“Danny Moore wipes out to give Jimmy Campbell his Championship Tour ticket on a golden platter! Right on, Jimmy!” the announcers cry.
No one is looking at him. No one is watching him be pushed around by the waves in the shallows, mocking the fact that none of those cheers are for him.
He breathes slowly through the emotions brimming up inside of him, crawling out through his skin. There’s surprise, for one thing. Surprise at himself that after just 1.8 seconds of staring straight at Jimmy Campbell while ripping across the surface of a wave, he had apparently decided to go and fling himself off his own board on purpose. He can’t even remember the last time he wiped out on accident, let alone because he chose to. The potential memory feels false and fleeting in his mind.
There’s also resentment. Irritation and misplaced humiliation and a pit-of-his-gut desire to rewind time and absolutely crush Jimmy Campbell the way he had intended to when they first threw their boards down side by side and paddled out into the smooth glass sea.
Sydney keeps his head down as he emerges from the foam and walks as fast as he can along the sand away from the crowds, still-dripping board clutched hard under his arm. Someone’s blasting the latest irritating mishmash of sound by The Doors across the beach. Sydney feels it in his bones like a personal insult—the little keyboard mocking him as he stumbles in the sand. People fall uncomfortably silent as he walks past, shocked that “Oahu’s own champion of big wave surfing” just got literally knocked on his ass by a local boy without a reputation and a wave barely taller than a ten-year-old kid.
Except they don’t know. None of them stop and think and just realize that of course “Oahu’s own champion of big wave surfing” didn’t suddenly forget how to surf like he hasn’t done it literally every day since he turned fifteen.
No one notices when he stops at the edge of the swarming crowd and looks back. They light up new cigarettes and snap open new cans of Coors and fawn over the local underdog like sheep following a new prophet. Sydney wants to scoff at them. To laugh at how ridiculous it is that they all think worn-out Jimmy Campbell somehow had the skill and the strength to actually, in fair contest, beat the Danny Moore. He wants to cross his arms and smirk that Jimmy’s probably basking in the glory with no idea whatsoever that of course Sydney knew there would be a good wave hiding behind that little closed-out dud of a barrel. He didn’t obsessively study the ocean for his entire life for nothing.
He wants to think these things and mentally pat himself on the back for a job well done fooling them all, and then escape back to his little motel room by the sea. Wait until the sun sets and the beach clears so he can whip his board back out and surf alone through the quiet calm of midnight under the stars.
But then he looks at Jimmy Campbell one last time before turning to leave, catches a glimpse of golden sunlit hair through the crowd, a hint of a warm smile tinged with a fleeting and invisible melancholy, and suddenly the idea of going back to a motel room alone sounds goddamn miserable.
Sydney grips a handful of frizzy curls with his fingers and huffs. He feels unsettled, betrayed by his own body and mind, because while he may be the only person on that beach that knows he wiped out on purpose, even he doesn’t fucking know why.
And then there were those ten seconds. Splintered, rotting wood beneath his feet and the hot sun on the back of his neck. Ice-cream licking crowds. The parting of the sea.
Jimmy clearly thinks Sydney doesn’t remember what happened on the pier. No human being has ever been more wrong in their life. Sydney remembers exactly what happened on the pier. He remembers the way his breath caught in his throat, and his bottom lip dropped open, and his heart felt like it would explode on the spot. Remembers Jimmy emerging from the crowd like a lighthouse through the fog, for no discernable reason other than that he existed, flesh and bone.
The way he bolted before Jimmy could open his mouth to ask him what the hell he was staring at. The way he hadn’t been wearing his shades.
Sydney scoffs at his own thoughts and forces himself to look away from the perfect picture of Jimmy giving a last wave to the still cheering crowd. His little best friend with the ridiculous bun hangs by his side like a puppy, and the girls in bikinis practically line up to kiss his stubbled cheek. It looks straight out of a cheesy 1950’s Los Angeles advertisement: Come to the City of Angels, where the waves and the women never run dry!
