Ship It(95)

His mouth is warm on mine, and I can feel him holding back a smile. His hands move up my back, strong, yet gentle, letting me know he’s got me, it’s okay, I’m okay, this is okay.

I run my hand around his neck and up into his hair, and I’m astonished by a feeling in my gut that says, This is hot.

This is hot. Before, I might have been afraid of that feeling, but today I don’t run away from it, I just let myself feel everything I’m feeling.

And then he slips his mouth open and my tongue dips in, and the kiss deepens until I can feel it everywhere. His whiskers scratch my cheeks, and there is a tightness in my chest and I’m a little afraid I might cry, but I don’t, I just let the feeling wash over me and fill me up.

I don’t know for sure that this is what Smokey wanted; I can’t promise that he was in love with Heart, but I have to admit, it does feel right.

Gradually, I begin to hear the screaming of the crowd, which can’t be ignored anymore because it’s truly deafening. A thousand flashes of a thousand phones are firing at once, and I slowly, slowly become aware of reality.

We finally pull apart, and I open my eyes and find him right there looking back at me, cheeks flushed, smiling.

I bring my hand up to rest it tenderly on his cheek. His hair is a mess from where my fingers ran through it. I realize this might be my only chance to do something I’ve always wanted to do. I touch his eye crinkles, which only makes them crinkle harder. His hand lingers on my back, like he’s not ready to let this moment go, not yet. Neither am I.

I look into his eyes and whisper, “Thank you.” He nods and I wonder if he felt what I felt.

Magic.

As if to punctuate it, he gives me another kiss, this time on the cheek, and I have to bite my lip to keep from grinning as we turn out to face the audience and wave as the crowd goes absolutely bananas. I look over at Claire, and she’s just staring at us, mouth literally hanging open. I wave her over, and she joins me on my other side like she’s in a daze and it makes me laugh.

It feels like the three of us, arm in arm, could do anything.


I HAVE SO much love in my heart for Forest Reed right now. That is, I would if I still had a heart, which I don’t, because my insides have completely liquefied and are pooled at my feet. I don’t even know how I’m still standing—it’s possible that I fainted and hit my head and this whole panel has been one long fantasy dreamed up by my subconscious.

But on the off chance this is real, I am going to die remembering this moment. I am going to watch the YouTube videos of those thirty seconds every single day until I am old and withered. I will make my children and grandchildren watch them. And they won’t be impressed because in the future everyone will be gay, but I’ll tell them of a time when it was different, when kissing another guy onstage at Comic-Con meant laying your job on the line, and put tears in the eyes of every queer and maybe-queer person in an entire enormous auditorium. When a gesture like that could make a difference.

This whole time, I thought the only person who had any influence on this issue was Jamie Davies. And it’s true, he’s the only one who can make it real on the show. But you know what else is nice? Being seen.

Today Forest finally sees us. Today we ship it together.

The panel goes on a little longer as Forest and Rico answer as many questions as they can get to before their time is up and the con organizers have to actually come onstage (to no small amount of booing) in order to tell us to stop. Jamie never returns, and Forest doesn’t get any more questions about Red Zone—maybe the gamers left, or maybe they just read the room and realized this was not their moment. I’d like to think they were quietly moved by what happened, and they all went on their phones and added Demon Heart to their Netflix queues.

I keep catching Tess’s eye in the audience. She is honestly glowing, and she’s smiling this smile that’s a mixture of pride and wonder, and she is so cute I want a poster of the expression she’s making to hang over my bed in my bedroom because I never want to stop looking at it.

When the time is finally up, I end the panel, and there’s a standing ovation that makes my heart swell because I couldn’t be prouder of Forest and Rico. They wave and wave and wave and finally make their way off the stage, and instead of following them, I jump right down into the crowd, pushing my way through to get to her.

Tess pulls me into her arms immediately and I’m kissing her and I don’t care that there are a thousand people watching us and pushing past us and clapping for us, I am just so happy. And then there’s a flash and I pull away and Mom just took a freaking picture of us.

“Mom!”

“What, honey bunny, you looked so cute!” She’s standing next to my dad, who is clutching Mom’s purse to his chest and looking like his heart might explode. What a sap.

“Do not post that anywhere,” I say.

“Hi, Tess!” Mom says, ignoring me.

“Hi, Trudi; hi, Claire’s dad,” Tess says.

Dad looks like he’s too choked up to answer, so he just lets go of Mom’s purse with one hand and reaches over to shake her hand.

“His name is Chuck,” I say.

“We’re so proud of you,” Mom says, bringing the phone back up to take another picture as people bump past us, streaming up the aisle toward the exits.

“Mom, stop!”