Larkin swallowed that dose of bitter reality and it hurt like hell. He reached for the center console, opened it, lifted the false bottom, and retrieved the 2x3 envelope. He put it in Doyle’s hand, closed the console, and stared out the front windshield again. He listened to Doyle open the envelope.
“Okay” was all Doyle said.
Larkin glanced sideways when he heard the distinct shake and slide of a pill falling free. “What’re you doing.”
“I’m giving you one. You’ve been taking so much for so long that part of your anxiety right now is actually withdrawal symptoms.” Doyle offered it. “You can’t cold turkey this medication. So take it, and tonight, once you’re home, call Dr. Meyers and talk to her about tapering off your prescription.”
Larkin took the Xanax with a shaky hand and dry-swallowed it. “You could’ve had the whole world.”
“I don’t want the world. I want you.”
“But I don’t deserve you,” Larkin murmured.
Doyle leaned back in his own seat. “Believe me, I’m the lucky one.”
“How can you say that with a straight face.”
Doyle met Larkin’s stare. “The poor kid with no dad, an absent mom, who spent most of his childhood in more trouble than not?”
“Look at you now.”
“Yeah…I lost my daughter and became an alcoholic,” Doyle stated without any sort of inflection, but the pyrite in his eyes burned bright. He reached for Larkin’s hand. “I feel like I’ve gotten a second chance with one of the smartest men I’ve ever met. And the kindest. And the gentlest. With a wicked sense of humor that he pretends to not have and who’s so handsome that he takes my breath away when he walks into a room. How could Inotbe lucky?”
Larkin felt guilty that Doyle’s admission of—call it what it was, for God’s sake—of love made him immediately think of Noah, but his poor, abused brain couldn’t help but compare and contrast situations, people, relationships, as a means of self-preservation, and Larkin could not pull up a single moment in his Rolodex where Noah’s words made him feel happy.
Likethis.
Like he was at the bottom of that deep, dark hole andfinallylooked up.
It was jubilance up to heaven.
And it was incredible.
“Sometimes you make my brain turn off,” Larkin said. “No one has ever made me feel that sense of… clarity. And I can focus on just one thought, and it’s always, you are such a good man.”
Doyle whispered, “I really want to kiss you.”
Larkin leaned over the center, grabbed Doyle by the back of his head, and brought their mouths together. Doyle made a sound that began in surprise and ended in pleasure. He tasted warm and a little sweet and citrusy, like sunshine and lemon candy. His soft lips were at delightful odds with the scrape of his whiskers, and the way Doyle melted into the seat, encouraging and relishing in the control Larkin asserted, that was icing atop an already-perfect cake.
Larkin broke the kiss first, and he drew the tip of his tongue over Doyle’s mouth before pulling back.
Doyle stared at him, his chest rising and falling out of sync. “You have permission to kiss me like that, literally, whenever you want. I’m talking Mets at the World Series, bases loaded at the bottom of the ninth, and if you want to kiss me, I’ve already forgotten what baseball is.”
Larkin smiled.
Doyle gave the hair tie around Larkin’s wrist a tug.
“Yeah,” he answered, before starting the engine.
It was 1:22p.m. when Larkin parked on the corner of Sixty-Second and Lexington. St. Jude’s Church was a gothic revival structure heralding from 1842, with original stone walls, a seventy-foot spire, and later incorporated Tiffany stained glass—all information that Larkin possessed because he’d been married here on Saturday, March 12, 2016, and prior to reserving space for the ceremony, he and Noah had been given anexpansiveandpassionatetour by the building manager.
Larkin shut the driver’s side door before he pointed to a newer addition built toward the rear of the church. “That’s the community hall where they hold meal services.” He pocketed his keys before adding stiffly, “I was married here.”
Doyle met his gaze. “Really?”
“’Til death do us part.”
Larkin said, “They’re welcoming of LGBT, and it was a concession to my in-laws, who’d have no part in their son’s marriage if it didn’t take place in a church.”
