The Sea Ain't Mine Alone

by Beaumont, C. L.

  “You seemed to be the only person on earth who could stand my miserable ass.”

  “That first conversation? We just argued and I paddled away.”

  “But you tried to talk to me.”

  “That just means I’m not a worthless pile of shit of a human being.”

  “You introduced yourself.”

  “Again, same response. Plus we had fuck all to surf on that day.”

  Sydney touches his chest, his fingertips tracing the edge of James’ scar. He swallows. The moment turns incredibly thick. “I wanted to see you again,” he whispers, and James draws in a breath at the raw sound of Sydney’s words. Sydney traces the scar. “I thought you were beautiful, and I wanted to see you, and I wondered what it would be like to hold you, and if I didn’t see you again for certain at the Billabong I would have been chasing you for months trying to track you down at the next lower circuit competition, trying to secretly ask around who and where you were, and when you were surfing, and then I would have had to somehow finagle my way all over again to be in your same heat, and that would have been an unbearable waste of time when I was trying to focus on Waimea, so I wiped out so I could pinpoint your location specifically to the Banzai in two weeks, and then the universe smiled down on me when you yelled at me so fiercely you dropped your bullet into the sand. Everything else just . . . happened.”

  James bursts. He’s leaning forward to kiss the shit out of Sydney Moore when Sydney stops him with a finger in the middle of his chest.

  “Now my last remaining mystery,” he says, slightly breathless.

  James quirks an eyebrow. “Hm?”

  Sydney blinks a few times. “Why, actually? Why introduce yourself to me when you’d already been told that I was . . . when you already knew what I was like?”

  James doesn’t need to think for longer than a millisecond to know his answer. He shoots Sydney’s customary smirk right back at him, kisses his confused, waiting lips in a quick peck, then turns to start walking up to the house, warm sand on his feet. He turns back at the hammock, awestruck at the silhouette of Sydney’s naked body against the golden light billowing out across the sand of their home. Against the glass sea.

  “Honestly?” he says, loud enough so Sydney can hear him where he stands frozen in the sand. “Because you were hot as fuck.”

  And as James turns to mount the steps into their home, something deep down in his chest tells him he already knows exactly what he’s going to do when he ‘wakes up one day’ in the future, and he realizes with a relieved smile that he’s not able to find one single goddamn reason to fight it.

  Epilogue

  Late summer, 1977

  The soothing sea rushes through his ears in a frothing whisper, gently pulling James from his dreams until his eyelids blink slowly into the thin, grey light. He listens to Sydney’s deep and even breathing beside him, blowing against the mop of curls covering his face. He’s sleeping like the dead on his stomach with his arms thrown up over his head, just like he looks every morning—painted in rested gold twinkling off the tips of the hairs on his bare arms and back.

  James sighs, waking up his lungs, and turns on his side to stretch back his tight shoulder. He stares at the small photograph pinned to the wall by his side of the bed. He’d taken it on their trip down to surf Bells Beach in Australia back in February. James smiles now to himself looking at it for the thousandth time—remembering how Sydney had rolled his eyes so hard they’d nearly popped out of his head when James had pulled a brand new camera out of his bag when they got to the hotel.

  “Lord spare me,” he’d said. “Please tell me you’re fucking joking.”

  James had smirked, holding it up and immediately snapping a picture of Sydney glaring at him across the room with his hands perched on his hips. “Definitely not joking.”

  He’d pulled the film from the camera and waved it in the air to develop, smirking at Sydney’s shocked expression as his hands flew up to grab in his hair.

  “That film is expensive, James! Don’t tell me you just wasted a photo on that!”

  “I wouldn’t say I wasted it,” James had said, glancing down at the slowly forming picture like a ghost emerging from the black, watching as the fog cleared to reveal Sydney’s judgmental eyes with a perfect ringlet draped across his forehead.

  Sydney had waved his hand, giving up, and turned back to continue unpacking his bag in his room, creating the ruse they’d done many times before of making it look like both hotel room beds had been used and slept in. “You’ll regret whatever money you spent on that within the week, I guarantee you,” he’d muttered, elbow-deep in his suitcase. “Those cameras are a bitch to maintain. Break constantly.”

