Can I touch your beard? I ask my best friend, and he says yes, but I’m shy suddenly, wondering if it will feel prickly under fingers that haven’t touched a man, any man, since coming out in 1989. Still, I stroke it and it’s soft. For a moment, I pause, laughing, my palm against his face, his hand pressed against mine. I don’t want to meet his gaze but when I do, he’s smiling. I’m a little in love with you, I say and later, when I tell my wife, she asks, were you flirting? and I say oh yes.
Fall Contest 2024 “Flirt” Finalist! Finnian Burnett loves writing queer joy, mental health, and body love. They live in beautiful British Columbia with their wife and too many books. Of “Just a Touch,” Contest Readers said: “just the right moment, context, and ending” and “great sense of vulnerability and tension.”