AS THE JET descends over snowy Western Michigan corn fields, I’m not smiling anymore. This is the first time I’ve been here in almost seven years, and I don’t feel ready to face this place again.
Too bad I didn’t figure that out before I got on this plane.
I hadn’t left Michigan on my own accord. But I thought by now I might be finished feeling angry about it. As the jet touches down at the airport, I realize I’m not over it. Not by a long shot.
It’s going to be a long couple of days.
The familiar ding alerts passengers that the Fasten Seatbelt sign has been turned off. People stir in their seats and open the overhead bins.
This is it. I’m back in the town that once spat me out, and it’s hard to care about seeing it again.
“Excuse me,” whispers the middle-aged woman beside me. Until I get up, she’s trapped on the plane.
That gets me moving. I heave my carcass out of the seat and pull my carryon suitcase out of the overhead compartment. A line of people begins shuffling off the plane ahead of me.
Six years ago I’d left Michigan with cracked ribs and my arm in a sling. I’d been attacked by a few rednecks in an alley, because they’d seen Graham and I kissing in a car. The injuries sent me to the hospital, where I’d been foolish enough to tell my parents the truth about what happened to me.
But my worst scars are the kind you can’t see. After I was released from the hospital, my parents drove me to my grandmother’s place in Vermont so I could “heal from my injuries.” The trouble is they never came back. I spent the rest of high school living with Gran, because my parents couldn’t stomach having a gay son.
Vermont is my home now, and I love it there. Michigan is just a sore spot, and always will be.
I never should have agreed to this.
For the past few years, my parents and I have had a polite relationship based on greeting cards and the occasional short phone call. Right after Gran’s stroke was the first time I’d seen them in years. That had only been for a couple of minutes. And it didn’t go that well.
But my dad had begged me to come home for a little family visit. So here I am. Following all the other passengers, I get off the plane and walk through the terminal for the first time since I was sixteen.
Weirdly, everything looks exactly the same, down to the blue carpet and the sparse count of gates. Beyond security, I see the same old Starbucks on the left-hand side. And all around me I hear the flattened-vowel sounds of the Midwest.
It’s trippy. Like I’ve time-traveled.
“Rik!”
The universe snaps back into focus when I hear my boyfriend call my name. And there’s Graham, jogging toward me, a big smile on his face.
Damn. That smile makes me so fucking happy. And so does the rest of the picture—wide shoulders, long legs. He’s wearing a V-neck sweater over a dress shirt, and a pair of khakis. He probably left church early to pick me up. The shirt is open at the collar, and my hungry gaze gets stuck on the V of smooth, golden skin on his chest. I wanted to put my mouth right there. And then unbutton the shirt a little farther…
But as he closes in, it occurs to me to wonder what the next two seconds will bring. More smiles and a slap on the back?
A kiss? No—not that. My Graham does not do PDA.
The mystery is solved when Graham steps in close and pulls me into a tight hug. Seriously, my ribs are compromised by two very strong arms squeezing me. It doesn’t last long, but the hug is accompanied by a happy sigh. “Missed you,” he whispers before releasing me.
I just stand there like a dope for a moment, taking him in. Graham’s skin is a warm color even in the winter. Those cool blue eyes study me, and I start to grin. “If I have to come to fucking Michigan, at least I get to look at you.”
His smile fades. “You get to look at me some. But I have some bad news.”
“Yeah?” My stomach drops.
He sighs. “Today my mom called your house and asked if your family could come over for dinner tomorrow or the next night. But your mother, uh, declined. She said she was keeping you busy with family things, because they haven’t seen you in so long.”
“Wait. Is that the bad news?”
He frowns. “Yeah.”
I laugh out loud. “Shit, G. I thought you were going to cancel our trip to Chicago.”
He puts a hand on my back, steering me down the ramp toward the baggage claim. “Hell no. But the weekend is days from now. I thought you’d be over for dinner tomorrow, or at least out with me somewhere. And now it sounds like she’s going to hold you hostage. You have luggage?”
“Just the carryon. I travel light in case I have to make a quick getaway.”
I’d meant it as a joke, but Graham winces. “You know that you can call me any time, right? If this visit isn’t working for you, just send me a text and I’ll pick you up.”
“Thanks.” He will, too. And what’s more, his parents would be happy to see me. When Graham finally came out to his mother in the spring, she hugged him while he cried.
