Chapter 5
“ Y O, FINN! FINN, you drunk asshole. Wait up. I’m not gonna let you walk home by yourself.”
Daniel rounded to face Derek, who was running down the beach toward him. It was his friend’s turn to be the designated walker homer-er but he wanted to leave—now.
It was about two months into their first semester, and they’d been invited to a beach party over at the house of Bianca Smithson, a girl the two of them had grown up with.
Friday nights were notorious for the local kids to have bonfires and get shitfaced down on the beach, and even though Bianca’s house was a couple of miles down from his own, Daniel was positive he’d be able to find his house.
Maybe .
“Don’t go off all half-cocked—ha! Get it? Half-cocked?”
He stopped and waited for his moronic friend to catch up. He was trying to remind himself that he’d been friends with Derek his entire life, and just because he’d been a total dick ten minutes ago, that was no need to tell him to…
Yeah, what the hell. “Fuck off. I don’t wanna talk to you.”
“Aww, man. Come on,” Derek said when he finally caught up. “Fuck, you walk fast for someone who’s half stumbling. I was shocked, okay? Jesus, man. You can’t just say shit like that and not expect me to react.”
Daniel scowled at his friend and then headed down to the water. He wasn’t sure Derek would follow, but he should’ve known better. The guy had always been a brave fuck.
“You didn’t even act that shocked when I told you I was gay,” he said, spinning to face his friend.
“Ahh, that wasn’t exactly breaking news, genius. I caught you staring all doe-eyed at the same football players I was looking at in high school. But this… Danny boy, this is some headline shit. You have a hard-on for Professor Hayes. Hot damn.”
“Shhh,” Daniel said. “Would you keep your fucking voice down?”
Derek made a show of looking around the empty stretch of beach. “Why? You afraid the crustaceans will hear?”
Daniel flipped him off.
“You know he lives near here, right?”
“What?”
“Our professor. He lives somewhere along here, farther down. I’ve passed him running in the mornings.”
Daniel looked up the length of the beach as a misguided, and very inebriated, thought ran through his mind. Then he faced Derek again.
“No,” his friend told him, reaching into his back pocket to pull a pack of smokes out. “I’m not doing whatever that charming fucking smile is supposed to persuade me to do.”
Ignoring his friend, Daniel stepped in close to him and looped an arm around his shoulders. “That’s such a gross habit.”
“Yeah? Well, you have no room to judge. You’re drunk off those nasty Jell-O shots they were serving, and now you’re thinking about stalking down Professor Hottie.”
“Aha! See? You even think he’s hot.”
Derek lit up and raised an eyebrow. “Just ’cause I think he’s hot, doesn’t mean I want to suck his dick.”
“I do…” Daniel said, closing his eyes to imagine it.
“Yeeeaah, how about you keep that shit to yourself. It might not be so great if you tell the entire student body you want to fuck your teacher.”
“I think he likes me, you know,” Daniel continued as if Derek hadn’t even spoken.
“Professor Hayes?”
“I thought you weren’t drinking tonight.”
“I’m not.”
“Then keep the fuck up, would you? Yes, Professor Hayes. Brantley—did you know his name was Brantley?”
“No. But that’s a fucking pretentious name right there. No wonder he’s always in those polo shirts and sweaters. He was probably born in one.”
“I think they’re hot,” Daniel said as they walked farther down the beach. “He’s so…so ? —”
“Old?”
He shoved Derek in the arm and rolled his eyes. “He’s not old. He’s only thirty-two.”
“Damn.” Derek laughed. “You have turned into a full-on stalker. His name, his age… What about his weight and height?”
“Fuck you.”
“Nah. I’m not old enough for you. Plus, you aren’t my type.”
Daniel glared over at his friend. He remembered when he’d first decided to tell Derek that he was gay.
He’d been so freaked out he’d almost made himself sick that week from not eating.
There’d been no need to worry, though, because in true Derek form, he’d shrugged, lit a cigarette, said he was too, and then asked Daniel if he thought he was hot. Vain asshole.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, brushing Derek’s comment aside. “He’s gay, you know.”