  James had come up behind him and wrapped his arms around Sydney’s chest, stroking gently over the soft fabric of the shirt James had given him for Christmas. “Good thing I know a good mechanic, then,” he’d whispered, right before biting the lobe of Sydney’s ear and letting his hands rove below the waistband of his shorts.

  And then, four days later, after James had surprised literally everyone on the beach by coming in fourth at Bells while Sydney remained stuck in fifth place, and after Sydney had grabbed James’ arm at the end of competition day and dragged him back to their hotel and threw him down hard onto the bed, fucking him through the mattress and covering James’ groans and cries with his hand, and after they’d woken up early to spend their last day in Victoria watching the sun rise steadily over the empty beach, James had let Sydney walk along ahead of him, bare chested in the glittering morning light.

  He’d pulled the camera from the bag slung over his shoulder, and waited until the jellyfish on Sydney’s back shone just so in the reflection from the sunshine and the waves, and he’d snapped a picture of him looking just barely over his shoulder, waiting for James to catch up and follow.

  And Sydney hadn’t made fun of him at all when James had pinned it up quietly next to his side of the bed, a handwritten “Sydney and me. Victoria. February 1977” written across the white part along the bottom.

  “You’re not even in the photo,” Sydney had whispered, lying behind James their first night back at home and hugging him close in his arms.

  James had wrapped a hand around Sydney’s forearm and stroked, fingertips brushing over the shivers on his skin. “Yes, I am,” he’d whispered. And Sydney had hummed understanding and kissed the back of his neck in the dark.

  Sydney stirs, shifting in his sleep behind James and burrowing his face deeper into the pillow, rousing James from his sleepy thoughts. James tears his gaze away from the fading photograph and turns onto his other side to face him, grinning silently as Sydney huffs a lazy breath to blow the long curls off his forehead, nose twitching, then immediately falls back into a deep and heavy sleep. James lifts his arm over Sydney’s bare back, gently running his fingers up Sydney’s spine and watching, transfixed, as his breath falters in his sleep at the touch of James’ palm.

  Sydney’s skin smells like salt and sand and sun. The sandalwood shavings from working on his boards in the back of the shop, and the lacquer that coats his hands no matter how many times he washes them, and the dark, musky hint of sweat and semen from the sex they’d had the night before. James presses his cheek to Sydney’s upper arm where it’s thrown up lazily over his head, letting the new layer of scruffy beard on his face rasp against Sydney’s skin, deafening in the silence of the room. He breathes in the scent of him. Kisses wet and slow up Sydney’s arm towards his shoulder. Kisses over the fresh and crisp lines of the new tattoo draped across the contours of his body, still bright and bold over the shaved skin of his arm and practically glowing in the morning light.

  James traces the lines with his lips. The barest hint of tongue. He hums softly into Sydney’s skin, remembering back to the day only three weeks ago when he’d come home from a long day spent up at the shop and opened their front door to an empty house and a barely legible note taped to the fridge.

  “Gone to the city
. Be back late. That beef you were hoping to use in your lasagna tonight has gone bad. You can use the mushrooms from Hobbs instead in each layer and it’ll taste just fine.”

  James had run a hand over his face and rolled his eyes, knowing full well he’d never mentioned to Sydney at all that day or the day before that he’d been planning on making lasagna for dinner. Then his eyes had caught the words added to the bottom of the note, flooding his chest with a still unfamiliar warmth, even after a year.

  “Don’t worry—not doing anything stupid.”

  So James had used the mushrooms in the lasagna instead, and it had tasted fine when he ate it by himself at the kitchen table, and the next morning he’d woken up to an empty but slept-in bed and walked out into the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee from the machine it’d taken him a whole goddamn month of silent struggling to figure out. He’d turned around at the soft pad of Sydney’s footsteps behind him, embarrassingly eager to see him again, and then nearly dropped his full mug at the sight of Sydney bare chested in worn sweatpants with a fresh new tattoo covering his left upper arm and shoulder, protected by a thin layer of plastic.

