Rip Current | TWO
Title: RIP CURRENT
By: tea_diva
Chapter: Two
Word Count: 10,638
When Rudy and Nate arrive at the beach on Saturday there is a boxy white Land Rover already parked. “That’s Brad’s car,” Rudy says, pushing his sunglasses up to rest on his head. “I suppose it’s about time you met the bunch.”
Nate isn’t certain how he feels about meeting more people. There’s a jealous part of him that wants the easy camaraderie he has found with Rudy and Ray to remain unchanged. Both men sniping at each other and joking with Nate like there was never a time when they didn’t know one another. It reminds him of the one thing he misses about the Corps: his platoon.
Granted, Ray even on his best day couldn’t hope to be as crass as some of the Corporals Nate had gone to war with, but sometimes it was a close thing.
Ray paddles over as Nate and Rudy get their boards out into the water. “So, it occurred to me last night that Rudy and I keep mentioning these people who you’ve never actually met. And that was weird, because it feels like I’ve known you for forever, and since I’ve actually, like, known Brad and Walt for forever…”
“Hey,” Nate blurts out as he catches sight of the other two men sharing the water.
It’s just that apparently he has already met the mysterious Brad.
The blond grins, once again straddling his board and looking down at Nate with that same infuriatingly relaxed confidence that Nate envies, if only because he is sunburnt and speechless, and being buffeted by waves, having to spit out salt water every few seconds.
“There’s a rip current along there,” Brad says, pointing the current out with a smirk.
Nate nods. “Duly noted.” There’s a faded bruise just above Brad’s left eyebrow, a fairly deep slice held together by a butterfly bandage bisecting the greenish purple mark. “How’s the head?”
In a flash, Brad’s smile disappears and Nate finds himself the target of an actual glower. “It’s fine.”
“Yeah,” the other man says, looking a little sheepish. Nate assumes, by process of elimination, that this must be Walt. “We maybe ask that question too many times.”
“Just a bit,” Brad answers, still looking grumpy.
“I’m Walt,” the other man says to Nate, spreading his fingers wide as he waves. He’s tanned and his dirty blond hair is bleached from the sun. Bright eyes and a warm smile set in a round, boyish face.
“Nate,” Nate says. “Nice to meet you. Both,” he tacks on, as an afterthought.
“Yeah, you too,” Walt says. “Ray’s told us a lot about you. You were in the Marines?”
It’s pretty much the last thing Nate’s expecting, and it’s the last thing he wants to talk about. He’d thought Ray hadn’t noticed the tattoo, and he’d gotten used to Rudy’s quiet understanding. Walt sounds like he has questions, and Nate honestly has no idea how he can answer them.
“Is this the start of a circle-jerk? Or are we actually going to surf at some point today?” Brad interrupts.
“I’m here to surf,” Walt answers agreeably. Nate has the impression that he's used to following Brad' lead, and he's more than a little grateful for that.
They orient away from the beach and start to work their way out. When Nate surfaces after the second wave he catches Ray shooting a splash of water at Walt. “So where did you two princesses run off to for dawn patrol today?”
It’s not the first time Nate's heard the term but he still isn’t quite certain what it means. “Okay,” he asks. “What, exactly, is ‘dawn patrol’?”
Ray glances at him. “Going out and surfing at the ass-crack of dawn because you’re a wheenus.”
Walt swats a handful of water at Ray’s face. “I’m not a wheenus.”
“You don’t even know what a wheenus is.”
Brad rolls his eyes skyward. “Children, behave.”
“Brad,” Walt says. “He called us wheenuses!”
“Bitch, please. You are so totally a wheenus. If you looked the word up in a dictionary your face would be right the fuck there.”
Nate is choking down on his laughter; beside him, Rudy is smiling like this level of idiocy might actually be good for the soul. Up ahead, Brad lets out a long-suffering sigh. “If it weren’t for surfing, I would never socialize with any of you people. We have nothing in common.”
“Well, excuse me!” Ray shouts after Brad as the other man paddles out to catch a wave. “Don’t be such a wheenus, Bradley!”
Brad’s dry voice floats back to them as he pops up on his board. “Read a fucking dictionary, you inbred sister-fucking hick.”
Neither Brad nor Walt joins them in the sandbar. “Fucking ASP cocky sons of bitches,” Ray mutters. Then clarifies, “Professional know-it-alls,” before Nate has to ask.
Nate frowns. “You’re not a professional surfer?”
“No way,” Ray says, laughing happily. “I’m the guy that gets paid to keep fucking Colbert over there from falling apart in his own bathwater.”
For a second, Nate wonders if he’s got water in his ear because there is no way he heard that correctly. “You’re his PR person?”
“Fuck yeah,” Ray says. “PR, personal assistant, therapist and wrangler. That’s me.” He shrugs a little awkwardly as he lies on top of his board. “I suppose, technically speaking, Walt’s not really ASP, but he’s won a bunch of major surf competitions as a wild card entry. Personally, I think the only reason he doesn’t go pro is he likes it when people call him a ‘wild card’. He’s a fucking girl that way.”
Nate doesn’t ask how it’s possible for Ray to have so much free time if his job is actually as extensive as he makes it sound. Instead, he lets it go in favor of making an attempt at a wave. He's graduated from anthills to bunny hills according to Ray, and he doesn’t always fall on his face, which is nice.
Sometimes he just pitches off the side of his board like a spazz.
“You have to let yourself go,” Rudy says, after checking that he’s okay.
Ray scoffs, “If he ‘let’s go’ any more he’ll be like a dolphin jumping over a board.”
“I appreciate your devoted encouragement,” Nate drawls, which prompts Ray to threaten him with smoochy-lips, and things quickly deteriorate from there, until they are mostly floating around trying to drown one another. In fact, now that Nate thinks about it, this is how most of his surfing lessons end.
He had hoped that no one had been watching him surf, but as they head back into shore Walt joins them and says that Nate's looking pretty good "for someone who’s just learning". Nate concentrates very carefully on paddling, and tries his best to ignore Brad.
The feeling isn't mutual. Swimming up alongside Nate, Brad glances over and says, “You know what you’re problem is?” He doesn’t wait for Nate to answer. “You’re too tense.”
Rudy nods emphatically. “That’s what I keep telling him.” He turns to Nate and says, “You have to ride with the wave.”
“The waves you’re taking-on are too small,” Brad continues. “It’s not enough of a challenge.”
Nate shakes his head, his mouth twitching up wryly. “I can assure you, it’s plenty challenging.”
“No. It’s not," Brad insists. "You’re stuck in your head, and that’s the last place you should be when you’re in front of the curl.”
Nate wants to say that he’s pretty sure Brad is full of shit, but he’s too busy feeling like an idiot for spending the entire afternoon flailing on his surfboard while apparently, Brad watched and formed opinions on exactly what he was doing wrong.
Ray’s no help at all. “You know,” he says. “As much as it pains me to admit, Brad may have a point. I mean, most of the trouble people have when they start out is they don’t have the muscles you need to actually get up and balance on your board. That’s not really your problem though, is it?”
“Not from where I’m sitting,” Brad says.
Nate feels a rush of heat zing straight through him. He’s fairly certain even his arms have turned a vivid pink.
He blames sunburn.
_________________________________
The next morning, when Nate stumbles out of his cabin running shoes in hand, he comes to an abrupt halt. The silhouette of the lone runner he’s spotted on more than one occasion is working its way along the beach but now Nate knows exactly who it is. It seems like he’s been bumping into Brad since he set foot in Oahu. He just didn't know it.
Shoving his shoes onto his feet, Nate steps off the front porch and waves. “Hey,” he says, when Brad heads up the beach toward him. “You don’t have to run back and forth in front of my place just to impress me.”
Brad makes a show of frowning and looking around. “Do you live somewhere around here?”
He waits while Nate does a quick warm up with a hesitant frown on his face. “I feel obligated to tell you that I'm not in the habit of sprinting over obscene distances carrying a back-pack that weighs three times as much as I do.”
“Does is it look like that’s the kind of run I’m planning?”
Brad still looks hesitant. “I’ve known exactly one Recon Marine and based on what I’ve encountered with him, it’s a statement worth making.”
Nate wants to ask how Brad met Rudy. How any of their curious group ever met and became friends. Brad puts Nate off-balance, makes him feel unsure himself in a way he just hasn't felt in a long time, and it prevents him from saying most anything coherent.
“Where are you from?” Brad asks as they start out.
Nate answers, “Oceanside,” without even thinking. He doesn’t even realize he’s said it until he catches the sidelong look Brad throws his way. “Sorry,” Nate says. “I’m actually from Baltimore. I don’t know why I said that.” Brad’s eyes flick down to Nate’s upper arm where his T-shirt sleeve is obscuring his tattoo.
Clearing his throat, Nate asks, “How about you?”
“I’m from here,” Brad says, and then smiles a sharp little grin. “The same way that you’re from Oceanside.”
Sometimes a place can transform a person so much they can barely recognize themselves anymore. It’s not necessarily bad; mostly it’s just life and the inevitable change that goes along with that. It’s what being in the Corps did for Nate, and he’s not done figuring out exactly who he’s become. He wonders what Oahu did for Brad that affected him the same way.
“I’ve lived here most of my life,” Brad continues. “Though technically I suppose you’d say I’m from San Diego.”
It feels like it could be an opening. A chance to get to know the other man, but Nate’s not entirely certain. The last thing he wants to do is pry. He thinks: ‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained’ and asks, “How did you end up in Oahu?”
Brad actually smirks, his blue eyes cutting over to Nate and then quickly away. “I was looking for an authority I could respect. It was either the military or the waves.”
It’s not the answer Nate was expecting. “What?”
“I went through a bit of a rebellious phase when I was a teenager,” Brad says. There’s something in the carefully casual tone he uses, paired with the suggestion of military school that leads Nate to believe Brad’s ‘rebellious phase’ went beyond the norm. “My parents gave me a choice: military school, or I could spend the summer with my uncle Daniel.”
“How is that a choice?” Nate wonders. “Hawaii or military school?”
Brad barks a laugh. “My uncle was a big corporate lawyer. He didn’t take shit from anyone, and every time I ever saw him he was an opinionated son of a bitch. I didn’t know he’d retired early and moved to Oahu. As far as I knew, either choice led to me being shipped off some place to be brow-beaten and criticized.”
“Wait,” Nate says. “Did you pick military school?”
“I was going to start in September, but my uncle showed up in June. He shoved a surfboard at me and took me out to the beach. Nothing like an entire day spent half-drowning, beating yourself black and blue just to stand up on a piece of fiber glass. It put me in my place. I was determined to conquer the waves,” he smirks. “That’s how I started out thinking, anyway. Over summer holidays I stayed with my uncle in Oahu, and then I just moved here. I’d fly back for holidays and visits when I could but, this was home.”
“And professional surfing?”
This time, Brad turns his full grin straight at Nate. “I didn’t wake up one morning and think that I could make a living out of it.” He shrugs. “To be honest, I didn’t even know it was a legitimate career option. But, you know, if you live on the north shore and you surf, at some point you get the notion to take on Pipe Masters. It’s just one of those inevitabilities of life.”
They run to the rock ridge and back, and when Nate branches off toward his cabin, Brad says, “I’ll see you in the afternoon.”
Nate’s grinning when he says, “Looking forward to it.”
_________________________________
“Sixty percent of surfing is waiting around for a decent swell,” Brad says. They’re all together, floating a ways out near the sandbar because the compromise Nate made was that if he has to take-on bigger waves, he’s doing it where he won’t crack his own skull open on a piece of coral. “Only ten percent of surfing involves any actual surfing.”
Nate glances over. “So what’s the other thirty percent?”
Brad meets his gaze and smirks. “Drowning.”
“Those percentages are approximate,” Walt says, like that will make Nate feel better or something.
“Here,” Rudy says. “Take this one.”
Nate eyes the oncoming wave, but he doesn’t have time to waste. “Paddle, paddle!” Ray is chanting as Nate tries to get into position. There’s a sense of ‘rush rush rush’, and Nate pushes everything else out of his head as he concentrates on paddling.
Then he pops up on his board and realizes the water cresting at his back is as tall as he is. Stronger than he is.
The only thing keeping him upright is his precarious sense of balance, his muscles straining to hold him in place. “Don’t look now, but you’re actually surfing!” Ray shouts, but what Nate is actually doing is flashing back to that rush of adrenaline he had gotten so used to, bullets snapping and zipping past, his weapon trained and hands steady.
Combat without the loss of life, and minus the bloodshed.
It’s a rush. A pure surging moment of utter exhilaration free of everything else, anything else, except the focus it takes to keep himself upright and moving forward, keeping just ahead of the curl.
He gets it. Finally, in a way he never did, tripping over the little blips of cresting water no higher then his own knees. This is surfing. This is why people do this, why Walt wakes up at the crack of dawn and rushes out. Why Brad will fall and get beaten bloody against the coral and still want to go out.
This is what Nate has been missing without even realizing it. Since the moment he left the Corps. Since he left Iraq, really. This potent, utterly undeniable sense of ‘Yes, I am alive. Right here. Right now. Here I am.’
