set me as a seal upon your heart: 5/5

[dorkorific]

He could live like this forever, Cris thinks, and it almost makes him laugh. This isn’t a life he could have conceived of in a million years: cold afternoons collecting old coats for donation, or teaching the kids how to curve a free kick. Or driving himself fucking insane trying to replace the brake pads in the church’s piece-of-shit van, using instructions he printed out from the internet.

For some reason now -- even though he’s not turning it on -- he’s getting tipped better than he ever has before. People smile at him all the time, even the regulars who are always sullen. The little safe under his mattress is crammed almost full. It’s not like he’s spending it on anything.

Work, and his friends, and his family, and these long, luxurious nights in a priest’s bed. It’s just funny. He never would have guessed.

*

“That’s the thing about it,” Cris calls into the bathroom. He’s lying tangled in Ricky’s sheets, too well-fucked and comfortable to move. “I understand the cross and the angel, even the skull on his fist thing, I’m like, sure. But the twelve? You know why, he tells me, because it’s his birthday. I’m like, hombre, are you gonna forget?”

Ricky’s laugh is muffled through the half-closed door. The sink whooshes on and off, then he’s in the doorway again.

“I don’t hate them particularly or anything,” he says, wiping his hands absently across his belly. “I just don’t want you to get one.”

Cris wrinkles his nose expressively.

“Good,” Ricky says, smiling down at him. His eyes are hot and sleepy. “You’re perfect just the way you’re made.”

“I’d get your name tattooed on my ass, though,” Cris says.

“Cris.” The laugh under his voice is low and promising.

“I would. Like, right --” Cris rolls over and strokes the lowest part of his own back, trailing his fingers over the base of his spine. He grins over his shoulder at Ricky. “Those big old-school letters, you know. And a heart.”

“Don’t,” Ricky says, pulling a face. “Yuck.” Then he bends down, making the sheets rustle, and his breath is warm on Cris’s lowest vertebra where Cris’s fingers were. Every hair on his body lifts at that breath, at Ricky’s hand curving possessively around his waist. “But it’s true, I -- I like the idea that -- I don’t know.”

“What?” Cris says.

“That you’d be mine,” Ricky says softly. He kisses the small of Cris’s back. They showered earlier, and his damp hair brushes against Cris’s spine. “That you’d be -- just mine, and everyone would know.”

“Stupid,” Cris says lazily. He pushes his ass back into Ricky’s body, arching his spine in a long feline stretch. “I am. They do.”

“Kiss me,” Ricky says, quiet, and Cris rises to him, already done for.

*

It’s a Wednesday when everything starts to go wrong.

“Father Ricky’s inside talking to some guy,” Pigtails informs him when he arrives on the field, her distaste obvious. “Some old guy. Not from around here. He should be watching us instead,” virtuously. “What if somebody got hurt?”

“What old guy?” Cris asks, looking curiously back at the fire door.

She shrugs. “I told you, he’s not from here. He called me ‘my child,’” she adds with frank disgust.
“I ain his child.”

“Don’t say ain’t,” Cris says automatically. “Where your gloves at, dumbass? It’s February, you wanna get hypothermia or what?”

Pigtails looks sideways, then beckons him downward. Cris leans in, assuming she wants to whisper something -- but instead she sticks one ice-cold fist down the back of his shirt. Cris yelps in shocked betrayal as she scampers off, cackling like a banshee.

“Yeah, you better run!” Cris calls after her. He rubs the back of his neck ruefully. Rookie mistake.

He hears the heavy push-bar thunk of the basement door and turns. Ricky’s there, leaning against the door. Cris doesn’t know the guy he’s talking to, some saintly-looking codger wearing full-on robes. He’s smiling, touching Ricky’s shoulder. Ricky’s smiling back, but when he looks away for a second Cris sees unfamiliar lines of strain at the sides of his mouth.

The guy shakes Ricky’s hand, then pulls him into a hug and says something else into his ear, and Ricky bows his head again, as if in acknowledgement. Cris is watching uncertainly -- wondering if he should call Ricky’s attention or if it’s better to back off -- when the guy turns and walks briskly in Cris’s direction, and Ricky looks up to see him for the first time. An expression too quick to identify flickers over his face: then there’s nothing but his old warm smile.

The man raises a hand in greeting to Cris as they pass. “Benedicite,” he says. He has an open, friendly face, but Cris isn’t in favor of anyone who makes Ricky look like that. He doesn’t answer, just gives the guy a brief, unsmiling nod.

“Who was that?” he asks Ricky. He rests a protective hand low on Ricky’s back.

“Brother Jerome,” Ricky says. “He was my favorite teacher at seminary. Moral Theology. I forgot he was going to come out and see me.”

“He say something to you?”

Ricky’s eyes are fixed on the friar, climbing now into his little two-door at the far side of the lot. “He was telling me how proud he is. He said I was always his most promising student. Apparently I’m exceeding all expectations.” He lifts his brows at Cris like he’s jokey-bragging, but his smile is hard and strange. “So.”

