And after Lori looks back at them over her shoulder and rolls her eyes, and Rob looks back over his shoulder and gives a puppy-dog frown and a wink, they walk together back down the tree-lined lane, Lori turning to give one final wave before she wraps her arm around Rob’s waist and leans her head on his shoulder.
James is left alone on an empty stretch of beach with Sydney at his side, still blushing hot across his cheeks from Lori’s words, and all he can think to do is laugh.
“Well, what do we do now?” he asks into the silence.
Sydney grins down at him, eyes glittering and creasing at the corners, and then he looks out over the sea and takes a dramatically deep breath, settling his shoulders as the sun pours across his face.
“Now we surf,” he says, and he walks off without another word towards where their boards are kept leaned up against the side of the house.
And James knows that Sydney knows that he’ll follow him. Would paddle behind him to the edges of the earth.
~
“Why did he choose you as the sky and me as the sea?”
James hums in response as he paddles out into the waves behind Sydney. They’re skirting just to the side of the main break of the waves along the deserted beach they’d driven to at the very edges of the Banzai, swimming out smoothly towards the slowly setting sun.
James calls up to him as he paddles through the soft, clear water, voice echoing across the frothy surface. “Probably because you’re like a deep, black pit of terrifying mystery, and people are afraid of the ocean.”
Sydney huffs. “What, and you’re just sunshine and puffy clouds and rainbows all the time?”
“Obviously Chris thought so.”
“Well shit, I didn’t want to think he was an idiot, but now I have to,” Sydney mumbles.
“Hello? You need any help up there?” James calls back. “I’m pretty sure you’re sinking under the weight of your gigantic fucking head.”
Sydney chuckles ahead of him and stops paddling in a clear spot of water, sitting up to perch on his board. He pulls his arms behind him to stretch his shoulders, chest heaving. James’ mouth waters at the sight. The flowers spilling across his shoulder ripple and shine in the thick purple light, which billows out over the waves from the low and heavy sun and reflects back onto his smooth, tan skin.
James pulls up next to him and sits up, too, cracking his neck. Already his chest feels naked without the warm, smooth wood hanging down across it; they’d left their necklaces back at home out of fear of losing them in the waves. Now James finds himself rubbing idly the spot at the middle of his chest with his fingertips for a moment, breathing deeply into his lungs and catching the soft scent of flowers floating across the ocean’s surface.
“I miss mine, too,” Sydney says quietly beside him.
James holds out his hand across the water and Sydney immediately takes it, dipping their joined hands just below the surface of the waves and holding on.
James sighs. He wants the world at his back to just disappear for a week. Wants to take Sydney’s hand in his wherever they go and let Sydney lead him to the edges of the earth so he can follow him there. Wants to lead Sydney to the depths of the seas. He wants to see only his face, smell only his skin, hear only his voice.
“I wish we could escape,” James says. “Just for a week.”
“Aw, come on, James, why would you ever want to escape paradise?”
James rolls his eyes as Sydney squeezes his fingers. “You know what I mean, you dick.”
Sydney hums softly, and suddenly the yearning in James’ chest grows so strong he thinks he’ll moan out loud at the clutch of it. “I know Hank’s already watching the shop for a few days, but . . . you think we can ask him to add a few more?”
Sydney shrugs one shoulder, looking out calmly at the horizon. “Seeing as how he owns a third of the place, I don’t see why we can’t ask.”
“We could go somewhere,” James sighs. “Just the two of us, and no competitions or anything. Just, get out of this bubble for a week.” He turns to Sydney and says the words hiding in the back of his throat. “Somewhere we can . . .” He briefly lifts their joined hands out of the water and nods down at them. “You know, somewhere we can do this. Out in the open. Would be nice.”
Sydney nods understanding, rubbing his thumb along James’ hand. “I know of a place on Maui we could stay that might be nice. It’s really private from what I hear. And there’s hiking there. Volcanoes and shit you can climb to feel all adventurous to match your beard.”
“God, that sounds like a fucking dream.”
Sydney hums and squeezes James’ hand once more before letting go. He cups a handful of seawater in his palms and leans his head back to pour it down over his hair, plastering his curls to his head. James watches the beads of water drip slowly down his chest and stomach, wanting to lean down and lick them off one by one with his tongue.
Sydney smiles with his eyes closed, face still turned up towards the sky. “Good thing we already have that place booked for the rest of the week, then,” he says.
James blinks hard, mind reeling. “What? What about—”
“And good thing Hank already said he’d watch the shop for the whole week.”
The water tickles against James’ thighs as he sits there dumbly with his mouth hanging open. He doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry or take Sydney by the shoulders and kiss every inch of his face, bit by bit. “You’re fucking serious?” he pants out.