He reaches out with one hand, touches the rush of water just beside him with his fingertips. Thinks: “Jesus fuck, I’m actually doing this.”
Then promptly gets overtaken by the curl and slammed down beneath the water with a force that threatens to take his breath away.
Just like always, there’s a sense of panic that Nate overcomes after a moment. The Corps didn’t beat his fear of drowning out of him, but it did teach him to put that fear back in its place. Nate locks it down and starts to fight against the strength of the waves crashing above him, the force of the water breaking overhead pushing him down, the tug of the leash on his ankle the only connection he has to the surface, his surfboard floating somewhere above his head.
He’s not powerless. The waves are strong but he’s been in rougher waters before. It feels like a reminder. Something he knew before but had forgotten, the responsibility, the duty, the expectation seeping into him until it permeated his core, became a part of him that had felt like it had always been there.
Swimming, kicking his feet and cupping his hands, pushing his way back toward the surface, Nate remembers Brad’s words from that morning, “I was looking for an authority I could respect. It was either the military or the waves.”
Since Iraq, Nate feels like he’s been drowning in the rippling effects of his choices. At some point, he stopped being able to distinguish between what was actually within his control and what wasn't. What he could legitimately hold himself responsible for, and what was misplaced guilt.
Nate breaks the surface and reaches out automatically, throws an arm over his board and gives his back to the waves, shaking the water out of his hair as he starts kicking toward the group. “Akaw!” Rudy is shouting at him. “That was surfing!”
“That was incredible,” Nate says, realizing he might possibly be grinning like the wave knocked all the sense from his head, but not caring.
“Aw man,” Ray says. “Look at him. He’s totally amped. Good luck getting your board back from him, Rudy. He’s popped his cherry and now he’s a die-hard surfer.”
Nate laughs and hauls himself out of the water, straddling his board beside the others. Everyone is grinning along with him, laughing, talking about the waves and recounting their favorite rides. Nate feels like he gets it, now. After tackling what Ray solidly informs him was a ‘real wave’ and not any ankle or knee busters. He can’t help but notice that Brad is entirely silent, watching with a slight little quirk to his mouth but saying nothing as the others pat Nate on the back.
“Mine!” Ray calls and starts paddling after a wave. Rudy’s focus shifts to Walt and Nate kicks a little in the water, guides his board to drift closer to Brad.
He glances over, and then turns back to watch as Ray pops up onto his board, directing it up onto the curl of the wave until he’s leaning almost horizontal over the water. Nate has no idea how the guy can balance, but it looks cool.
“Too tense,” Nate says, quietly. “Not enough of a challenge?”
Brad’s eyes glance over and then away. “I wouldn’t want to say something as clichéd as ‘I told you so’.”
Nate smirks. “But?” he prompts.
A splash of water strikes him on the chest. Nate glances down in time to spot another arch of water hit the same spot. He turns an accusing glare at Brad, who is innocently staring out at Ray but Nate can see his hands are cupped just under the surface of the water. As Nate watches, Brad’s hands shift, propelling another arching splash at Nate.
Still giddy from the rush of riding that wave, Nate realizes suddenly, crystal clear and wide-open with possibility: ‘This is flirting.’ It’s different from the impersonal, light-hearted teasing when he first encountered Brad, floating in the rip current as Brad had grinned and said, ‘You don’t have to impress me.’ Nate isn’t sure what’s changed, or if anything even has, but it occurs to him that there is nothing to hold him back.
He’s not a marine, he’s a civilian. If he wants to lean over and kiss Brad, there’s nothing to stop him. No rules, anyway. Everything else in Nate’s life since leaving the Corps has seemingly become more complicated. Relationships, at least, have become blissfully less so. The thought makes Nate flush.
“How did you even survive in Iraq?” Brad asks.
Nate frowns. “What?”
“For all the sunblock you apply, you’re still the color of a ripe strawberry.”
Nate’s mind replays how Brad’s voice carries the words ‘ripe’ and ‘strawberry’, starts looping them around and around in a way that is becoming increasingly obscene. He wonders if there is any special significance in Brad’s choice of words. Why ‘ripe’?
It’s maybe been too long since he got properly laid.
“Christ,” Brad says. “Go back to shore and put on a fucking hat.”
Nate smirks. “If I put on a hat, it will just fall off when I take my next wave.”
“Go sit under an umbrella before you stroke out,” Brad says.
Instead of getting caught up on that new turn of phrase, ‘stroke out’, Nate sends a splash of water in Brad’s direction.
“Hey, are you guys starting a water fight?” Walt calls, turning around on his board.
Brad rolls his eyes skyward. “No, Walt. We were just discussing how, for an elite marine officer, Nate here is as delicate as a fresh little hibiscus blossom.”
Nate stretches his right leg across the distance, his toes curling over the top of Brad’s board as he pushes. “Hey,” Brad says, and then he pitches over, arms flailing out in an instinctive attempt to grasp onto something. He lands with a satisfying splash into the water.
Brad comes up spluttering and glaring and his immediate response is to knock Nate off his board. The ensuing water fight is almost as exhilarating as surfing that wave had been.
_________________________________
Ray’s knock on his cabin door interrupts Nate’s usual evening indecision regarding where to eat. Most nights, Rudy is in charge of preparing dinner, and he’s really kind of phenomenal in the kitchen. Nate always feels a bit like he’s missing a really fabulous dinner when he leaves the resort.
Then again, Dharma resort is an incredibly small and very private little place. The food is delicious and the atmosphere amazing, but there’s no live entertainment or dancing. It’s an aspect of traveling alone that Nate had never been forced to consider before: eating by himself. It turns out; he’s not a fan.
Consequently, when Nate answers the door, he’s grinning. “What the fuck are you so happy about?” Ray asks suspiciously, sticking his head into the cabin and peering over Nate’s shoulder. “Do you have some chick in here?”
“Are you not used to people being happy to see you, Ray?” Nate teases.
“Jesus, you’re perky.” He eyes the bathroom door, the closet, and the bed closely when Nate allows him through. “I’m feeling like seafood. Are you feeling like seafood?”
They end up at a tiny little seafood place that Nate doesn’t think he would have ever ventured into without the glowing recommendation that Ray gives it. As it is, he eyes the menu carefully and spends most of the time it takes to prepare their food trying to brace himself for the food poisoning he’s apparently just signed up for.
“See?” Ray grins when Nate takes a bite of the perfectly cooked mahi mahi with coconut and cloves. “You should have more faith in me.” Nate would apologize but he’s too busy devouring his incredible dinner. “That’s okay,” Ray says, magnanimously. “I forgive you.”
Over dessert, which is equally mouth-watering, Ray starts talking about Walt and Brad again and for once, Nate doesn’t feel slightly lost listening to him ramble. “You seriously need to watch Brad surf, that’s what I’m saying,” Ray says. “Watching Brad surf a wave is a thing of beauty and it doesn’t make me gay to say that, because everyone is fucking thinking it. Just like thinking Rudy’s hot doesn’t make you gay.”
“Sounds to me like you’re protesting an awful lot.”
“Oh hell,” Ray says. “I’d try anything once. But once was enough.” He narrows his eyes at Nate. His next question is launched right when Nate has a mouthful of fruity pink cocktail in mouth, “Did Brad’s flirting freak you out or something?”
Nate’s not even sure why he half-chokes. “What? No.”
“Are you sure? Because I know the whole guy-guy thing is kind of a major no-no in the Army.”
Nate raises his eyebrows. “I was in the Marines.”
“Whatever.”
“I assure you, the whole ‘guy-guy’ thing, as you put it, is not a problem for me. It wasn’t when I was in the Corps, and it certainly isn’t now that I’m retired.”
Ray nods. “Well, good. Besides, I’m pretty sure that’s just how Brad communicates. Half the time I would bet good money that he doesn’t even know he’s doing it. Though, y’know, if you want to hear his A-game material, you should hear him sweet-talking his surfboard, or his computer.” He nods pointedly, “I usually just give them some time alone.”
Nate’s not certain how to take that. On the one hand it’s a bit of a relief. If Brad isn’t actually flirting with intent, so to speak, then that sort of takes the pressure off. Maybe now Nate can stop getting tongue-tied whenever he’s faced with the toned expanse of golden skin, or Brad's piercing blue eyes, or perfectly bowed coral pink lips.
Nate has never been very good at lying to himself. He’s attracted to Brad, and the more time he spends with him, the more it seems to go beyond the physical. Not that he’s ready to pick out a ring or anything, but Nate’s been cut-free of his responsibilities. No more school, for a while at least. No job, nothing really to tie him anywhere. No expectations to confine him.
He reminds himself that he’s leaving in a week and that, even if Brad had been interested, it wouldn’t have been anything more than a holiday fling at best, and he’s not certain he’s ready to deal with that, not with his emotions all over the place the way they have been.
_________________________________
The thought sticks with him all through the next day.
From the moment he pulls on his running shoes and steps out of the cabin to find Brad waiting for him on the beach. All through his morning spent snorkeling off the coast, and the afternoon lost in the waves and the surf.
It’s been over a half year since he left the Corps and this is the first time since then that Nate feels like himself. Like he has a place and knows what he’s doing. Like he's where he's supposed to be.
It goes beyond the meditation exercises Rudy has roped him into, to, “Begin the day on the right foot” according to Rudy. Nate doesn't have the heart to explain that he begins the day with a run or really, waking up in a cold sweat and scribbling in his notebook. The other morning he’d fallen asleep mid-chant, his legs twisted into a semi-painful pretzel. So far, Nate’s path to enlightenment has featured curious friends, surfing, flirting, and Brad.
Ray might have played it off as casual: Brad flirted with everything and everyone. That’s not how Nate’s reading things, though. It feels like there might be something there. A quiet ‘what if’ whispering on the periphery every time he looks at the tall blond, catches his eye, kicks him off his board and sends him spluttering into the water. Nate doesn’t want to overstep because his vacation days are numbered and steadily decreasing, and the last thing he wants is to do something that will mess up the ease with which they all come together.
He blames the alcohol.
That, and Walt, for suggesting they go out all together after a long day out on the water.
Also, the thin white button-down shirt Brad’s wearing, the sleeves rolled to his elbows, top few buttons left loose. It’s setting off the gold coloring of his skin, and Nate’s never seen Brad in anything but a T-shirt and boardshorts, sometime with no shirt at all. There is no way that a button-down should be more enticing, but it is. Nate’s eyes keep drifting to the black aviator sunglasses that are hanging from the V of the shirt, and he blames them as well.
That, and the way everyone in the bar is sort of helplessly staring at Brad. Little flickering glances of want that Nate keeps catching and resenting, while another part of him feels ridiculously pleased to be sitting at the table with Brad when everyone else is just glancing over and wanting. He joins Brad at the bar to help carry drinks and points out the attention Brad’s getting.
“This is a surfer bar, Nate,” Brad dismisses, his voice raspy in that way it has, a little more so since he’s speaking quietly. “They know who I am. That’s all.”
Nate shakes his head, leans over, pressing just a bit closer against Brad’s side as he says, “That’s not how they’re looking at you.”
The bartender starts setting out their drinks onto the two trays on the counter. Nate says, “I think it’s because you’re leaning against this bar with your ass sticking out, your shirt unbuttoned just enough to tease and your hair ruffled up like someone’s been running their hands through it.” Beside him, he’s aware that Brad has maybe stopped breathing, and it occurs to him that this has gone a little beyond the casual flirting they’ve maintained since they first met.
He could stop, but he doesn’t want to. So instead, he clarifies, “You look hot.”
The reaction isn’t what he was expecting. Though, thinking about it, Nate really can’t remember what he was actually expecting. He was hoping that maybe Brad would smirk and volley something back, like maybe suggesting that Nate should stake his claim or something, and then they could make out at the bar.
Maybe that's the really tall blue drink that Ray had ordered for him and made him drink in under two minutes talking. In retrospect, Nate thinks that scenario sounds a bit Harlequin. Not that he would have minded if that’s what Brad did.
Instead, Brad does not move and he does not breathe. Nate squints, and then starts to smile. “Brad Colbert,” he says, feeling a little gleeful at the realization. “Are you actually blushing?”
Brad snorts but Nate can still see the pinkish flush in his cheeks. “You’re full of shit, Nate.”
“Argue all you want, I know a blush when I see one.”
Brad turns his head away, like not being able to see the blush will somehow mean it was never there. “You’re drunk.”
“Here you go!” the bartender says, setting both trays within reach. Nate’s focus is broken, and he’s a little frustrated with the interruption.
Glancing over at the trays, Brad starts to reach for one but Nate drops a hand down onto his arm. “Hey,” he says. “I’m not all that drunk.
“Right.”
Nate jerks his eyebrows up. “I’m serious. I’ll stop drinking right now, if you want me to.”
Brad’s eyes flicker over. He’s frowning as he asks, “Why would I want that?”
“So I can prove to you that I’d say it even if I was completely sober.” He smirks. “Which I would.”
Brad lets out a slow shuddery breath. “I need some air.”
It almost sounds like a question, which is why instead of backing off, Nate says, “If you leave this bar, I’m coming with you.”
