Chapter 13 Golden Hour #2
“Why?” I ask, mouth already full.
“He’s a Starbucks guy. Says it’s efficient. You walk in, you say what you want, you get out. No conversation, no ‘how are you’ bullshit.”
I swallow. “Bet he’s a blast at parties.”
He shrugs, but there’s a glint in his eye. “He used to call every decision in life a ‘power play.’ Like, ‘Darius, you gotta treat the SAT like a five-on-three advantage. You don’t waste a shot.’ He thinks emotions are a waste of time.”
“Guess you take after your mom, then,” I say.
He smiles, just a little. “I guess I do.”
We eat in silence for a while. The roll is stale but the sugar’s enough to drown out the memory of last night’s dream, which was equal parts weird sex and team practice.
I’m still chewing when he says, “Your mom runs a bakery, right?”
“Yeah. She used to make us do tastings when we were little. My sister threw up on the display case once. We got banned from eating the samples for a month.”
He grins. “But she’s cool with you running in the dark with a guy from the team?”
I consider it. “She’s cool with anything that gets me out of the house and doesn’t involve bail money. She’s always known, I think. Moms have that sixth sense.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Mine too.”
The barista finally looks up, notices us, and offers a half-hearted “y’all need anything else?” We shake our heads.
The world outside is lighter now, the city coming online, and the spell of isolation is almost broken.
Darius picks at the wrapper, not looking up. “You ever think about telling them?” he asks.
“Who, the team?”
He nods.
I sip my coffee, buy a second to think. “I think about it all the time. Then I picture O’Doul finding out and it’s like, instant panic attack.”
He laughs. “He’d probably just want to know if you were the top or the bottom.”
I choke, snort coffee, and now he’s really laughing, the sound echoing off the glass.
When I get it under control, I say, “You?”
He goes quiet, chews his lip. “I want to. But I’m not ready. Not until I know it’s real.”
I want to say, “It’s real for me.” I want to say, “I haven’t wanted anything this much since I was a kid and thought being happy was allowed.” But the words stick, as usual.
Instead, I finish my coffee, toss the cup, and stand. “Let’s do this again tomorrow.”
He grins. “Tomorrow,” he says.
We walk to the lot, side by side, close but not touching. At the cars, he opens his door, then leans over the roof, eyes serious.
“You’re good at this, you know,” he says.
“At running?” I ask.
“At being,” he says. “Most people aren’t. Most people are just filling space.”
I want to joke, want to say something self-deprecating, but instead I just stand there, shivering, and let it land.
He gets in the car, starts the engine, and for a second I think he’s going to drive away. But he waits, just long enough for me to get in my own car and turn the key, before pulling out.
It’s not a date.
But it could be.
And that’s enough to get me through the day.
———
We promised ourselves we’d keep it slow. That was the deal, the only way either of us could handle the possibility of everything going to shit, one thing at a time, no surprises, no headlines.
But there are some nights where the universe decides to put its thumb on the scale and see what we’ll do if it tips.
Tonight it’s Alki Beach, which is just a long, flat strip of sand and driftwood with the Olympic Mountains lurking on the horizon, snow-topped and sharp, daring you to look away.
The wind’s up, like always, and the salt air catches in my throat and makes my eyes sting, which is as close to emotion as I’m willing to admit.
Darius picked me up in his car, which smells like gym socks and the cherry air freshener he thinks covers it.
We barely talked on the drive, just let the radio fill the space, some classic rock playlist that makes me want to be old enough to hate it.
Every time I looked at him he had one hand on the wheel, the other drumming a nervous pattern on his thigh, but his jaw was set, eyes straight ahead, like he’s lining up a penalty shot he can’t afford to miss.
We park at the north end, way past the restaurants, in a lot full of sand drifts and broken bottles.
The city’s behind us, the world’s ahead, and for a minute it’s just us and the hum of distant traffic.
He kills the engine and glances at me, eyebrows raised, the universal “you sure?” expression. I nod, and we get out.
It’s colder than I thought, the kind of wet chill that slides under your clothes and makes you regret every dumb decision you ever made.
Darius is wearing that old hoodie, the one I stole from him after the run last week, but tonight he’s got a jacket over it, and he looks… safe. Solid.
Like the kind of guy you’d trust to keep you from drowning, even if you’d never say it out loud.
We walk down to the water.
The sand is hard and uneven, littered with driftwood and seaweed and the occasional burst of foam from a rogue wave.
There’s almost nobody out here. A couple dog walkers in the distance, a kid with a metal detector, a pair of gulls fighting over a dead crab.
The city lights shimmer on the Sound, but the rest of the world is dark, the mountains a jagged shadow against the last pink of sunset.
Darius sits first, right on the cold, wet sand. I hesitate, then drop next to him, close enough that our knees touch.
I pretend not to notice, but my skin remembers. My skin keeps a running tally of every time we’ve touched, every brush of shoulder or nudge of hip or lingering glance in a crowded room.
