The Sea Ain't Mine Alone

by Beaumont, C. L.

  James’ brain flashes back to the image of Danny the day before, fresh out of the water from his defeat and walking, utterly alone, away from him down the sand, head slumped and avoiding everyone else’s shocked gaze. James’ mouth opens before he even realizes what he’s doing.

  “Wait!”

  Danny freezes in his tracks, and James jogs to catch up with him, running his fingers through his hair once more to buy time as they stand face to face.

  “You—you didn’t have to do that.” He swallows roughly, staring just over Danny’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

  Danny shrugs one shoulder. He couldn’t look more bored if he tried. “Yeah, well, can’t have a fish choke on it and die or something, or the environmental hippies’ll be all over your ass.”

  James huffs out a startled laugh despite himself, and Danny’s lips quirk up just at the corner.

  “How the hell did you find out where I work?” James asks, not bothering to hide the undertone of a dark challenge in his voice.

  “Wasn’t that hard,” Danny says calmly with another shrug. “Calluses on your fingers consistent with some type of manual labor. Tan lines on your wrists from the gloves, scars on your forearm from stray sparks from welding, articles in all the local papers about the controversy over expanding the dock ramps down here. Might have overheard another surfer or two mention you in connection with the maritime industry. Would’ve been tempted to guess you worked out on the lobster trap boats or an oil rig, but I suspect you haven’t stepped foot on a boat since you last stepped off one in uniform. And you wouldn’t be near enough to the shore to surf.”

  James purses his lips and stares Danny down.

  “That’s unbelievable,” he says tightly.

  Danny furrows his brow. “But I just walked you through it all, told you my reasonin—”

  “No, no, I mean that’s fucking amazing,” James says.

  Danny looks at him steadily for a second, his body completely still. It looks like he’s a robot who’s just been unplugged. James tells himself his heart is still racing because of the work he did all morning, even if his break started over ten minutes ago.

  Finally Danny responds. “You still look like you’re angry.”

  James hums, crosses his arms once more. “I don’t know a single soul besides Rob that would ever casually mention I work in the ‘maritime industry,’” he says.

  Danny casually bites the inside of his cheek. “Perhaps not.”

  “You asked about me. Snooped around so you could find out where I worked.”

  Danny squints, staring off over James’ head, and quirks his head to the side. “I’d call it more . . . happened to pass by when people were discussing relevant information this morning on the shore. You know—right place, right time.”

  James shuts his eyes and shakes his head, pressing his lips together in a firm line to hold back the retort that’s right on the tip of his tongue. He takes a steadying breath and wills his voice to come out steady, calming the surprising amount anger inside of him.

  “You’re a real fucking creep, you know that?”

  Danny does that irritating shrug again. “Been called worse.”

  When James doesn’t immediately shoot a retort back, the air between them turns tense and fragile, and James’ blood thrums hard through his veins. They stand in a silent stalemate, both staring at the ground.

  Finally James clears his throat. It’s hard to breathe right with Danny Moore standing tall and gleaming and untouchable just inches away from his own sweating, grimy chest. He takes a step back and gestures his head towards the crew lounging in the shade of the dock with their lunches, hating the fact that he suddenly doesn’t want to leave.

  “Right, well, gotta get back to—”

  Danny’s arm darts out and catches James’ upper arm, stealing the breath and the words from his mouth.

  “You want to win in Oahu. Pick up a sponsor there so you can quit working in this hell hole.”

  His voice is smooth and clear. Urgent. James’ skin prickles beneath Danny’s long fingers, still snugly gripping his upper arm to keep him close. Danny’s eyes are dazzling, staring straight into James’ like his face is the only thing on earth that’s visible to see. James forces himself to breathe and shakes his head.

  “No way I can win there,” he says.

  Danny takes a step closer, invading his space so that James has to crane his neck to see him. From this close he can feel the heat radiating off his chest.

  “But you want to. You told me you know what you want, and this is what you want. To get out of here.”

  James sighs, then lifts his hands in a helpless gesture at his sides, encompassing the punishing heat of the dock, the blood and sweat, the stooping, rough ghosts at his back. “Yeah. I—yeah. Who wouldn’t?”