They stare at each other, and Nate starts to wonder if time has actually stopped, if the world is as still as it feels because it feels like nothing else exists. Then Brad nods and says, “Okay,” and Nate remembers that they actually have friends waiting for them back at their table.
He clears his throat. “We should probably bring these over first.”
Brad nods. “Right.”
They pick up the trays and make their over to their table, Ray making grabby-hands at a slushy bright pink drink as Rudy and Walt shift the empties to make space, and then notice that neither Nate nor Brad have retaken their seats. “We’re uh,” Nate says, all his earlier confidence suddenly leaving him.
“We’re going to head out,” Brad says, after clearing his throat. “Nate’s wasted. Somebody should finish these,” he sets both his and Nate’s refills onto the table and shrugs.
“Alright, my brothers,” Rudy agrees easily. Ray, however, is looking at them with narrowed eyes. “Have a nice night, and we’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Oh man,” Walt says. “I’m totally sleeping in tomorrow!”
The bar is closer to Dharma Resort than to Brad’s house. Brad orients them toward the beach without hesitation, and Nate pulls off his sandals the moment they get to the sand. It’s dark and the white sand feels cool against his skin. He thinks that maybe this should be more awkward, walking quietly beside each other. Any other time, with any other person, Nate’s pretty certain he would feel compelled to speak, if only just to fill the air. He stays silent. There’s something easy about it, something natural. The two of them in the dark, walking. Like they know where they stand with each other without having to say a word.
Maybe he’s projecting.
There’s the sound of the waves, the lilting song of birds and the steady rhythm of bugs and creatures making sounds. He could make a joke about ‘long walks along the beach’, or start talking about his favorite movies, but instead Nate just shifts until he’s walking closer to Brad, sharing their heat.
Brad doesn’t move away.
He follows Nate back to his cabin, up the steps and through the door when Nate unlocks it. Nate thinks: “Okay, now things will start to feel awkward” but it doesn’t happen. He drops his sandals on the worn wood floor and reaches out and then Brad’s right there, standing pressed against him and they’re kissing and groping, pulling open each other’s shirts and undoing jeans and sharing breaths.
It’s not perfect. They get in each other’s way trying to strip each other’s clothes off, trip over their pants and topple onto Nate’s bed and end up laughing when they bump heads when they both try to move at the same time. It’s fumbling and uncoordinated in that way that most first-times are. Half-frantic with the want, the need, and still oh so good when Brad pushes in and starts to move. Electrified skin and shaky breaths and it takes them a bit to find a rhythm, find those spots on each other’s bodies that send them keening over the edge, but it’s never awkward.
Afterward, when Brad collapses onto the bed beside Nate, sighs and says, “I should get a cloth or something.” Nate flops an arm out, drapes it over Brad’s torso and grunts. Brad sighs and says, “Fuck it” and they both start to fall asleep. Nate wonders why this feels so easy.
At any other time, Nate's fairly certain he would have started to wonder if it was a one-off; if his partner would climb out of bed right away, or be gone in the morning. This time, with Brad, Nate’s not wondering those things. He thinks maybe he’s simply too tired to be concerned, or maybe Rudy’s philosophy of ‘living in the moment’ has started to sink in.
Either way, when Nate jerks awake and gropes for his notebook he has to fight his way out from beneath Brad to get it. When he contemplates his morning run Brad says that, since he has no running shoes, they should get their morning cardio some other way.
When Nate goes to breakfast, Brad walks over with him, and it still doesn’t feel awkward.
_________________________________
On his twelfth day in Oahu, Nate wakes up on a California king bed, splayed out on pale blue sheets that feel softer than butter, and nearly breaks his neck climbing out of bed because he’s tangled up in the bedding. He’s also naked.
Nate makes use of the en suite bathroom before pulling on a T-shirt, and a pair of sweats, which he’s fairly certain belong to Brad. Then he finds his way out of Brad’s bedroom, through the open concept living room to the kitchen. When he walks in, yawning, Brad casts him an angry glance and tells him to be quiet.
“What are you doing? Stealth cooking?” Nate teases, meandering over and wrapping his arms around Brad’s hips. “Smells good.”
“I’m making loco moco,” Brad explains, his voice low, but not quite a whisper. “I don’t want to wake Ray up.”
Nate snickers. “Brad, Ray’s all the way over in the guest house. How could he possibly hear you in here cooking?”
Brad doesn’t answer, and eventually Nate relocates to one of the stools by the breakfast bar, where he can observe the preparation of breakfast and also monitor the progress of the coffee pot, which Brad has set brewing.
He can’t make sense of the various ingredients Brad has out on the counter. Nate has encountered the name before on various breakfast menus around Oahu, occurring frequently enough for him to ascertain that it must be a native dish of some sort. Still, looking at the rice, eggs, refrigerated hamburger patties and what he is fairly certain is a bowl of homemade gravy, Nate can’t comprehend what it is he is about to be fed. Surely those ingredients cannot be blended into something actually appetizing.
Watching Brad cook, Nate remembers one of the first conversations he ever had with Rudy and finds himself wondering. “Rudy said most of his friends weren't breakfast-people. He was complaining he rarely has friends to cook for in the morning.”
Brad shrugs as he begins cracking eggs sunny side up into a pan. “I’m usually out before dawn running, and then surfing. More often then not, Walt comes along. As for Ray, Cherie banned him from their kitchen when she realized if she didn’t set up some ground rules he’d never leave.”
Nate pours out two mugs of coffee and slides one just behind Brad’s elbow and goes to the fridge in search of milk. “Is that how Ray became a friend?”
“Exactly,” Brad says. “I didn’t establish the necessary ground rules, and he quite literally followed me home.”
Pouring milk into his mug, Nate glances over. “And so you put him to work.”
“It was a strategy I was testing in the hopes it might have the desired effect.”
“The desired effect being him leaving you in peace.” Nate takes a sip of coffee and slides his eyes closed. It’s not quite as good as Rudy’s, but it’s pretty damned good. “How’s that working out for you?”
As if to answer that precise question, Nate hears Ray’s voice, distant but growing closer. Brad can obviously hear it as well if the quiet curse is anything to go by. When Brad turns around, his expression is filled with regret. “I stopped making loco moco for this very reason.”
Nate tilts his head in the direction of the sound. A moment later, Walt comes into the kitchen. “I’m so sorry,” he says. “I was coming across to say ‘hi’ and he left his shoes literally in front of the door and I tripped and he woke up.”
“Goddammit, Walt,” Brad mutters.
“Is he singing ‘the Locomotion?” Nate asks. He receives an answering ‘yes’ in stereo sound because Walt and Brad answer at the same moment with the exact same inflection of complete exasperation.
“You gotta swing your hips now!” Ray sings in a shrill soprano, shimmying his way across the hardwood. “Come on baby! Jump up, jump back! Well now, I think you’ve got the knack.”
“Ray!” Brad says, raising his voice in a solid commanding tone. “Shut the fuck up.”
“Come on, Brad!” Ray says, drawing out Brad’s name in that way he sometimes does. “I’m so excited, I want to share to my joy with the world. I mean, when was the last time you made fucking loco moco?”
Brad pinches the bridge of his nose and tilts his head down, the very picture of a longsuffering soul. “I don’t know, Ray. When was the last time you sang that fucking song?”
“A long time, let me tell you,” Ray says. He drops into a chair beside Nate, and nudges him with an elbow. “This guy makes incredible loco moco. I don’t know why it is, but no freaking place on this entire island makes it as good.” Pointedly, Ray looks at Brad’s back and raises his voice, “and then he just completely stopped making it!”
Walt snickers. “Because every time he did you would sing that stupid song and dance until he shoved a plate at you, you inbred hick.”
Ray’s answer is cut off because at that precise moment Brad drops a plate in front of him and Ray becomes distracted, scooping up a fork and digging in. “This food could literally kill you, that’s how good it is,” he says, his mouth full, the yolk of the egg mixing with the gravy, burger and rice. Nate’s still not buying it.
Walt shrugs. “It could kill you,” he says. “It’s on the Cholesterol Hall of fame list. We’re not allowed to even mention it when Rudy’s around.”
“Rudy doesn’t know what he’s missing,” Ray says. Brad hands a plate over to Nate, and then one to Walt. A moment later, he switches off the element and settles on a bench to Nate’s right.
Slowly, Nate picks up his fork and takes a mouthful. His brain is telling him these flavors just should not work. His taste buds, however, are actually impressed. “This isn’t bad.”
“Isn’t bad,” Ray scoffs.
“It’s a good start to the day, if you’re out on the water early,” Brad says with a shrug. After a second, though, his eyes flicker over at Nate and there’s a shy sort of quirk to his lips. “It’s good that you like it.”
_________________________________
The trouble with staying over at Brad’s house is that Nate has no clothes there, and no mode of transportation to get back to the resort. Brad offers to drive him but Ray points out that Brad is actually expected at some interview that is not at all on the way to Nate’s.
“You have an interview?” Nate asks. He knows that Brad’s a good surfer, and that he does it professionally. He even knows that Brad won the Triple Crown just before Nate arrived on the island, which is apparently a big deal, and even that Brad’s sort of a celebrity in the right circles. Somehow, he never completely put that all together.
Brad shrugs. “For Carve magazine.”
Ray nods. “Don’t downplay it, you jackass. This is great! Get excited.”
“Hey,” Walt says quietly, shoving Ray a little with his hand. The look he flashes at Ray says, ‘lay off’ more clearly than any words might have.
“Whatever,” Ray says, his tone changing, easing back a little. “This is the only time we could schedule it. It’s totally casual, anyway. No worries. Don’t be late.” Then he grabs up the keys and tilts his head at Nate. “You ready?”
“I’ll see you,” Brad says. Nate nods and there’s a moment where it feels like he should move forward and kiss Brad, or at least wish him luck, but Ray is looking at him, practically tapping his foot, so he doesn’t. It's only their second time together, so far the group dynamic doesn't seem to have been affected at all, but Nate doesn't want to do something that will make Brad uncomfortable, or start worrying that Nate's getting too involved or something.
As he follows Ray out the front door Nate hears Walt’s voice, “Wait, were those the keys to my truck? Ray?”
Though he expects the other man to run out and wrestle the keys back, there is no sign of Walt. Nate climbs into the passenger seat and Ray starts the engine of Walt’s truck, smirking and shaking his head. “I think secretly he doesn’t mind it.” Then they lapse into silence as Ray drives.
Halfway back, Nate realizes that the only reason he isn’t giving voice to the questions he has about Brad’s interview, which he hadn’t actually heard anything about prior to this morning, and Brad’s professional life as a surfer, is because there’s a strange sort of tension inside the vehicle.
He glances over and realizes Ray’s grip on the steering wheel is tense. Before he can voice anything about it, however, Ray says, “You said you weren’t interested.”
The statement is so left field that Nate needs a second to figure out what Ray is evening talking about. He frowns. “I never said that.”
“Fuck you. It was implied.”
Shifting so he can face Ray as he drives, Nate asks, “How was it implied?”
Ray doesn't even glance at him, he keeps entirely focused on the road. “You said you had no problem with the flirting.”
“Yeah,” Nate says, still not getting it. “What should I have said? That I wanted to jump your friend’s bones?”
“Shit!” Ray squawks. “Don’t say shit like that. Brad’s like, my brother or something. I don’t want to think about his sex life.”
Nate snorts. “Then why are we having this conversation, Ray?”
Ray rolls his eyes and shakes his head and keeps driving all at once. “Because Brad can’t do casual. Okay? He’s physically incapable, or something.” Nate wants to protest but Ray is apparently on a roll. “You know the only way Brad can keep things casual? Surfer groupies. People so stoked at the idea of getting a piece of the Iceman that they honest to god have no expectation of more than one night, or one weekend. It’s a foregone conclusion that they’ll be on their way, and they go and that’s that.”
Nate shrugs. He’s still not getting it. “I’m leaving on Sunday, if that helps.”
“Fuck you very much, Nate fucking Fick!” Ray snarls. “I’m leaving on Sunday,” he parodies.
“Look,” Nate says. “Instead of swearing at me, why don’t you explain to me how this is different?”
“You’re not a groupie!” Ray says, like Nate should have figured that out already. “You guys run together and surf together and talk together. You come out with the gang and fit in like you could be a part of us, you know? That’s not what the others are like. They don’t hang around, they don’t do shit together. You’ve already made it personal.”
Okay, Nate can see that. But still, “We’re not dating, Ray. We’ve barely known each other for six days, and we’re both adults and this is not a romance novel. We’re not going to be declaring our love under a rose covered arbor after six days. Especially when, the majority of that time, we weren’t even actually sleeping together. I think you’re getting ahead of yourself. Brad’s feelings aren’t as delicate as all that.”
“Of course not,” Ray mutters. “Brad’s the Iceman. What could ever hurt him?”
Nate realizes that he has made a mistake, but he doesn’t understand when or how. He doesn’t understand how this is any of Ray’s business. He likes Brad, Brad likes him, and they've slept together. They enjoyed each other and hopefully, they can do it again. Maybe the ‘like’ on Nate’s part feels a bit like the rush-tug at the edge of a current, but he’s dated before, he’s familiar with that feeling.
