed him backwards onto the bed. Jack came with him, a kiss dragging him along the downward slope.