If he was being honest, he also wanted to protect himself, or, rather, to protect the happiness Nick had brought into his life. That happiness, like the touch of Nick’s breath on his face when they lay in bed at night, was pervasive but fragile. The joy Nick gave him could often completely still the small throb of anxiety that had been like a second heartbeat since he had boarded the Greyhound bus to San Francisco on that long-ago summer day in Eden Plains. For a little while, the world faded from view and it was as if he and Nick were sitting at a campfire, wrapped in and warmed by the simple fact of each other’s existence. But then Bill would become aware that the fire was a small one, the reach of its light was limited, and that behind them, above them and around them was a creaking, teeming, devouring, primeval darkness. When that happened, he was terror-stricken and he grabbed at a startled Nick, unable to explain fears so overwhelming he did not have words for them, only sensations, above all, the sensation of impending loss.

Bill had never been in love before. What he’d felt for Marco had been a schoolboy crush coupled with the ache of sexual loneliness. The dust of his quarrelsome affair with Michael—all fighting and fucking—had never settled long enough for real feelings to emerge. He loved Nick and it was not at all what he had expected it to be, the mushy sentimentality of pop songs, a warm and homey sentiment, the emotional equivalent of oatmeal and raisins on a cold morning. Love was exhilaration alternating with terror, a steep and jagged path through a dark tangle of fear that led him to a mountaintop. It was all-consuming and exhausting. He had never been happier; he had never been more anxious.

Nick opened the San Francisco Chronicle he had picked up at the doorstep and began to read the front page.

“Reagan thinks ketchup should count as a vegetable for school kids,” he said disgustedly. “That asshole. I still can’t believe he’s president.”

After a moment, Bill said, quietly, “I voted for him.”

Nick crumpled the corners of the newspaper. “You what?”

“I’m a businessman. He was the better candidate for business.”

“You’re also gay, and this guy is surrounded by religious anti-gay bigots like Falwell and that woman, Schlafly.”

“Like I said, baby, I’m in business. I have to think about more than being gay.”

“Not me,” Nick said. “If I’d know you were a Republican, I would never have dated you.”