Sydney looks back at him with glittering eyes, barely holding back the smile from his lips. “Of course I’m serious. Our flight’s around the same time as Rob and Lori’s the day after tomorrow. We can ride with them to the airport. Be a surprise for them, too.”
James huffs a disbelieving laugh and stares blankly out towards the endless horizon, trying to calm his racing heart and the quiet shaking in his hands gripping his board. He licks his lips and tries to talk without laughing. “Is this what being married to you is like, then? You surprising me once every three goddamn hours?”
Sydney suddenly stills next to him, and James feels an ache in his gut when he thinks he understands the reason why. “God, baby, I feel bad. You’ve done all of this for me, found Chris and planned it all, and then I had my friends there today.” He groans quietly and rubs the back of his neck, feeling hot under his skin. “I haven’t done jack shit for you back. Not anything.”
“That’s not true,” Sydney says immediately.
James gestures limply out towards the waves with his hand, not knowing what to say. He wants to cup the entire ocean in his palms and hand it to Sydney on a platter. That or reach up as high as he can to write Sydney’s name in the goddamn stars. Something to feel like less of an absolute dud.
Sydney reaches out and grabs his hand again, grip steady. “James, that’s not true at all,” he says again.
James looks over at him and bites his lip. “What have I done, then?” he asks. The question trembles across the gently rolling waters, hovering and waiting for an answer.
Suddenly Sydney’s face breaks into a breathless smile, sending grateful shivers down James’ spine. “You married me, you idiot,” Sydney says, and then he leans across the space between their boards, grabs the side of James’ face, and kisses him, wet and slow, sitting at the edge of the earth.
James moans against his mouth, letting himself feel and taste every good part of Sydney’s lips. He pulls back just far enough to speak, the air from his lips brushing across the tip of Sydney’s tongue.
“When was the last time I told you that you were something else?” he whispers.
Sydney chuckles and presses another kiss just below James’ mouth, his lips in a grin. “It’s been at least an hour. Better remind me.”
James kisses him again, deep and open-mouthed and groaning when Sydney’s fingertips come up to run over his scar. “You’re something else,” he whispers against his lips.
Sydney pulls back and gives James a look so trusting,
so open, so content that it explodes through his chest, tilting the world onto its side. Like the perfect pipeline barreling towards the shore in the middle of a set, James knows what he can do—what he can say to somehow feel like he’s given Sydney something precious back.
James steels his shoulders and clears his throat, looking straight out across the horizon. Sydney had told him once, like he was teaching a class on James Campbell, that he’s a man who leaps head first into risks when he isn’t busy being boring with things like jobs and money and plans.
And this sure as hell is one of those risks.
“I found your notes, you know,” James says gently.
Sydney’s eyes widen quickly in shock, and James laughs. “Well come on, I’m not an idiot,” he chuckles. “You hid them in the pocket of my own goddamn pants.”
“Well you never wear that pair!” Sydney cries. “Not even once! They’re practically the only fucking thing in our house you’ve never touched besides the new coffeemaker prototype—!”
“That’s what that is?”
Sydney’s jaw drops. “What the fuck did you think it was all this time? Don’t say a bo—”
“I dunno. A bomb?”
“A year later and you still think I’m building a secret bomb, how could you even—”
“Well, it’s not like you don’t have all the pieces! I’m not watching you every goddamn second you’re holed up on the porch all hunched over your wires like a Bond villain.”
“But James, you sleep with me.”
“And I fuck you.”
“Right, you sleep with me and you fuck me and you would do that with a person you think is building a dangerously destructive homemade weapon? You’re tripping.”
“Maybe I like the danger.”
“How dangerous is it to want a hot cup of coffee first thing in the morning that is conveniently delivered on an elegant system of tracks to my bedside table? Tell me how—?”
James howls, leaning over his board to try and catch his breath from laughing. “Oh my God,” he pants. “You’re something else.”
Sydney huffs, crossing his arms. “You could’ve told me you were fucking yanking my chain. And also you don’t need to remind me again that quickly.”
James shoots him one last smile, his own laughter slowly fading from his chest, and before he can even realize it, the moment turns thick and crackling, Sydney waiting tense and frozen on his board in light of what James had originally started to say.
James blinks hard, taking a second to order his thoughts, and when he does speak, his voice is surprisingly calm and gentle, rolling across the smooth water. “How long have you been really looking for her?” he asks.
Sydney shrugs halfheartedly, looking down at his board like he’s ashamed. “Not that long,” he says to the space between his legs. “Lahela mentioned something in her letter a few weeks back—a detail I hadn’t known that my father must have offhand mentioned to her. Don’t think he knows she’s been writing to me, yet. It just got me thinking . . .”
James takes pity on him and reaches over to run his palm across Sydney’s forearm, inwardly thrilling when Sydney turns his palm over to catch James’ hand in his, entwining their fingers again.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” James asks.
