The Prospects

by K.T. Hoffman

He has never been much good at wanting things, Gene. It’s a foreign feeling to him. Hope? Hope is comfortable, well-worn. His favorite, most familiar feeling. But hope isn’t selfish; hope is so easy to turn in someone else’s direction. Wanting, though. Wanting has always felt presumptuous—to ask for something, something unlikely and rare, and then actually, really hope to get it? All for himself ? He doesn’t do that.

“You can’t just stop wanting something because you’re disappointed. That’s not like you.” It is absolutely like Gene to force himself not to want something just because the possibility of not getting it, the grief of losing something he never had, hurts too much. It’s one of his best skills.

So Gene lets himself want Luis, and this unlikely little life they have. No caveats, no asterisks, no gimmicks—he wants, and he wants, and he lets himself have it.