Nate’s made no secret about the date and time of his departure.
_________________________________
Despite his confidence that Ray is merely being overprotective, Nate can’t clear his head.
The trouble is, he has no idea what he wants. He stumbled into Brad and they fell together so effortlessly, neither one of them has bothered to say anything definitive. Being together is easy, but Nate realizes this is partially because it doesn’t feel like he is ever actually going to be getting on a plane and leaving.
“Hey,” he says, catching Rudy as he’s clearing away the remains of breakfast.
“Aloha!” Rudy greets with a smile. “Having a good morning?”
“Yes,” Nate says, answering instinctively. He revises, “No, actually. I just…I’m gonna take the day. Explore the island.”
Rudy nods his head. “We’ve been surfing every afternoon when the waves allow it. It’s good to take a break.” He doesn’t ask what’s wrong, or why the sudden change, or if Nate wants company. Nate appreciates that the man always seems to just know, and never pushes.
Cherie is at the front of the main house, waving off a couple who are loading bags into a taxi cab, presumably en route back to reality. Nate knows he’s in trouble when the sight of it makes his chest ache.
“Nate, how are you?” Cherie asks, smiling.
“I’m okay.”
Her eyes flicker over his expression, then to the backpack he has, slung over one arm. “Exploring?” When he nods she says, “Any place particular?”
“No,” he says. He’s hoping that a long walk will maybe clear his head some. It feels like just the other day bombs were still exploding all around him, and then suddenly everything went quiet and the world declared peace. He wonders what’s left him feeling more off-balance: leaving the Corps, or realizing that maybe things between he and Brad aren’t so clear-cut.
That maybe, Nate’s not really done with Oahu.
“Actually,” he says. “Which way to Pipeline?”
Cherie only gives him directions after he promises that he’s not planning to surf there. It’s just, that it's the last site of the Triple Crown competition and he’s heard some stories about it and it’s strange that he has never actually seen the water there.
The Banzai Pipleline, he discovers, is pretty intimidating, even standing on shore. The waves breaking are massive and he immediately decides that everyone attempting to surf there is insane. He tries to imagine what Brad would look like on those waters, and then promptly decides no, he doesn’t want to imagine that as a surfer gets solidly plowed down by a towering wave and slammed beneath the surface. There’s a bit of a panic when the guy doesn’t rise up anywhere, but then his friends find him and he’s mostly okay, if a bit cut up.
It’s pretty much what must have happened to Brad to give him that cut, still healing on his head. Nate thinks about the other day, waking up in bed and tracing the lines on Brad’s body, pale strips on tanned skinned. He remembers shaking his head, “You have more scars than I do, and I went to war.”
He’s not sure how long he’s been sitting watching the surfers and the waves when someone calls his name. When he looks up, Walt is standing there beside his surfboard, dripping and smiling. “Hey,” Nate says, gesturing for Walt to sit. “Looks rough out there.”
“Naw,” Walt says. “Today First Reef is weak like a kitten.” He’s quiet for a moment. “Rudy said you’re taking a break this afternoon.”
“I’m here as a tourist,” Nate dismisses casually. “Surfing’s too stressful. I need to lie on a beach and sip little umbrella drinks.”
Walt nods distractedly. “I thought maybe it had something to do with whatever Ray said to you on the drive back.”
Nate has known Walt for about as long as he’s known Brad. By far the most quiet of the group; somehow Nate had never anticipated that Walt might be so perceptive.
Walt’s gaze is steady as he regards Nate, and finally Nate sighs, and rubs his brow. “I think he’s been warning me off from the moment he realized that there was something there.”
Walt shrugs. “You’d have to be blind not to spot the chemistry between you and Brad.”
Nate snorts. “Ray's overprotective.” He can hear the doubt in his tone. The question.
“He’s not,” Walt says. He sighs. “Look, maybe Ray has no trouble trotting out Brad’s history and explaining why things are the way they are, but I won’t do that. It’s not my place. If Brad hasn’t said anything then,” he shrugs. Nate wonders if he should mention that Ray said nothing concrete, no real explanation about anything. He’s not sure whether he’d be defending Ray or himself, either. He doesn’t have the chance to say anything.
“Brad’s nickname is Iceman,” Walt says. “He’s been in the surf-scene so long, he’s sort of a legend. I remember being a teen, just getting into surfing, and Brad wasn’t much older than me. He drew a lot of attention because he was young and was getting these amazing rides, still a wild card entry but taking the competition. You know? Anyway,” he says, shaking his head. “I used to read just about every surf magazine I could get my hands on, and there was this article in Surfer that gave him his name. It talked about this absolutely massive wipeout Brad had at Shipsterns, in Australia. Pretty much everything that could have gone wrong did, except that he didn’t get eaten by a shark, which can happen.”
Nate is not at all amused. Walt shrugs. “Some idiot dropped in on Brad’s wave, and Brad had to push back and he got caught inside, which is a bad thing. The water broke right overhead and knocked him down, his leash tangled around the rocks, and Brad got sliced up and knocked around pretty bad, not to mention turned around. Basically, it was a mess.”
“But,” Nate says, because he can actually feel an edge of concern start building, which is a little ridiculous. “Obviously he survived.”
Walt nods. “Well, obviously. The point is, Brad almost drowned out there, and the reporter who did the interview made this joke like, obviously Brad wouldn’t ever be taking on Shipsterns again, and Brad is sitting there, black and blue and still in a hospital bed and he said that he was going again just as soon as he got released.”
Walt shrugs. “He did, too. The reporter stuck around, and took a bunch of shots of Brad’s ride. Y’know, most people would take a break for a bit or something after an experience like that. Get a change of scene. Not Brad, thought. People started calling him ‘Iceman’ because he was fearless, the surf he’d take on, the way he'd surf it, everything.”
They sit there, watching the crowds of people in the water and on the sand, watching the enormous break of the waves, and Nate can’t imagine how he’d react if something like that happened to him. Probably there would be a period, if only a small one, where he honestly would consider never touching a surfboard again. Even now, knowing the rush of a proper wave.
“My point is,” Walt says. “He’s got this aura, and people tend to forget that he’s just a guy. He plays it up, too. If you give him a choice, he deflects. Always. Everyone thinks that he’s easygoing, the laidback surfer cliché, just taking hits and moving on, easy as you please, because he makes jokes and plays things down. But that’s not how he is. When Cherie met Brad, she called him a duck.”
Nate gets what Cherie meant. Calm as you please on the surface, kicking to stay afloat underneath. He starts to rethink those moments when Nate had trusted Brad’s easy confidence, the casual shrug, the humor. He’s as guilty as those people Walt mentioned, getting taken in by the deflection, the humor.
“So Ray is a self-appointed shield.”
Walt nods. “Ray handles things by sticking his nose into everything, talking to people to sort them out, that kind of thing. Always looking out for Brad, whenever he can, because that’s just the way it is with them. They look out for each other.”
“So," Nate says, as everything begins to fall into place. "I got warned off because I’m a tourist.”
Walt shrugs, his shoulder rolling in a small, careless circle. “Well, yeah.”
Nate glances over. “What about you?”
Walt grins, a sort of ‘you caught me’ expression, wry and pleased at the same time. “I care about Brad, sure. I guess I don’t interfere like Ray does, because I don’t want to mess up something that might be good for him. You know? At a certain point, thinking and planning and all of that isn't going to help anymore. Sometimes, you just have to go ahead and do it, and see where it takes you.”
Nate grins. “You sound like Rudy.”
“Naw,” Walt says. “I sound like a surfer. Stick around much longer and you might start sounding like one, too.”
_________________________________
Brad is standing on Nate’s porch when he gets back to his cabin. Nate halts, his feet bare, sandals grasped loosely in one hand, staring at Brad who is wearing a pair of navy boardshorts and a light blue T-shirt. His sunglasses perched on his head, the breeze ruffling his blond hair. He looks casual and relaxed and impossibly attractive.
“Hey,” Brad says. “I wasn’t sure when you’d be back…”
“I was walking,” Nate blurts. He makes a gesture back along the beach, forgets he’s holding his sandals and almost drops them. “I just,” he pauses, shifts forward until he’s standing at the bottom of the steps. “I ended up running into Walt. We talked for a bit.”
Brad stares at him, his face inscrutable. “Okay.” Then clears his throat, his gaze shifting away and then back. “Listen, I just…”
“No, wait,” Nate says. He spent pretty much the entire day trying to figure this out, and if they’re going to talk about it, then Nate is damned well going to say everything he’s figured out, or failed to figure out, or whatever.
What Brad decides he wants to do with that is out of Nate’s hands, but he refuses to lose something that feels like it might actually be important to him because of a miscommunication, or a misunderstanding, or because they were both just too fucked up to figure this shit out.
He says, “I have to say something first.”
They stare at each other for a second, and Nate holds Brad’s gaze, unflinching. Brad makes eye contact the way some of Nate’s Marines used to. Like it’s almost a dare, like he's reading Nate's entire life story in that moment. That’s fine, because Nate never blinks first, and he’s not backing down.
Brad nods, but doesn’t say anything.
Slowly, Nate steps up onto the porch and licks his lips. His stomach is twisted into knots. He says, “I don’t know what this is, or even what your thoughts are about the other night, but” he hastens to add, when it seems like Brad might actually answer him. “I need to say this either way so just…” he trails off, tries to sort out what it is exactly that he intends to say, and then just figures enough is enough.
Sometimes no amount of planning is going to get you through something.
Sometimes you just have to go ahead and do it.
“It wasn’t a one-off, for me,” Nate says. He catches Brad’s blue-eyed gaze and jerks his chin up because he’s not used to talking like this, not used to putting himself out there with so little to go on. He wants to say that being with Brad feels easy, feels right and Nate’s been missing that feeling for so long, he’s not ready to give it up so soon. He’s aware that he’s maybe a little crazy, like saying any of this at all will just seem too soon. It doesn’t matter. He has to say it anyway.
“At the bar I wasn’t just looking to get laid, or even trying to find some kind of holiday-fling to go home and have as this great story. The hot surfer guy I fucked in Oahu…”
Brad smirks. “Did Ray make you watch Blue Crush again?”
“What?” Nate frowns, realizes what he just said and laughs. “Jesus, did I just instigate some clichéd Hollywood dramatic moment?”
Brad tilts his head to the side, like he's considering. “I think you did.”
“I assure you, it was entirely unintentional.” He frowns. “It doesn’t make what I’m trying to say any less true, though.” Nate licks his lips again and pushes on. “Being here in this place. Hanging out with you guys, Rudy and Walt and even Ray. Being with you. It feels like the first time I’ve been on solid ground in a while.”
He shrugs. “I’m here on holiday and I don’t actually want to leave. I’ve got an airline ticket in my bag, and my reservation ends at the end of the week. I’m pretty sure Rudy’s got someone taking over my cabin pretty much the moment I leave it, and I know all of that, but that doesn’t make this any less true.” He takes a breath, lets it out and says, “I’m not done with this yet. You and me, whatever it is. Wherever it’s going, if it’s even going anywhere…”
Pursing his lips, Nate adds, “If you were about to tell me that we should forget last night, and the night before… or that it was just a good time and we should put it behind us, I can do that.” He knows he can. They haven’t known each other very long; Nate hasn’t fallen in love or anything. He can step away if he has to, go back to casual if that’s what Brad wants. “I just thought I should tell you.”
The quiet stretches. Nate’s grateful for the chirrup of birds and the wind and the waves because at least the moment doesn’t seem entirely stifling. He’s standing there waiting and Brad doesn’t seem compelled to speak.
But then finally, he does.
“Actually,” Brad says. “I came here to see if you wanted to get some dinner.”
He plays it off casual, and for a second Nate falls for it. Feels a little embarrassed that he laid himself out there for what appears to be no reason at all. Then he catches himself wondering if it’s a casual dinner, or a date-dinner, and it's right about then that he realizes what Brad’s trying to pull.
“Bullshit,” Nate says, smiling. “How long were you standing on my porch, Colbert?”
Brad shrugs. “It doesn’t matter now,” he says. “After that impassioned speech, I’m feeling a little light-headed, I think you might have genuinely swept me off my feet, which means that you can buy me dinner.”
It turns out Brad’s friends know him very well indeed. Nate’s immensely pleased that Ray and Walt had no qualms sitting him down and talking to him the way they did, because he’s sure he would have misunderstood this whole thing otherwise. Now though, Nate's pretty sure he knows exactly what he needs to say. “Fuck that, you’re making me dinner.” He raises his eyebrows. “I have it on good authority that you can actually cook.”
“When the occasion calls for it,” Brad says with a careless shrug, like it's just dinner that they're talking about, and not the difference between casual and something else. Something intimate and full of potential.
“Well,” Nate says. “It calls for it. Just let me get changed.” He pulls his keys from his pocket and turns toward his door, only to be stopped by a hand ghosting over his upper arm.
Nate pauses, glances over and waits. Brad says, “I just…” but can’t seem to find how to continue. Instead, he presses a careful kiss against Nate’s lips, almost shy. It’s answer enough.