It’s not until he’s a fifteen-minute walk away from the beach, thoroughly enjoying his self-imposed sulk and trying desperately not to think of why in hell his body willingly fell off his own board, that Sydney suddenly realizes he forgot his bag back at the competition, including his wallet and motel room key. He groans and reluctantly turns back towards the crowded chaos, still avoiding the eyes of shocked fans and strangers alike, willing himself to look as if doubling back to the beach was all part of the plan. He tunes out the blaring music and the roar of the crowd, slinking through so silently his tall form is rendered nearly invisible, even with an 8-foot-long surfboard tucked under one arm.
His bag is right where he left it—back up behind the crowd a ways and perched in between two palm trees, just on the outskirts of the big dirt parking lot. He double checks that his wallet and motel key are still in there, slings it over his shoulder, goes to pick up his surfboard again, and freezes.
It can’t be, but it is.
Jimmy Campbell has absolutely no idea that Sydney’s standing barely fifteen feet away, perfectly concealed between the two palm tree trunks, face hidden in their shade. Sydney can’t move. He stares silently, watching with a clenched jaw as Jimmy leans against the back of the lifeguard stand and breathes slow and deep, face gazing up at the cloudless sky, utterly alone on a beach filled with hundreds of people. Jimmy runs a hand through his long, sun-bleached bangs to sweep them back up off his forehead, and Sydney’s chest clenches tightly when he sees Jimmy’s fingers move to the zipper of his wetsuit.
It’s his signal to leave. A blaring red siren screaming: private, private, private!
Sydney stays. He pulls the aviators off his eyes.
He unconsciously licks his chapped lips as Jimmy peels the wetsuit off slowly, inch by inch, to reveal broad, tan shoulders, sharp collar bones covered in a dusting of freckles, hot sand clinging to the muscles on his chest, toned arms hiding a quietly commanding strength. Sweat and saltwater glisten over the firm lines of his stomach, clinging to the muscles on his back and dripping down the curve of his spine like honey. A fat drop of seawater falls from a loose lock of Jimmy’s hair and drips onto his firm chest, lazily rolling over a peaked nipple in the chill of the shade.
Sydney sucks in a quick breath and bites his bottom lip. Sweat prickles hot and sticky at the back of his neck, down his sides and under his arms. His eyes are riveted, drinking in every new inch of revealed skin like a dying man in a desert come upon an oasis. It’s impossible to believe, unimaginable, that Sydney sat perched just ten feet away from this body not even hour ago, back when it was covered up and unassuming. An irritating inconvenience sitting in Sydney’s way from catching another winning wave.
Jimmy slowly rolls his neck to crack it, and the quiet groan he lets out sends a shiver down the skin of Sydney’s forearms. He can feel his own feet shifting restlessly in the sand—the unwanted clenching of his thighs. Before he can inwardly curse himself into turning to go, Jimmy lets the top of his wetsuit hang down by his sides and stretches his arms behind him, suddenly revealing the blasted skin of a gnarled scar across his shoulder.
Sydney gasps. It’s horrific—marring the sturdy, smooth, powerful lines of Jimmy’s body with a firework of raised, pink tissue.
It’s also the most beautiful thing Sydney has ever seen. He thinks of a crumpled-up magazine page with a Hawaiian wave crashing onto a perfect shore. He thinks of a topless sailor winking at him from a photograph bought under the table at the back of a record store back on Oahu. And he suddenly thinks of what it would feel like to draw Jimmy Campbell into his arms, le
tting him rest his weary skin against his own too-tall, too-bizarre body, feeling the quiet strength and competence in his forearms, his shoulder blades, his kneecaps, the little salty sliver of skin behind his ear. Fingertips which had gripped a smoking gun, touched blood, and paddled furiously on a surfboard out onto a flat sea. Which had pulled down a wetsuit zipper.
And it’s then, with the crashing force of one of Waimea’s biggest waves, that it finally hits Sydney why his body decided to fall off his own damn surfboard when he could have just left Jimmy Campbell behind, defeated in the whitewater. Why he opened his big mouth out on the lifeless, smooth sea and goaded him into chasing after that closed-out barrel knowing he would catch the perfect wave hiding just behind it.
The answer is so blindingly simple in retrospect that Sydney wants to kick himself. He gazes through the palm trees at this hidden sailor, currently standing alone behind a lifeguard stand and smiling down at his feet like he just had his dreams handed to him from the wet palms of the sea herself. This man who stared death in the face and said, “Not today.”