My parents? They cried, and then began reading literature about conversion camps.
But my grandmother told them, “Just bring him to me. He’s going to love Vermont.”
Thank God for Gran. She’s my real family now. She’s the one I’d brought my high school boyfriend home to meet. She helped me pick out my tux before prom. She and I watch Game of Thrones together, rating the men on a scale of one to ten. (Gran has a thing for Jorah.)
And the so-called parents I’m a half hour away from seeing? I have no idea how this awkward little adventure will go. Anything could happen. My stomach does a dip and roll as I follow Graham down the familiar corridor, past the baggage claim, and toward the glass doors to the outside. But then I halt in surprise. “Where did that come from?”
“What?” Graham turns around.
I point at the structure looming in front of us. “There didn’t used to be a parking garage here. It was just a lot before.”
“Sure…” My boyfriend’s forehead crinkles as he studies me. “They built this because it snows so much. Everyone’s car was buried when they flew back after that Florida vacation.”
“Oh,” I say, my blood pressure inexplicably elevated. Normally, I don’t give a crap about parking garages. And even though the sameness inside the airport made me feel crazy, the differentness outside is almost worse.
This place makes me feel off-balance, like the earth has shifted under my feet. I just want to go home where nobody will judge me.
Fuck you, Michigan. The whole mitten state can kiss my big gay ass.
Graham reaches out to squeeze my elbow. “Come on,” he says softly. “My mom’s car is on the first level.”
Unfortunately, Grand Rapids is a small enough town that it only takes Graham a half hour to drive me home, including hitting the drive-through at a Starbucks and then talking in the car for ten minutes together.
“Did you rent a car for Chicago? If you didn’t have time, I’ll do it.” I sip my cappuccino while holding Graham’s hand with my free one.
His thumb strokes my palm. “Yeah. Did it right away. Did you write your toast yet?”
“Not exactly. But how hard could it be? I’m going to tell a couple of funny snowboarding stories.” Shit. That sounds dumb. “My toast is going to suck. But I’ll make it short.”
“It won’t suck. Tell ’em how Skippy taught you to snowboard because he saw that the flatlander needed help.”
I’d forgotten about that. “Not bad, G. You want to write this thing? You’re the journalist. Please? I’ll make it worth your while.”
He snickers. “You sit with it a while longer. I’ll read it for you when you think it’s done.”
“All right.”
“Are you ready?” he asks me, and suddenly we’re talking about my folks’ place again.
“I guess.”
“Your dad’s been after you to visit a while now,” he points out. “He wouldn’t invite you here to make you miserable.”
I consider that. It’s true that Dad had wanted me to visit over the summer. But I hadn’t done it. Graham had come to Vermont for the summer instead.
Those were nice months. Since Gran had relocated to the main floor of the farmhouse, where it was easier for her to move around, Graham and I had the whole second floor to ourselves. We worked some daytime shifts at a farm stand nearby and spent our nights having very quiet sex on the twin beds we’d lassoed together to make a king-sized space.
Best summer ever.
But Dad had kept at me to come to Michigan. And this after several years where he’d seemed to forget I exist? Gran put him up to it, I think. That traitor.
So here I sit.
“I’ll survive it,” I grumble. Dropping my coffee cup into the holder, I reach for Graham.
In spite of our frightening history of car-kisses in Michigan, he doesn’t even check to see if anyone might be watching. He leans in, his cool eyes locked on mine. Then they flip shut as we connect properly for the first time in way too long. The first kiss is slow and loaded with too much tension. Parents. The holidays. Tuxes. A speech.
“Baby,” I whisper against his lips. I cup his face in one hand, and his smooth jaw is so achingly familiar that I begin to relax. I touch my tongue to the seam of his lips, and he opens on a sigh.
The next kiss is deep and slow for all the right reasons. The slide of his tongue against mine is everything I need. My fingers find their way onto his sturdy chest, and our teeth click as we try to make it linger.
But we’re in the cramped front seat of a Subaru, and I’m due at the parents’ place now. Reluctantly, I ease back, breaking the kiss with a groan of frustration. “That will have to tide me over.”
He grunts with unhappiness and sits back in his seat. Then he turns the key and starts the engine, and I try not to imagine that Graham is driving me toward my doom.
