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In the back of the cab heading home, Ray reaches across to take Kevin’s hand, interlocking their fingers. Illuminated by the glimpses of passing street lights, he can see Kevin smiling. Ray is pleasantly buzzed and deeply content.
“It was fun tonight,” Kevin observes, still looking out the window.
“It was.” He pauses, unsure that he should say what he’s about to. His blood alcohol level doesn’t help his cognitive process. “I’m glad you were able to enjoy yourself.”
Kevin is silent for several long moments. In the shifting lights and shadows Ray can see that he’s thinking, phrasing, rehearsing.
“These people are important to you. I ought to try harder. For your sake.”
Ray doesn’t quite know what to say to that, so he squeezes Kevin’s hand, hard, for a moment. Kevin glances down at their joined hands.
“The ceremony was beautiful. You did very well.”
“Thank you. I hope it wasn’t overly sentimental.”
“Not at all. The concept of marriage as sustenance is… very poetic.”
“I don’t know much about poetry,” Ray replies. “Though there is this fellow living in my house who reads some to me every night.”
Kevin smiles, and leans in for a kiss. When he pulls away, Ray lifts his hand to Kevin’s neck and holds him close, foreheads almost touching.
“It was for you,” Ray says. “You sustain me.”
Fire blazes right below the surface when Kevin captures his lips for another kiss. It's one of the advantages to being married to a poetry lover, Ray thinks. If one says sentimental, saccharine things like that while semi-drunk, one's spouse is filled with ardour, rather than laughing you out of the room. When they break apart there's a flash of You just wait 'till we get home in Kevin's eyes.
"I love you too," Kevin says.
He leans back in his seat, looking out the window again with a smile playing on his lips, still holding on to Ray's hand.
"How about a Christmas wedding?"
Ray strokes the inside of Kevin's wrist with his thumb.
"Christmas sounds good."