by Max Walker
“When was that?”
“Seven years ago, now. It was one year after Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was repealed.”
“What a shit fucking policy… You said ‘most.’ Did anyone give you crap?”
I nodded. “You’re a good detective.”
“I try.” Jonah smiled, in a way that threw my heart straight into a frenzy.
“Yeah, there were, eh, issues to say the least. I’d get slurs thrown my way on a regular basis from other guys in the platoon. And we have some social events we like to call ‘mandatory fun’ since they’re required—that was when shit would get really bad. A lot of those guys never talked to me on a human level before, so when word started getting out that I was gay, well, that’s all they saw me as. And for the homophobic fuckers, well, that put me on a level lower than the street dogs we would feed sometimes.”
Jonah shook his head. Waves gently rolled over our hips, pushing us slowly back to shore. The water was warm, the sun was bright, and the beach was empty.
And it was then I realized I was doing something I didn’t do very often.
I was talking about myself. Jonah was cracking me open like an egg and examining all the insides.
“It was difficult at first,” I continued. “I didn’t think it would be all flowers and glitter, but I didn’t realize it would be so hard either. The death threats were probably the worst.”
Jonah’s blue eyes bulged. “Are you kidding? From your own military brothers and sisters? Death threats?”
“Just the brothers,” I said, my lips quirking and brow arching. “It’s hard. Reading how you’re going to be flayed open and stretched out like a rug, all because you love the same sex. I couldn’t understand it at first. I couldn’t comprehend the hate. I’d wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, and not because of bombs but because of those damn letters snuck under my door. It made me pretty fucking paranoid. I didn’t know who was fantasizing about slicing me open, so even standing next to supposed friends was difficult. And in a situation where trust is life, that made things hard.”
Jonah lifted as a particularly strong wave broke over us. His eyes were reflecting some of the crystalline light that bounced off the water’s surface, making them even bluer than usual. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that, Fox. So were you completely alone during your time in the army, besides the few squadmates?”
“Not completely, no. There was also this kind of support group that I’d meet up with every week. It was around ten or so of us every week, and we’d meet somewhere different, and we’d open up about all the shit we were dealing with while being gay in the military. I had it bad, but I definitely didn’t have it the worst. Some of them were still deeply closeted, others were out like me. It was a tough time for all of us.”
“Jesus…”
We had been pushed closer now. As if Poseidon himself was deciding to play matchmaker. “I learned a lot from it, though. I’m usually one to look at the bright side, and good lessons are always needed. I learned to be strong and to carve a shelter inside myself, so I didn’t entirely rely on others. And I learned to keep fighting for what you believe in. I kept fighting for our country and for our right to love whoever the hell we want. I didn’t back down, even though there were days I wanted to.”
“Did the letters stop?”
“Not until my very last day of my deployment.”
Even closer now. I thought I could feel his toes brushing against mine underwater. I glanced down, making sure I wasn’t about to step on a stingray.
Sure enough, Jonah’s feet were nearly intertwined with mine. He must have realized because he took a few heavy steps backward, the waves still trying to push him in my direction.
“Sorry,” he said. “It’s a little hard to keep my balance.”
“No apologies needed.” You never have to apologize for being too close to me.
“So, why’d you join the military?”
And queue the walls. That question was hitting closer to home than I was comfortable with. It was digging too deep, and Jonah was about to strike trauma gold if he dug any deeper.
“Wanted to get out of my situation,” I said, hoping that would be simple enough. But Jonah already proved to be an inquisitive one, and he didn’t drop that curiosity for anything.
“What kind of situation were you in?”
A seagull cawed loudly over my head. It mirrored the way I suddenly felt inside. It was a sudden and jarring shift from the warmth I had felt before, the comfort that Jonah had made me feel.
But now the guard was coming up and the ice was spreading. “I’d rather not.” It was simple and efficient and seemed to have gotten the message across. Jonah nodded and quiet soon followed, the sounds of the ocean filling up the space where words would have been.
Was I wrong? Should I have laid it all out there for Jonah in the same way he had done for me? He deserved the piece of me he was asking for; why couldn’t I give it to him?
I was scared. Deep down, I knew that was the main reason. I looked out toward the endless horizon, wondering what the hell fear ever did for me. All this shit I talked about being confident and sure of yourself, and here I was, acting like a nervous little teenager, locking away all his feelings because of a fear of getting hurt. What else had this fear stopped me from? And why was I letting it stop me from opening up to a man who was proving himself to be a damn good friend?
Most of all, though, why was I beginning to detest that title? Friend. Made me seasick, and I never got seasick, especially not when my feet were planted firmly on solid sand.
19 Jonah Brightly
I felt like I was dreaming. Fox had me on a different planet. It helped that we were still the only ones here in this tiny stretch of quiet beach. It made it feel all the more dreamlike. A little world I created solely for us in my head, a bubble bound to pop the moment I woke up.
Except this wasn’t in my head. Fox was literally in front of me, water gleaming on his chest, highlighting the beautiful colors from his tattoos. The flowers appeared like they were painted on by a masterful artist, turning an already masterpiece of a man into more perfection.