___________________________________________________
|<< END PART TWO >>|
STORY MASTERPOST
By: tea_diva
Chapter: Two
Word Count: 10,638
When Rudy and Nate arrive at the beach on Saturday there is a boxy white Land Rover already parked. “That’s Brad’s car,” Rudy says, pushing his sunglasses up to rest on his head. “I suppose it’s about time you met the bunch.”
Nate isn’t certain how he feels about meeting more people. There’s a jealous part of him that wants the easy camaraderie he has found with Rudy and Ray to remain unchanged. Both men sniping at each other and joking with Nate like there was never a time when they didn’t know one another. It reminds him of the one thing he misses about the Corps: his platoon.
Granted, Ray even on his best day couldn’t hope to be as crass as some of the Corporals Nate had gone to war with, but sometimes it was a close thing.
Ray paddles over as Nate and Rudy get their boards out into the water. “So, it occurred to me last night that Rudy and I keep mentioning these people who you’ve never actually met. And that was weird, because it feels like I’ve known you for forever, and since I’ve actually, like, known Brad and Walt for forever…”
“Hey,” Nate blurts out as he catches sight of the other two men sharing the water.
It’s just that apparently he has already met the mysterious Brad.
The blond grins, once again straddling his board and looking down at Nate with that same infuriatingly relaxed confidence that Nate envies, if only because he is sunburnt and speechless, and being buffeted by waves, having to spit out salt water every few seconds.
“There’s a rip current along there,” Brad says, pointing the current out with a smirk.
Nate nods. “Duly noted.” There’s a faded bruise just above Brad’s left eyebrow, a fairly deep slice held together by a butterfly bandage bisecting the greenish purple mark. “How’s the head?”
In a flash, Brad’s smile disappears and Nate finds himself the target of an actual glower. “It’s fine.”
“Yeah,” the other man says, looking a little sheepish. Nate assumes, by process of elimination, that this must be Walt. “We maybe ask that question too many times.”
“Just a bit,” Brad answers, still looking grumpy.
“I’m Walt,” the other man says to Nate, spreading his fingers wide as he waves. He’s tanned and his dirty blond hair is bleached from the sun. Bright eyes and a warm smile set in a round, boyish face.
“Nate,” Nate says. “Nice to meet you. Both,” he tacks on, as an afterthought.
“Yeah, you too,” Walt says. “Ray’s told us a lot about you. You were in the Marines?”
It’s pretty much the last thing Nate’s expecting, and it’s the last thing he wants to talk about. He’d thought Ray hadn’t noticed the tattoo, and he’d gotten used to Rudy’s quiet understanding. Walt sounds like he has questions, and Nate honestly has no idea how he can answer them.
“Is this the start of a circle-jerk? Or are we actually going to surf at some point today?” Brad interrupts.
“I’m here to surf,” Walt answers agreeably. Nate has the impression that he's used to following Brad' lead, and he's more than a little grateful for that.
They orient away from the beach and start to work their way out. When Nate surfaces after the second wave he catches Ray shooting a splash of water at Walt. “So where did you two princesses run off to for dawn patrol today?”
It’s not the first time Nate's heard the term but he still isn’t quite certain what it means. “Okay,” he asks. “What, exactly, is ‘dawn patrol’?”
Ray glances at him. “Going out and surfing at the ass-crack of dawn because you’re a wheenus.”
Walt swats a handful of water at Ray’s face. “I’m not a wheenus.”
“You don’t even know what a wheenus is.”
Brad rolls his eyes skyward. “Children, behave.”
“Brad,” Walt says. “He called us wheenuses!”
“Bitch, please. You are so totally a wheenus. If you looked the word up in a dictionary your face would be right the fuck there.”
Nate is choking down on his laughter; beside him, Rudy is smiling like this level of idiocy might actually be good for the soul. Up ahead, Brad lets out a long-suffering sigh. “If it weren’t for surfing, I would never socialize with any of you people. We have nothing in common.”
“Well, excuse me!” Ray shouts after Brad as the other man paddles out to catch a wave. “Don’t be such a wheenus, Bradley!”
Brad’s dry voice floats back to them as he pops up on his board. “Read a fucking dictionary, you inbred sister-fucking hick.”
Neither Brad nor Walt joins them in the sandbar. “Fucking ASP cocky sons of bitches,” Ray mutters. Then clarifies, “Professional know-it-alls,” before Nate has to ask.
Nate frowns. “You’re not a professional surfer?”
“No way,” Ray says, laughing happily. “I’m the guy that gets paid to keep fucking Colbert over there from falling apart in his own bathwater.”
For a second, Nate wonders if he’s got water in his ear because there is no way he heard that correctly. “You’re his PR person?”
“Fuck yeah,” Ray says. “PR, personal assistant, therapist and wrangler. That’s me.” He shrugs a little awkwardly as he lies on top of his board. “I suppose, technically speaking, Walt’s not really ASP, but he’s won a bunch of major surf competitions as a wild card entry. Personally, I think the only reason he doesn’t go pro is he likes it when people call him a ‘wild card’. He’s a fucking girl that way.”
Nate doesn’t ask how it’s possible for Ray to have so much free time if his job is actually as extensive as he makes it sound. Instead, he lets it go in favor of making an attempt at a wave. He's graduated from anthills to bunny hills according to Ray, and he doesn’t always fall on his face, which is nice.
Sometimes he just pitches off the side of his board like a spazz.
“You have to let yourself go,” Rudy says, after checking that he’s okay.
Ray scoffs, “If he ‘let’s go’ any more he’ll be like a dolphin jumping over a board.”
“I appreciate your devoted encouragement,” Nate drawls, which prompts Ray to threaten him with smoochy-lips, and things quickly deteriorate from there, until they are mostly floating around trying to drown one another. In fact, now that Nate thinks about it, this is how most of his surfing lessons end.
He had hoped that no one had been watching him surf, but as they head back into shore Walt joins them and says that Nate's looking pretty good "for someone who’s just learning". Nate concentrates very carefully on paddling, and tries his best to ignore Brad.
The feeling isn't mutual. Swimming up alongside Nate, Brad glances over and says, “You know what you’re problem is?” He doesn’t wait for Nate to answer. “You’re too tense.”
Rudy nods emphatically. “That’s what I keep telling him.” He turns to Nate and says, “You have to ride with the wave.”
“The waves you’re taking-on are too small,” Brad continues. “It’s not enough of a challenge.”
Nate shakes his head, his mouth twitching up wryly. “I can assure you, it’s plenty challenging.”
“No. It’s not," Brad insists. "You’re stuck in your head, and that’s the last place you should be when you’re in front of the curl.”
Nate wants to say that he’s pretty sure Brad is full of shit, but he’s too busy feeling like an idiot for spending the entire afternoon flailing on his surfboard while apparently, Brad watched and formed opinions on exactly what he was doing wrong.
Ray’s no help at all. “You know,” he says. “As much as it pains me to admit, Brad may have a point. I mean, most of the trouble people have when they start out is they don’t have the muscles you need to actually get up and balance on your board. That’s not really your problem though, is it?”
“Not from where I’m sitting,” Brad says.
Nate feels a rush of heat zing straight through him. He’s fairly certain even his arms have turned a vivid pink.
He blames sunburn.
_________________________________
The next morning, when Nate stumbles out of his cabin running shoes in hand, he comes to an abrupt halt. The silhouette of the lone runner he’s spotted on more than one occasion is working its way along the beach but now Nate knows exactly who it is. It seems like he’s been bumping into Brad since he set foot in Oahu. He just didn't know it.
Shoving his shoes onto his feet, Nate steps off the front porch and waves. “Hey,” he says, when Brad heads up the beach toward him. “You don’t have to run back and forth in front of my place just to impress me.”
Brad makes a show of frowning and looking around. “Do you live somewhere around here?”
He waits while Nate does a quick warm up with a hesitant frown on his face. “I feel obligated to tell you that I'm not in the habit of sprinting over obscene distances carrying a back-pack that weighs three times as much as I do.”
“Does is it look like that’s the kind of run I’m planning?”
Brad still looks hesitant. “I’ve known exactly one Recon Marine and based on what I’ve encountered with him, it’s a statement worth making.”
Nate wants to ask how Brad met Rudy. How any of their curious group ever met and became friends. Brad puts Nate off-balance, makes him feel unsure himself in a way he just hasn't felt in a long time, and it prevents him from saying most anything coherent.
“Where are you from?” Brad asks as they start out.
Nate answers, “Oceanside,” without even thinking. He doesn’t even realize he’s said it until he catches the sidelong look Brad throws his way. “Sorry,” Nate says. “I’m actually from Baltimore. I don’t know why I said that.” Brad’s eyes flick down to Nate’s upper arm where his T-shirt sleeve is obscuring his tattoo.
Clearing his throat, Nate asks, “How about you?”
“I’m from here,” Brad says, and then smiles a sharp little grin. “The same way that you’re from Oceanside.”
Sometimes a place can transform a person so much they can barely recognize themselves anymore. It’s not necessarily bad; mostly it’s just life and the inevitable change that goes along with that. It’s what being in the Corps did for Nate, and he’s not done figuring out exactly who he’s become. He wonders what Oahu did for Brad that affected him the same way.
“I’ve lived here most of my life,” Brad continues. “Though technically I suppose you’d say I’m from San Diego.”
It feels like it could be an opening. A chance to get to know the other man, but Nate’s not entirely certain. The last thing he wants to do is pry. He thinks: ‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained’ and asks, “How did you end up in Oahu?”
Brad actually smirks, his blue eyes cutting over to Nate and then quickly away. “I was looking for an authority I could respect. It was either the military or the waves.”
It’s not the answer Nate was expecting. “What?”
“I went through a bit of a rebellious phase when I was a teenager,” Brad says. There’s something in the carefully casual tone he uses, paired with the suggestion of military school that leads Nate to believe Brad’s ‘rebellious phase’ went beyond the norm. “My parents gave me a choice: military school, or I could spend the summer with my uncle Daniel.”
“How is that a choice?” Nate wonders. “Hawaii or military school?”
Brad barks a laugh. “My uncle was a big corporate lawyer. He didn’t take shit from anyone, and every time I ever saw him he was an opinionated son of a bitch. I didn’t know he’d retired early and moved to Oahu. As far as I knew, either choice led to me being shipped off some place to be brow-beaten and criticized.”
“Wait,” Nate says. “Did you pick military school?”
“I was going to start in September, but my uncle showed up in June. He shoved a surfboard at me and took me out to the beach. Nothing like an entire day spent half-drowning, beating yourself black and blue just to stand up on a piece of fiber glass. It put me in my place. I was determined to conquer the waves,” he smirks. “That’s how I started out thinking, anyway. Over summer holidays I stayed with my uncle in Oahu, and then I just moved here. I’d fly back for holidays and visits when I could but, this was home.”
“And professional surfing?”
This time, Brad turns his full grin straight at Nate. “I didn’t wake up one morning and think that I could make a living out of it.” He shrugs. “To be honest, I didn’t even know it was a legitimate career option. But, you know, if you live on the north shore and you surf, at some point you get the notion to take on Pipe Masters. It’s just one of those inevitabilities of life.”
They run to the rock ridge and back, and when Nate branches off toward his cabin, Brad says, “I’ll see you in the afternoon.”
Nate’s grinning when he says, “Looking forward to it.”
_________________________________
“Sixty percent of surfing is waiting around for a decent swell,” Brad says. They’re all together, floating a ways out near the sandbar because the compromise Nate made was that if he has to take-on bigger waves, he’s doing it where he won’t crack his own skull open on a piece of coral. “Only ten percent of surfing involves any actual surfing.”
Nate glances over. “So what’s the other thirty percent?”
Brad meets his gaze and smirks. “Drowning.”
“Those percentages are approximate,” Walt says, like that will make Nate feel better or something.
“Here,” Rudy says. “Take this one.”
Nate eyes the oncoming wave, but he doesn’t have time to waste. “Paddle, paddle!” Ray is chanting as Nate tries to get into position. There’s a sense of ‘rush rush rush’, and Nate pushes everything else out of his head as he concentrates on paddling.
Then he pops up on his board and realizes the water cresting at his back is as tall as he is. Stronger than he is.
The only thing keeping him upright is his precarious sense of balance, his muscles straining to hold him in place. “Don’t look now, but you’re actually surfing!” Ray shouts, but what Nate is actually doing is flashing back to that rush of adrenaline he had gotten so used to, bullets snapping and zipping past, his weapon trained and hands steady.
Combat without the loss of life, and minus the bloodshed.
It’s a rush. A pure surging moment of utter exhilaration free of everything else, anything else, except the focus it takes to keep himself upright and moving forward, keeping just ahead of the curl.
He gets it. Finally, in a way he never did, tripping over the little blips of cresting water no higher then his own knees. This is surfing. This is why people do this, why Walt wakes up at the crack of dawn and rushes out. Why Brad will fall and get beaten bloody against the coral and still want to go out.
This is what Nate has been missing without even realizing it. Since the moment he left the Corps. Since he left Iraq, really. This potent, utterly undeniable sense of ‘Yes, I am alive. Right here. Right now. Here I am.’
