We do not know the true value of our moments until they have undergone the test of memory.
He remembered the scent of the roses that grew thick and wild beyond the edge of his parent's property—in the baking heat of a Virginia summer, their perfume would saturate the the air and weigh down his limbs, pressing him into the cool grass and as he stared up at a blazing white sky, wondering what he'd be when he grew up. It was a languorous sensation, warm and comforting in its familiarity. He knew there'd be a good meal with vegetables his mom would make him eat, and a clean bed, and his father's voice when he came home from the office. Summer days stretched ahead endlessly, beautifully, each one a newly minted currency, to be spent with abandon. Those summer days he remembered as being hopeful, exciting, anchored in the rhythms of his father's stern love and his mother's unwavering devotion.
In high school he'd had a girlfriend who was very poor and years later he admitted to himself that was part of the attraction. He was Prince Charming to her Cinderella and every casual thing he did for her was met with wide-eyed amazement. Maybe that's when he learned that helping someone in trouble was like a drug but gratitude embarrassed him. But what he remembered most was the cold winter days when he'd take her chapped, reddened hands in his and blow on her fingers while they waited for the bus. They broke up after he gave her mittens for Christmas, when his breath no longer bathed their hands in warmth on frost-covered mornings. Nevertheless, he never forgot the sensation of being able to conquer the world, all for the look in a pair of loving brown eyes.
The one and only time he'd fallen in love with a man, he'd been stretching out prior to a run in a park near his home. A yellow lab mix had gotten her leash wound around a light pole. He'd just been untying her when a man with hazel eyes and an easy smile had run up beside them, out of breath but managing to scold the dog gently between gasps of thanks for getting her untangled. They'd ended up running together, all three of them, and then going for coffee. Eventually they lived together and over the course of the ten months they'd shared, he learned about trust and what really mattered between two people was what they were to each other, not what other people thought they were.
Since coming back to New York, he'd been every kind of lonely ever invented. At first he'd been occupied trying to fit in, to prove himself to Jack and the others. Then he'd fallen into something that he knew was a lie from the beginning, so desperate to make a connection that he'd gone into it with his eyes closed. The nearest he'd ever gotten to the kind of intimacy he craved was trying to make scones in Sam's kitchen one Sunday morning; she'd been in an uncharacteristically playful mood and flour had ended up everywhere, in their hair, on the floor, in the sink. They'd laughed and made love, but even then he'd known they were a mistake—and the closeness he really wanted, with the person he wanted, wasn't his to claim. It'd made his breakup with Sam easier, because if he couldn't have who he wanted, then he would have no one at all.
And that's all he thought he'd have, until flirting wasn't enough and a tug on his hand had led to the privacy of a stairwell. A moment of separation, each of them searching for confirmation in the gaze of the other—and then an embrace that felt like coming home.
"Martin?" Soft, questing lips moving against his mouth, humor and uncertainty in Danny's whisper. "What are you thinking?"
"Thinking?" Martin tightened his arms beneath Danny's suit jacket. Every sweet memory, every hard-won lesson, every sensation of loving and being loved—that's what he was thinking of as he savored Danny's kiss, their first kiss, bestowed with such eager tenderness he thought his heart would shatter. He shook his head and smiled. "Not thinking, remembering."
Their mouths met again, quickly, a tease, a promise. "Good memories?" Danny asked, shining eyes betraying the amused tone.
"Yeah," Martin murmured. He cupped the back of Danny's head and just before their third kiss (and he was counting—he planned on counting them all) managed to add, "but nothing compared to the ones we're about to make."
Part of the Delaware series (don't ask), with the following prompts: roses, mittens, a friendly mutt, a first kiss and flour.
The title is a Dan Fogelberg song from The Innocent Age album.
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