Bonus Chapter: The Long Way Home

A free bonus chapter for Hard Lines by Jace Wilder

The Long Way Home

— Evan —

He drove.

He drove because I had asked him to, on the steps of City Hall at three-fourteen PM on a Friday in March, with the rings on, and with my mother and Mira and Diane and Manny and Carolina and Mateíto on the sidewalk in cold sun and Mateíto in a small grey suit and a bow tie — which had been, by Carolina’s report, negotiated for forty-eight hours — and a small printed paper crown Manny had folded at the breakfast table that morning because Mateíto had — at the breakfast table, in front of the entire family — refused to attend a wedding without one.

I had asked him to drive because I was, on the inside of myself, unable to.

I had been unable to since approximately three-oh-six, which was the moment the judge had said the words and I had — for the first time in my life — said the word yes to a person in front of an audience without my throat doing the thing my throat had been doing for fifteen years, which was the small careful clenching that meant don’t say a true thing in front of a witness who hasn’t been authorized to hear it.

The throat had been authorized.

The audience — Carolina, Manny, Mateíto, Mira, Diane, my mother, Tank, Mateo, and Diego, who had stood next to Rafe at the front in the same charcoal suit he had worn to my open house in December of 2024 and which had, by March of 2026, become the suit Diego put on for Things That Mattered — the audience had been, on the inside of itself, family.

The throat had let me say the word.

I had said it.

He had said it.

Mateíto, in the third row, had — at the moment the judge had said husband and husband, by Carolina’s later report — clapped.

He had been the first.

The rest of them — Mira, my mother, Diego, Tank, Manny, Carolina, Mateo, and the small part of the gallery behind us that had been other couples waiting their turn at City Hall on a Friday afternoon and who had, in their own way, decided to be in the audience for ours — the rest of them had clapped after him.

They had clapped for thirty-eight seconds.

I sat in the passenger seat of the truck on the Taconic at six-forty-eight PM with the wedding ring on my left hand, with the man I had married three hours and thirty-four minutes earlier in the driver’s seat, and I — I — could not, for the first half hour of the drive, say a word.

He let me have it.

He let me have it the way he had let me have everything since September of 2024, which is to say, with the small careful proprietary patience he had been carrying around in his chest for me for eighteen months, and his hand, on the gearshift, where my hand could find it, and the heat in the truck on a setting one notch warmer than I would have set it on my own, and the radio at the volume it was at when he had been the one to set it.

I held his hand on the gearshift.

I held it with the ring against the metal.

Eventually, somewhere outside Hawthorne, with the sun already gone and the dark of the Taconic doing the thing the Taconic did in March at seven PM, I said:

“Rafe.”

He said, “Counselor.”

I said, “Rafe.”

He said, “Yeah.”

I said, “Rafe.“

He said, “Yeah, baby.”

I said, “Yeah.“

He had a ring on. The ring was on his left hand on the gearshift under mine. I had — for three hours and forty-four minutes — been the husband of a man who had a ring on his left hand on a gearshift.

I sat with that for a count.

I said:

“Rafe.“

He said, “Yeah, baby. I know.”

We got to the cabin at eight-oh-seven.

He pulled the truck up to the front of the cabin the way he had been pulling the truck up to the front of the cabin since November of 2025, which was — by my count, by his count, by the count of any neutral observer — the eleventh time.

The cabin had — by March of 2026 — become ours in the way the loft had been his and the brownstone had been mine and the brownstone had then been ours and the cabin had — somewhere around July of 2025, somewhere on a long weekend in August of 2025 — joined the inventory.

The brass plate above the lock of the front door of the cabin was — and this was the thing I had not, on the drive up, been allowing myself to think about — the brass plate had been re-engraved.

The brass plate said: MORENO + HALE — 2026.

He had — at some point in the previous month — driven the original 2025 plate to the metalworker on Van Brunt Street, and he had said to the metalworker, very quietly, in his Spanish, “Necesito que diga 2026,” and the metalworker had said, “Rafa,” and Rafe had said, “Sí,” and the metalworker had — without charging him — re-cast the plate.

I touched it on the way in.

I went in. He came in behind me. He set the bag down. He closed the door. He turned the latch. It was, by my count, the eleventh time he had locked the door of the cabin behind us. It was the first time he had locked it as my husband.

I turned around. He was at the door. He had his hand still on the latch. He looked at me. He held my eye. He held it the way he had held it the first time he had held it, in the foyer of the brownstone in September of 2024 with my Tom Ford navy on me and a printed timeline in my hand and a flush on my throat and his foreman watching from the staircase, and I — I, on the inside of myself, in the cabin, with a wedding ring on, three hours and twenty-three minutes married — I held it back. I held it back without flinching.

