“You liked that,” Calhoun says, and it’s a statement, not a question.
Audie grabs a washcloth and wipes himself off. “Yeah,” he admits.
“I liked watching you,” Calhoun says.
Audie’s eyes want to close. He curls up. “Can I spoon you?” Calhoun asks.
“Yeah,” Audie says, grateful he asked. They curl up together and don’t wake until much later.
The next morning, Jax is fishing, chairs and sand spikes and beer waiting, before Audie comes down. “Seems better with you two,” he says after a while.
Audie shrugs. “You were right. You get tired of being the fucking drama queen.”
“No shit. So you two okay now then?”
Audie hesitates. But for some weird reason he trusts this blonde who swims with dolphins. “No.”
“‘S wrong?”
Audie casts. “Don’t trust it. Can’t manage to — to do much.”
“I went through that.”
“What’d you do?”
“Time. Stuff that wasn’t sex. Henry had to rub my back, before, every single time.”
Audie looks at Jax. “Why can I tell you all this? I don’t tell anyone anything.”
Jax looks at him. “I don’t know. I don’t tell anyone anything either.”
They sit in silence for a while, casting and reeling, casting and reeling into the ocean turned gold in the sunrise.
“You know what it means to be hurt,” Jax says finally. “I don’t know what hurt you, not really. Same’s I talked around it and didn’t tell you all of it, not the whole truth or the real part of it. But you know. You saw it right away and so did I. Henry and Calhoun don’t know what that means. That’s why they can try to put us back together and maybe it’ll work and maybe it won’t.”
“I’m afraid of sharks,” Audie says suddenly. He can’t hold it suddenly, can’t stop it. “But I’m really just afraid of the ocean and I swore I’d never get in it again.”
Jax cocks his head at him. “Someone did something to you.”
Audie tells him about his father and the pontoon boat in the Charleston harbor, about being eleven years and told to swim, just swim to his daddy and they could go home, about the four hours of sheer terror, the thirst and his father’s laughter. ‘
“You’d get in, if you made that go away,” Jax says.
“I can’t.”
“You can. And you need to tell Calhoun this story.”
“I’m not telling Calhoun this. I never should have told you.” Audie casts again. He tosses an empty back up above the high tide line.
“Henry taught me I owe him the truth.”
“I told him the truth. I have a shark phobia.”
“You didn’t tell him shit and we both know it, Currell. Same’s I told Henry I slept around. I told him something. I never told him why. Never told anyone why.”
“Why’d you do it?”
Jax looks over the horizon and squints into the sun. “I was fucking lonely, Audie, the hell do you think?” He straightens up. “How deep will you go?”
“My knees.”
“Go out to your thighs. I’ll go with you.”
“No.”
“I’m not your father and you’re not eleven. Do you trust me enough to tell me that fucking story?”
Audie hesitates. “Yes.”
“Did I trust you enough to tell you why I slept around?”
Audie stares at the vast expanse of water and wonders at its secrets. “Yes.”
“Then trust me enough not to get your ass eaten. I’ll go ahead of you so you know there’s nothing there.”
Audie begins shaking. But for some goddamn reason he does trust Jax. He takes Audie’s hand. It’s not sexual; it’s not the way you hold the hand of a lover. More the way you’d lead a blind man, or the way Audie imagines a preacher leading someone down into a river. But Jax holds Audie’s hard firmly and takes him into the water, one step at a time. Audie looks down anxiously, watches his feet. Jax suddenly laughs and points. “See the teensy ray?” he asks, the water at their knees. “Like a little pancake.” And it is, small and gray. One step, another step. Audie anxiously watches the sand. He scans the water around him. Jax lets him take his time. He doesn’t tug him along; he doesn’t force him. “There’s nothing here,“ he’ll say softly over the waves. “One more step, Audie. C’mon.” And Audie will take one more. He pauses and feels the sand under his feet. Jax almost steps on a flounder and laughs, startling Audie. He touches his arm. “It’s okay,” he says. “I won’t let you get hurt, Audie. You are not eleven. This is not Charleston. You’re someone else now. Your father’s gone. You can make him gone. One more step.” Audie shakes but he holds Jax’s hand.