Masterpiece. Jesus. He’s really gotten under my skin…
And yet I couldn’t seem to get under his. A seagull squawked nearby, as if adding a punctuation mark to my awkward attempt at getting to know him.
Of course Fox doesn’t want to open up to me. Why would he?
The spectre of my self-doubt started looming higher over my head. I could talk about faking self-confidence all day, but when it came time to actually doing it, my confidence was nowhere to be found, not even the fake kind.
Especially now, around Fox. I felt… lesser than, almost. Fox had it all together. He knew where his life was headed, where he wanted to land, who he wanted to land with.
I knew nothing. I was thrown back into the air like a stray leaf spinning through a hurricane. I was working a new job and feeling an entirely new spectrum of emotions. All aimed toward the man who kicked off this new part of my life. I knew absolutely nothing.
“It was my parents,” Fox began. “I wanted to get away from them.” He had his hazel-green eyes aimed out toward the horizon. “They weren’t exactly the best. I thought my only option was signing up for the army and flying across the world, as far from them as I could get.”
“Did it… did it fix the problems?”
Fox shook his head. His expression was heavy, like the memories alone weighed him down. His thick eyebrows were turned downward. There was a palpable sadness that told me the problems only got worse.
“Who would have thought?” Fox said, seeming to collect himself and mustering a smile. “Maybe a therapist would have been a better choice, but hey, can’t change the past. Means I can’t let myself regret it either.”
He amazed me, his ability to smile even when it was clear his mind had gone to a dark place. I wanted to keep asking questions, to keep diving deeper into Fox and what made him him. I w
anted to, but I couldn’t.
Hell, I couldn’t even look into his eyes. I was feeling… fuck, I was getting anxious. It was like a riptide had come and dragged my mind away, pulling it into the deep dark ocean.
This was wrong. I felt so strongly for Fox, and I could feel a tug from him, too. But it couldn’t work. We wouldn’t work. I’d never… but I wanted to. So bad.
So fucking bad, I wanted Fox. It was a pull as powerful as the currents.
Which meant I had to work overtime to deny it, to push it back.
It can’t work. It won’t. We won’t.
“Check it out,” Fox said, pulling me from my spiral. “It’s a white ibis.” He lifted his hand from the water and pointed westward, toward the shore. There, with its elegant pink legs halfway covered by the foamy water, was the bird Fox had spotted. It was a beautiful bird, with a body of gleaming white feathers and a pink head, its beak long and narrow. It reminded me of a flamingo, but smaller.
It was certainly cool to look at, but I was more interested in Fox’s face, which was glowing, as if he’d spotted the sword in a stone. “I’m guessing those are rare?” I asked, finding myself growing more and more amused by how focused Fox had become on the bird.
“I’ve seen a few, but never one that big. And it’s close, too.” Fox put his hand over his eyes, shielding them from the sun, a smile on his face.
“Beautiful…”
“Isn’t it?” Fox said, still looking at the bird, unaware my full attention was turned to him.
And then the ibis spread its wings and took to the air, loud flaps drawing my eyes back toward the shore. We watched the white and pink bird fly elegantly down the shoreline, dipping and rising with the wind currents that carried it along.
“Sorry,” Fox said, seeming to snap back into our moment. “I guess this is the time where I open up about my weird hobby. I’m a bird-watcher. There. I said it.” He lifted his hands in the air. “Nothing I can do about it but own it.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Are you kidding? That’s not weird at all. You’re acting as if you just told me you like watching people Bates Motel style.”
His turn to laugh. “True, true. Nowhere near as bad as that.”
“Not at all. I’m actually really interested.” A tall swell of a wave pushed into us then, lifting us and carrying us closer to shore. “I guess you can say I’m… pigeon-terested…?”
A blank stare before we started to crack up. I got some salt water in my eye, but the burn was so worth it, my belly hurting from the laughs.
“That was a valiant attempt,” Fox said, wiping his face from either tears or salt water or both.
“Thank you, thank you. I’ll be out here all day. Or at least until my hands start getting pruney, then you’ll have to catch my act later.” More laughs, more of a sense that this was right. Whatever the hell “this” was…
“When did you start bird-watching?” I asked, trying not to let myself get lost in my thoughts.
“Started in the military actually. My neighbor, who practically raised me, gave me a book on bird-watching before I was deployed. I didn’t think much of it at first, but after a pretty tough day, I cracked it open and devoured it. Ever since then I’ve been obsessed.” Fox’s face was glowing. Whether that was from the sun or his happiness was difficult to say, but something that wasn’t difficult to say?
How much that glowing face attracted me…
Why did that glowing face attract me so much? What did this mean?
“It opens up a new world, I’m telling you, Jonah. You think that all the birds around you are brown little sparrows, but if you look and listen, you’ll see there’s so much more. It’s like life. A lot of people go on with their days, living as if everything is a background track inside of the longest elevator ride of their life. They go on, day by day, missing out on so much. Everything so bland and mundane. I used to live like that, but I try not to anymore.”
Fox’s words hit me hard in the chest. He was a hundred percent correct. It was a lesson I was quickly learning myself. “So bird-watching? You’re more and more interesting by the second, man. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like you.”
