Chapter 25
Jack
Desmond starts flagging mid-afternoon. It’s like he’s a balloon with a small puncture, air slowly being let out as the day goes on—his shoulders start to slump, and he lapses into silence.
His face looks drawn and tired, eyelids lowered like he’s struggling to keep them open.
I wonder if he got any sleep last night at all.
Sitting next to him on the blanket he keeps in the trunk of his car for beach excursions, I watch Parker look for shells.
It’s a hell of a lot calmer today than it was the first time Desmond and I came to the beach, the ocean rolling in gentle waves and the air still.
It’s warmer, with the lack of a breeze, but I sit closely to Desmond anyway.
I want the heat of him, even if I don’t need it.
I nudge him with my shoulder, waiting until I can see the brown of his eyes before speaking softly.
“Tired?”
“Exhausted,” he agrees. “I feel like everything added up and hit me all at once today. ”
“Did you sleep at all last night?”
“Not a wink.” He leans against me, looking out at Parker, walking along the water’s edge, before focusing back on me. “I was hoping the ice cream sugar rush would get me through.”
I smile, even though I’m pretty sure the exhaustion isn’t so much a lack of energy on his part, but more the accumulation of months and months of emotional trauma. He’s tired because he’s been fighting against the world and now he’s being allowed to stop.
“Was it bad?” I ask.
“No,” he replies on a laugh. “It was…it was so easy. It didn’t feel easy, but the actual process was nothing. It’s frustrating. Why couldn’t we have done this months ago, and been spared all the stress and worry?”
“I’m sorry,” I respond quietly, shifting my hand on the blanket so my fingers are brushing his.
“It all worked out.” He shrugs, trying to play it off, but fatigue and dejection twist around the words.
Parker shouts, drawing both our eyes to where he’s kneeling in the sand. After a few seconds of digging, he jogs toward us. Even from a distance away, I can see something in his hand.
“Look.” He pants, coming to an abrupt stop near us, dusting the blanket with sand. He holds out a seashell to Desmond.
“Whoa,” I murmur, looking at the shell. It’s huge, compared to the small ones that litter the beach. Desmond grins at me, some of the gloom receding from his eyes.
“It’s a trumpet shell,” he explains, as Parker drops down onto the sand in front of us. “Atlantic trumpet triton, if you want to get fancy about it. ”
“It’s pretty,” I tell him, reaching a finger out and touching the striations. “And big.”
“The pointy part was sticking out of the sand,” Parker tells us as Desmond holds it back out to him. Jumping to his feet, he shakes his head at his uncle. “You keep it, I’m going to go look for more.”
He brushes off his butt, bottom half of his jeans soaked and covered in sand. Even without the wind, his hair is wild around his face; cheeks flushed and eyes bright. He looks so young.
Desmond waits until Parker jogs off, back to the water’s edge where he came from, before holding the seashell out to me to inspect. I slide a finger along the inside edge, admiring the brown markings against the white. When I look up, Desmond is watching me.
“Want to go help him look for more?” he asks. I blush a bit, surprised that he was able to read my mind so easily. He smiles and pushes to his feet, holding his hand down to me. “Come on, Bluey, let’s go hunting.”
We leave Parker’s trumpet shell on the blanket and join him at the water.
Splitting up, but staying close enough together to talk, we walk along the sand and dig for shells.
Despite all my efforts to stay clean, I end up nearly as wet and sandy as Parker.
Desmond somehow remains perfectly pristine other than his bare feet.
We don’t end up finding any more trumpet shells, but Desmond spots a tiny piece of green sea glass.
After rinsing it off in the ocean, he holds it out to me, dropping it in my palm.
Perfectly smooth, the little piece of glass is an almost impossible shade of pale green.
I can’t help but smile as I inspect it, miniscule and worthless though it is. It feels like a treasure .
“Way to go, Des!” Parker says, providing his uncle with a high five before bending over and going back to his search.
“I can’t believe you found this,” I tell Desmond. The small piece of sea glass is so beautiful. I feel like I’m holding a rare ocean relic.
“Pretty, right?” he asks, grinning at me.
