Whale Rides
“Want to swim?” Dane asked.
“I’ll need to get my suit.”
Dane leveled a gaze at him. “Try again. Want to swim?”
“Yes,” Liko said cheerfully.
Dane switched on some lights by the pool, pulled towels out of a basket and laid them on two chaise chairs.
He and Liko looked at each other.
“You first,” Dane said.
They went on looking, Liko recalling the last time he took his clothes off for anyone, it was to put on a hospital gown.
“This got hard all of a sudden,” he said. “And I don’t mean it to sound dirty.”
Dane smiled and turned around.
“Thank you,” Liko said, pulling his shirt off. He kicked his jeans off an ankle and dove. The water was perfect. A cool, jolting shot that closed around him like a fist. He surfaced in the shallow end, flipped water out of his hair, dragged it back with both hands and looked around.
Dane had taken off his vest, but still wore his jeans and shirt. He sat on the deck, knees drawn up and arms wrapped around.
“You coming in?” Liko asked.
“Soon.”
Liko closed his teeth on his tongue, cutting off any and all jokes.
He swam underwater to the edge. He put his hands on Dane’s bare feet, then slid them around Dane’s ankles.
He put his face against Dane’s shins and just stood still.
After a minute, Dane’s hand started drawing through Liko’s wet hair.
“Seems every time I think I’m ready to let someone new see me, I get nervous.”
“If you’re nervous, don’t. If you’re not sure, don’t. I’m a grown-ass man and this is a paint-by-number kit. I can deal with delayed gratification. The moment came once. It’ll come again.”
Dane scooted forward a little. He dropped one foot, then the other into the pool, soaking his jeans to the knees.
Liko moved between, resting his head on Dane’s thigh and letting his legs float.
Naked, he couldn’t tell where he stopped and the water began.
He closed his eyes and let himself be weightless.
“In fact don’t come in,” he said dreamily. “Let’s just do this.”
So they sat there, Dane’s hands in Liko’s wet hair, or drawing up and down his back, his arms, his shoulders.
A faint din of music and voices floating up the hill from the pub.
Ripples lapping against the pool’s sides.
Every now and again, one would hum the refrain from “Thank God I’m a Country Boy.
” Or the other would softly sing, “Shaaaaaving cream…be nice and clean…”
“You ever date a guy,” Dane asked. “Like, for real. A relationship.”
“No,” Liko said. “I just had fuck buddies. Good buddies, some of them. But the sex was… I don’t want to say a service, but… A hobby? A shared activity?”
“A way to kill time?”
Liko laughed. “It was always straightforward. Yo. Hey. You wanna? I wanna. And we’d do what we wanted. Then get dressed, go somewhere else and have beers or whatever. Not talk about it. Like we just…clipped each other’s toenails. I don’t know.”
Dane laughed, then scooped up a handful of water and poured it down Liko’s back.
“I’ve certainly never done this,” Liko said, rubbing his forehead back and forth along Dane’s thigh. “Just lie in a guy’s arms and let him touch me. While talking. So maybe we each have something to learn from the other?”
“When I was eighteen, I made a personal credo of not going to bed with anyone I couldn’t look at with both eyes. So to speak.”
Liko waited a beat, then said tentatively, “Hi?”
Dane’s head tipped back, laughing. He reached up and pinched out his brown contact lens, flicked it away. Blinking rapidly, he caressed Liko’s head, then his face. “Dude, I love looking at you but I’m being so careful about it.”
Liko was about to protest Dane didn’t need to be careful, then all at once realized, yes, he did.
For a moment, Liko just floated on the idea of being looked at.
Looked out for. Looked after. He reflected on how Dane had, in such a short time, given Liko a haven.
Not from pain—his pain was a rolling suitcase he’d always have to lug or check or stow on the journey.
Maybe that was it. Schoenfeld’s was a place Liko could put his suitcase.
Open or shut. Unpacked or crammed. Dane was making both intimacy and distance for Liko.
Giving him both space and closeness. Giving Liko time, for the mindless, indulgent purpose of killing it.
Knowing Liko’s sole goal in life right now as putting as many minutes as possible between him and Kyle’s death and hopefully, someday, enough minutes would have accumulated to make killing himself less of an option.
Because face it, dying was still a horrifyingly attractive idea. Not just attractive but seductive. Which made Schoenfeld’s, among other things, a bit of a cock-block.
“Thank you,” Liko said. “Whoever sent the letter… It said nothing they could do would make it better, but maybe they could do something to make it different. It’s not entirely better right now. But it is different. And it’s peaceful.”
“The mission of the Danelaw is peace.”
“Mission accomplished.”
“You do whale rides?”
“Sure.”
Dane pushed Liko off his legs, then dropped into the pool, clothes and all, big bubbles and foam in his wake.
Liko was reminded of a time, years ago, in the foaming wake of a ripshit argument with Janelle.
He couldn’t even remember what about, but afterward she was in the shower, crying.
And he’d stepped in with her, clothes and all.
Put arms around her and said he was sorry.
They stood under the spray a long time. She nude and drenched.
He fully clothed and drenched. They often referenced the moment in the years after.
“I really loved you then,” she said. “No regard for yourself or your clothes. Just barged right in to apologize. It was…romantic.”
Dane came up, drenched, his hair plastered down to his head.
Liko took his face in both hands and brought their eyebrows together.
Dane held his wrists. They stood still a long time.
Liko made no move. He wasn’t clicking a thing in this game.
If a kiss was hidden around here somewhere, he’d let it come to him. If not, it might be for the best.
Dane floated back and turned Liko around. Liko crouched and drew Dane’s arms around him.
“You look good from the back,” Dane said against his cheek. “At the bar, when you were waiting for drinks. Leaning on your hands, your ankles crossed. Couldn’t take my eyes off you. A few chicks were checking you out, too.”
Liko bit his tongue and closed his eyes, sucking on the compliment, savoring it coming from a male voice. Letting it bookend the other night when Meg stroked the front of his shirt and insisted he always wear that color to a party.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Thank you,” Dane said. “For being so patient.”
Liko looked up at the stars. “So much sucks, that I want good things like this to last as long as they can.”
“Me too.” Dane squeezed him. “Let’s go.”
Liko pushed off. The water streamed cool along the front of his naked body, while Dane’s heavy, rough clothes ran along his back. He swam into the romantic moment. Present. Unresentful. And believing he looked good from both sides.