As if he was the opposite, the mayor grew tenser. You could see it in the lines of his shoulders, the twitch in his jaw, the little sideways looks he shot Vince, the anger in his eyes. And when the line was finished, when the last person had offered condolences, I knew the mayor was going to turn on his son. So I stepped between them while Vince was distracted by my mother.
Andrew Taylor stared at me like I was nothing better than the shit he’d scrape off the bottom of his shoe. I didn’t feel bad at all about not voting for the guy. “Don’t,” I told him quietly, just for him to hear. “Don’t do that now. It’s not about you. It’s not even about him. It’s about your wife. So don’t.”
“Do you have any idea who you’re talking to?” he growled like some clichéd heavyweight. I felt sad for him.
“Frankly?” I asked. “I couldn’t care less. He’s no longer your concern. He doesn’t belong to you anymore. We’ve got it from here, Mayor. I’m sorry about your wife, I really am. But you don’t get to make this worse for him. Not now. Not today. If I were you, I’d start focusing on what you’ve lost and what you can gain, rather than something that you don’t agree with.”
“He told us about you,” he said, taking a step closer. “Me and his mother. How you’d just met. How he’s certain that you’re it for him. He’s going to leave you, just like he did us.”
I shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. Unlike you, I won’t give him reason to.”
“Paul,” Darren called sharply. “We got to go.”
“He’ll be with me,” I said, “if you ever change your mind. But if you don’t, that’s your choice. I don’t care who you are—if you try and hurt him, I will break you in half.”
Andrew laughed. “You? You’re nothing.”
I smiled. “Your son thinks I’m something. And that’s enough for me.”
And just as I pulled off that wicked awesome exit line, I spun on my heels and didn’t trip and face-punch a wall or anything, even though it was what I expected. I might or might not have walked away a little bit slower and with more care than I normally did to make sure that I didn’t embarrass myself before leaving the church. After all, how often does one get to tell off one’s boyfriend’s father in God’s house and pull off some badassness before walking away practically in slow motion? One does not get to do that often.
But apparently God has a funny sense of humor because I could see them all watching me, especially Vince, and I opened my mouth to say something to him, anything to continue my streak of being amazing, but instead, I accidentally sneezed and burped at the same time and it was pretty freaking gross. And, of course, it echoed throughout the church and several conversations near me stopped as people turned to stare at me, convinced, I’m sure, that I was possessed, and a demon was trying to crawl its way out of my mouth. I expected priests to come running at me, spraying me with holy water, screaming in Latin about how the power of Christ compelled me and the demon needed to be gone from my earthly body.
“We can’t take you anywhere,” Sandy muttered.
“That was very manly,” Dad said.
“I’m pretty sure I thought he was barking at me,” Nana mused.
“He used to do that as a child,” Mom reminisced. “It’s even grosser as an adult.”
“Is he the man in your relationship?” Darren asked Vince. “Does he tell you to go make you a sandwich in the kitchen while he sits in his recliner and scratches his balls?”
“You can’t say balls in church,” I scolded. “Jesus might hear you.”
“I think Jesus is running away from you,” Vince said.
And just because I wanted to, and just because I could, on the thirteenth day after I’d met him, I kissed him in the church.
The world, interestingly enough, did not explode.
Take that, homophobes!
WE WERE the last ones at the cemetery. Vince wanted a chance to sit with his mother after everyone else had left. I asked him quite clearly if he wanted me to go as well, but he shook his head, gripping my hand tightly as the rest of the mourners cleared out, heading to the mayoral mansion for continued services. Vince hadn’t wanted to go to that, as he was almost done with the day.
It was odd, really, sitting next to the hole in the ground that contained a mahogany box holding his mother. The employees at the memorial grounds understood that we needed a bit more time and could complete their interring once Vince was ready to go. It probably didn’t hurt that I reminded them who he was and who was being buried. They nodded and drifted away, starting to stack chairs and moving flowers.