“Oh, I’m sure you have.” He cocked his head, his grin drawing me in like a moth to a bright bonfire. “On second thought, nah, maybe you haven’t.”
“I definitely haven’t.”
“Do you have anything to do in your spare time? What’s your ‘bird-watching’?”
I shrugged, not thinking of much that drew my passions. “I can’t say I have something… I don’t know.”
“Come on, there’s got to be something you do to ground yourself. Something to say ‘fuck the world and its problems’ with.”
“Aside from my middle fingers, I’ve gotta say no… well, I guess, on second thought. Before the accident, I really loved working on things with my grandfather. As a kid, I grew up working on boats with him. We started on cars when I was around twelve. The last thing we worked on was a really nice, vintage Mercedes…Then, well… I came out of my coma and about five months later, my grandfather passed. So… yeah, I haven’t exactly been back in the garage.” My arms lazily treaded water at my sides. “Actually, that’s not true, I have been back. I tried going with Wendy a couple months ago. My shakes were really bad, though, so I dropped a whole bunch of shit. Wendy got pissed she had to bend down so much.” Fox’s face twisted, his eyes narrowing. “Yeah, it wasn’t a great day.”
Water beaded down Fox’s chest. I flicked my gaze downward, trying to memorize the glittering trail the water made as it traveled down his tan skin, over the bright tattoo, past his pebbled nipples.
I sucked in a breath. Filled my lungs with ocean air.
“Let’s work on it this weekend.”
“Huh?” I was taken by total surprise.
“Yeah, let’s work on it. I know shit about cars, but you can teach me. I can give you a crash course on birds if you’re interested.”
That got me laughing. “This is one interesting conversation, man. I’d love to see someone’s face if they had just caught that last part.”
“Good thing there’s no one around.”
“Yeah… good thing.”
When had we gotten so close? Why was my pulse beating as hard as the waves on the sand? Was I sweating, or was that ocean water dripping down my forehead?
What the hell is going on with me?
Our feet had crossed each other under the water, entwining us. I hadn’t realized. I should move. I should definitely move back, swim back, breaststroke back to fucking shore.
I moved. Closer to Fox. Closer to that handsome face that held a pair of breathtaking hazel eyes dancing with light reflected back from the crystal-blue ocean. He had a gaze that made me reckless, made me lose my mind.
There, surrounded by an endless glittering sea and a wash of bright sunlight, our lips reunited and my breath was stolen completely and totally. Fox’s kiss felt like a firebrand against my soul. From the second our lips touched, I knew he’d left his mark on me. I had thought he had done that before, but no, this was it. The moment there was simply no turning back from.
His lips were soft. He moaned, a delicate, foreign sound that I swallowed hungrily, greedily. I wanted more. I gave him more; I moaned into his kiss, and I pushed my hips forward through the water, my hands traveling up his wet back, feeling the traces of muscles underneath my fingertips dance under my touch.
It ignited me, in a way a kiss had never done to me before. I felt alive. Pure, unfiltered life straight from the source was flooding through me, filling me. It was the complete opposite of the cold embrace I had felt from the reaper himself. This was unlike anything I’d ever felt before, with any of my past girlfriends, any of my past lovers.
I’d never felt this before, ever.
And it scared me. Terror started to take shape, morphing from the plume of pure happiness I was feeling moments before.
But that was life. Shit changed on the flip of
a dime. Happiness turns to fear. Fear turns to elation. Life turns to death.
I broke from the kiss, my eyes wide, my lips parted. Fox looked down into my eyes, his hands on my hips. He had pulled me toward him, into him. I could feel the hard evidence of our excitement, and it burned my blood, turned me hot and made me see stars even though it was pure daylight.
But it didn’t hide the fear. I could feel eyes starting to bore through me from the shore. From the windows on the nearby hotels, from the ocean itself. I could feel the stares, and I could feel the judgment. Even though I knew I could turn around right now and see that no one was watching us, it didn’t matter… I was beginning to feel like this was a mistake. I was a mess, and I was dragging Fox straight into my oil spill.
I wanted to keep kissing him. I wanted to grab his head in my hands and put his lips to mine and never let go, let the ocean fucking swallow us whole for all it mattered.
That’s what I wanted. And that’s what made me so damn confused. The last thing I wanted was for Fox to think I was using him to untangle that confusion, or that he’d created the confusion in the first place.
“Sorry,” I said, managing to break eye contact from the man who’d already cast his spell on me. I wanted to pull out of his grip, too, only because it was melting my brain with every passing second, but I couldn’t find the will. I wanted his hands on my hips, damn it. Those invisible eyes on the shoreline couldn’t see what was happening underwater.
For a brief second, I wondered if this was how my brother felt constantly? As if there were a pair of unseen, judgmental eyes watching him all the time. I’d never really thought about it until now, until I felt like I was suddenly on full display for the entire world to see. That was something that had never happened with Wendy, not once in our entire four years of being together. We would kiss and hold hands in public without a glancing thought.
“Jonah, I only need you apologizing if you stepped on my toe or you accidentally bumped into me in the hallway, that’s it. Definitely don’t apologize for a kiss. Especially not after that kiss.”
