Chapter 13
Thirteen
We Could Have Just Told Them
“YOU KNOW, LITTLE brO, I’m not sure we fit in on this beach,” Seth chuckles.
I look over at my brother, and even the motion of turning my head makes me feel like the world is spinning.
Like me, Seth is wearing a long-sleeved navy blue rash guard, knee-length swim trunks and a sun hat pulled low over his eyes.
We’re in Provincetown, at Herring Cove Beach, probably the gayest beach in Massachusetts, and pretty much every other guy as far as the eye can see is in a tiny swimsuit.
Everywhere I look, I see skin, and Cole is no exception.
He’s in a cheeky lime green suit today, all golden skin and wind-tossed hair as he stands in the surf with Bree.
They were swimming a little while ago, but now they look like they’re in a serious discussion, their heads tilted together as they stare out into the waves.
Finally, Cole holds out his arms, and Bree hugs him.
And then he’s trotting over the sand towards me, shielding his eyes from the sun, a thousand-watt grin on his face.
“Are you going to lie there all day?” he calls as he gets closer.
“I’m so fucking hung over,” I groan back. “I don’t even want to move my eyes.”
“Come on, the water’s freezing. It’ll do you good,” he laughs, holding out a hand to pull me up. “You’ll feel better once you’re out there.”
“I don’t believe you,” I grumble, but I let him pull me up. Of course I fucking do.
Once I’m on my feet, he drops my hand and slings an arm around my shoulders to lead me to the water line. You know, like bros. As we walk, he looks at me out of the corner of his eye.
“I don’t know if you were worried about Bree and the jealousy thing, by the way,” he says. “She just gets — I dunno, protective of me sometimes. Because she’s seen me at some pretty low points. But she really likes you.”
“That’s good, since she’s going to be my sister.” I glance back over our shoulders, watching as Bree coaxes Seth off the blanket and towards the ocean. “I get why she’d think it was weird, especially since she doesn’t know the whole story.”
“Hell, I don’t know if we know the whole story,” Cole declares, and I’m about to ask him what he means when the surf washes over my feet.
“Fuck! You weren’t kidding — Jesus Christ, that’s cold —”
“Not in Jersey anymore, are you? Welcome to New England, baby —” Cole cackles, and he dives directly into the waves.
“Fuck fuck fuck fuck —”
I’m usually the kind of guy who can take twenty minutes or more to ease myself into open water, especially when it’s this frigid.
But Cole is already slicing through the surf, long and lean and fucking mouthwatering, and so I splash my way in, chattering and cursing the whole way, until we’re both bobbing in the waves.
Once I’m all the way in, he swims toward me, wrapping his arms around my neck, and I pull him close, my toes buried in the sand beneath us.
Our faces are nearly touching, and there’s ocean water in his lashes, his wet hair much darker than usual, the tip of his nose a little pink from the sun.
“I can’t fucking begin to tell you how much I want to kiss you right now,” I groan, my fingers possessive around his hip.
Cole glances over my shoulder. “They are totally making out and they’re pretty far away, so if you make it quick —”
I don’t wait for him to finish his sentence before I crush our mouths together.
He tastes of saltwater and sunshine, and he sighs against my mouth, one hand cradling the back of my head and the other on the side of my face.
When we break apart, he moans in frustration, then pulls back just a little, his eyes glowing.
“It’s crazy that we’ve never done this before,” he muses. “You know, we lived next to the ocean for almost a year and we never swam together.”
I thought this over.“I guess it was winter for most of it. And the beaches were a mess because of Sandy. And then —”
“And then I left before it really got warm enough to swim —” His voice is a little hollow, and I hold my breath, because it’s the closest either of us has come to saying anything about that night —
But then he’s off again, splashing me with water and diving underneath the surface, daring me to catch him. And the rest of the morning is just like this, the four of us frolicking in the waves.
It’s past lunchtime by the time we leave the beach, and after stopping at one of the public changing rooms to clean up, we head into Provincetown proper for something to eat.
Seth parks a couple blocks away from the restaurant, and we walk up Commercial Street, peeking into shop windows as we go.
Provincetown is known for being a queer haven, and there are Pride flags in every direction, of every stripe and color, couples of all sorts and all ages walking hand in hand.
I’ve never been in a place like this before, and it stirs something in me, some feeling of belonging that I’ve been missing, that maybe I should have been seeking all along.
