Covet Thy Neighbor

brother had such an attitude the day we came to check out the apartment. He’s even angrier about what happened to me than I am, and he’s terrified it’ll happen here too.”
    “Do you think it will?”
    “I don’t know.” Darren absently brushed a few unruly strands of hair off his forehead. “The congregation is very open-minded, and probably better than half are gay themselves. Plus the pastor’s brother was gay. But . . . pastors move around, congregations change. Anything’s possible, really.”
    “Hopefully it’ll stay the way it is, then.”
    “Hopefully.” He swallowed hard. “By the way, about that first night . . .” He trailed off, and I didn’t say anything as he apparently struggled to find the words. Finally, “I don’t usually do that. In fact, I’ve never done it. Never when I just met a guy. But there was something about you from the beginning that I couldn’t ignore. And it was more than the attraction. In a way, knowing you were an atheist made you . . . safer.”
    “Safer?”
    He nodded, avoiding my eyes. “I was pretty sure you were gay, and judging by the bumper sticker, you were an atheist. Which meant I didn’t have to be on guard, worried you were going to shove me away because I’m gay. You didn’t strike me as the type who’d invite me to a neighborhood barbecue but then subtly try to keep me away from all the kids.”
    My jaw dropped. “People did that?”
    “All the time.” He rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. “And after feeling like a pariah for so long, to the point I had to leave the state, I can’t even tell you what a relief it was to be having a couple of beers with someone who just took me as I was. And I guess I got more carried away with that—with you—than I usually would.” He met my eyes. “Because for the first time in a long time, I felt . . . safe. You were safe.”
    More than anything, that part hit me in the gut. “My God, I am so sorry.”
    “You couldn’t have known what I was dealing with,” he said softly.
    “But apparently we both know what it’s like to be burned for who we are. Maybe we have more common ground than I thought.”
    “Maybe.” Darren held my gaze. “My beliefs aren’t going to change. And I don’t want yours to change either. You’re not a project for me, Seth. I didn’t look at you in the beginning and think, ‘This guy’s great except for one or two things that I’ll fix later.’” He paused. “But if we’re going to take this forward, then that has to go both ways.”
    I slipped my hand into his. “I wouldn’t try to change you, either. I don’t want anything about you to change. Honestly, I don’t. I was just . . .”
    “Scared?”
    “Yeah.” I ran my thumb back and forth along his hand. “I am so sorry, Darren.”
    “You were trying to protect yourself.” He squeezed my hand. “I can’t really hold that against you.” He put his other hand on top of ours. “All I can ask you to do is have faith in me.”
    I swallowed hard, my stomach fluttering and my throat constricting. Just knowing he still had faith in me after I’d hurt him like that was overwhelming as hell. Hearing him ask me to have that in him—and wondering how I’d ever thought I couldn’t—was . . . more than I could process.
    “Talk to me, Seth,” he said.
    “I’m not good at putting a lot of faith into anything.” I touched his face and drew him closer. “But I think I can make an exception for you.”
    His whole body relaxed. “Thank you.”
    “Just so you know,” I whispered, touching my forehead to his, “this scares the hell out of me.”
    “I know.” His hand slid around the back of my neck. “Me too.”
    With that, he kissed me. He wasn’t so aggressive this time. His kiss was almost tentative. Bordering on delicate. Maybe he wanted to savor it, maybe he was afraid even the slightest push would break this spell. He wasn’t so aggressive, and neither was I, but that didn’t make the long kiss any less arousing.
    When we finally came up for air, we were both breathless.
    I combed my fingers through his hair. “So how opposed are you to getting carried away like we did the first night?”
    Darren’s lips curved against mine. “Not opposed at all.”
    “Good.”

I couldn’t say for certain how we made it from the living room into my bedroom. There was kissing—that intense kissing I’d only ever experienced with Darren—and stumbling and touching, and somehow, at the end of