Sydney squeezes his hand once and breathes slow and deep for a long moment, and James waits patiently in the silence, bobbing slowly up and down on their boards as the waves rush and hum in the distance behind them.
Finally, Sydney speaks, his voice thin and halting. “I didn’t mean to,” he says. “I just . . . it all happened so fast, in the beginning. Didn’t even seem like much. I still don’t have much to go on even now. But, you’ve been so . . . you’ve been happy. And it didn’t seem fair.”
James frowns. “What didn’t seem fair?”
Sydney looks up at him, eyes hot and confused. “This whole thing,” he says, flicking his hand out towards the horizon. “It didn’t . . . I feel bad, James. I mean, I have Lahela, sort of. In some way. And I have you. And now I’m trying to look for my momma, too.” He sighs, gripping James’ hand, and James’ chest clenches at the emotion on Sydney’s face. “You don’t have anyone to look for,” Sydney finishes.
“Oh, love . . .”
James brings Sydney’s hand up to his mouth and kisses it, holding the warm skin against his face. “Sydney, I don’t need to look for anyone,” he says in a choked voice. “You are my family. I have you.”
“It’s not like you aren’t enough for me—”
“I know that. God, I know that. Especially after today.”
Sydney sighs, then slips his hand from James’ fingers to rub it over his face. “I just need to know,” he whispers. “If she’s still out there . . . I—she was everything to me. Back then. And maybe, to her, I’m still . . . I just need to know. I need to try.”
James feels like the ocean could rise up to caress them from the deep, holding them aloft in a large, gentle hug away from the rest of the world. The words come to him easily, settling comfortably on his tongue as he watches Sydney’s chest rapidly breathing in the late and hazy sunlight. “I’ll go with you,” James says.
“You—what?”
James tries to hold back his smile as Sydney slowly processes what he said. James pats his thigh. “I’m sure there’s only so much you can do all the way out here,” he says. “So if you go looking for her—if you go back to the mainland. If everything works out and you go to meet her. You know that I’ll go with you.”
The moment settles around them, warm and velvet against their skin. James wonders if the Oahu skyline became magically more beautiful since they said their vows that afternoon. If the sea and sky really did witness them up on the cliff and dressed up just to celebrate with them.
Sydney swallows hard and runs a hand through his hair. He slowly shakes his head. “You are a marvel,” he says.
James reaches out and kisses Sydney’s hand again before letting it go, chest expanding hotly under his skin. He looks at the man before him, an incredulous smile still painted across his lips. He looks and he tries to match him to the man he’d seen that day on the beach, a crowd of onlookers at their backs, and the buzzing roar of the competition, and the impenetrable, black sunglasses thrown over Sydney’s eyes.
He can’t.
The man now before him is the endless sea, open and rolling and surrounding James so thoroughly he can’t find a part of himself that isn’t covered in saltwater, caressed and warmed by the froth. Held by Sydney Moore.
Sydney looks over at him and nods over James’ shoulder to the waves rushing into shore behind their backs, filling the air with the rolling crash of trembling, salt-covered foam.
“Nice set about to come in,” he says with a gleam in his eye. “You should take it.”
“Sure you don’t wanna show off first?”
Sydney’s drying curls blow into his eyes. “I’d rather watch you.”
James drinks in the sight of Sydney sitting in the rippling sun, strong and calm and beautiful on the blue velvet water. Then he sets his jaw, nods once, and throws himself down to start paddling out to the breaking point, feeling Sydney’s eyes warmly fixed onto his back. The water rushes against his skin in the familiar salty kiss, sliding across his muscles and rippling through his hair as a delicious ache spreads through his arms and shoulders, racing against the silken hum of the waves.
Just when James reaches the breaking point and chooses which wave he’ll take, he hears a voice travel out to him, rolling across the sea on the evening breeze. It mixes and churns with the salt spray in the air, hovering over his skin and holding him together, settling straight down in his bones with a sweet sigh.
The voice sounds like whipped-cream and Sydney and home.
The voice calls out, “Surf like hell, James Campbell.”
About the Author
C. L. Beaumont received her B.A. in South Asian Linguistics and Art History from the University of California, Berkeley
, and now serves coffee in the wee hours of the morning until she can race home each day to dive into her true love: writing. When she isn't hiking or checking another National Park off her list, she enjoys devouring crime fiction, cooking new vegetarian recipes, and trying to complete jigsaw puzzles while she slowly works her way through Rupert Graves' entire filmography. C. L. Beaumont lives near the Washington mountains with her gorgeous forest ranger partner and their child—er, poodle.
About Carnation Books
Carnation Books is a fandom-powered publisher of the best in inclusive fiction. Founded in 2016, Carnation Books is at the forefront of new author discovery. Visit CarnationBooks.com to learn more, and to sign up for our story-filled newsletter!
The Sea Ain't Mine Alone Page 61