Sydney sees now that he had two options when he popped up on his board to catch his first and only wave of the set, following in Jimmy’s wake.
In the first option, he absolutely crushes Jimmy Campbell as intended, boards a plane back to Oahu the next day with a pocket full of prize money, and moves on with his preparations to win the Billabong Masters for the third consecutive year. And Jimmy Campbell picks his board up out of the water, shakes his head with a sheepish smile, and goes back full-time to a Long Beach dockyard with no future surf competitions in sight and a sore shoulder.
In the second option, Sydney embarrasses himself, lets Jimmy Campbell win the heat and go pro, and sees those deep blue eyes again in two weeks in Oahu.
He wonders if he ever even really had a choice.
Sydney is still frozen, clutching his aviators in a sweaty hand, breathless with this revelation and almost choking under the weight of it, when he suddenly feels a pair of eyes hot against his skin.
Jimmy Campbell’s staring at him through the trees like he can’t even decide what emotion to begin to express.
Sydney panics. With a sharp intake of breath, he jams on his aviators, bolts from behind the palm trees less than a second after those eyes first locked onto his, then purposefully loses himself in the chaos of the crowd for ten minutes before finally breaking free to make his way back to his motel room down Hermosa Avenue.
Sydney Moore doesn’t wait until the beach quiets down. Doesn’t take his board out into the quiet midnight waters to surf free and open in the moonlight under the stars.
Instead, he stares at the ceiling of the motel room for a long time. Thinks of all his earthly belongings in a trash bag on the front porch, his momma’s broken cross necklace lying lonely on the rough floorboards, Chet Morgan’s gritty fingers clutching a photograph of a winking sailor.
Thinks of Jimmy Campbell’s blond hair under a sailor’s cap. Of his thighs dripping with wet sand and glistening with sweat, tan and firm against his own shivering skin. Thinks of the sinking, desperate look on Jimmy’s face when Sydney had taken off his sunglasses and looked over at him halfway through his own ride across the face of the barrel, right when he was on the cusp of taking Jimmy’s dream away. Thinks of Jimmy’s stunned face on a crowded pier.
He slowly, achingly lets his hand slip down between his legs for the first time in years, ears tingling at the unexpected moan that escapes his salty lips. Sydney sighs as he feels himself harden in his hand, hips moving slowly in a pool of warmth that spreads down his legs to his toes. His breath stutters in his chest as he pumps his long, smooth fingers over his cock, cradling himself in the palm of his hand and trembling at the coiling tension in his groin.
His body feels oversensitive. Exposed, like the skin’s been peeled back from his bones, revealing his veins to the air. He tries not to make a sound as he remembers the way Jimmy Campbell practically growled as he hunkered down and paddled with all his might, chasing after a wave out of pure, muscled spite. He hears the memory of that deep, quiet grunt echo softly in his ears.
When he finally lets go and comes, he sees Jimmy’s face, fierce and set and determined as they waited for the air horn for their heat, a soldier preparing for battle. A man who’s seen war.
And Sydney lies there in the silent, dark aftermath, still buzzing between his thighs, feeling slow and dirty and utterly, ridiculously dull.
~
Just before midnight, Sydney finds himself back down at the shore, walking slowly along the water’s foaming edge. The muted yellow street lights along Hermosa Avenue cast ghostly shadows across the cool sand, flickering off the water like a layer of liquid gold covering the swells of the sea. The ocean roars just as loudly in the dark of night. The sound of it never fails to calm him.
Just up ahead, the road cuts closer to the water, revealing a strip of seaside bars and surf shops. The sound of laughter and self-important talking gradually gets louder as Sydney approaches. Even if he was back at his home in Oahu, he knows he has absolutely no business at a crowded, popular surf bar the night after a major competition. He’s the absolute last person anyone would want to see during their social hour. Still his feet drag him closer, drawn towards the flickering light like a moth. He sits in the shadows down by the water, half hidden by a craggy outcrop of rocks, and listens to the hum of people talking too loud as the music pulses against his back.