He picks up a handful of sand, lets it sift through his fingers. “You ever think about the first time you did this?” he asks, voice low.
“Sat on a beach?”
He shakes his head. “No. Like, the first time you let yourself want something and didn’t kill it right away.”
I think about it. I think about the eighth grade sleepover when Jake Halpern dared me to look at porn on his dad’s laptop and I ended up way more interested in the “wrong” part of the videos.
I think about every time I told myself I was just lonely, just broken, just looking for a reason to believe I mattered.
“Can’t say I remember,” I say. “It’s like trying to find the first breath in a hurricane.”
He laughs, a real one, and the sound is so much like a dog barking that we both lose it for a minute. When he calms down, his shoulder drops, the line of his body angling toward me.
The world goes quiet. Just the slap of the tide, the wind in the grass, the thud of my heart trying to beat through my ribs.
We sit that way for a long time. I want to make a joke, but there’s no room for it, not with the way he’s looking at the water and not at me. I want to touch him, but the pact is still too new, the rules too strict.
Then he says, “Can I…” and doesn’t finish.
I nod, not trusting myself to speak.
He reaches for my hand, slow and deliberate, like he’s handling something breakable.
Our fingers brush, then interlace, and it’s not an accident this time. His hand is huge, warm even in the cold, and when he squeezes, I can feel the tremor in his grip.
My own hand is shaking. I try to play it cool, but the sharp inhale I take is so loud he glances over, mouth quirked like he’s won a bet. “You good?” he says.
“Yeah,” I say. “Just… didn’t think we’d ever do this.”
“Me neither,” he admits.
We don’t talk after that. The sunset burns out, the city lights take over, and for a while we just exist.
There’s no past or future, just the now, just the heat of his hand and the cold of the sand and the taste of salt on my lips.
He’s close enough that I can see the stubble on his jaw, the way the wind ruffles his hair, the line of scar on his chin from the last time he tried to fight a puck with his face.
We sit, breathing in the same air, until I can’t stand it anymore.
He leans in first. Not a lot, just enough to close the gap. I feel his breath, warm and nervous, on my cheek.
He waits, giving me a chance to bail, but I don't. I tilt my head, our foreheads almost bump, and then his lips brush mine, warm despite the cold air, chapped from the wind but impossibly gentle, the pressure so light it's like being touched by a ghost.
His breath tastes like the mint gum he's always chewing during practice, and when he exhales against my mouth, I can feel the slight tremble in it, like he's as terrified as I am.
The first kiss is always supposed to be fire, or electricity, or something poetic, but this one is slow, almost accidental, like we’re both waiting for the other to change their mind.
It’s just a press of lips, a taste of salt, a shudder of air between us.
My hand is still in his, our fingers laced together like the roots of two trees that grew too close.
His thumb traces lazy circles on the back of my wrist, right over the pulse point, slow and soothing, the callus on his fingertip catching slightly against my skin with each pass.
The contrast of his rough hockey hands against that tender spot makes something in my chest contract.
He pulls away, but only by an inch. His eyes are dark, almost black in the dusk.
I want to say something, but all I can do is kiss him back.
The second time, it’s deeper.
Less scared. I can feel his whole body tense, then relax, like he’s been holding his breath for years and finally got permission to exhale.
Our mouths fit, not perfect but close, like puzzle pieces from two different boxes that somehow connect anyway.
When our teeth bump, a sharp, unexpected click, I laugh into the kiss, a vibration that travels from my chest to his.
He laughs too, the sound low and warm against my lips, and suddenly the world tilts just a little, like the axis of the earth is shifting beneath the sand to make room for us, for this moment where the taste of salt and mint and possibility mingles between our breath.
When we break, we’re both breathing hard, faces flushed, the cold forgotten.
He puts his forehead to mine, just for a second, then sits back. “Shit,” he says.
“Yeah,” I say, voice shredded.
We sit there, hand in hand, neither talking. The only thing in the world is us and the sound of our own blood rushing.
Eventually, the cold creeps back in. Darius stands, brushes off his pants, and pulls me up.
Our hands stay linked as we walk back to the car, not full-hand, just pinkies hooked, like a promise we’re not ready to say out loud.
At the car, we don’t talk.
He opens the door for me, waits until I’m in, then circles to the driver’s side.
The ride home is silent, but not empty. I can feel his eyes on me at every red light, every time the headlights pick out a crosswalk or a lost tourist or a stray cat limping down the median.
He drops me at my building. I start to get out, but he catches my wrist, just for a second.
“You want to do this again?” he says.
I nod, afraid to trust my voice.
“Tomorrow?” he says.
I grin. “Tomorrow.”
He lets go, and I walk up the steps, feeling the world tilt with every one.
In my apartment, I stand by the window and look out at the city. My heart is still pounding, my lips still tingling. I touch my mouth, like I’m trying to press the memory deeper.
I taste salt, and wind, and Darius.
I taste the beginning of everything.