Bree and Seth are walking ahead of us, swinging their joined hands between them.
But Cole is uncharacteristically quiet, his hands jammed deep in the pockets of his shorts, almost three feet of space between us as we stroll along.
He seems to be completely lost in thought, but I try to bring him back to the present.
“Does anybody actually know what all the different Pride flags mean?” I ask, keeping my voice just quiet enough to be out of earshot of the other two. “Like, I thought I knew a bunch, but I’ve never seen that one before —”
I point to a flag with seven stripes ranging from dark brown to white to black.
Cole stares at it for a second, then snaps his fingers. “Bears,” he says, and winks at me. “You know, that one could be yours if you ever decide to grow a beard.”
“Hey!” I exclaim, but I’m laughing. I bump him with my shoulder, and he doesn’t pull away.
The restaurant reminds me so much of the Rusty Harpoon that I almost feel like I’m back at home.
We take a table by the window, looking out over the water, and as we’re looking over our menus, a man passes our table.
He has close-cropped dark hair and dark eyes, and he clearly spends a lot of time at the gym, his impressive arms and muscular chest shown off by his gray tank top.
He locks eyes with Cole and slows, keeping Cole’s gaze as he walks by.
When he’s gone, Cole blushes, looking out the window.
Bree leans forward conspiratorially. “Think that guy just cruised you —”
“Yeah, he did,” Cole snaps. He pulls his menu close, his eyes on the words.
“He’s hot! If you want to go chat him up, we could definitely —”
“I don’t.”
I try to catch his eye, but he won’t look at me, and there’s a muscle twitching in his jaw. I feel oddly warm, but I know he doesn’t belong to me. People are going to look at him and there isn’t anything I can do about that.
He seems normal again when the waiter comes back to take our orders, and by the time we’re halfway through lunch, he’s laughing and joking along with the rest of us. That’s when Seth opens his mouth and drops a bomb on me.
“Hey, Ezra, can I ask you something?”
I stop with a french fry halfway to my mouth, and lay it back down on my plate. “Sure, what’s up?”
Seth clears his throat. “So, I know you have a job you’re good at in New York, and I get that. But something’s come up with the company, and I actually feel like you’d be a really good person to help us. You know Assassin’s Creed?”
“Yeah? I’ve played it a bit.”
“Well, a few of us in management have been talking, and we really want to get into making RPGs that are set in the past. Something like Assassin’s Creed or Kingdom Come or even something like BioShock Infinite.
But none of us are historians and we don’t really know where to start.
So I guess I was wondering if you would — you know, help us. For pay. Work with us, I mean.”
I pause, weighing what Seth just said. Then I glance over at Cole. “Did you have something to do with this?”
Cole raises both hands in surrender, his blue eyes wide. “Nope, this is the first I’m hearing about it.”
“Okay.” I turn back to Seth. “Did you mean — full time? Or consulting? I’m about a week away from starting a new semester and I don’t think I can drop everything and give up on my teaching commitments right away.”
“Sure, I mean — we could work with you.” Seth looks at Bree. “We have the wedding coming up, and that’s keeping us busy, so we probably don’t need to launch a new project in the next month. But we could start with a meeting, if you’re interested.”
“Would you want me to move to Boston?”
Seth shrugs. “That would be great? But you already live in a city with some of the best research libraries in the world. I think this could be remote, except maybe a meeting every few months.”
I stare down at my plate, and I know everyone’s eyes are on me.
Paper placemat with a ring from the condensation on my water cup, my plate a mess of french fries and crumbs.
The clink of glassware, the low din of other patrons’ conversations.
Someone at the next table laughs. I think of my students, of dingy basement classrooms, of dry erase markers and the stale breeze from the fan of the projector.
I think of the ache between my shoulders as I sit at my computer for hours on end.
I think of job applications and electric bills, of trying to keep the shower curtain from touching my skin as I turn in the tiny space.
And then I feel Cole’s knee against mine, warm under the table. And I raise my head.
“Um, can I think about it? It’s just — it’s a lot. I wasn’t expecting this at all.”
Seth grins, and Bree laces her fingers through his. “That’s all I ask,” he says. “If you decide you want to do it, I’d love to work with you.”
The conversation moves on. But Cole’s knee is still pressed against mine, and somehow it feels right, knowing he’s there.
***