He said, very quietly: “Counselor.”

I said, “Husband.“

He stopped. He stopped on the inside of his own face.

He had — in eighteen months — never been stopped by a single word from me. I had stopped him now. I had stopped him with a single word that I had — for fifteen years — not been allowed to use about another man, and which I had — at three-oh-six on a Friday afternoon at City Hall — been authorized to use, and which I had — on a step inside the cabin in March of 2026 at eight-oh-eight PM — used.

He stood at the door. He looked at me. He held my eye for a count of about three seconds, and at the third second, he said, very quietly, in his own voice: “Yeah.“

He came across the floor of the cabin. He came across in three steps. He came up to me at the foot of the ladder up to the loft, and he pulled me into him with both hands at the small of my back the way he had pulled me into him on the steps of the loft in February of 2025 in the kitchen and on the back stoop of the brownstone in May of 2025 and on the chair by the door of the loft on Christmas Eve of 2024, and I — I — went into him.

I went into him with both hands flat on the front of his coat.

He kissed me.

He kissed me on the floor of the cabin in March of 2026 at eight-oh-nine PM on the night I had — for three hours and twenty-five minutes — been his husband, and the kiss was — the kiss was — the kiss of a man who had — for eighteen months — been holding a sentence in his chest that I had finally, in three syllables, given him permission to put down.

He put it down.

He had — somewhere in those three syllables — set down the last piece of him that had been, on the inside of itself, not yet at home.

He was at home now.

I held him. He held me. We held each other for about a minute.

Eventually I said, into the side of his neck: “Rafe.”

He said, “Yeah.”

I said, “Take me to bed, husband.”

He said, “Counselor.“

I said, “Yeah.”

He said, “Yeah, baby.”

He picked me up. He picked me up off the floor of the cabin the way he had picked me up off the floor of the kitchen of the loft on Christmas Eve of 2024 — easily, without comment, with the careful upper-body strength of a man who had been carrying things for eighteen years — and he carried me up the ladder.

I want to be honest about what we did in the loft.

I want to be honest because the what we did was not the slow careful near version that we had been doing in the bed at the brownstone on Sunday mornings for fifteen months, and it was not the sweet first of the bear-skin rug on November fourteenth of 2025, and it was not the long quiet of the cast-iron tub on Christmas night of 2024.

It was not the slow version.

It was — and this is the thing I am putting on the page because the page deserves it — it was the version we had not let ourselves have in eight months because we had been being good to each other in the slow way for eight months, and tonight, on the night I was his husband and he was mine, we — we — let it go.

He got me out of the coat at the top of the ladder. He got me out of the suit jacket at the foot of the bed. He got me out of the dress shirt with both hands, slowly, button by button — and the slowness here was the only slowness — and he, on the third button, slipped his hand inside the shirt and pressed his palm flat against my sternum, and he held it there for a count of about three seconds, the way he had held the silk of my tie in a second-floor bathroom doorway on a Friday night in October of 2024 with two fingers, and he said, very quietly: “Husband.”

I said, “Yeah.”

He said, “Yeah.“

He kissed me hard. He kissed me harder than he had kissed me since approximately the night of the windowsill in November of 2024, and the hard in his kiss tonight was the hard of a man who had been holding back the hard for eight months because he had been being good to me, and tonight he was not being good to me, and tonight I — I — did not want him to be.

I said, into his mouth, “Rough, Rafe.“

He said, “Yeah?“

I said, “Yeah.“

He said, “Yeah, baby.“

He turned me around. He turned me without breaking the kiss. He turned me by the shoulders the way he had turned me at the foot of the staircase of the brownstone in October of 2024 — with the casual proprietary force of a man who had decided where my body was going to be in the next half-second — and my back went against the post of the bed in the loft, and his weight came against me, and his mouth went down to the side of my neck, and he bit me.

He bit me at the spot under my jaw he had bitten the first night on the staircase, the spot he had been kissing at varying levels of pressure for eighteen months, and tonight he bit it the way he had bit it the first time, and my entire body — with the wedding ring on, with three and a half hours of marriage on it — went off.

I made the sound. I made the sound I had been making since October of 2024.

He worked the rest of the shirt off me. He worked the belt. He worked the trousers. He got me down to skin against the post of the bed in the loft of the cabin in March of 2026 with the only light in the loft the small sconce on the wall, and the light was warm, and the cabin was warm, and his hands were on me, and his hands were not — for the first time in eight months — being patient.

He worked his own clothes off with the same speed. He did it standing in front of me. He let me — for the first time in eighteen months in a way that was not about the slow service of the slow version — watch him.