He reaches out with one hand, touches the rush of water just beside him with his fingertips. Thinks: “Jesus fuck, I’m actually doing this.”
Then promptly gets overtaken by the curl and slammed down beneath the water with a force that threatens to take his breath away.
Just like always, there’s a sense of panic that Nate overcomes after a moment. The Corps didn’t beat his fear of drowning out of him, but it did teach him to put that fear back in its place. Nate locks it down and starts to fight against the strength of the waves crashing above him, the force of the water breaking overhead pushing him down, the tug of the leash on his ankle the only connection he has to the surface, his surfboard floating somewhere above his head.
He’s not powerless. The waves are strong but he’s been in rougher waters before. It feels like a reminder. Something he knew before but had forgotten, the responsibility, the duty, the expectation seeping into him until it permeated his core, became a part of him that had felt like it had always been there.
Swimming, kicking his feet and cupping his hands, pushing his way back toward the surface, Nate remembers Brad’s words from that morning, “I was looking for an authority I could respect. It was either the military or the waves.”
Since Iraq, Nate feels like he’s been drowning in the rippling effects of his choices. At some point, he stopped being able to distinguish between what was actually within his control and what wasn't. What he could legitimately hold himself responsible for, and what was misplaced guilt.
Nate breaks the surface and reaches out automatically, throws an arm over his board and gives his back to the waves, shaking the water out of his hair as he starts kicking toward the group. “Akaw!” Rudy is shouting at him. “That was surfing!”
“That was incredible,” Nate says, realizing he might possibly be grinning like the wave knocked all the sense from his head, but not caring.
“Aw man,” Ray says. “Look at him. He’s totally amped. Good luck getting your board back from him, Rudy. He’s popped his cherry and now he’s a die-hard surfer.”
Nate laughs and hauls himself out of the water, straddling his board beside the others. Everyone is grinning along with him, laughing, talking about the waves and recounting their favorite rides. Nate feels like he gets it, now. After tackling what Ray solidly informs him was a ‘real wave’ and not any ankle or knee busters. He can’t help but notice that Brad is entirely silent, watching with a slight little quirk to his mouth but saying nothing as the others pat Nate on the back.
“Mine!” Ray calls and starts paddling after a wave. Rudy’s focus shifts to Walt and Nate kicks a little in the water, guides his board to drift closer to Brad.
He glances over, and then turns back to watch as Ray pops up onto his board, directing it up onto the curl of the wave until he’s leaning almost horizontal over the water. Nate has no idea how the guy can balance, but it looks cool.
“Too tense,” Nate says, quietly. “Not enough of a challenge?”
Brad’s eyes glance over and then away. “I wouldn’t want to say something as clichéd as ‘I told you so’.”
Nate smirks. “But?” he prompts.
A splash of water strikes him on the chest. Nate glances down in time to spot another arch of water hit the same spot. He turns an accusing glare at Brad, who is innocently staring out at Ray but Nate can see his hands are cupped just under the surface of the water. As Nate watches, Brad’s hands shift, propelling another arching splash at Nate.
Still giddy from the rush of riding that wave, Nate realizes suddenly, crystal clear and wide-open with possibility: ‘This is flirting.’ It’s different from the impersonal, light-hearted teasing when he first encountered Brad, floating in the rip current as Brad had grinned and said, ‘You don’t have to impress me.’ Nate isn’t sure what’s changed, or if anything even has, but it occurs to him that there is nothing to hold him back.
He’s not a marine, he’s a civilian. If he wants to lean over and kiss Brad, there’s nothing to stop him. No rules, anyway. Everything else in Nate’s life since leaving the Corps has seemingly become more complicated. Relationships, at least, have become blissfully less so. The thought makes Nate flush.
“How did you even survive in Iraq?” Brad asks.
Nate frowns. “What?”
“For all the sunblock you apply, you’re still the color of a ripe strawberry.”
Nate’s mind replays how Brad’s voice carries the words ‘ripe’ and ‘strawberry’, starts looping them around and around in a way that is becoming increasingly obscene. He wonders if there is any special significance in Brad’s choice of words. Why ‘ripe’?
It’s maybe been too long since he got properly laid.
“Christ,” Brad says. “Go back to shore and put on a fucking hat.”
Nate smirks. “If I put on a hat, it will just fall off when I take my next wave.”
“Go sit under an umbrella before you stroke out,” Brad says.
Instead of getting caught up on that new turn of phrase, ‘stroke out’, Nate sends a splash of water in Brad’s direction.
“Hey, are you guys starting a water fight?” Walt calls, turning around on his board.
Brad rolls his eyes skyward. “No, Walt. We were just discussing how, for an elite marine officer, Nate here is as delicate as a fresh little hibiscus blossom.”
Nate stretches his right leg across the distance, his toes curling over the top of Brad’s board as he pushes. “Hey,” Brad says, and then he pitches over, arms flailing out in an instinctive attempt to grasp onto something. He lands with a satisfying splash into the water.
Brad comes up spluttering and glaring and his immediate response is to knock Nate off his board. The ensuing water fight is almost as exhilarating as surfing that wave had been.
_________________________________
Ray’s knock on his cabin door interrupts Nate’s usual evening indecision regarding where to eat. Most nights, Rudy is in charge of preparing dinner, and he’s really kind of phenomenal in the kitchen. Nate always feels a bit like he’s missing a really fabulous dinner when he leaves the resort.
Then again, Dharma resort is an incredibly small and very private little place. The food is delicious and the atmosphere amazing, but there’s no live entertainment or dancing. It’s an aspect of traveling alone that Nate had never been forced to consider before: eating by himself. It turns out; he’s not a fan.
Consequently, when Nate answers the door, he’s grinning. “What the fuck are you so happy about?” Ray asks suspiciously, sticking his head into the cabin and peering over Nate’s shoulder. “Do you have some chick in here?”
“Are you not used to people being happy to see you, Ray?” Nate teases.
“Jesus, you’re perky.” He eyes the bathroom door, the closet, and the bed closely when Nate allows him through. “I’m feeling like seafood. Are you feeling like seafood?”
They end up at a tiny little seafood place that Nate doesn’t think he would have ever ventured into without the glowing recommendation that Ray gives it. As it is, he eyes the menu carefully and spends most of the time it takes to prepare their food trying to brace himself for the food poisoning he’s apparently just signed up for.
“See?” Ray grins when Nate takes a bite of the perfectly cooked mahi mahi with coconut and cloves. “You should have more faith in me.” Nate would apologize but he’s too busy devouring his incredible dinner. “That’s okay,” Ray says, magnanimously. “I forgive you.”
Over dessert, which is equally mouth-watering, Ray starts talking about Walt and Brad again and for once, Nate doesn’t feel slightly lost listening to him ramble. “You seriously need to watch Brad surf, that’s what I’m saying,” Ray says. “Watching Brad surf a wave is a thing of beauty and it doesn’t make me gay to say that, because everyone is fucking thinking it. Just like thinking Rudy’s hot doesn’t make you gay.”
“Sounds to me like you’re protesting an awful lot.”
“Oh hell,” Ray says. “I’d try anything once. But once was enough.” He narrows his eyes at Nate. His next question is launched right when Nate has a mouthful of fruity pink cocktail in mouth, “Did Brad’s flirting freak you out or something?”
Nate’s not even sure why he half-chokes. “What? No.”
“Are you sure? Because I know the whole guy-guy thing is kind of a major no-no in the Army.”
Nate raises his eyebrows. “I was in the Marines.”
“Whatever.”
“I assure you, the whole ‘guy-guy’ thing, as you put it, is not a problem for me. It wasn’t when I was in the Corps, and it certainly isn’t now that I’m retired.”
Ray nods. “Well, good. Besides, I’m pretty sure that’s just how Brad communicates. Half the time I would bet good money that he doesn’t even know he’s doing it. Though, y’know, if you want to hear his A-game material, you should hear him sweet-talking his surfboard, or his computer.” He nods pointedly, “I usually just give them some time alone.”
Nate’s not certain how to take that. On the one hand it’s a bit of a relief. If Brad isn’t actually flirting with intent, so to speak, then that sort of takes the pressure off. Maybe now Nate can stop getting tongue-tied whenever he’s faced with the toned expanse of golden skin, or Brad's piercing blue eyes, or perfectly bowed coral pink lips.
Nate has never been very good at lying to himself. He’s attracted to Brad, and the more time he spends with him, the more it seems to go beyond the physical. Not that he’s ready to pick out a ring or anything, but Nate’s been cut-free of his responsibilities. No more school, for a while at least. No job, nothing really to tie him anywhere. No expectations to confine him.
He reminds himself that he’s leaving in a week and that, even if Brad had been interested, it wouldn’t have been anything more than a holiday fling at best, and he’s not certain he’s ready to deal with that, not with his emotions all over the place the way they have been.
_________________________________
The thought sticks with him all through the next day.
From the moment he pulls on his running shoes and steps out of the cabin to find Brad waiting for him on the beach. All through his morning spent snorkeling off the coast, and the afternoon lost in the waves and the surf.
It’s been over a half year since he left the Corps and this is the first time since then that Nate feels like himself. Like he has a place and knows what he’s doing. Like he's where he's supposed to be.
It goes beyond the meditation exercises Rudy has roped him into, to, “Begin the day on the right foot” according to Rudy. Nate doesn't have the heart to explain that he begins the day with a run or really, waking up in a cold sweat and scribbling in his notebook. The other morning he’d fallen asleep mid-chant, his legs twisted into a semi-painful pretzel. So far, Nate’s path to enlightenment has featured curious friends, surfing, flirting, and Brad.
Ray might have played it off as casual: Brad flirted with everything and everyone. That’s not how Nate’s reading things, though. It feels like there might be something there. A quiet ‘what if’ whispering on the periphery every time he looks at the tall blond, catches his eye, kicks him off his board and sends him spluttering into the water. Nate doesn’t want to overstep because his vacation days are numbered and steadily decreasing, and the last thing he wants is to do something that will mess up the ease with which they all come together.
He blames the alcohol.
That, and Walt, for suggesting they go out all together after a long day out on the water.
Also, the thin white button-down shirt Brad’s wearing, the sleeves rolled to his elbows, top few buttons left loose. It’s setting off the gold coloring of his skin, and Nate’s never seen Brad in anything but a T-shirt and boardshorts, sometime with no shirt at all. There is no way that a button-down should be more enticing, but it is. Nate’s eyes keep drifting to the black aviator sunglasses that are hanging from the V of the shirt, and he blames them as well.
That, and the way everyone in the bar is sort of helplessly staring at Brad. Little flickering glances of want that Nate keeps catching and resenting, while another part of him feels ridiculously pleased to be sitting at the table with Brad when everyone else is just glancing over and wanting. He joins Brad at the bar to help carry drinks and points out the attention Brad’s getting.
“This is a surfer bar, Nate,” Brad dismisses, his voice raspy in that way it has, a little more so since he’s speaking quietly. “They know who I am. That’s all.”
Nate shakes his head, leans over, pressing just a bit closer against Brad’s side as he says, “That’s not how they’re looking at you.”
The bartender starts setting out their drinks onto the two trays on the counter. Nate says, “I think it’s because you’re leaning against this bar with your ass sticking out, your shirt unbuttoned just enough to tease and your hair ruffled up like someone’s been running their hands through it.” Beside him, he’s aware that Brad has maybe stopped breathing, and it occurs to him that this has gone a little beyond the casual flirting they’ve maintained since they first met.
He could stop, but he doesn’t want to. So instead, he clarifies, “You look hot.”
The reaction isn’t what he was expecting. Though, thinking about it, Nate really can’t remember what he was actually expecting. He was hoping that maybe Brad would smirk and volley something back, like maybe suggesting that Nate should stake his claim or something, and then they could make out at the bar.
Maybe that's the really tall blue drink that Ray had ordered for him and made him drink in under two minutes talking. In retrospect, Nate thinks that scenario sounds a bit Harlequin. Not that he would have minded if that’s what Brad did.
Instead, Brad does not move and he does not breathe. Nate squints, and then starts to smile. “Brad Colbert,” he says, feeling a little gleeful at the realization. “Are you actually blushing?”
Brad snorts but Nate can still see the pinkish flush in his cheeks. “You’re full of shit, Nate.”
“Argue all you want, I know a blush when I see one.”
Brad turns his head away, like not being able to see the blush will somehow mean it was never there. “You’re drunk.”
“Here you go!” the bartender says, setting both trays within reach. Nate’s focus is broken, and he’s a little frustrated with the interruption.
Glancing over at the trays, Brad starts to reach for one but Nate drops a hand down onto his arm. “Hey,” he says. “I’m not all that drunk.
“Right.”
Nate jerks his eyebrows up. “I’m serious. I’ll stop drinking right now, if you want me to.”
Brad’s eyes flicker over. He’s frowning as he asks, “Why would I want that?”
“So I can prove to you that I’d say it even if I was completely sober.” He smirks. “Which I would.”
Brad lets out a slow shuddery breath. “I need some air.”
It almost sounds like a question, which is why instead of backing off, Nate says, “If you leave this bar, I’m coming with you.”