  And before James had been able to say anything besides, “How—?” Sydney had walked forward and kissed him right on the forehead, saying, “Took me three goddamn hours to find a place that actually made strawberry milkshakes because the first place I went to was fucking closed, and they half melted on my way back home on the bus, but they’re in the freezer for later today and you can thank me by finishing the sanding on that new board and then fucking me tonight.”

  Because of course Sydney had known what day it was—that it was Helen Campbell’s birthday—even though James hadn’t said a single goddamn thing about it. And while James felt hot tears building up in the back of his eyes, Sydney had taken the shaking mug of coffee from his hand and wrapped him in his arms, whispering into his ear, “The tattoo wasn’t planned, obviously. Just walked by a place that looked relatively clean and got an idea. ‘S why I wasn’t home until the ass crack of dawn.”

  He’d held James in the silent kitchen for a long time, letting James breathe roughly against his chest. James had stood stunned, arms hanging limply at his sides, feeling numb and small and completely overwhelmed. Then he’d felt Sydney’s lips press gently into his hair, just like he’d now done countless times before, suddenly filling James’ bones with such a sense of right that James had nearly laughed.

  Instead, he’d pulled back slowly, staring at the floor while he passed a hand over his wet eyes to try and pull himself together. He’d been utterly calm—those first breathtaking moments when he’d popped up on the makeshift board off the Vietnam coast. He’d felt braver than the cliff.

  “What you told me, a year ago. Just after Waimea,” James had said, voice choked. “You know. What we talked about? What you asked me if I wanted?”

  Sydney had frowned, then quickly nodded, his eyes quiet and focused, waiting patiently for James to speak.

  Finally James had shaken his head and held Sydney’s cheek in his hand, trying to talk over his own trembling lips. He raised his chin—Sydney’s careful breaths like the wind on his face from his winning Billabong wave, from the first wave he ever learned to ride.

  “I think I may have just ‘woke up one day,’” he’d said wetly. “We should celebrate.”

  And Sydney’s face had crumpled as he pulled James into a deep and groaning kiss, thumbs brushing softly over the tears falling silently from the corners of James’ eyes, moaning, “Oh my God” into his mouth. Breathing sighs of James’ name.

  Now, just three blink-of-an-eye weeks later, James continues to run his lips over the tattoo, waiting for Sydney to slowly wake up beside him. He can practically feel the ink beneath his lips, as if the lines are raised into more than just a flat picture. Feels the ship’s anchor etched forever into Sydney’s arm, surrounded by the winding rope and lying against a bed of white plumeria blossoms, which fan out over his shoulder and drip down his arm and back until they just reach the tip of the jellyfish.

  James keeps his eyes closed and kisses the exact place where he knows his initials are just barely inked into the bottom of the anchor, hidden in the details of the design for only James to see. It had taken him ten full days to notice them, much to Sydney’s private delight.

  “Your beard tickles,” Sydney grumbles into his pillow, halfheartedly shrugging his shoulder under James’ mouth.

  James grins, climbing further onto Sydney’s back and running his lips across his shoulder blades and neck.

  “Should I press harder, then?” he asks.

  Sydney’s breathing changes beneath him, growing faster. “Then you’d just cover me in marks.”

  James hums, licking a slow stripe up Sydney’s spine before rubbing his gruff cheek at the nape of Sydney’s neck, breathing shivers into his skin.

  “You like having marks from your man all over you,” he murmurs, rolling his hips slowly where he lies now completely on top of Sydney, letting his warm, thickening cock press just barely into the curve of Sydney’s ass.

  Suddenly, Sydney tenses and flips onto his back beneath him, then he runs his hands up the small of James’ bare back and pulls him down to lie across his body. James settles his full weight down, groaning deep in his chest as his cock presses warmly against Sydney’s own lazily growing erection. Sydney’s hands run up the length of his spine, up into his hair and tangling into the loose, blonde strands.

  Sydney’s voice is low like gravel from sleep. He rolls his hips under James languidly as he speaks, eyes still swollen half-shut. “My man, huh?” he says.