  Danny seems to realize for the first time that his hand is still on James’ bicep. He snatches it back quickly, fluttering his fingers by his side. James’ arm invisibly twitches at the absence.

  “I’m staying here another week before flying back to Oahu,” Danny goes on, as if nothing happened. “Train with me.”

  James freezes, repeating those last words in his head, then groans and shoots him an icy glare. His odd, giddy breathlessness falls away in a split second, replaced by solid, familiar anger. “God, you’re unbelievable. You didn’t get the picture enough last night when I told you I didn’t need a fucking handout?”

  “I’ve studied the waves in Hawaii most of my life. I know how to win there. I can show you.”

  “And what? And come competition time you’ll just stand back and let me win?”

  “Obviously not. I won’t be surfing.”

  “You . . . you aren’t going to surf in the Billabong?”

  Danny stands up even taller, puffing out his chest. It strains against the buttons on his gleaming white shirt. James stops himself just in time from licking his lips.

  “Couple of surfers are holding a big wave surf contest at Waimea the week after the Billabong—one I fully intend to win. Weather’s supposed to make for some prime conditions that day—chance that only comes around every few years. I’d be an idiot to waste all my strength trying to get a prize I’ve already won twice.”

  James huffs. “Oh yeah, right, wouldn’t want to look greedy. How fucking humble of you.”

  Danny puts his hands on his hips and stretches impossibly taller. He looks like a businessman late for an important meeting, and James is just the valet taking too long to retrieve his car. “Look, you’re wasting time pretending to feel offended. I’m serious about this, James. Train with me.”

  James stops in his tracks, eyes searching Danny’s exasperated face for any sign that this is all some sick and elaborate joke. The sound of his name, his proper name, in that voice runs slowly through his body with an unsettling, fizzling warmth.

  “Nobody calls me James,” he finally responds.

  Danny rolls his eyes and huffs. “Well we can’t both go by names that end in ‘y’ if we’re going to be around each other,” he bites back. “It’d be like some horrible sequel to a ‘Dick and Jane’ children’s book. See Jimmy swim. See Danny surf.”

  James feels the spark of irritation start to boil over again inside him.

  “You’re an infuriating dick. Change your own damn name if it’s so important to you. You do realize Danny is a nickname for Daniel, unless your parents just gave up.”

  Danny rakes his fingers through his hair and pulls, so comically exasperated that James almost laughs.

  “Look, this isn’t the point,” he groans. “You need to win. I need to train for Waimea. You need someone to tell you about the surf out there, and I need something to keep my mind from imploding over the next week stuck in this boring, hot, shithole of a city until my flight. The way I see it, you’d be an absolute idiot to say no.”

  “You already think I’m an idiot. There is absolutely nothing about me that you even like!” James shoots back. He laughs once, harsh and incr
edulous as he looks up at the sky. “Man, I wish I knew what game you were playing at here. What you could possibly want from me.”

  Danny is silent, hands hanging limp by his sides and still waiting for an answer. James finally looks up and sees that Danny’s eyes have gone soft. For the first time since Danny Moore ever stepped up next to him in the sand, James fully remembers how young he actually is. How, underneath the toned physique and the sunglasses-while-he-surfs and the biting remarks, he’s just about the same age James himself was when he took his first trembling step onto a Navy ship, wishing his mom had still been there to hand him a sacked lunch and kiss his cheek goodbye.

  It makes him want to reach out and take Danny’s hand and lead him—to where, he doesn’t even know. He can practically see the thoughts warring in Danny’s mind as they stand there staring each other down, deciding whether to continue being a haughty asshole or whether the silence will eventually guilt-trip James into agreeing.

  James takes a deep breath and licks his lips against the hot sun. He feels like he’s just made a decision, and he doesn’t even know what it is.

  “You need to know,” he starts. His breath tightens on the words, and he clears his throat and starts again. “You need to know this isn’t just a game for me.”

  Danny’s soft, grey eyes dart down quickly to the pocket where they both know the bullet casing is hidden. He breathes out quickly through his nose and dips his head. “I know. I—I’m realizing that.”