They keep going until they stand up to their waists when the waves come in. “You’re safe,” Jax says. “Look how clear the water is.”
Audie stops. Turns. He can see in every direction, and he looks. There are no sharks, none that he can see. There are sharks, of course: this is Nag’s Head, the Carolina coast, sharks up and down it, black-tips and makos, duskies and sand tigers. But the sharks are far away, and the chances of them hurting him so small. He almost cries with relief, then in the sheer beauty of it, the ocean he can finally fit himelf into, Audie stands and dives. He stands. Dives again. Suddenly he’s swimming, swimming strong, the way he learned as a boy in the Low Country, in the creeks and estuaries of the Cooper River. Jax swims next to him. Audie flips, backflips. He rides the waves and swims under them, a part of this vast, mysterious thing, just one more creature in this strange universe governed by the pull of the moon. A world of undrinkable water, of whalesong, of menace and beauty, crashing whitecaps and glass-calm. Jax doesn’t leave him alone. They finally swim back to shore.
“You aren’t eleven anymore,” he says quietly.
“I’m not,” Audie says.
“And you never have to be again.”
They share a towel.
“Your trunks are wet,” Calhoun says, when Audie comes into the living room.
“Do you want to go swimming?” Audie asks.
“But —”
“I’ll be fine, if you go with me.”
Calhoun scrambles to his feet. “I’ll put my suit on.”
They hold hands as they walk into the waves, Audie’s hand tight on Calhoun’s. When the waves roll at their chests, when the water is clear, after Audie looks around them, he wraps around Calhoun, tips his chin to the side, and kisses him hard. They hold each other as the saltwater crashes in front of them, as they bob in the waves. Audie feels Calhoun harden in his suit, tent it out. “That was the best kiss ever,” Calhoun says, when Audie sucks his lower lip and pulls back.
Audie does a backflip. “Why?” he asks, when he comes up.
“Because you weren’t afraid anymore.”
Calhoun touches the bottom and leads him out of the water. They walk right to the bedroom and take off their suits. Audie sheds his rashguard.
“Now we can,” Calhoun breathes.
“Yeah,” Audie says.
“You’ll taste like saltwater.”
“So will you.”
They fall into the bed, side by side, hair still soaked. Audie wraps around Calhoun and kisses him. And he tastes like seawater, oh god he does, like the ocean, like all the secrets of undiscovered whales and unknowable depths, of dolphin names and even the distance tang of shark menace. But you can’t have one without the other: the fear makes the beauty bloom, magnifies it from the everyday to something wild and perfect. He sucks Calhoun’s lower lip the way he likes. Audie doesn’t close his eyes to Calhoun’s beautiful sun-browned skin, blond beginning to streak his wet mermaid tangles.They press against one another, both hard, Audie almost overcome by the sudden depth of his need.
But he doesn’t rush it. He sucks and licks down Calhoun’s neck, letting himself revel in the seawater taste, the salt on his skin, feeling the sand rough on their feet, crumbling into the bed — fuck the sheets — kissing t
hat pulse point, the little place where he can feel Calhoun’s heart flutter. When Calhoun’s nails rake down his back they scratch wet skin, seal-skin; those nails will leave glorious red marks no one will see. He cups Calhoun’s perfect ass as their legs tangle, land-legs, long and perfect.
Their cocks touch. Calhoun gasps and bucks up at him. Audie moves up to his ear, that perfect seashell curve of it, traces it with his tongue. “Let me put lube on you,” he says. “Let me open you up. And you tell me how to do it.”
“On our sides,” Calhoun begs. “Please, Audie.”
