Kissing My Dad's Friend

We spend the rest of the lunch shift serving everyone who comes along the line. I follow Russ’s lead and smile at everyone, laugh, crack jokes. Not going to lie, for a volunteer gig, it’s a lot of fun, if a little worrying to see how grateful people are to be spoken to or smiled at.

By the end of the shift, my arms ache from lifting all the trays. My heart aches too, but it’s a good kind of ache. I feel full, happy. Like I made an actual difference, for once. Maybe it’s just a tiny one, but still.

Russ loops an arm around my waist and kisses my temple as our shift wraps up. “So?” he murmurs against my hair, “how did it feel? You wanted to help people…”

“It felt great,” I reply, tilting my face up to smile at him. It takes me by surprise when he leans down to kiss me, in full view of everyone around us, all the other volunteers, everyone eating nearby, on the other side of the lunch line. I pull back a little sooner than I’d like to, in spite of how hot and soft his lips feel against mine. “Um… should we do that here?” I ask, unable to help the catch of nerves in my voice.

Russ chuckles softly under his breath. “As if your father would ever be caught dead anywhere near a place like this,” he points out, and I can’t help but laugh softly, too.

He has a point.

The other volunteers have helped themselves to small portions, and are clustered near a table in the kitchen, chatting. Russ grabs a tray for me, one for himself, and pulls out chairs near the end of the table. A few people smile over at us, but they seem to sense that it’s our first chance to be together in a while, so nobody moves closer or tries to strike up a conversation.

Which is good, because I have about a million things I want to talk to Russ about, now that we’re somewhere unsupervised. But the words all stick in my throat, get tangled up, until I finally just settle on asking. “So… you’ve been doing this for a while?”

“Every day I have off, ever since I started at the hospital.”

My eyebrows shoot upward, so high they nearly touch my hairline. “But… I’ve never heard you mention it. You and Dad have been friends for so long. How does he not know?”

“Because I never felt comfortable telling him. I figured if I mentioned it, he would start to ask why I do it, and I couldn’t have that.” Russ catches my eye, his gaze boring into me, through me. I feel like he can see straight through my shell and into my core, whenever he does that.

It makes me both nervous and excited, all at once. It also makes me want to do the same thing. Get through his outer shell, see the real Russ underneath. So I clear my throat gently. “Why do you do it?” I ask, my voice pitched low.

“Back when I was in med school with your father, I couldn’t afford a full-time job on top of my classes. I had a part-time gig, but it wasn’t enough to make rent, even in the crappy kind of multi-room dorms that your father was living in at the time. He had a little help from his parents to get on his feet—not a lot, mind you, but enough to make those rent payments. I didn’t.” Russ runs a hand through his hair, and the silver speckles in it catch the light, reflecting in the fluorescents in a way that makes me want to reach out and follow his lead. Trail my fingers through his dark, fine hair, and see how soft it feels today.

But I curl my hands around each other instead, to resist. Not while he’s telling me this. I want to hear the whole story, first.

“Anyway, I eventually got a housing grant from the department, after I came out top in the class. But before then…” He clears his throat. “Well, there were a couple of months where I had to rough it.”

My eyes go wide. I take another slow glance around the shelter, the realization slowly dawning on me. “You mean…”

He bows his head. “I was homeless for a little while, yes. It was the hardest period in my life, honestly.” His voice goes rough, and I can’t hold myself back anymore.

I reach out and gently cup his cheek. He turns to face me again, as I draw him toward me. I kiss him softly, my lips soft against his, the kiss slow and gentle. When I draw back, he’s smiling at me, ever so slightly.

“That’s not the usual reaction I get to this story,” he says quietly, and I laugh.