Cris watches Ricky’s face, his concern mounting. “Are you okay?”

Ricky tilts up one side of his mouth; he must mean it to be reassuring, but it comes out like a grimace and he won’t meet Cris’s eyes. “Of course,” he says. “I’m fine.”

*

He’s not fine, though. It’s nothing big, but Cris knows him so intimately now that the signs are impossible to miss. He’s quieter, more often absent from conversation. His sentences trail off. He’s never short with the kids, but he doesn’t let them wrap him up in their games, he doesn’t tease them as much. He’s just different. There’s a new hesitation when Cris touches him, an instant of tension that flares through his body before he’ll move into Cris’s arms, before he’ll kiss back.

*

Late one night Cris struggles out of a clinging sleep to the glow of Ricky’s laptop, the quiet, hesitant tapping of keys.

“Sorry,” Ricky whispers, glancing down at him. He has his glasses on, and he looks exhausted. “I haven’t finished -- for tomorrow.”

Cris’s vision is still blurry with sleep, but he can tell there are no more than three lines up on the screen. It’s Ash Wednesday tomorrow, and as sketchy as Cris’s understanding of religion is, he knows the Masses around this time of year are a pretty big deal. Cris has never seen Ricky finish a draft sermon later than three days before, even when he was knocked out by that cold.

“Go back to sleep,” Ricky says. He smiles a little, rests his hand briefly in Cris’s hair.

*

The next day Ricky’s wrapped up in church stuff, and Cris needs to check on his place anyway; it’s been at least a week. Maybe longer. In front of the building he drops his duffel to the ground, and he’s going through his pockets for his keys when he sees the dark shadow detach itself from the corner of the courtyard. For a moment his irritation is the old familiar one: fucking Casillas, won’t leave him alone.

Then he realizes. Then he would give anything to have it be Iker Casillas waiting for him.

“Hey, big guy,” his father says. He reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket for a crumpled packet of smokes. “What are you, trying to avoid me?”

Cris’s hand closes into a fist. His mind is blank.

“Look at you,” his dad says admiringly. He whistles through his teeth, looking Cris up and down. “You grew up fast, huh? My, my, my.”

“What do you want?” Cris says. It’s only the after-taste of his father’s smell that sticks and goes foul in the teeth and hair. Up close, alive, it’s sulfurous and enticing, like spiced smoke or a struck match. There’s just a hint of that putrefying sweetness underneath, only there if you know to look for it.

“Just what any dad wants,” his father says, wounded. “Just to see my boy. Talk to him a little, see how he’s doing.”

“That’s new,” Cris says, and regrets it instantly. It sounds pathetic. “I’m not your boy. I’ve got nothing to do with you.” Worse and worse: pathetic and defensive. He shuts his mouth hard, a muscle twitching painfully in his cheek.

“Oh dear, oh dear,” his father says softly. He bends his head to light his cigarette, saying through his teeth, “Well. I guess I can’t blame you for being pissed. I know I haven’t always been the perfect dad.”

Cris spits out a laugh. “You were doing pretty well as long as you stayed gone.” Now that the instinctive haze of panic is clearing he’s able to see what he couldn’t, as a kid: that there’s something off about his father’s looks. Out of the corner of your eye he’s handsome, striking even - built along Cris’s lines, tall and broad-shouldered, narrow at the waist. But straight-on it’s wrong. Something about his posture hints at a strange internal slackness, like a mascot in a too-big zip-up costume. Even the graying stubble over his jaw has a spackled-on quality.

And none of it has changed -- not one greased-down hair -- since Cris was fourteen.

His father just smiles around the red ember of his cigarette. “I was gonna stop by Silver Bullet, get a steak and egg. Why don’t you come with me?”

“No fucking way,” Cris says. “Thanks.”

The smile doesn’t waver. It’s too wide for Cris’s dad’s narrow face, like the open mouth of a mask.

“Well, I could invite your mom instead,” he says silkily. “But I’ll tell you something, buddy, I’m not in the mood to eat alone tonight.”

Cris goes with him.

The Silver Bullet’s a filthy little dive on Marshall, south of the river. The pretty, bored waitress isn’t thrilled to see them, but when he orders Cris’s father gives her a smile that sinks Cris’s heart.

His father gets a steak -- burnt at the edges, bloody in the middle -- and two gelatinous fried eggs that make nausea rise in Cris’s throat. Cris gets coffee and doesn’t drink it.

For a long time they sit in silence. Cris’s dad eats with relish, sawing through the charred fat on his steak and shoving it into his mouth gristle and all. His plate is smeared with grease and yellow mucilage. Cris watches him, knuckles white around his coffee.

Finally his father mops at his mouth with a paper napkin and sighs contentedly. “So don’t you wanna know why I’m here?”

“No.”

“It’s about that friend of yours. Your padrecito. What’s his name? Ricardo? Has to do with Pretty Ricky.”

Cris doesn’t say anything. He looks his father full in the face, expressionless. After a long moment, his father is the first to look away, arching his brows and glancing deliberately over Cris’s head.