Audie thinks for a second. Yes, he should rub that good spot in Calhoun at that angle; he’ll have to hold Calhoun with both arms but Calhoun can jerk himself with his lower hand. Audie moves down and licks tentatively at Calhoun, ohgod, like the ocean, salty like precum but without the bitter taste, and when he starts to drip it’s even better, as Audie works his fingers in one by one, Calhoun begging more, more Audie, more, please more, give me another and fuck me with it, no fuck me harder, oh god but that’s good. He pauses a second with the third, and Audie knows he feels that burn that comes from stretching, but then the babble starts again, the begging, the ebb and flow that means nothing, nothing but I love you, I want you, please be inside me.
When Calhoun is ready for him, Audie slicks them both again. Calhoun curls up, Audie carefully guides himself inside.He brushes just against that spot. He doesn’t rub it or tap it or hit it hard, but the little touches seem enough to set Calhoun gasping. Audie wraps his arms under Calhoun’s legs and holds his ass. Calhoun’s upper arm pulls Audie as close as he can; his lower finds his own cock and begins toying with it.
“You’re deep,” Calhoun gasps.
They can’t quit reach to kiss, but they can look at each other, feel each other close. Looking at Calhoun is almost better. Audie always closes his eyes to those big blue ones, but not this time, this time they stare at him, wide, trusting. “Tell me when,” Audie says, and he can see the whole ocean in them.
“Please?” Calhoun asks.
Audie holds him tight, Calhoun’s legs over his shoulders, and begins rocking in him. Ohgod. Why have they never done this before? His ring’s so tight on Audie’s cock, so fucking tight, they’re so close, they can see each other. Audie manages to move his lower arm to cup Calhoun’s face while he still holds his leg.
“Harder?” Calhoun asks, more tentative as he looks right at Audie.
Audie moves more quickly, harder, god, that warm tightness, lube-slick, so close together, going harder. He can feel Calhoun arching between his own hand and his cock. So fucking hot. Audie finally leans his head forward, and so does Calhoun, and they barely touch; their eyes close, and Calhoun begins to cry out as Audie fucks him harder: a good cry, a shout.
“Come for me,” Audie tells him. “Come on my cock, baby. You can do it for me.” He feels Calhoun tensing for him. He tenses himself, goes faster still. Their balls draw up. He turns and kisses Calhoun’s leg, a mouthful of salt water, and explodes just as Calhoun does. Audie feels the stickiness hitting his belly, Calhoun working himself, head thrown back, Audie pulling him down so he can shoot hard and deep into him. They shudder down together, fluttering into smaller and smaller shivers, dripping until Audie pulls out and they clean up.
“You tasted like seawater,” Audie says wonderingly. He looks into Calhoun’s blue, blue eyes, all the dark blue of the ocean in them.
“You swam,” Calhoun says. “How did you swim? You’re terrified of —”
“Jax, and then he took me out and —” It’s all a muddle. How can Audie possibly explain it? “I’m not eleven anymore,” he finally says.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Calhoun asks.
Audie kisses him. “I’ll tell you the story one day,” he says. “But not today. Today I just … I just did it, I guess. Jax helped.” He’s quiet a moment. “Jax understood, and he helped. And I just realized the sharks would always be there, I guess.”
“But they won’t eat you,” Calhoun laughs.
Audie shakes his head. “They aren’t very likely to, no. Most of the time, you never ever see them, do you?”
“I’ve never seen one. Never even caught one. Have you?”
Audie shakes his head. “Never.”
They’re out there. The ocean wouldn’t be the ocean without them: there is no beauty without danger, no awe without fear, no love without risk. You have to learn to see it, to accept it. To know the danger doesn’t destroy the beauty. The salt creates the seawater. The sharks create the ocean sure as whalesong. Love is a risk you take every morning, a prayer you say every night.
He holds Calhoun close, presses his lips to his forehead. “I love you, Audie,” Calhoun says, the dreamy voice he gets after sex. “I love you so, so much.”
I love him. I do what I can.
You just hold him through it.
Calhoun and I, we don’t mind.
“I love you too,” Audie tells him. “I love you, Calhoun Chatterton.” Audie gathers him up and curls around him. He kisses Calhoun’s mermaid hair. It tastes like seawater.
Epilogue
No.” Audie gazes upwards, squinting into the morning Southern sun.