They stare at each other, and Nate starts to wonder if time has actually stopped, if the world is as still as it feels because it feels like nothing else exists. Then Brad nods and says, “Okay,” and Nate remembers that they actually have friends waiting for them back at their table.
He clears his throat. “We should probably bring these over first.”
Brad nods. “Right.”
They pick up the trays and make their over to their table, Ray making grabby-hands at a slushy bright pink drink as Rudy and Walt shift the empties to make space, and then notice that neither Nate nor Brad have retaken their seats. “We’re uh,” Nate says, all his earlier confidence suddenly leaving him.
“We’re going to head out,” Brad says, after clearing his throat. “Nate’s wasted. Somebody should finish these,” he sets both his and Nate’s refills onto the table and shrugs.
“Alright, my brothers,” Rudy agrees easily. Ray, however, is looking at them with narrowed eyes. “Have a nice night, and we’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Oh man,” Walt says. “I’m totally sleeping in tomorrow!”
The bar is closer to Dharma Resort than to Brad’s house. Brad orients them toward the beach without hesitation, and Nate pulls off his sandals the moment they get to the sand. It’s dark and the white sand feels cool against his skin. He thinks that maybe this should be more awkward, walking quietly beside each other. Any other time, with any other person, Nate’s pretty certain he would feel compelled to speak, if only just to fill the air. He stays silent. There’s something easy about it, something natural. The two of them in the dark, walking. Like they know where they stand with each other without having to say a word.
Maybe he’s projecting.
There’s the sound of the waves, the lilting song of birds and the steady rhythm of bugs and creatures making sounds. He could make a joke about ‘long walks along the beach’, or start talking about his favorite movies, but instead Nate just shifts until he’s walking closer to Brad, sharing their heat.
Brad doesn’t move away.
He follows Nate back to his cabin, up the steps and through the door when Nate unlocks it. Nate thinks: “Okay, now things will start to feel awkward” but it doesn’t happen. He drops his sandals on the worn wood floor and reaches out and then Brad’s right there, standing pressed against him and they’re kissing and groping, pulling open each other’s shirts and undoing jeans and sharing breaths.
It’s not perfect. They get in each other’s way trying to strip each other’s clothes off, trip over their pants and topple onto Nate’s bed and end up laughing when they bump heads when they both try to move at the same time. It’s fumbling and uncoordinated in that way that most first-times are. Half-frantic with the want, the need, and still oh so good when Brad pushes in and starts to move. Electrified skin and shaky breaths and it takes them a bit to find a rhythm, find those spots on each other’s bodies that send them keening over the edge, but it’s never awkward.
Afterward, when Brad collapses onto the bed beside Nate, sighs and says, “I should get a cloth or something.” Nate flops an arm out, drapes it over Brad’s torso and grunts. Brad sighs and says, “Fuck it” and they both start to fall asleep. Nate wonders why this feels so easy.
At any other time, Nate's fairly certain he would have started to wonder if it was a one-off; if his partner would climb out of bed right away, or be gone in the morning. This time, with Brad, Nate’s not wondering those things. He thinks maybe he’s simply too tired to be concerned, or maybe Rudy’s philosophy of ‘living in the moment’ has started to sink in.
Either way, when Nate jerks awake and gropes for his notebook he has to fight his way out from beneath Brad to get it. When he contemplates his morning run Brad says that, since he has no running shoes, they should get their morning cardio some other way.
When Nate goes to breakfast, Brad walks over with him, and it still doesn’t feel awkward.
_________________________________
On his twelfth day in Oahu, Nate wakes up on a California king bed, splayed out on pale blue sheets that feel softer than butter, and nearly breaks his neck climbing out of bed because he’s tangled up in the bedding. He’s also naked.
Nate makes use of the en suite bathroom before pulling on a T-shirt, and a pair of sweats, which he’s fairly certain belong to Brad. Then he finds his way out of Brad’s bedroom, through the open concept living room to the kitchen. When he walks in, yawning, Brad casts him an angry glance and tells him to be quiet.
“What are you doing? Stealth cooking?” Nate teases, meandering over and wrapping his arms around Brad’s hips. “Smells good.”
“I’m making loco moco,” Brad explains, his voice low, but not quite a whisper. “I don’t want to wake Ray up.”
Nate snickers. “Brad, Ray’s all the way over in the guest house. How could he possibly hear you in here cooking?”
Brad doesn’t answer, and eventually Nate relocates to one of the stools by the breakfast bar, where he can observe the preparation of breakfast and also monitor the progress of the coffee pot, which Brad has set brewing.
He can’t make sense of the various ingredients Brad has out on the counter. Nate has encountered the name before on various breakfast menus around Oahu, occurring frequently enough for him to ascertain that it must be a native dish of some sort. Still, looking at the rice, eggs, refrigerated hamburger patties and what he is fairly certain is a bowl of homemade gravy, Nate can’t comprehend what it is he is about to be fed. Surely those ingredients cannot be blended into something actually appetizing.
Watching Brad cook, Nate remembers one of the first conversations he ever had with Rudy and finds himself wondering. “Rudy said most of his friends weren't breakfast-people. He was complaining he rarely has friends to cook for in the morning.”
Brad shrugs as he begins cracking eggs sunny side up into a pan. “I’m usually out before dawn running, and then surfing. More often then not, Walt comes along. As for Ray, Cherie banned him from their kitchen when she realized if she didn’t set up some ground rules he’d never leave.”
Nate pours out two mugs of coffee and slides one just behind Brad’s elbow and goes to the fridge in search of milk. “Is that how Ray became a friend?”
“Exactly,” Brad says. “I didn’t establish the necessary ground rules, and he quite literally followed me home.”
Pouring milk into his mug, Nate glances over. “And so you put him to work.”
“It was a strategy I was testing in the hopes it might have the desired effect.”
“The desired effect being him leaving you in peace.” Nate takes a sip of coffee and slides his eyes closed. It’s not quite as good as Rudy’s, but it’s pretty damned good. “How’s that working out for you?”
As if to answer that precise question, Nate hears Ray’s voice, distant but growing closer. Brad can obviously hear it as well if the quiet curse is anything to go by. When Brad turns around, his expression is filled with regret. “I stopped making loco moco for this very reason.”
Nate tilts his head in the direction of the sound. A moment later, Walt comes into the kitchen. “I’m so sorry,” he says. “I was coming across to say ‘hi’ and he left his shoes literally in front of the door and I tripped and he woke up.”
“Goddammit, Walt,” Brad mutters.
“Is he singing ‘the Locomotion?” Nate asks. He receives an answering ‘yes’ in stereo sound because Walt and Brad answer at the same moment with the exact same inflection of complete exasperation.
“You gotta swing your hips now!” Ray sings in a shrill soprano, shimmying his way across the hardwood. “Come on baby! Jump up, jump back! Well now, I think you’ve got the knack.”
“Ray!” Brad says, raising his voice in a solid commanding tone. “Shut the fuck up.”
“Come on, Brad!” Ray says, drawing out Brad’s name in that way he sometimes does. “I’m so excited, I want to share to my joy with the world. I mean, when was the last time you made fucking loco moco?”
Brad pinches the bridge of his nose and tilts his head down, the very picture of a longsuffering soul. “I don’t know, Ray. When was the last time you sang that fucking song?”
“A long time, let me tell you,” Ray says. He drops into a chair beside Nate, and nudges him with an elbow. “This guy makes incredible loco moco. I don’t know why it is, but no freaking place on this entire island makes it as good.” Pointedly, Ray looks at Brad’s back and raises his voice, “and then he just completely stopped making it!”
Walt snickers. “Because every time he did you would sing that stupid song and dance until he shoved a plate at you, you inbred hick.”
Ray’s answer is cut off because at that precise moment Brad drops a plate in front of him and Ray becomes distracted, scooping up a fork and digging in. “This food could literally kill you, that’s how good it is,” he says, his mouth full, the yolk of the egg mixing with the gravy, burger and rice. Nate’s still not buying it.
Walt shrugs. “It could kill you,” he says. “It’s on the Cholesterol Hall of fame list. We’re not allowed to even mention it when Rudy’s around.”
“Rudy doesn’t know what he’s missing,” Ray says. Brad hands a plate over to Nate, and then one to Walt. A moment later, he switches off the element and settles on a bench to Nate’s right.
Slowly, Nate picks up his fork and takes a mouthful. His brain is telling him these flavors just should not work. His taste buds, however, are actually impressed. “This isn’t bad.”
“Isn’t bad,” Ray scoffs.
“It’s a good start to the day, if you’re out on the water early,” Brad says with a shrug. After a second, though, his eyes flicker over at Nate and there’s a shy sort of quirk to his lips. “It’s good that you like it.”
_________________________________
The trouble with staying over at Brad’s house is that Nate has no clothes there, and no mode of transportation to get back to the resort. Brad offers to drive him but Ray points out that Brad is actually expected at some interview that is not at all on the way to Nate’s.
“You have an interview?” Nate asks. He knows that Brad’s a good surfer, and that he does it professionally. He even knows that Brad won the Triple Crown just before Nate arrived on the island, which is apparently a big deal, and even that Brad’s sort of a celebrity in the right circles. Somehow, he never completely put that all together.
Brad shrugs. “For Carve magazine.”
Ray nods. “Don’t downplay it, you jackass. This is great! Get excited.”
“Hey,” Walt says quietly, shoving Ray a little with his hand. The look he flashes at Ray says, ‘lay off’ more clearly than any words might have.
“Whatever,” Ray says, his tone changing, easing back a little. “This is the only time we could schedule it. It’s totally casual, anyway. No worries. Don’t be late.” Then he grabs up the keys and tilts his head at Nate. “You ready?”
“I’ll see you,” Brad says. Nate nods and there’s a moment where it feels like he should move forward and kiss Brad, or at least wish him luck, but Ray is looking at him, practically tapping his foot, so he doesn’t. It's only their second time together, so far the group dynamic doesn't seem to have been affected at all, but Nate doesn't want to do something that will make Brad uncomfortable, or start worrying that Nate's getting too involved or something.
As he follows Ray out the front door Nate hears Walt’s voice, “Wait, were those the keys to my truck? Ray?”
Though he expects the other man to run out and wrestle the keys back, there is no sign of Walt. Nate climbs into the passenger seat and Ray starts the engine of Walt’s truck, smirking and shaking his head. “I think secretly he doesn’t mind it.” Then they lapse into silence as Ray drives.
Halfway back, Nate realizes that the only reason he isn’t giving voice to the questions he has about Brad’s interview, which he hadn’t actually heard anything about prior to this morning, and Brad’s professional life as a surfer, is because there’s a strange sort of tension inside the vehicle.
He glances over and realizes Ray’s grip on the steering wheel is tense. Before he can voice anything about it, however, Ray says, “You said you weren’t interested.”
The statement is so left field that Nate needs a second to figure out what Ray is evening talking about. He frowns. “I never said that.”
“Fuck you. It was implied.”
Shifting so he can face Ray as he drives, Nate asks, “How was it implied?”
Ray doesn't even glance at him, he keeps entirely focused on the road. “You said you had no problem with the flirting.”
“Yeah,” Nate says, still not getting it. “What should I have said? That I wanted to jump your friend’s bones?”
“Shit!” Ray squawks. “Don’t say shit like that. Brad’s like, my brother or something. I don’t want to think about his sex life.”
Nate snorts. “Then why are we having this conversation, Ray?”
Ray rolls his eyes and shakes his head and keeps driving all at once. “Because Brad can’t do casual. Okay? He’s physically incapable, or something.” Nate wants to protest but Ray is apparently on a roll. “You know the only way Brad can keep things casual? Surfer groupies. People so stoked at the idea of getting a piece of the Iceman that they honest to god have no expectation of more than one night, or one weekend. It’s a foregone conclusion that they’ll be on their way, and they go and that’s that.”
Nate shrugs. He’s still not getting it. “I’m leaving on Sunday, if that helps.”
“Fuck you very much, Nate fucking Fick!” Ray snarls. “I’m leaving on Sunday,” he parodies.
“Look,” Nate says. “Instead of swearing at me, why don’t you explain to me how this is different?”
“You’re not a groupie!” Ray says, like Nate should have figured that out already. “You guys run together and surf together and talk together. You come out with the gang and fit in like you could be a part of us, you know? That’s not what the others are like. They don’t hang around, they don’t do shit together. You’ve already made it personal.”
Okay, Nate can see that. But still, “We’re not dating, Ray. We’ve barely known each other for six days, and we’re both adults and this is not a romance novel. We’re not going to be declaring our love under a rose covered arbor after six days. Especially when, the majority of that time, we weren’t even actually sleeping together. I think you’re getting ahead of yourself. Brad’s feelings aren’t as delicate as all that.”
“Of course not,” Ray mutters. “Brad’s the Iceman. What could ever hurt him?”
Nate realizes that he has made a mistake, but he doesn’t understand when or how. He doesn’t understand how this is any of Ray’s business. He likes Brad, Brad likes him, and they've slept together. They enjoyed each other and hopefully, they can do it again. Maybe the ‘like’ on Nate’s part feels a bit like the rush-tug at the edge of a current, but he’s dated before, he’s familiar with that feeling.