“Well,” he says, with exaggerated astonishment. “Who knew you had it in you?”

“You don’t talk about him,” Cris says evenly. “You don’t say his name ever.”

“You two must have something special,” his father says, showing the scraps of meat in his teeth.

Cris doesn’t answer.

“It’s not too often someone of our persuasion gets that close with a man of God,” his father goes on, chewing meditatively. “And you know, that Ri -- oh, excuse me, your friend,” he corrects himself ostentatiously, “is no minor player himself.” He finally looks back at Cris, his eyes hard over that half-smile. “It takes serious power to overcome that kind of piety. The kind of power that draws attention.”

“I didn’t overcome shit,” Cris says, unable to stay quiet.

His father tilts his head. “Didn’t you?” His brow wrinkles, all false showy sympathy. “Uh-oh. You’re not calling it love, are you?”

Cris bites down hard on the inside of his cheek.

“Oh, kiddo, don’t be naive,” his dad says softly. “You think it’s real because you didn’t give him the evil eye? You think you didn’t put the whammy on him?” There’s genuine pity in his voice. “You are the whammy, sport.”

If only Ricky were here. If he could look over and see those dark eyes on him, trusting and clear and luminously calm.

His father’s still speaking, low but relentless. “Come on, you don’t need me to tell you that. You know that.”

“More coffee?” the waitress asks, reappearing. She puts her hand on Cris’s father’s shoulder with perfect familiarity, and he slips a proprietary arm around her waist.

He doesn’t take his eyes off Cris. “Sure, honey, I’ll have another cup.”

She turns her gaze to him. Her eyes are blank, milky blue, washed with a gauzy cataract whiteness.

“No,” Cris says. It comes out a croak.

“Now, don’t be rude, Cristiano,” his father says. “Tough day,” he murmurs to the waitress, conspiratorially. As she goes, his eyes drop to her ass; he watches her all the way to the kitchen.

When she’s vanished, he leans his elbows confidingly on the table. “If you want to know, I’ve had a few harsh words come my way on your account. All that potential, and I let you grow up without any guidance. Well, like I told them, I didn’t have any way to know how you’d turn out. Half-breeds are tricky. Not all of you get any talent. But when you do -- well, you blow us old-fashioned types right out of the water. There are wards we can’t break, barriers we can’t cross. But you can.” He lowers his voice. “You could do big things, kid.”

“Oh, okay,” Cris says, finding refuge in sarcasm. His voice comes out barely steadier than he feels. “Great. I could live like you do? Creep around like a rat, fucking my way through the population? Gee whiz, Pops, could I really?”

“Don’t play dumb with me,” his father says, dangerous. “It’s not about fucking. It’s about control. Think about it. How many people on the planet can say no to you?”

“Not you, apparently,” Cris says shortly.

“Get over it,” his father says. He’s dropped the Ward Cleaver thing now, and his eyes have a cold glitter. “You’re not a child. You think I’m such a bad guy? Wait until you see the other people who want to get their hands on you. I made you, Cris. I know you. I’m the only one who can give you what you want.”

“I don’t want anything you can give,” Cris says. He pushes his untouched coffee away and fishes in his pocket for cash; it’s not worth it to hear his dad lie about having left his wallet at home. “Except for you to stay the fuck away from me.”

“Don’t you?” his father says. He watches Cris. “What about the truth?”

“Yeah, the truth’s always been one of your strengths,” Cris says. “Are you finished?”

“Whether he loves you or not,” his father says. “I could tell you. I could show him just exactly what you are, and then we could see if he still feels the same way. Don’t you want to know?”

“He does,” Cris says. “I don’t need you to tell me that and it’s none of your fucking business.”

“He certainly thinks so.” Cris’s father is still smiling, like he forgot to turn the expression off. “They do think that, don’t they? What was that prieto you had in high school? Samuel.” He tastes the name like a sweet. “He was just crazy about you.”

Cris doesn’t say anything. He can’t.

His dad reaches one long hand to take Cris’s arm: and then suddenly he jerks back like he’s been burned.

His hard dark eyes fly to Cris’s face. “What do you have?” he says. There’s an ugly, bubbling whine under his voice, harsh and inhuman.

Cris remembers, with a rush, the bicycle bell Pepe’s mom gave him. Still in the bottom of his bag, like it always has been. And the bag is right there, tucked against his feet.

It’s not the look on his dad’s face that does it, not even how wonderfully, stupidly confused he looks, his hand hovering in midair. It’s what Pepe told him all that time ago: it can’t protect you from what you’re most afraid of. Which means that’s not his dad. Not anymore. Maybe not for a long time.

He should feel relieved. Instead he feels tired and sick.

“I’m done talking to you,” Cris says. He drops his napkin onto the table, grabs his bag and stands. “If you ever come near me or the people I love again, I’ll end you. I want to be clear.”

His father doesn’t move. “You’re making a mistake,” he says.

Cris shrugs one shoulder. “It’s not the first time.”