Derek said nothing at first, and then he cocked his head to the side. “How do you know?”
Too drunk to censor himself, Daniel grinned and said, “I asked him.”
When Derek’s mouth fell open, Daniel waggled his eyebrows.
“No you fucking didn’t.”
“Yeah, I did. And when I told him I was too, he got this look on his face… Ahh, fuck. I can’t stop thinking about it.”
Derek shook his head. “No shit. Not gonna lie, Danny. I’m fucking impressed. Seeing something you want and going for it. Thatta boy.”
They began walking again, and Daniel looked at the houses lining the beach.
There were some pretty pricey ones in amongst the little two-bedroom homes that had been there for years.
As he dug his toes into the wet sand and the tide rolled in, he wondered which one was Professor Hayes’s.
The cool water surrounded their ankles, and as they walked in silence, he plotted his next move.
Twenty minutes later, they were heading up the back stairs of Daniel’s house when he asked, “You still need a running buddy in the mornings?”
Derek put his hand on the wooden railing and laughed loudly. “Gee, I wonder what finally made you want to haul your ass outta bed at the crack of dawn.”
“Maybe I decided it’s time to get in shape.”
“Bullshit,” Derek scoffed, pushing past Daniel to walk across the balcony to the sliding door. “You just want to scope out Hayes. Hey, no skin off my back. I’ve been trying to get you to run with me for months.”
That was true. Each time he’d asked, Daniel had grumbled that the only good reasons to get out of bed that early were waves and sex. It was time to add a third reason to that list.
Professor Brantley Hayes.
DANIEL STROLLED DOWN the stark stretch of beach and stopped outside of the house he’d been so curious about all those years ago.
Brantley’s beach house. It was spectacular.
The familiar structure called to him the way it had from the very first time he’d seen it. Beckoning him to come closer.
The white floor-to-ceiling curtains were billowing in the breeze, so Brantley must’ve opened the sliding glass doors that made up the entire length of the house’s back wall.
A lamp illuminated the living room just beyond that, and the soft glow of it reminded him of their past and made his heart thump in his chest.
The two of them shared so many memories.
They were messy and complicated—not unlike themselves, really.
Some were good, and some painful as hell, and many of them had taken place beyond those curtains, inside Brantley’s home.
And tonight, Daniel thought as he headed up the stairs, it was time to bring them out of the dark and back into the light.
brANTLEY PACED HIS living room for what felt like the millionth time as he stared at the vast night sky beyond his open door.
Whenever the wind whipped up and the curtains fluttered, a sliver of moonlight slipped inside and reminded him why he’d purchased this house when he’d first moved to town.
It was beautiful there. Picturesque during the day and exquisite in the evening. It was his most treasured possession, and to this day, he couldn’t stand in any of the rooms without remembering Daniel there with him.
He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck as his gaze landed on the clock on the wall. It’d been a little over fifty minutes since he’d left the Finleys’ house, and with every tick of the second hand, he was starting to believe he might have dreamed up what’d happened earlier.
Daniel had him on edge—in more ways than one. From his words and his volatile emotions to the possessive look he’d swept over his body, Daniel had managed to work Brantley’s nerves into a state of absolute chaos. Not a small feat, considering we’ve known each other a long time.
Well, they’d known each other once upon a time. A lot had changed since?—
“Can I come in?”
At the sound of Daniel’s voice, Brantley turned and saw him standing just outside his door, flip-flops in hand.
He was still dressed in the white shirt and navy shorts, but the shirt was completely unbuttoned now—something Brantley was thankful Daniel hadn’t done until he’d left his mother’s house, because hell , he looked mouthwatering.
“You know you never have to ask. You’re always welcome here,” Brantley said, and placed his hands on the back of his white leather sofa.
As Daniel stepped inside, Brantley swore the air in his living room became charged. It crackled and hummed around them, and nothing had even happened.
Brantley took a moment to really study the man now standing in his home, and he was struck, as he always was, by how tall he was.