Nate’s made no secret about the date and time of his departure.
_________________________________
Despite his confidence that Ray is merely being overprotective, Nate can’t clear his head.
The trouble is, he has no idea what he wants. He stumbled into Brad and they fell together so effortlessly, neither one of them has bothered to say anything definitive. Being together is easy, but Nate realizes this is partially because it doesn’t feel like he is ever actually going to be getting on a plane and leaving.
“Hey,” he says, catching Rudy as he’s clearing away the remains of breakfast.
“Aloha!” Rudy greets with a smile. “Having a good morning?”
“Yes,” Nate says, answering instinctively. He revises, “No, actually. I just…I’m gonna take the day. Explore the island.”
Rudy nods his head. “We’ve been surfing every afternoon when the waves allow it. It’s good to take a break.” He doesn’t ask what’s wrong, or why the sudden change, or if Nate wants company. Nate appreciates that the man always seems to just know, and never pushes.
Cherie is at the front of the main house, waving off a couple who are loading bags into a taxi cab, presumably en route back to reality. Nate knows he’s in trouble when the sight of it makes his chest ache.
“Nate, how are you?” Cherie asks, smiling.
“I’m okay.”
Her eyes flicker over his expression, then to the backpack he has, slung over one arm. “Exploring?” When he nods she says, “Any place particular?”
“No,” he says. He’s hoping that a long walk will maybe clear his head some. It feels like just the other day bombs were still exploding all around him, and then suddenly everything went quiet and the world declared peace. He wonders what’s left him feeling more off-balance: leaving the Corps, or realizing that maybe things between he and Brad aren’t so clear-cut.
That maybe, Nate’s not really done with Oahu.
“Actually,” he says. “Which way to Pipeline?”
Cherie only gives him directions after he promises that he’s not planning to surf there. It’s just, that it's the last site of the Triple Crown competition and he’s heard some stories about it and it’s strange that he has never actually seen the water there.
The Banzai Pipleline, he discovers, is pretty intimidating, even standing on shore. The waves breaking are massive and he immediately decides that everyone attempting to surf there is insane. He tries to imagine what Brad would look like on those waters, and then promptly decides no, he doesn’t want to imagine that as a surfer gets solidly plowed down by a towering wave and slammed beneath the surface. There’s a bit of a panic when the guy doesn’t rise up anywhere, but then his friends find him and he’s mostly okay, if a bit cut up.
It’s pretty much what must have happened to Brad to give him that cut, still healing on his head. Nate thinks about the other day, waking up in bed and tracing the lines on Brad’s body, pale strips on tanned skinned. He remembers shaking his head, “You have more scars than I do, and I went to war.”
He’s not sure how long he’s been sitting watching the surfers and the waves when someone calls his name. When he looks up, Walt is standing there beside his surfboard, dripping and smiling. “Hey,” Nate says, gesturing for Walt to sit. “Looks rough out there.”
“Naw,” Walt says. “Today First Reef is weak like a kitten.” He’s quiet for a moment. “Rudy said you’re taking a break this afternoon.”
“I’m here as a tourist,” Nate dismisses casually. “Surfing’s too stressful. I need to lie on a beach and sip little umbrella drinks.”
Walt nods distractedly. “I thought maybe it had something to do with whatever Ray said to you on the drive back.”
Nate has known Walt for about as long as he’s known Brad. By far the most quiet of the group; somehow Nate had never anticipated that Walt might be so perceptive.
Walt’s gaze is steady as he regards Nate, and finally Nate sighs, and rubs his brow. “I think he’s been warning me off from the moment he realized that there was something there.”
Walt shrugs. “You’d have to be blind not to spot the chemistry between you and Brad.”
Nate snorts. “Ray's overprotective.” He can hear the doubt in his tone. The question.
“He’s not,” Walt says. He sighs. “Look, maybe Ray has no trouble trotting out Brad’s history and explaining why things are the way they are, but I won’t do that. It’s not my place. If Brad hasn’t said anything then,” he shrugs. Nate wonders if he should mention that Ray said nothing concrete, no real explanation about anything. He’s not sure whether he’d be defending Ray or himself, either. He doesn’t have the chance to say anything.
“Brad’s nickname is Iceman,” Walt says. “He’s been in the surf-scene so long, he’s sort of a legend. I remember being a teen, just getting into surfing, and Brad wasn’t much older than me. He drew a lot of attention because he was young and was getting these amazing rides, still a wild card entry but taking the competition. You know? Anyway,” he says, shaking his head. “I used to read just about every surf magazine I could get my hands on, and there was this article in Surfer that gave him his name. It talked about this absolutely massive wipeout Brad had at Shipsterns, in Australia. Pretty much everything that could have gone wrong did, except that he didn’t get eaten by a shark, which can happen.”
Nate is not at all amused. Walt shrugs. “Some idiot dropped in on Brad’s wave, and Brad had to push back and he got caught inside, which is a bad thing. The water broke right overhead and knocked him down, his leash tangled around the rocks, and Brad got sliced up and knocked around pretty bad, not to mention turned around. Basically, it was a mess.”
“But,” Nate says, because he can actually feel an edge of concern start building, which is a little ridiculous. “Obviously he survived.”
Walt nods. “Well, obviously. The point is, Brad almost drowned out there, and the reporter who did the interview made this joke like, obviously Brad wouldn’t ever be taking on Shipsterns again, and Brad is sitting there, black and blue and still in a hospital bed and he said that he was going again just as soon as he got released.”
Walt shrugs. “He did, too. The reporter stuck around, and took a bunch of shots of Brad’s ride. Y’know, most people would take a break for a bit or something after an experience like that. Get a change of scene. Not Brad, thought. People started calling him ‘Iceman’ because he was fearless, the surf he’d take on, the way he'd surf it, everything.”
They sit there, watching the crowds of people in the water and on the sand, watching the enormous break of the waves, and Nate can’t imagine how he’d react if something like that happened to him. Probably there would be a period, if only a small one, where he honestly would consider never touching a surfboard again. Even now, knowing the rush of a proper wave.
“My point is,” Walt says. “He’s got this aura, and people tend to forget that he’s just a guy. He plays it up, too. If you give him a choice, he deflects. Always. Everyone thinks that he’s easygoing, the laidback surfer cliché, just taking hits and moving on, easy as you please, because he makes jokes and plays things down. But that’s not how he is. When Cherie met Brad, she called him a duck.”
Nate gets what Cherie meant. Calm as you please on the surface, kicking to stay afloat underneath. He starts to rethink those moments when Nate had trusted Brad’s easy confidence, the casual shrug, the humor. He’s as guilty as those people Walt mentioned, getting taken in by the deflection, the humor.
“So Ray is a self-appointed shield.”
Walt nods. “Ray handles things by sticking his nose into everything, talking to people to sort them out, that kind of thing. Always looking out for Brad, whenever he can, because that’s just the way it is with them. They look out for each other.”
“So," Nate says, as everything begins to fall into place. "I got warned off because I’m a tourist.”
Walt shrugs, his shoulder rolling in a small, careless circle. “Well, yeah.”
Nate glances over. “What about you?”
Walt grins, a sort of ‘you caught me’ expression, wry and pleased at the same time. “I care about Brad, sure. I guess I don’t interfere like Ray does, because I don’t want to mess up something that might be good for him. You know? At a certain point, thinking and planning and all of that isn't going to help anymore. Sometimes, you just have to go ahead and do it, and see where it takes you.”
Nate grins. “You sound like Rudy.”
“Naw,” Walt says. “I sound like a surfer. Stick around much longer and you might start sounding like one, too.”
_________________________________
Brad is standing on Nate’s porch when he gets back to his cabin. Nate halts, his feet bare, sandals grasped loosely in one hand, staring at Brad who is wearing a pair of navy boardshorts and a light blue T-shirt. His sunglasses perched on his head, the breeze ruffling his blond hair. He looks casual and relaxed and impossibly attractive.
“Hey,” Brad says. “I wasn’t sure when you’d be back…”
“I was walking,” Nate blurts. He makes a gesture back along the beach, forgets he’s holding his sandals and almost drops them. “I just,” he pauses, shifts forward until he’s standing at the bottom of the steps. “I ended up running into Walt. We talked for a bit.”
Brad stares at him, his face inscrutable. “Okay.” Then clears his throat, his gaze shifting away and then back. “Listen, I just…”
“No, wait,” Nate says. He spent pretty much the entire day trying to figure this out, and if they’re going to talk about it, then Nate is damned well going to say everything he’s figured out, or failed to figure out, or whatever.
What Brad decides he wants to do with that is out of Nate’s hands, but he refuses to lose something that feels like it might actually be important to him because of a miscommunication, or a misunderstanding, or because they were both just too fucked up to figure this shit out.
He says, “I have to say something first.”
They stare at each other for a second, and Nate holds Brad’s gaze, unflinching. Brad makes eye contact the way some of Nate’s Marines used to. Like it’s almost a dare, like he's reading Nate's entire life story in that moment. That’s fine, because Nate never blinks first, and he’s not backing down.
Brad nods, but doesn’t say anything.
Slowly, Nate steps up onto the porch and licks his lips. His stomach is twisted into knots. He says, “I don’t know what this is, or even what your thoughts are about the other night, but” he hastens to add, when it seems like Brad might actually answer him. “I need to say this either way so just…” he trails off, tries to sort out what it is exactly that he intends to say, and then just figures enough is enough.
Sometimes no amount of planning is going to get you through something.
Sometimes you just have to go ahead and do it.
“It wasn’t a one-off, for me,” Nate says. He catches Brad’s blue-eyed gaze and jerks his chin up because he’s not used to talking like this, not used to putting himself out there with so little to go on. He wants to say that being with Brad feels easy, feels right and Nate’s been missing that feeling for so long, he’s not ready to give it up so soon. He’s aware that he’s maybe a little crazy, like saying any of this at all will just seem too soon. It doesn’t matter. He has to say it anyway.
“At the bar I wasn’t just looking to get laid, or even trying to find some kind of holiday-fling to go home and have as this great story. The hot surfer guy I fucked in Oahu…”
Brad smirks. “Did Ray make you watch Blue Crush again?”
“What?” Nate frowns, realizes what he just said and laughs. “Jesus, did I just instigate some clichéd Hollywood dramatic moment?”
Brad tilts his head to the side, like he's considering. “I think you did.”
“I assure you, it was entirely unintentional.” He frowns. “It doesn’t make what I’m trying to say any less true, though.” Nate licks his lips again and pushes on. “Being here in this place. Hanging out with you guys, Rudy and Walt and even Ray. Being with you. It feels like the first time I’ve been on solid ground in a while.”
He shrugs. “I’m here on holiday and I don’t actually want to leave. I’ve got an airline ticket in my bag, and my reservation ends at the end of the week. I’m pretty sure Rudy’s got someone taking over my cabin pretty much the moment I leave it, and I know all of that, but that doesn’t make this any less true.” He takes a breath, lets it out and says, “I’m not done with this yet. You and me, whatever it is. Wherever it’s going, if it’s even going anywhere…”
Pursing his lips, Nate adds, “If you were about to tell me that we should forget last night, and the night before… or that it was just a good time and we should put it behind us, I can do that.” He knows he can. They haven’t known each other very long; Nate hasn’t fallen in love or anything. He can step away if he has to, go back to casual if that’s what Brad wants. “I just thought I should tell you.”
The quiet stretches. Nate’s grateful for the chirrup of birds and the wind and the waves because at least the moment doesn’t seem entirely stifling. He’s standing there waiting and Brad doesn’t seem compelled to speak.
But then finally, he does.
“Actually,” Brad says. “I came here to see if you wanted to get some dinner.”
He plays it off casual, and for a second Nate falls for it. Feels a little embarrassed that he laid himself out there for what appears to be no reason at all. Then he catches himself wondering if it’s a casual dinner, or a date-dinner, and it's right about then that he realizes what Brad’s trying to pull.
“Bullshit,” Nate says, smiling. “How long were you standing on my porch, Colbert?”
Brad shrugs. “It doesn’t matter now,” he says. “After that impassioned speech, I’m feeling a little light-headed, I think you might have genuinely swept me off my feet, which means that you can buy me dinner.”
It turns out Brad’s friends know him very well indeed. Nate’s immensely pleased that Ray and Walt had no qualms sitting him down and talking to him the way they did, because he’s sure he would have misunderstood this whole thing otherwise. Now though, Nate's pretty sure he knows exactly what he needs to say. “Fuck that, you’re making me dinner.” He raises his eyebrows. “I have it on good authority that you can actually cook.”
“When the occasion calls for it,” Brad says with a careless shrug, like it's just dinner that they're talking about, and not the difference between casual and something else. Something intimate and full of potential.
“Well,” Nate says. “It calls for it. Just let me get changed.” He pulls his keys from his pocket and turns toward his door, only to be stopped by a hand ghosting over his upper arm.
Nate pauses, glances over and waits. Brad says, “I just…” but can’t seem to find how to continue. Instead, he presses a careful kiss against Nate’s lips, almost shy. It’s answer enough.
___________________________________________________
|<< END PART TWO >>|
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