His father calls his name once as he turns his back. Cris ignores him. It’s not worth it. Letting his dad get to him: his dad, who’s never been worth believing in Cris’s entire life. Why start now?

He knows why. He won’t let himself think it, not in words. But he knows.

At the door he passes the waitress at the cash register. Her nametag says Agnes. “Good night,” she says, raising her eyes to give him a perfunctory smile. Now that she’s out of his dad’s radius, they’re clear brown again.

“That guy in the booth,” Cris says. “Don’t go near him. Send somebody else -- a guy if you can. He’ll leave in a few minutes.”

Her eyes widen. “Is he --”

“Just don’t,” Cris says shortly. He lets the overtones creep into his voice, to be sure she’ll believe him, but he leaves without waiting to make sure.

*

It’s almost like the first time, showing up at Ricky’s door in the middle of the night, confusion and fear and unhappiness closing his throat. Only this time when Ricky opens the door, his familiar shadow against the bright inside of the house, Cris can’t say anything. He takes Ricky’s face between his hands and captures his mouth too hard, swallows whatever Ricky would have said in the kiss, Ricky’s teeth slick against his tongue, and Ricky lets him do it, lets him inside, lets him take what he needs, and it doesn’t help anything.

*

“What happened?” Ricky asks after. He’s still wearing his t-shirt, shoved up around his armpits, and he starts to pull it down over his belly. Cris can hardly look at him.

“I had a bad night,” Cris says. He draws his palms down hard over his face. “I can’t talk about it.”

“Okay.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” Cris says, out of nowhere. “Look, I can tell, all right? It’s not okay. That guy who came the other day, Brother Whoever. You’re -- I bet you wish you’d never met me.”

“Don’t,” Ricky says. He shakes his head, one quick jerk. “Just don’t.”

“You’re sorry,” Cris says. He hates himself for starting this; he hates that he can’t stop. “I can tell.”

“Leave it, Cris,” Ricky says. He finds his underwear at the bottom of the bed, pulls it on. “I’m too tired. I already said I don’t regret it.”

“But you obviously do,” Cris says.

“Look,” Ricky says. He runs his fingers through his hair. “I can’t pretend -- things used to be easier for me, that’s all. I knew I was giving something up; I knew it that first night, and I did it anyway. I decided. It’s not on you.”

But it is. If Cris hadn’t been there, it wouldn’t have happened. His dad’s right: once Cris enters the picture, the element of choice doesn’t apply.

Then, unexpectedly, Ricky’s speaking again. He sounds far away. “In my parents’ house we had one of those books of the saints, you know, the giant one with the paintings? The paper was so thin, and they had -- I don’t know if it was real gold, but they were so beautiful and solemn and the colors were so...rich, and I just -- that was all I wanted. My friends wanted to be astronauts or have kids or whatever, but I just wanted to be perfect for God. I wanted to live and die for Him.”

He’s silent for a minute.

“That’s my biggest sin, probably. Pride. I never had any doubt that I could live perfectly according to His word. You know, I prayed every day to be a martyr. It wouldn’t even have been a sacrifice for me, it was just death and then heaven, right? And there was nothing else that important in my life. Do you know how easy it is to give up sex, compared to giving up that idea of myself? Of the person I thought I was?” He laughs, but it’s not a good sound. “Chastity’s a piece of cake. No, I gave up the blue ribbon. I was the A-plus student. And then that night, with you...”

Cris waits.

“I thought you were a sign,” Ricky says. He sounds exhausted. “I thought I was being told that there were more important things. Than being, you know, the hall monitor for God. Teacher’s pet.” His eyes are fixed on the ceiling. He says, “But yes. Yes. It was easier when there was nothing else.”

“That’s what you gave up for me? Sainthood?”

“I didn’t say I was a saint,” Ricky says, sharp. “Don’t you dare make fun of me, not about this.”

“I’m not,” Cris says helplessly.

“It wasn’t just because I wanted to help you, or I wanted -- you,” Ricky says shortly. “I -- I did, but there were other … I thought I was being called to serve in a different way. And I thought, if I was wrong, I could be forgiven. Or that’s what I told myself. I don’t know now.” He’s still staring upwards, his white-knuckled hands twined together in his lap. “Lately I talk to God and I --” He shrugs one shoulder, a twisted, painful-looking movement. “I can’t hear Him.”

Cris’s chest hurts. He doesn’t have anything to say.

“It’s like my best friend is gone,” Ricky says to the ceiling. “Do you understand, that’s what it feels like. It feels like He died.”

Cris starts to touch him, but then he doesn’t. His hand falls uselessly to his lap.

“I love you,” Ricky says. His voice is tight. “But I hate this so much.”

For a long time neither of them says anything. The radiator ticks.

It takes Cris too long to take Ricky’s hand in his, and he only does it because he’s lost for anything else. He wants to kiss Ricky’s fingertips, but it seems like the wrong thing to do; in the end he just brushes Ricky’s knuckles awkwardly against his cheek.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“I know you are,” Ricky says. He rests his forehead briefly on Cris’s shoulder, as if to take back a little of the sting. “I’m going to sleep.”

