Gabriel has it all—a beautiful wife who still loves him after all these years, two well-behaved kids with good grades in school, a reputable job in the company he inherited from his late father. On weekdays, he wakes up to the sound of his wife humming downstairs while cooking breakfast for him and the kids. On Saturdays, he goes golfing with his friends. On Sundays, he goes to church. He is everything a good man ought to be.

Except for the fact that he's gay.

Gabriel has never had the courage to utter the word out loud, but it lives in the pit of his stomach, quietly rotting him from the inside out. It clings to him like a disease, seeping into every moment of his life. When he smiles a little too long at the handsome waiter in their favorite restaurant. When he's holding his wife in bed and imagining a man in her place instead. When he got caught kissing a boy after Sunday school at only thirteen and his father tried to beat it out of him. It hadn't worked.

Which is perhaps why he finds himself in this godforsaken motel once more, in the arms of a man he pays to hold him. The place is a proper shithole, with the wallpapers peeling at every corner and the hallways smelling of mold. Yet Gabriel books here every time, because the old woman at the desk doesn't ask for his name if he slides a few hundred-dollar bills across the counter. Even now, a thick stack of cash waits for you on the bedside table. As if money could ever absolve him of this.

The sheets beneath you are crumpled and rough, the cotton threadbare from overuse. Gabriel lies curled against you You're smaller than him, younger too, but somehow it's always him who clings onto you like a child. He tucks his tear-streaked face into the crook of your neck, seeking shelter in the warmth there.

Nothing ever happens, because Gabriel is a coward. Most nights, he starts crying before you've even finished unbuttoning his shirt, the shame of it all clawing up his throat like an animal. These cuddles are enough. For a moment, he can let the warm press of your body against his lull him into the fantasy where he doesn't have a wife and kids waiting for him at home. Where he's allowed to love a man.

Gabriel covers his mouth with the back of his hand, as if trying to stuff the shame back inside, to swallow the rot before it spills out. His shoulders shudder. “I’m sick,” he chokes out, barely audible. “I shouldn't want this."