  A silent moment passes. Out of nowhere, a thought hits James with sudden, breathtaking clarity. “You knew there would be a great wave hiding behind that closed-out one yesterday, didn’t you?”

  Danny’s eyes go wide with surprise, quickly masked again by a calm indifference.

  “Didn’t study the ocean all these years for nothing,” he says back, sounding bored.

  James wants to ask a thousand questions—mainly what the hell was Danny Moore thinking when he took advantage of James’ stubbornness and goaded him into riding the best wave of the set. He stands there staring up at him in disbelief, painfully aware that they’re still standing far too close for two acquaintances in the middle of a dockyard, one covered in blue collar sweat and grime and the other one just stepped off a fashion show runway.

  Suddenly, the alarm signaling the end of lunch blares harshly across the dock, and James startles and flinches down. He blinks hard against the familiar haunting boom in his mind that makes him want to duck and find the nearest cover after a loud noise, and his aching heart pounds the blood through his veins, preparing his limbs for the imaginary fight.

  Except he’s in Long Beach. He’s at his job with four hundred and seventy-two accident-free workdays, and counting.

  He takes a deep breath and tries to shake it off while he stares hard at the ground, feeling tense and hot and embarrassed. Danny silently waits. James tries to read pity or impatience in the still lines of his body, but, surprisingly, all he finds is an anchoring calm.

  Finally James looks back up to sheepishly meet his eyes and turns his head back towards the dock in a silent excuse, a cold sweat breaking out over his neck as the pent-up tension starts to leak out through his limbs. Danny nods, understanding, eyes slightly narrowed in thought.

  James wipes his hand once more on his work pants and extends it out in front of him. His hand is steady.

  “You infuriate me,” he says softly, lips set in a harsh line.

  Danny’s mouth twitches as he takes James’ hand, his fingers long and warm. “As do you,” he replies.

  “Six-thirty tomorrow morning? Hermosa?” James asks as he rubs the back of his neck with his other hand.

  “Alright.”

  James shivers once as the tips of Danny’s fingers lightly trace at the tip of his wrist, and suddenly the hot air around them crackles with anticipation. They’ve been shaking hands for far too long. James stares spellbound as Danny looks down at their joined hands, then back up at him through his eyelashes, eyes quietly wide with uncertainty.

  James swallows hard, making a soft noise in his throat. They’re back on the swarming pier, drawn into each other like magnets, likes waves to the shore. He’s going to take a step forward. He’s going to reach out his other hand and press his dirty, calloused fingers against the perfect, clean white shirt. He’s going to trace the tan, lean muscles of Danny’s chest, feel his heart rate quicken under his palm, lean forward and smell the leftover salt on his skin–

  “Campbell, the fuck you doing over there? Stop being a flat leaver and get your ass back here before The Man sees you!”

  James flinches back at the sound of his coworker’s booming, raunchy voice. He snatches his hand away and, after a sharp nod at the silent Danny, turns and jogs back to the work site and his crew. He feels cool eyes on his back. His palm tingles by his side, and he fights the urge to wipe it off on his pants when it starts to sweat. He doesn’t turn around to look until he’s all the way back at the ramp, with his work shirt pulled on and his hard hat and gloves jammed back onto damp, tired skin.

  When he finally does take a breath and look back across the dock, Danny’s long gone. James hates himself for the sinking feeling in his chest when he sees that Danny didn’t stay there long enough to watch him get back to work.

  He shakes his head angrily as he grips a wrench in his gloved hand. He’s a grown man. One who’s lived a full life, and fought a war on the other side of the world, and come back to absolutely nothing only to rebuild himself from the ashes. He isn’t some clueless, trigger-happy surfer dude getting into pointless, macho turf wars. Isn’t a nervous, hormonal teenager who’s never met anyone in his life before who happens to be attractive.

  James purposefully pushes away the thoughts threatening to drown him and focuses on the steady ebb and flow of work, the push and pull of working muscles, the breath and pulse of the docks. He lets the memory of Danny Moore’s fingertips on his wrist fade into a distant memory, melding with his pointless dreams from the night before into the thick opacity of the unreal.