“Do you want me to stay?”

“Stay if you think you should,” Ricky says. He rolls over, clicks the light off. Cris stares at the ceiling. He doesn’t think he should. He just doesn’t know how to leave.

In his sleep Ricky rolls into him automatically, blindly seeking out Cris’s warmth. He makes a small, contented noise, gets his leg wound around Cris’s, his soft hair brushing Cris’s mouth. If he wakes up, Cris knows, he’ll be embarrassed, maybe even angry.

Cris holds him tentatively, willing himself not to move or make a sound. He lies so motionless his neck starts to ache.

He’s still awake, in a half-trance, when the alarm starts to buzz. Ricky pushes his nose into Cris’s shoulder like he always does, mumbling something.

“I’m gonna go,” Cris whispers into Ricky’s hair.

“Yhh?” Ricky says, muffled. There’s a long pillow crease down one side of his face and dark circles are worn deep under his eyes. He blinks.

“Yeah,” Cris says. He kisses Ricky’s brow. “I love you.”

“Nh-hm,” Ricky says, and burrows back under the pillows, presumably waiting for the snooze to go off. The same as always. The sheets have slipped off his back and his sharp, lovely shoulderblades, and an ache of hopeless, miserable adoration swells in Cris’s throat.

He gives himself to the count of five. Then he grabs his jacket off the couch and leaves as quietly as he can.

*

Outside, it’s still dark. The streets are empty except for a couple of bundled-up construction workers, smoking their first cigarettes on their way in to work.

It starts to snow on the way home. Cris feels the tiny prickles of cold against his cheeks, the back of his neck. He turns his collar up.

*

The apartment smells stale and closed-up, no surprise there. He’s struck by how much stuff there is in here: stuff he hasn’t touched in weeks, hasn’t missed. What does he need, really? He throws a couple of pairs of jeans onto his bed, some t-shirts, an old hoodie. All his underwear, obviously, he’s not a savage.

When he’s feeling around under his bed for his extra sneakers, his fingers unexpectedly encounter something soft and thick. He pulls it out. It’s Ricky’s gray sweater, the one he lent to Cris that first night.

For a long moment Cris just stands there, the sweater cradled in his hands. Then he presses it almost furtively to his mouth and nose.

Ricky’s smell is still there under the dust: soap and clean sweat, lingering richly in the wool.

*

He’s got a spare key to Marcelo and Pepe’s, and when he opens the studio door he finds them both there: Marcelo face-down on the futon, snoring magnificently, and Pepe on the bed, awake, hands folded across his chest. He’s dressed, even.

“Thought you might stop by, tío,” he says softly. His gaze is unreadable.

“Yeah, figured you might know already,” Cris returns.

Marcelo makes a noise and flops over on his back; Pepe glances at him, then back to Cris. “Talk outside,” he says, swinging his legs off the bed.

“So you knew?” Cris says in the hallway.

“Nah,” Pepe says. He scratches the back of his head. “I just had a feeling. I can guess, though. I was right, wasn’t I? It’s the padre.”

“I fucked up,” Cris says. It’s such an understatement, he could laugh.

“You’re telling me,” Pepe agrees, but his hand on Cris’s arm is gentle. “You don’t have to leave, bro.”

“Nnn, I do though,” Cris says. “I just, uh, I didn’t wanna go without telling you, and -- I wanted to ask you a favor.”

“I’ll look out for him,” Pepe says. “And for your mom. And the kids, too, we both will. Til you come back.”

Cris coughs out a laugh. “Oh, yeah,” he says. “Just until then.”

“Marcelo’s gonna be pissed you didn’t say goodbye.”

“I could wake him up,” Cris suggests.

“Oh, yeah, great plan,” Pepe says. “Then he’ll be more pissed.”

Cris grins at him, with a little effort. Pepe smiles back, but his eyes are serious.

“Any advice?” Cris says, shifting uncomfortably under the weight of that look. “Your ma got any more bicycle bells? Mad useful, by the way, remind me to tell you about that sometime.”

“Advice?” Pepe says, lifting his eyebrows. “Sorry. I got nothing.”

“Okay,” Cris says. He breathes out. Then Pepe’s hugging him, a tight quick clasp around his shoulders. He smells familiar, all Speed Stick and gasoline.

“I’ll miss you, huh,” he says.

“You too, man,” Cris says. He coughs. “Check on Zizoucito especially for me, yeah? He gets, uh. He could use the attention, I feel like.”

Pepe nods. Then -- to Cris’s astonishment -- he leans in and kisses his temple, a hard ritual kiss like some warrior’s benediction.

“Later,” he says.

“Later,” Cris says.

He’s almost halfway down the hallway when Pepe calls out, “Cris! I got something -- some advice for you after all.” He laughs a little, embarrassed, determined. “Listen: don’t be scared, okay. That’s my advice. Don’t be scared, and -- don’t forget.”

After a second, Cris nods. Then he turns his back and keeps walking.