After only a few minutes, a cheer erupts behind him, and he turns to see a crowd of surfers part to reveal Jimmy Campbell at the center, basking in the glow of his newly professional status with a calm, embarrassed pride. He’s shaved since that morning. Showered and changed into jean shorts and a navy and white striped long sleeve shirt rolled up over his forearms.
Sydney watches out of the corner of his eye as Jimmy’s handed a beer and gradually moves out to the rickety patio, his brunette friend with the long hair beside him. They stand shoulder to shoulder, leaning out on the wooden fence, talking softly in each other’s ears to be heard over the din of the crowd.
Sydney feels absolutely ridiculous watching them as closely as he is. Somehow, in the past twenty-four hours, Jimmy Campbell has reduced him from Oahu’s untouchable, unbeatable champion to a brainless, predictable high-schooler, tripping over his own toes in the hallways and clutching a notebook to his chest with a secret photograph tucked inside. An egg-salad sandwich growing warm in his locker.
The friend laughs at something Jimmy just said, and Jimmy takes another long sip of beer before reaching up and tucking a lock of loose hair behind the friend’s ear.
Sydney’s heart pounds as his mouth goes dry. He couldn’t be . . . could he?
The friend doesn’t react, but keeps looking out over the water as if nothing even happened. Sydney wants to scream at him. How can he stand there with absolutely no reaction when Jimmy Campbell has just casually run his fingers through his hair? He watches through his eyelashes, rapt with attention, as Jimmy leans even closer to whisper in the friend’s ear, face turned serious. Sydney desperately reads the lines of his body for clues. The hard rod of his spine, the grip of his hand along the railing, the firm set of his shoulders all signal new territory, subjects long left untouched finally being spoken aloud. Jimmy’s free hand rubs unconsciously at a spot under his left shoulder. Sydney can practically feel the tiny warm puffs of breath against his own ear, can almost hear the smooth, warm voice spilling over with secrets.
“Rob, stop flirting and get your ass back in here! We finally got the pool table free!”
Jimmy practically leaps back from the friend—Rob—as Rob smiles and calls back an answer to the friend inside the bar. Jimmy’s not smiling. He shoves his hands down into his pockets and flinches as Rob claps a hand down on his shoulder in some sort of apology. No doubt some sort of “finish this talk another time” nonsense while he nods towards the pool table. Sydney watches Jimmy resolutely stare down at the sand as Rob walks back in
to the bar, still softly shaking his head ‘no’ in response to Rob’s probable offer to join, as if he was still there to see his reaction.
Suddenly Jimmy’s tearing across the sand, half-full beer left back on the patio. Sydney stupidly thinks of laying down to hide like a child behind the rocks before he realizes it’s too late. He’s going to be seen. It’s inevitable.
He smoothes out the front of his tank top and grits his teeth. He’s Danny fucking Moore, not some starstruck little kid, even if Jimmy did catch him watching him through the palm trees earlier that afternoon. He feels his face settle into his familiar mask of untouchable, intimidating indifference.
Right when Jimmy is five feet from his hiding place, practically running now in the sand, Sydney speaks.
“Bit late for a jog, isn’t it?”
Jimmy startles and curses under his breath as he whips around.
“Christ, you startled—wait a minute, you.”
Jimmy points an accusing finger at him, brow fiercely set, and Sydney rises warily to his feet. It isn’t exactly the reaction he was expecting.
Jimmy stalks towards him in the moonlight. “You. What the fuck was that today? Huh? The hell are you playing at?”
His voice is a harsh whisper, and Sydney feels it like ice down his spine. He’d been expecting some good-natured gloating, maybe a “too bad” or two, or an “are you alright.” After all, Jimmy Campbell was the first surfer in three years who’d taken it upon himself to try to have a goddamn conversation with him.
Instead he looks furious. Sydney clears his throat to buy a second of time, and the corners of his mouth tighten. “I believe the correct term, in case you forgot, is ‘wiped out,’” he spits back.
Jimmy practically growls. “No you don’t. No you fucking don’t. How big of an idiot do you think I am? Danny Moore magically wipes out on his only wave of the day after three years of a near-perfect record? Wiped out my ass.”
The Sea Ain't Mine Alone Page 5