I watched him strip with his eyes on mine and the wedding ring on his left hand catching the small warm light of the sconce, and his body — the body I had been seeing at every angle for eighteen months, the body that was, on the inside of itself, forty-three years old, and a contractor, and a man, and mine — and I — I — held my eye on him through the entire thing.

He came back to me. He came back to me at the post of the bed. He pinned me there. He pinned me with his hands on my wrists at the post.

He said, very quietly, into my ear: “Counselor.”

I said, “Yeah.”

He said, “Husband.“

I said, “Yeah.”

He said, “Yeah.“

He worked me with his hand the way he had worked me on the staircase of the brownstone in October of 2024 — with the slow careful patience of a man who knew exactly what he was doing — but the patience tonight was a thinner patience, the patience of a man who had been waiting for eight months to do this with the rough, and the rough was — was — was the rough.

He worked me until I was — by my count — about thirty seconds from coming. Then he let go.

He let go and he held my wrists at the post for a count, and he said, into my ear: “Not yet.“

I said, “Rafe.“

He said, “Yeah.”

I said, “Husband.“

He said, “Yeah, baby.“

He turned me. He turned me at the wrists, with my back to him, against the post. He pressed his chest against my back. He worked the rest of the way ready with one hand against the post above my head and the other on the lube he had — at some point in the half hour between us climbing the ladder and now — gotten out of the small drawer in the nightstand.

He pushed in. He pushed in slow.

The slow at the entry was not the slow of the slow version. It was the slow at the entry of a man who had — for eighteen months — known how to enter me and was, at the entry tonight, taking the time the entry deserved, but the slow at the entry was a slow that had — on the other side of it — the speed.

The speed was on the other side. I felt it the moment he was all the way in. I felt his entire weight settle against my back — the chest, the stomach, the pelvis, the upper thighs — and I felt him hold there for a count of about three seconds, and I felt him breathe once, and then I felt him —

I felt him go.

He fucked me against the post of the bed in the loft of the cabin in March of 2026 with his hands at my wrists at the post, with my forehead against the wood, with the wedding ring on his left hand catching the light from the sconce above our heads, and the fuck, on the inside of itself, was the fuck.

It was the fuck I had been waiting for since the first Friday in October of 2024.

It was the fuck he had been holding back for eight months.

It was the fuck of a man who was, on the inside of his body, finally allowed to fuck his husband on the night of his wedding without any further consideration of what tomorrow was going to be.

We had no tomorrow. We had no tomorrow in the sense of — for the first time in eighteen months together — we had zero obligations the next morning. We had — for the next forty-eight hours — only this.

He fucked me until I was — I, with my hand on the post and my forehead on the wood and his hand at the back of my neck and his weight on my back — making sounds I would not, on any prior night in any of the prior thousand encounters in eighteen months, have authorized at the volume.

He let me make them. He let me make them because the cabin was in the woods and there was no one for half a mile and the cabin had — for eight months, since he had insulated the loft himself — been a place the sound did not go anywhere.

I made the sounds. He made his.

He was not quiet tonight. He was, on the inside of himself, the not quiet I had been hearing on the inside of his chest for eighteen months and had not, until tonight, heard out loud. He said my name into the back of my neck three times, and the first time was Evan, and the second time was Husband, and the third time was Yeah, husband. Yeah.

I came against the post of the bed.

I came untouched, again, the way I had been coming with him for eighteen months, with my hand white-knuckled on the post above my head and my forehead against the wood and his teeth at the curve where the shoulder met the neck, and I — I — I said his name, and I said it loud, and I said it the way the sound of a name comes out of a man on his wedding night, and he held me through it.

He held me through the entire shudder. He kept going through it. He kept going for — I do not know how long — but the kept-going was a slow easing-down, and at some point in the slow easing-down, he — he, on the inside of his body, with his husband under him on a wedding night in March of 2026 in a cabin in the woods upstate — let himself come.

He came inside me with my name in his mouth. He said it twice. He said it the second time as a prayer. He said it as the kind of prayer you say when you are, on the inside of your own body, looking at a thing you have been given for the first time in your entire life — and the prayer is the only language available, and the only word in it, on the inside of itself, is the name.

He said Evan.

He said it twice. The second time was the prayer.

I held the post of the bed. He held me against the post. We did not — for a long count — move.

The cabin was quiet around us. The sconce was on. The cold of the March night was outside. The cabin was warm.

After.

After, with him still inside me, with both his hands now on my hips and his forehead against my upper back, with the small careful tremor going out of me in stages — I let go of the post.