*

His mom’s house is aglow, a cozy little refuge in the bleak gray of the early morning. Snow is starting to collect on the windowsills. With the door opening comes a delicious waft of vanilla, and then she’s enveloping him in a warm, spiced hug.

“Carinho!” She sounds pleased and surprised. “What are you doing here so early?”

“Hey, mama,” Cris says. He kisses her dry, powdery-smelling cheek, smiles into her eyes. “I know, you were gonna sleep late, right?” As far as he knows his mom’s never been up later than seven in her entire life.

She rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling. “Don’t track snow in the house,” is all she says.

“I can’t stay long,” Cris says when they’re inside. The place has barely changed since he was a kid; a pair of muddy kids’ sneakers by the door suggest that one niece or another is staying in the guest bedroom. Someone usually is. He drops his bag onto the tiles. “Smells great in here.”

“Bread pudding for Elma’s oldest,” his mom says, heading into the kitchen. “You know I can’t stand to see a skinny kid. You’re going to have breakfast with us?”

“No, I can’t,” Cris says awkwardly. He coughs. “Listen, I wanted to give you something.” He pulls the envelope out of his jacket pocket, slides it across the kitchen counter. His mother looks down at it, then back at him. Her mouth pulls sideways.

“What’s this?”

“Don’t make a thing about it, Ma, okay,” Cris says. His ears are hot. “I want you to do something for me, will you just -- figure out how much it’ll take to get that field out by the church cleaned up? Real lights put in, and all that junk in the grass cleared out and whatever, and just give that much to Father Ricky. You keep the rest.”

“Cristiano,” his mother says softly.

“Please. I promise I’ve got plenty, this is just leftovers. I’m just -- I’m going out of town for a minute, and I won’t have time --”

“Don’t you lie to me,” his mom says. She folds her arms, implacable. “A minute? How many minutes?”

Cris runs a hand through his hair. “Ma, don’t.”

“You in trouble?” She turns around abruptly, starts scrubbing at the dirty dishes that fill the sink. Cris feels horrible.

“No. Let it go, Mom, I didn’t -- nothing’s wrong, I’m fine, I just -- I’m trying to do the right thing, okay?”

“And the right thing is just to run away?” his mom says, her voice climbing up. “I know you didn’t learn that from me.” She bangs a handful of spoons into the dishwasher.

“Mom!” He lets out a short, irritated breath. He’s not getting into this. “Cut it out. I’m not seven, all right, I -- look, I love you, but I didn’t ask for your advice about this, I already decided.”

She turns back to him, hands on hips, face flushed, and raises an eyebrow. It’s true, he’s not a kid, and he really doesn’t owe her an explanation.

He puts his hand over hers. “I hurt somebody,” he says quietly. “I didn’t mean to, and it’s nobody’s fault, but even me just being around is making it worse, and I can’t keep doing that to -- this person. I know it doesn’t sound good, but if I leave, they can maybe -- go back to normal. That’s all.”

His mom turns her hand palm-up, closes her fingers around his. “Cris,” she says gently. “That is normal. That’s normal life, getting hurt.”

Cris shakes his head tightly. “Not like this.”

She’s silent for a second. Then she says, “Can I tell you something about your father?”

That startles him enough to look at her. She never talks about his dad.

“Your father hurt me more than anything in the world,” she says. “What he did to me -- what he made me feel, you know -- I can’t tell you how bad it was. And when you were a baby, it hurt so much. Sometimes I got confused, with loving you so much and hurting so much; I started to think they were the same.”

He can’t figure out why she’s telling him this. “Shit. God, Mom. I’m sorry.”

“I’m not telling you to make you sorry,” she says with asperity. “I am telling you. And don’t you swear in my house.”

Cris can’t help smiling. His mom, Jesus. “You gonna say it was all worth it or something?”

She doesn’t smile back. “It doesn’t work like that,” she says. “Bad things don’t happen to make the good things worth it. But they have to happen. All that stuff with your father doesn’t happen, I don’t get you -- the man you are now. You don’t save your friend by leaving. All you do is leave him alone with it.” She touches his cheek. “You don’t ever get to skip the ugly parts, Cristiano. I didn’t, you don’t, and your friend can’t either. That’s life.”

He tries to laugh, but it comes out weird. “Yeah?” he says. “Well, it sucks.”

“Sometimes,” his mother says. She leans her forehead against his for a second; when she pulls back her eyes are wet.

“I just don’t want to be selfish,” he tries to explain. He tries touching her hand again. “Ma. Hey. I’m gonna be fine. I love you.”

“I’m so proud of you, lindo menino,” she says randomly, and squeezes his hand crushingly tight for a minute before releasing it to wipe her eyes with her wrist, batting her hands in a rapid up and down flutter like she’s fanning her feelings away. “You better call me, mister, you understand? You better call so I know you’re not sleeping in a bus station tonight.”

“Okay,” Cris says. He stands, wraps her in a hug. She’s so much shorter than he is that he has to bend a little to rest his chin on her hair. “I promise.”

