43. Adrian
FORTY-THREE
ADRIAN
Ideally, you entertain lifechanging stupidity when you have the luxury of space to deal with your own feelings about it.
What is essentially a private island for two in the middle of nowhere is not an ideal spot.
There’s nowhere to hide without being obvious about the fact that your head is a fucking mess.
I had sex with Dylan.
Twice so far.
Dylan.
Of all people in the world.
Dylan!
I hide my face in my hands and press my fingertips into my eyeballs until swirls of color appear.
After that I go back to staring at the ceiling of the life raft.
Dylan’s out there somewhere. I’ll have to go and face him once I stop pretending I’m sleeping, and for the first time in all the years I’ve known him, I don’t know what to say to him. Mostly because I don’t know what the fuck I’m feeling.
I could use a drink right about now.
This isn’t me.
It just isn’t.
It’s not exciting or anything, but I’m a fairly predictable guy. I live a predictable life. I have a predictable job and predictable plans for my future. Whenever I’ve tried to sidestep that predictable plan, life has nudged me right back into my own lane. So this? It’s completely new territory.
You have to try things out to know what you’re into , Dylan’s voice says in my head. Experiment. You learn a lot about yourself that way.
Is that what these last two nights were? An experiment? Brought on by loneliness and boredom and adrenaline and despair and whatever else was in the air?
Does that mean… Am I not straight, then?
Not as straight as you thought you were, if nothing else.
I don’t have the energy to think about that. For now, it doesn’t matter.
I have more pressing issues to deal with at the moment.
I cheated.
I’m engaged to the woman I love more than… Well, not more than anyone. I’ve never been a fan of those kind of sweeping statements because I love a lot of people. All equally in different ways. And Freya… I planned to spend my life with her.
Plan.
I plan.
Or I did.
I do.
I can’t ever adequately explain how it felt the first time I saw her. That wave of confusion followed by the instant knowing .
Her.
She’s the one who’s going to change everything.
If I close my eyes I can remember everything about the first time I saw Freya.
I cheated on Freya.
A ball of guilt lodges itself in my throat. It gets stuck there and won’t move at all. My heartbeat picks up. If we ever get out of here…
I try to swallow again, but I can’t, and I can’t breathe either.
Guilt sits heavy in my chest.
Guilt and panic.
But then I open my eyes, and I’m in a whole different reality. One where I’m, for all intents and purposes, dead.
That’s not a good enough reason for what happened last night. And the night before that.
I’m not… I’m not the kind of person who deals in excessive self-analysis. I don’t lie in my bed at night and replay my day to analyze why I did what I did or acted the way I acted. I usually take things as they come, and I don’t dwell on the past because why should I? It’s bygones.
Right now, it’s impossible not to replay what happened over and over again. It’s also impossible not to go back and look for signs.
How is it that I’ve never had an inkling that I might not be as straight as I’ve always thought I was? Have I noticed guys before and just haven’t realized?
Have I noticed Dylan before?
All those moments where I’ve looked at him and felt warmth spread inside me… Is that all it was? Did I just not get that there was something more to it?
Is there even something more?
I hide my face in my hands again and groan out loud.
Fuck.
Now I’m definitely overthinking things.
I pull in a deep breath. It doesn’t have to be this complicated. We’re both stuck here. We’re both lonely. Clearly horny.
I consider it.
Sounds plausible.
So horny you conveniently decided to ignore that you’re sleeping with a guy?
I guess.
What it comes down to is that desire is a bunch of different hormones banging around in our brains. That’s all it is. Biology. With some chemistry thrown in for good measure.
We were both full of adrenaline last night. That must’ve messed things up even more. People do weird things in life-and-death situations. I fucked my best friend.
Even the faint memory of pushing into Dylan makes my insides clench violently, and my hips jerk without any thought. My body just reacts.
I swallow through the sudden dryness of my throat.
I want more .
The thought is fast and unbidden. Terrifying. And once it’s there, I can’t get rid of it. I just replay everything that happened between us while I stare at the ceiling of the life raft with wide eyes, my body going simultaneously hot and cold.
Before this moment in my life, I’ve never once realized just how potent desire can be.
How it consumes your body and mind. How it gives you the kind of tunnel vision where you only have eyes for that one person in front of you.
How it makes you notice everything about that person with unprecedented sharpness.
The smell of the ocean in his hair. The way your fingertips tingle when they slide over his skin.
The way your skin prickles when his breath hits it.