  The words tumble down James’ back like sparks of heat, and he leans down to capture the words on Sydney’s mouth with a wet and sloppy kiss, panting across his lips and tasting the morning slowness on his tongue. James hums contentedly into Sydney’s sleep-warm skin beneath him, slowly tangling his fingers in Sydney’s curls and moving like they have all the time in the world—deep and heavy and slow.

  After a few minutes of James slowly licking into his mouth, Sydney pulls back panting, lips pink and wet and pupils blown wide. He grins at the corner of his mouth, holding firmly onto James’ waist and tracing up his sides with his fingertips. “Aren’t we not supposed to see each other beforehand?”

  James groans and reaches down between them to cup his palm over Sydney’s balls, rolling them gently in his hand and letting his wrist trace just barely against the base of Sydney’s swelling cock. “You’re ridiculous,” he breathes.

  Sydney sucks in a breath and fights a moan as James slowly strokes up his hardening length with the barest tips of his fingers, caressing the hot skin like satin. Sydney closes his eyes and tilts his head back, arching his back and hips up into James’ touch. “It’s bad luck, though,” he grunts out.

  James grins and leans down to press a soft kiss to the corner of Sydney’s mouth. “True,” he whispers. He props himself up fully on his elbow and reaches up with his other hand to press his fingers into Sydney’s mouth, gliding between his full and parted lips and caressing his wet tongue. Sydney’s eyes fly open wide as he moans around James’ fingers, vibrating against James’ skin and coating them with his spit. James shoves in a third finger, watching Sydney’s lips stretch around him, and he rolls his hips hard and slow against Sydney’s groin, rubbing his balls slowly along the length of Sydney’s full cock.

  “You want me to stop?” James rumbles. He slowly drags his fingers out from between Sydney’s lips, skin glistening and wet, then reaches down to grasp again at Sydney’s erection, running his slick fist along the length of his cock from base to tip before swirling his thumb gently over the leaking slit.

  Sydney groans and huffs out a breath which James knows is supposed to sound annoyed, but completely misses the mark when he’s writhing and panting beneath him, hips thrusting to roll himself up into James’ palm. “Fuck you,” Sydney moans.

  James kisses wetly beneath Sydney’s jaw, tongue dipping out to taste his skin.
“You already did that last night,” he says low.

  Sydney grabs at the back of James’ neck and chuckles breathlessly. “God, how could I forget?”

  For a moment, James revels in Sydney lying heavy and soft beneath him, letting James work him, pulling soft moans from the back of his throat and running his lips over every inch of Sydney’s face and neck. Sydney’s fingertips cling firmly to the sensitive skin of James’ nape, anchoring him in his arms, and James moans at the rasp of the hair on Sydney’s thighs against his own as they twist and tangle beneath the sheets, limbs moving heavy and slow.

  Sydney’s hand comes up to cup James’ cheek, thumb running across the scruff on his face. James’ chest clenches at the look on Sydney’s face—a look he’d seen often since that moment three weeks ago standing in their kitchen.

  James stills his hand on Sydney’s erection, for some reason wanting to slow everything down, to savor the seconds, and instead drapes himself across Sydney’s thigh and chest, his palm cupping his balls.

  Everything grows muffled and still. “I wish you’d keep this,” Sydney whispers, fingers tracing along James’ jaw.

  James frowns, surprised. “I thought you weren’t a fan. Just humoring me while I tried it out.”

  Sydney hums, reaching his neck up to kiss once in the center of James’ cheek. “The opposite.”

  “Even though it leaves burns all over you?” James traces his thumb just under Sydney’s lower lip, where already a soft pink rash is forming from the rasp of James’ beard against Sydney’s smooth skin.

  Sydney grins wickedly, and James barely has time to react before Sydney’s muscles tense beneath him and he’s flipping him over in one smooth motion onto his back, pinning James down into the mattress with a grunt. “Especially because it leaves burns on me,” he growls.

  The words sear in James’ brain, shooting down his spine and pooling in between his hips even as he laughs at being thrown onto his ass. Sydney grips James’ waist after pressing a wet kiss to his lips and motions for him to turn onto his stomach, which James does with a moan at the back of his throat, anticipation thrumming hotly through his quickly waking muscles.