She pats his arm a little unsteadily and sniffs. “You better,” she says again.

*

Avondale, Wellcome, Corner City; a long stream of gray highway and gray field spooling away out the bus’s tinted window. Snow flicking across the glass, leaving wet trails. Shell stations, tattered billboards for political candidates who lost months ago.

He eats three packets of mini chocolate donuts and stares out the window. He thinks of Ricky, smiling at him across the parking lot, flushed and radiant in the sheets, bleary in the pale light of early morning. The way he touched Cris, the way his hair fell in his eyes, the sweet burn of his cross on Cris’s collarbone. The warm smell of him in that secret place under his jaw and the rhythm of his pulse against Cris’s mouth.

Cris burrows down into the comforting warmth of his own misery like a blanket, hunching up against the cold plastic window. He doesn’t think about what happens next.

*

There are nice things about living somewhere new. It’s warmer, for one thing. He finds a sublet uptown, an English basement under a fortysomething divorcée who plays Chopin nocturnes on the piano all day. That’s all right, though; Julia’s not a bad musician, and her cats are friendly. The job thing can wait a few weeks, he’s got money enough. He can’t quite stomach the idea of wandering into a pickup ball game without Pepe and Marcelo, but he goes for long night runs, forcing himself on until his muscles are screaming, until every breath tears at his lungs.

It helps too that there are more people here. Pretty black-eyed boys who don’t require any nudge to come home with him, that’s a bonus. If it isn’t always easy to wake up with them -- a new smell in the bed, an arm shoved uncomfortably under his neck -- that can’t be helped. He tries to be fair about it, tries not to lie or creep away while they’re sleeping or, generally, make anyone feel like shit.

Once he wanders idly by the church in his neighborhood, just to check it out. There’s a soccer game happening but the kids on the (pristine, well-clipped) pitch are wearing tidy red uniforms, coached by a solid citizen in khakis, with plastic sunglasses and a whistle on a chain around his neck. There are huge banners everywhere, pictures of smiling families printed with the church’s name and its website, and Cris can’t imagine being useful to them at all.

*

There’s just one entrance to the house, so Julia upstairs always has to call down to him when he has a visitor. Usually it’s only the landlord, or missionaries, or kids with petitions or whatever. Julia lets everyone in.

When he wanders into the foyer and sees the guy, a sick wave of hope and shock and self-pity almost knocks him over. The way that dark hair sweeps back, the long angle of his neck and the pink tip of his ear, it could almost --

--But then it’s not surprising. After all he’s been dwelling morosely on Ricky’s face for weeks, in whatever pathetic teenage slump he’s in right now. It would be weird if he weren’t seeing Ricky in every stranger, if the smooth curve of a similar cheekbone didn’t make his heart leap into his throat.

Then the guy looks up, and he’s Ricky.

Cris’s fingers go numb. Blood roars in his ears. He thinks his face is probably doing something.

Ricky’s on his feet in an instant. Then his arms are tight around Cris’s back and the smell of his hair fills Cris’s nostrils and the tip of his nose is pressed into Cris’s throat, and Cris doesn’t know how to think or move, how to do anything but stand there, too amazed to understand. His hands hover an inch from Ricky’s waist, the warmth of Ricky’s body buzzing on his palms.

Ricky pulls back and says fiercely, “What the -- what the hell, Cris?”

Cris says, ridiculously, “You’re here.” He wants to touch Ricky’s face but he can’t: all he can do is stare fixedly at him, grinning like a chump.

“You just left,” Ricky says. His face is radiant with anger. “You didn’t even leave me a note or anything! You think, you think some money would make up for, I can’t believe you, nobody knew where you were, it was awful, we would never have found you except your friend Pepe took me down to the river and made me ask this fish-woman where you were, which was terrifying by the way, and I had to spent this whole stupid day driving after you, in your other friend’s horrible car --”

“You drove Marcelo’s car?” Cris says, horrified.

“I couldn’t exactly drive the church van!” Ricky says. “That thing barely makes 45 miles an hour, it would have taken days!” He lets out an infuriated little breath. “Do you understand how angry I am?”

“I’m so happy to see you, I don’t really understand anything,” Cris says honestly. He cups Ricky’s cheek in his palm.

Ricky says something and drags him outside. Cris lets him. He almost trips over his own feet. He feels lightheaded.

Ricky whirls on him on the sidewalk. It’s warm, nearly April; the evening sky is pink and gold, threaded with rosy clouds. “What were you thinking?”

“I wanted to help you,” Cris says, and now he feels his own anger kindle up in his chest and he almost wants to laugh, it’s such an insane relief, this whole thing is so -- “I was trying to help. You said it yourself, you said --”

“I didn’t say I wanted you to leave! I said things used to be easier!” To his utter shock, Ricky hits him awkwardly in the ribcage with the side of his fist. Cris gapes at him. “Did you know I’ve never had doubts before? About anything? I’m almost thirty, I decided to give my life to God when I was six, and I never once wondered if I’d made the right choice. Don’t you think that’s insane?” He pokes Cris in the sternum, hard. “It was going to happen, Cris! If it wasn’t -- if it wasn’t you, it would have been -- oh, there are a million things since I started this job. How about Elena coming in every day with cigarette burns up her arm? I know you’ve seen them. She won’t tell you anything about that, will she?”