How you can still feel his touch, hours later.
How you crave more.
How you’d give anything for another taste, because now there’s a hunger inside you, and it demands to be satisfied.
I thought once morning came, I’d start thinking clearly again. Seems that’s not in the cards.
I still haven’t figured out what to say once I see him. Or what to do. How to act.
Also, lying here and hiding like a stupid kid won’t help. I’ve never been one to avoid facing hard things. No point starting now.
I roll onto my hands and knees and crawl out of the raft.
The sun is blazing in the sky like most mornings, and the jungle is alive with sounds. The air feels less suffocating today, though. It might be the aftereffects of last night’s storm.
I find Dylan sitting on the beach with his back to me. His shoulders tense almost imperceptibly when I shuffle closer.
I sit down next to him, purposefully close enough that our sides are pressed together. I’m not going to make it weird by putting physical distance between us when there’s never been any before. The goal is to get back to normal here.
“You’re up,” he says.
“I’ve been up for a while. I was just procrastinating.”
Dylan sighs and picks up a handful of sand, letting it pour down between his fingers. “How did you sleep?”
“Not really at all,” I say, point-blank.
He mutters something under his breath that’s impossible to decipher, and his jaw clenches. “I shouldn’t have done that to you,” he says in a low voice. “Last night… It was never supposed to happen.”
I frown. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you mean you shouldn’t have done that to me ?”
His eyes are firmly fixed on the ground, and his Adam’s apple bobs roughly.
“I took advantage of you,” he finally says, voice scratchy and breaking.
“I’m pretty sure I was the one who fucked you.”
He winces like I’ve just kicked him. I’m not sure what that’s about.
“Are you going to freak out now?” he asks.
“Is that something that needs to happen?”
“I’d just prefer some kind of warning,” he mutters, still playing with the sand, pouring it from one hand to the other.
From the sound of his voice, I’m starting to think it’s infinitely more probable he’s the one who’s going to freak out.
I wasn’t lying when I said I’m not.
I have a lot of mixed feelings, but freaking out doesn’t seem to be in the cards. At least, not in the immediate future. It might be, but right now the urge to protect Dylan from whatever fucked up fuckery is going on with my own feelings is much stronger than the urge to freak out.
Sure, I slept with a man. First time in my life. And while I’ve never really even entertained the idea of sleeping with another guy, I’m guessing most people would have some confused feelings about the experience. I do, but I’m not freaking out.
The thing is, I didn’t sleep with just any random guy.
I slept with Dylan.
Which means my possible freak-out isn’t so much related to the fact that we both have dicks as it is to do with the fact that he’s… Well, he’s Dylan.
I don’t know how else to explain it. How to properly define just what Dylan is to me. He’s something larger than words.
Ruining it? Now that scares the crap out of me.
I’m guessing that’s got a lot to do with why I’m not losing my shit about the two dicks thing. The fear of screwing things up with Dylan eclipses everything else.
“People do stupid things when they’re isolated from the rest of the world,” Dylan says. “Being stuck here… It would mess anybody up. I wouldn’t read too much into it if I were you.”
I’m not sure how I feel about him saying that.
“It doesn’t have to mean anything, is what I’m saying,” he continues.
“It doesn’t mean anything. We’re just… I’m more of a…
You don’t…” He blows out a frustrated breath and rolls his eyes.
“Things kind of suck. Being stuck here with no way out and no way to know what’ll happen to us.
It’s a lot. Orgasms are a means of escape.
However brief that is.” He glances at me.
“And orgasms are better when they’re with somebody else.
It’s been a year of my own hand. It gets old. ”
I’m not sure how I feel about any of that either. In a way, it makes sense. Something’s nagging me about this though, and I can’t explain what it is. I just don’t really like the feeling.
Is this me freaking out now?
Because I shouldn’t want any of this. I know I shouldn’t.
But he’s sitting so close, and the heat of his skin feels good. It shouldn’t. And I shouldn’t be so calm admitting this.
I don’t have anything to hide behind.
My heartbeat is getting faster and faster, and I feel kind of… lost. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how I feel. Confused is a pretty good conclusion.
“I wouldn’t read too much into it,” Dylan repeats.
Cool.
What the fuck does he mean by that?
Is this him saying it was a mistake? Because he’d probably be right. It’s complicated as fuck what we did, so we should both do our best to pretend it never happened.
We’re already in enough trouble as it is; there’s no need to make things more complicated.