He brought me to the bed. He brought me down to the bed slowly. He laid me on my back on the wool blanket on the queen bed in the loft of the cabin in March of 2026, and he came down on top of me, with one elbow next to my head, and his other hand at the side of my face, and his weight against me, and he kissed me.

He kissed me slow. He kissed me with the kind of slow we had been doing on Sunday mornings in the brownstone for fifteen months, but the slow tonight was — was — the slow of a man who had just fucked me against a bed post on his wedding night and was, on the other side of it, taking me back to the slow because the slow was the language of the rest of our life, and the rough was the language of tonight, and the both was the language of us.

The both was us.

The both had been us for eighteen months.

We did the slow for a long time. He worked me with the slow. He worked me — as it turned out, on a wedding night, with no obligations in the morning, with no clocks, with the cabin around us and the cold outside and the warm inside — to a second one.

I came for the second time on the bed in the loft of the cabin in March of 2026 with both his hands at the sides of my face and his eyes on mine, and I said his name into the inside of his mouth, and the name was — was — was a name with a husband on it now.

It was a husband‘s name.

He said it back. He said, into my mouth, very quietly: “Husband.“

I said, “Yeah.”

He said, “Yeah.“

We did not, in the night, sleep right away.

We lay on the bed in the loft for about an hour without moving. He held me on his chest, the way he had been holding me on his chest for eighteen months. I held the side of his face. The sconce went off, eventually, on the timer he had — of course — installed.

The cabin went dark. The cold outside was real, but the cabin had the small wood stove going on the first floor that he had — before we had even gotten in the truck this afternoon — driven up here to start in the morning at six AM, and the small wood stove had been going for fourteen hours when we walked in, and the cabin — the cabin — was warm.

After a long count, with my head on his chest, I said: “Rafe.”

He said, “Yeah.”

I said, “Husband.“

He said, “Yeah.”

I said, “Tomorrow morning.”

He said, “Yeah.”

I said, “I want to do that again.“

He said, “Counselor.“

I said, “Yeah.”

He said, “Yeah, baby.“

I said, “Yeah.“

He said, “Yeah, husband.“

I closed my eyes. I lay against his chest. I felt his ring against the bare skin of my back. I — for the first time in my entire adult life, on the inside of my own body, with a ring on my own hand and a ring on his — fell asleep on a man on a wedding night.

I slept hard.

In the morning, he was up first. He was downstairs. He was — by the smell — making coffee on the small two-burner stove. He was — by the smell of butter and shallots — making eggs.

I came down the ladder at seven-eleven AM in his t-shirt — the t-shirt, the t-shirt that had been in our life since October of 2024 — and bare feet on the cold pine floor of the cabin.

He was at the small stove. He was in jeans and the wool sweater. He had — I noticed — flour on the inside of his wrist, which meant he was, at some point in the next fifteen minutes, going to also be making biscuits.

I came up to him at the stove from behind. I put both arms around his middle. I pressed my forehead into the back of his neck. I held him there for a count.

I said, into his neck: “Husband.”

He said, “Counselor.”

I said, “Husband.“

He said, “Yeah, baby.”

He said, “Husband.“

I said, “Yeah.”

He turned in my arms. He kissed me on the top of the head. He held me for a count, with the spatula in his hand and the eggs in the pan behind him, and he said, into my hair: “Yeah, husband.“

I held him. He held me.

Outside the cabin, the cold March morning was starting to go from gray to the kind of yellow it went when the sun came over the trees at seven-thirty, and the brass plate on the front door of the cabin said: MORENO + HALE — 2026.

It said it on the front of the plate. It said it on the inside of the plate. It said it on the inside of my ring, in the same Roman caps the metalworker on Van Brunt Street had now — for two and a half years — been making for our family.

It would say it for the rest of our life.

I held him. He held me. The eggs were going. The biscuits were coming. The cabin was warm. The man in my arms was — for the first time in my entire life, on the inside of my own body, on the morning after a wedding night — my husband, and the word was available, and the word was mine, and the word was — for what it was, on a Saturday morning in March of 2026 in a cabin in the woods upstate, the morning after a Friday in March I had been waiting for since I was nineteen years old in a kitchen on the Upper East Side I could not afford — enough.

It was enough.

He turned back to the stove. He kept his arm around my back. He cooked the eggs with one hand. I rested my temple against his shoulder. I did not move.

The cabin smelled like coffee and butter and shallots and the clean dry smell of cold wood being heated in the small stove on the floor below, and I — I — I held him. He held me.

We had — for the rest of the morning, for the rest of the weekend, for the rest of our life — time.

We had time. Yeah. We had time.

Thank you for reading. If Evan and Rafe wrecked you, the single best thing you can do is leave a review.

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