Cris shakes his head mutely.

“She won’t tell me, either. Only she doesn’t have to, you know why? Because I take confession from the person who gives them to her. And that person gets to leave the church with a clear conscience. So the next week they can go do it again. Is that messed up or what? What am I supposed to think about a God who makes me sit there and tell him -- them, this person -- tell them to say paternosters and ‘Don’t do that again’ -- that’s sadistic, isn’t it?” He waits for a long, expectant moment, long enough to make it clear the question isn’t rhetorical.

“I don’t know,” Cris says idiotically.

“Well, neither do I! That’s the point!” Ricky’s eyes are bright: his cheekbones are flushed with anger and the bite of the wind. “That’s what happens to faith, it goes through -- peaks and valleys, and it’s so -- you’re so self-absorbed it’s insane, thinking you could fix it or that it’s your fault -- ”

Cris says incredulously, “It’s -- I’m insane? You -- you know what I can do, what I did to you -- I was just trying to leave you in peace! I was just trying to maybe not fuck up your life any more than it already is!”

“What you did to me?” Ricky echoes, incredulous.

“I made you think -- I made you feel like -- I made you think you loved me, I didn’t mean to but it’s just --”

Ricky actually lets out a wordless yell of frustration at the sky, his fists balling up at his sides. Cris thinks -- astonished and pissed and delighted by it all at once -- that he might try to land another punch.

“This thing you’re so hung up on, that you’ve done to people,” Ricky says at last. “What, it makes them think you’re perfect? And then they act crazy, right? They act crazy and then you have sex with them and it’s, whatever, it’s like hypnosis or something?” His stare is belligerent.

“I guess,” Cris says, sullen.

“Okay,” Ricky says. He takes a deep breath. “Well, I don’t think you’re perfect. You’re -- you’re incredibly arrogant, for one thing. You take too much responsibility on yourself and you don’t know how to lose, you’re no better than the kids about that, and you -- take forever to do your hair, and you think you know what’s good for everyone better than they do, and you won’t try, you know, you have so much potential and you’re happy to just wait tables and, and mess around all day and that drives me nuts. And you act like a jerk all the time, you let people think you’re this asshole, I mean, it’s ridiculous, when you’re not. And you don’t trust people. You don’t trust me.”

“I--” Cris starts.

“Shut up,” Ricky says. “I’m not done. Do you know why I like you? I like -- I like that you’re kind. I like that you'll do anything to take care of the people you love. I like the way you are with the kids -- how you slow down a little for Anthony because of his leg, but how you also don't just let him have the ball. How patient you are with Isaac, I mean, that kid worships you. I like how when you put your mind to something you won’t let anything stop you. And yes, okay, yes, I like making love to you.” He says it so matter-of-factly Cris almost doesn’t register it, and then he does and heat washes over his whole body. “That wasn’t part of my plan, but there it is. I like the way you hold on to me. I like the way you make me feel calm.” A crooked, reluctant smile tilts his mouth. “I like how -- sometimes I touch you and you just, you smile. It’s goofy.”

“I don’t look goofy,” Cris says. It’s the only thing he can get the breath to say.

“No, you do,” Ricky says decidedly. “You look so happy. I like making you happy.”

Cris just watches him for a long moment. Ricky stares back, not backing down an inch.

“How do you know,” Cris says finally. “How do you know it’s not something I did to you, something I tricked you into --”

“I don’t, stupid,” Ricky says, coloring again. “I don’t have to, because that’s what faith is, it’s -- how you live with not knowing everything. I love you, and so does God, the God I serve, the God who is love, you dumbass, and that means I have faith that God gave us to each other for a reason and -- you know, it’s like you’re not even listening.”

Cris takes Ricky’s face between his palms and kisses him. Ricky’s lips are chapped and the inside of his mouth is hot and bittersweet. One hand cups the back of Cris’s skull.

“I can’t believe you brought my hair into this,” Cris says at last, pulling back. He thumbs the sweep of Ricky’s cheekbone.

Ricky cracks out a weird laugh. He rests his head on Cris’s shoulder, turns his face into Cris’s neck.

“Well, you take forever,” he says, muffled. “Sometimes I need to use that bathroom.”

“So just use it,” Cris says, sliding his arms tighter around Ricky’s shoulders. “Just come in and use it next time, okay, Jesus. I love you.” He kisses the translucent shell of Ricky’s ear. "I love you," he says again.

Ricky pulls back then. That smile, God. “Get your stuff,” he says, touching his thumb gently to Cris’s chin. “Come home.”

*

Entreat me not to leave you, or to return from following after you: for where you go, I will go; and where you lodge, I will lodge: your people shall be my people, and your God my God. (Ruth 1:16)