He was so fucking fine and seeing him last night had been sobering. Everything inside me seemed to realign when I was around him. Easton made me feel like I was the center of the universe, like I could be however I wanted and he’d be into it.

Being myself in front of people I didn’t know was not easy for me. Even with my friends I was closed off and guarded at times. I was always on the lookout for what was going on, mindful of the space I was taking up. Aware of all the different ways people were looking at me. How I was coming off, and the assumptions people were making about me.

A black man had to always think about the space he was in.

Most of the time it seemed like people were looking right through me. Not Easton.

He looked at me like my friends and my mother looked at me. Like he could see all of me. The me on the outside and the me on the inside, and that fucking scared me. There was too much I didn’t want to be seen so clearly. That the Zen thing I tried to go for, the slow movements and the soft voice, were just my way of keeping the almost overpowering frustration I constantly felt from spilling out.

Easton was so lighthearted, like he’d never known pain. The guy’s job was to prosecute SVU cases. I knew he saw heinous shit day in and day out, and yet his face was always as open as a blue sky. No hurt, no bitterness. Such certainty everything would be all right. That if you fought the good fight you’d take the day. Like he could show what he felt and didn’t fear anyone would come back later and use it against him.

I didn’t know what to do with that.

Me, I was painfully aware of what it took for me to get the job I had. What I’d had to do, ignore, let go of, overlook or just bury down until it burned out in my gut. I could work ten times as hard as anyone else, get as far ahead as possible, and the feeling like it could all be taken away was ever present.

That was something I never seemed to shake off. Closeness was not something I could do easily. I’d practically given up on getting it from anyone other than my best friends and the family members who continued to speak to me after I came out.

That was until last summer and Easton. As soon as I set eyes on him walking toward Nesto’s truck, those impish green eyes and that perfect smile lured me in. I was still trying to let go. With Easton it was like my heart and my body were working together to override my entire approach to life.

Nesto just shook his head like I confused the fuck out of him. “So?” he said, circling a hand in the air to get me to come out with whatever I was not saying. “How’s he?”