Daniel had been broad-shouldered and wide-chested even when they’d first met, which had appealed to Brantley from the very beginning.
But the Daniel currently opposite him had almost doubled his weight in muscle tone.
Where he used to be broad and lean, he was now broad and built.
Something Brantley was acutely aware of, since he couldn’t tear his eyes off the naked strip of skin down his front.
“A lot of time has passed since then,” Daniel said as he bent to place his shoes on the welcome mat.
“It has. But that will never change, Finn.”
As Daniel straightened, the emotion in his eyes was hard to pinpoint, but the cautious set of his shoulders wasn’t.
“Does that mean you’re single?”
Brantley couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “Still straight to the point, I see.”
“What kind of lawyer would I be if I couldn’t ask direct questions?”
“Not a very good one.”
“That’s right. And I’m the best at what I do. You should be proud, because that has a lot to do with you. Maybe everything. But you didn’t answer me. You’ve become very good at skirting around questions.”
Brantley shrugged and then offered, “Maybe you just never asked any in the past that required misdirection.”
“That,” Daniel said, “is probably true. You used to make me feel so tongue-tied.”
“And now I don’t? Well, that’s an ego killer right there.”
As Daniel walked across the hardwood floors, Brantley never let his eyes waver from him. “Trust me. There are plenty of things you make me feel that would boost your ego. Would you like me to list them?”
He wasn’t quite sure how to handle this version of Daniel yet, and when he finally came to a standstill, Brantley was grateful that there was a couch not only separating them, but also covering his growing erection.
“I’m sorry. I’m having trouble trying to wrap my mind around how much you’ve changed,” Brantley heard himself say. “I didn’t expect that.”
“What did you expect?”
Brantley took in the rigid shoulders of the once-relaxed man he’d known and then said, “I’m not sure.”
As the words hovered between them, Daniel turned away and slid his hands into the pockets of his shorts.
Brantley took that opportunity to check him out from head to toe, and banished the insane desire he had to smooth a hand down that tense spine.
It was obvious that the friction between them went way beyond the physical, and they would need to address that before he would feel comfortable doing anything other than talking.
“Sorry you’re so disappointed.”
The words were so inaccurate that they brought Brantley out of his musings.
“No,” he said, and shook his head even though Daniel couldn’t see him.
But when Daniel turned to meet him eye to eye, he couldn’t stay still any longer, and walked around the couch toward him. “You could never disappoint me.”
A rueful quirk tipped Daniel’s lip at the side, and for a moment, the young man he’d once been reappeared. “I’m sure that I could.”
Brantley reached out to gently touch Daniel’s bicep, and when his fingers grazed the muscle beneath, he sucked in a breath at the desire that shot through him.
He went to lower his arm—and perhaps take a step back and put some much-needed distance between them—when Daniel removed his hand from his pocket and took hold of Brantley’s wrist.
He tugged him forward until their toes were touching, and their arms were the only things between them. Then Daniel’s serious eyes peered down at Brantley as he asked point-blank, “Why did you send me that letter?”
His heart pounded, and Christ , the surly attitude Daniel had adopted made him want that tight-lipped mouth on top of his so he could kiss it out of him.
“Tell me, Brantley.”
Without hesitating, Brantley answered, “I had to send it.”
Daniel shook his head, but Brantley nodded.
“You had to know that I would. I said I would. I needed to know…”
“To know what ?”
“I needed to know if you remembered. Or if you’d moved on.”
When Daniel’s fingers tightened around Brantley’s wrist, and they squared off with one another, he could’ve sworn he heard both of their hearts pounding out a matching rhythm in the silence.
“I couldn’t move on,” Daniel said. “You made sure of that. No matter what I did or who I did it with, you were always there. I always remembered. There wasn’t one single thing I ever forgot.”
Brantley’s heart cracked a little at that admission.
It shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did to know that Daniel had been with others. But the reality of someone else touching the man who was currently touching him was like a stake through his heart. And, by the look in Daniel’s eyes, he wasn’t close to being done twisting the blade.