  It isn’t until nearly three hours later, as he hoists one end of a steel rod over his shoulder and heaves it across the dock, following the man in front of him, that James suddenly realizes that tomorrow morning will be the first morning in over two years where the person he meets down in the pre-dawn sand won’t be Rob Depaul.

  ~

  James is awake, dressed, and gazing out his window with a cup of instant coffee in his hand a full thirty minutes before he even needs to skateboard down to the beach to meet Danny.

  To meet Danny.

  The sentence sounds ridiculous in his head. If someone had told him a week ago that he’d be waiting to go for a private surf and training session with the Danny Moore just two days after winning his pro status in front of the crowds at the International Surf Festival, James would have thought that all the POW training in the Navy had finally caught up with him and absolutely fried his brain. Left him just a hallucinating vegetable.

  And yet, here he is.

  He’d stopped by Rob and Lori’s place after his shift ended last night—the little house in Redondo that Rob bought for them with the savings he’d built up over the last couple years, working his way up from being a fresh recruit in the LAPD.

  James had only really been there a handful of times to drop Rob off in their driveway after a surf session on days when Lori was using their truck. One of those rare times, there’d been a young kid playing in the front yard sprinkler just down the street, laughing as he drank the icy water with little pale blue swimming shorts on his freckled legs. The kid had looked up at James and madly waved, as if the entire neighborhood was his own pool, and James the best friend he’d been waiting to meet. But James had quickly looked the other way without even a nod, just as the kid’s mom called him inside for an early lunch.

  And then there had been the party. James still remembers Rob and Lori’s housewarming party with a shudder, for multiple reasons. The main one being the fact that he’d
taken one look around the place after he arrived and realized that he was somehow by far the oldest person in the room. That people were avoiding him like the dreaded older brother, and that he had absolutely no business being there intruding on all of their good time by standing ominously in the corner with a warm beer in his hand, waiting for Rob or Lori to come over and talk to him. He’d left after just twenty minutes, the on-sale toaster he’d gotten them as a lame gift shoved in an unpacked room.

  But last night it had just been Lori and Rob barbequing some hot dogs on their patio, surrounded by overgrown, hopeful potted plants. James hadn’t mean to stay any longer than it took to tell him that he needed to cancel their surf plans for the next morning, hoping Rob wouldn’t question why he hadn’t just gone home and called instead of driving all the way out to their place in rush hour traffic. But Lori had taken one look at him and said that if he went home alone to his apartment and ate a plain sandwich when he could have stayed with them and had bratwurst and homemade potato salad, Rob would have to arrest him on the spot for stupidity.

  So James had stayed, and jokingly rolled his eyes with Rob behind Lori’s back when she insisted on only listening to Jefferson Airplane records, and laughed at how unexpectedly hilarious Lori’s stories from her Vet school classes at El Camino College were.

  James had noted with hidden curiosity that their little home was all fully decorated now. A photograph of the two of them taken in Australia hanging on the wall above a secondhand bright red couch, Lori’s college beach volleyball trophy sitting proudly on the coffee table next to Rob’s police academy medal, both recently buffed clean.

  The sight of it all had made James feel like a little kid visiting a friend’s house who got stuck talking to the parents. He’d thought of his own undecorated, barely furnished, one room apartment near the beach with his hard hat hanging on the back of the door and felt like his life was moving in slow motion, stuck forever at the age he’d been when he first put on his sailor’s cap and picked up a gun.

  He’d helped Lori clean up the dishes after dinner while Rob played with their yellow lab Josie out in the warm backyard of dead grass. He’d listened to Lori ruminate over what to get Rob for his birthday while the two of them watched him through the kitchen window, arms elbow-deep in the sink, and he’d prided himself that he wasn’t fiercely, ragingly jealous over it all. At one point, Rob had looked up at the two of them from the yard and smiled, tucking a strand of loose hair back behind his ear, and James had flushed at the memory of his brainless slip up the night before—reaching out and doing the same exact thing on the patio of the beach bar without even the excuse of too much alcohol to hide behind.