“Oh, yes,” Calhoun says. “I saved it for last.”
“Oh. My. Fucking. God. There’s tacky and there’s tacky and there’s — Calhoun.”
“I know. It’s like, this amazing gift from god.”
Audie stares at the sign. “Gay. Dolphin. Gift. Cove,” he reads. “Calhoun. Tell me this is like that X-Files episode where Scully got the tattoo and started to hallucinate.”
“Oh no,” Calhoun says gleefully. “It’s real.” He grabs Audie’s hand.
Audie doesn’t need Calhoun to drag him inside.
I Wish I Were Special Excerpt
Remember Quinn Rutledge? Quinn is, as his beloved cousin Delia says, on a road to nowhere. Then Ellis Ashford shows up …
The Savannah Hunt Club starts cub-hunting early, in the beginning of August. Everyone shows up to ride across the countryside at a leisurely pace as Henry’s brother Alexander and those bastards whip the new pups into shape. Not like they’re training them to kill the fox or anything; that would be totally barbaric. They just chase them around. Everyone would be mortified and appalled if they actually killed one. Dark-haired, linebacker-looking Henry Culliver appears on his enormous horse. He always does. Lucky and Thor Jasper don’t have a damn thing to do, so they come as well, unruly brown curls sticking out from under their helmets. Quinn chugs both brandy and coffee in equal amounts to try to wake the fuck up as his groom hands him his hunter, a blood bay named Mister. Quinn and Henry ride near the front of the group, fussily known as the field. The Jasper twins skulk near the back. They’d rather trot around and swig brandy than take fences. The August heat hasn’t dropped down yet, and the mist hasn’t quite burned off. You could almost believe in a morning like this, if you were the type of person who believed in mornings. Quinn is not.
Quinn makes his latest lay sound funny and stupid. Henry laughs and agree he was a dick. They separate when Henry’s Hector shies from a fence. Hector acts like a bitch that way sometimes, but Henry always sticks his seat, something Quinn has admired since they were kids. He doesn’t know if he’s ever seen Henry fall off a horse, not even a snotty little pony. Quinn’s close up to the hounds, standing still during a check (the stupid-ass name they use for a rest when the hounds have lost the fox’s scent), when he notices a tall man atop a gray horse lazing on a loose rein. The man has long, straight brown hair ponytailed behind a fashionable helmet and proper form atop his immaculate and expensive tack.
The man gives Quinn the familiar up-and-down. Quinn lowers his eyes and looks s sweet and innocent as possible: the man might be good for a quick fuck. Luckily no one’s asked Quinn if he’s ever had a real boyfriend. He keeps waiting, but the question never comes. The closest he ever came was his best friend Calhoun, and they were never a romantic thing, just besties-wh
o-fucked-around, but they could suck each other off and trusted one another. That should count for something if anything does, but Savannah makes assumptions and Quinn just lets her have them.
Now Calhoun has some amazingly hot boyfriend from Charleston who adores the ground he walks on. Quinn sticks to fast fucks from Club Metro. When Henry asks him about it, he laughs and says it’s easier and less messy that way, then he regales Henry with tales of his latest hookup. Henry always laughs. Quinn Rutledge learned a long time ago to make things funny that aren’t funny at all. He also learned that when you do, people laugh along with you and stop asking questions. You can throw things out to the world and hold them close at the same time. People want to believe a smile.
Quinn keeps the long-haired man in mind. But no talking during checks, especially this close to the hounds. So he keeps his eyes forward, lowered, looking as submissive and sweet as possible.
They finally trot off. Quinn stays close to the man, who eventually turns to him. “You ride well.”
“Equestrian studies at Savannah School of Art,” Quinn explains.
“Ah,” the man says. “You’d have to, then. Elliston Ashford. Ellis. I grew up here and recently moved back. My mother still lives here.”
“Quinn Rutledge. Nice to meet you.” He smirks a little. He thinks he can get away with it after the up-and-down, and it’ll probably help him get laid. “Sir.”
Neon Saturday Night (Low Country Lovers Book 2) Page 8