“Yeah. You guys are probably setting a record for uncommon beach finds today.” He looks happy at my obvious excitement. I’m just glad he’s looking less sad. I hold my hand out to him, returning the sea glass.
“For you,” he says, shaking his head and closing my fingers around it. My heart slams painfully against my ribs, face warm. For me.
“Are you sure?” I’m pretty sure finding sea glass is something that doesn’t happen all the time. He smiles softly, reaching up and rubbing his thumb over my cheekbone. I can feel the slight scratch of sand.
“I’m sure, Jacko. It’s yours.”
We spend the rest of the day on the beach, weighing our pockets down with shells and watching the sun drop lower in the sky. My feet are numb with cold by the time we trudge back to the blanket and Desmond uncovers Parker’s shell, handing it over to him.
He walks next to me as we traipse toward the car, telling me and Desmond about his friend Seth. I have no idea what’s happening in the story, but his joy in telling it is apparent. As we knock as much sand off our legs as we can, Parker gives me an unexpected side hug.
“Thanks for coming,” he says, sounding shy and keeping his face ducked to hide his expression. “Did you have to wag, too? ”
Desmond snorts, still bent over as he slips his shoes back on.
“I—what?” Parker laughs at my confusion, popping open the back door and climbing into his seat.
“It just means you’re wagging off your responsibilities,” Desmond explains. “Playing hooky.”
“Oh. Yeah, I did,” I admit, sliding into the passenger seat and glancing back at Parker. His shell is nestled on his lap, and his face is red from the sun. I can’t imagine I fared much better. Desmond merely looks more brown.
“You had to miss class?” Desmond asks softly, pulling the vehicle out of the beach parking lot.
“Yeah, but it’s okay. I’ve never missed class before, so it’s not a big deal.
” I’d miss a full month of class if it put a sliver of green sea glass in my pocket, and a light back in Desmond’s eyes.
I’ll not soon forget how defeated he looked, walking toward me in front of the courthouse.
Nobody as kind as him should ever have to feel that sad.
Parker falls asleep on the drive home, head crooked at an angle that makes my own neck hurt just looking at him.
He doesn’t even wake up as we go through the McDonald’s drive-thru, Desmond muttering about not having the energy to cook dinner.
I offer to handle it for him, and the look this earns me is so tender it feels like a physical touch—the phantom press of lips against my temple.
Parker grumbles a bit when Desmond wakes him up, but brightens when he recognizes the smell of greasy fast food.
“Stopped for Macca’s,” Desmond tells him as we all leave the vehicle and head to the apartment. I look at the state of my jeans, wondering if I should call Nate and see if he can pick me up.
“I better go home and change. ”
Desmond frowns, looking over his shoulder at me as he unlocks the front door.
I gesture down at my soiled clothes. I didn’t bring anything with me when Nate picked me up, having no set plan other than feeling like I needed to be there to support Desmond.
I certainly hadn’t anticipated the day ending with the beach.
“It’s just sand,” Parker tells me, kicking off his shoes and scattering a bunch of that sand across the floor.
“Don’t worry about the mess, Jacko. I’d like you to stay, if you want to,” Desmond says softly, the words staying between us as we hover in the doorway.
I stay. A herd of wild horses couldn’t drag me away after that plea.
Feet are rinsed off in the tub of Desmond’s shower, and McDonald’s consumed sitting on the couch. Parker puts his trumpet trident on the TV stand, and yawns his way through his meal. It’s not even that late, but obviously Desmond isn’t the only one paying the price of the day.
“I’m going to go shower,” Parker decides, speaking around another wide yawn. He shakes his head as though trying to flick it away.
“Then bed?” Desmond asks from where he’s slumped against the back of the couch, legs stretched in front of him.
“Yeah. Night, Jack, see you tomorrow.”
“Sleep good,” I tell him, watching as he disappears down the hallway. Desmond puts a hand on my thigh, drawing my eyes over to him.
“Staying?” he asks. I nod, earning a sleepy smile.
After cleaning up the trash from dinner, I check to make sure the front door is locked as Desmond turns off all the lights.
The moment we shut ourselves into his bedroom, he exhales in relief.
Before I can ask about borrowing a pair of sweats, he touches his fingers to the side of my jaw and smiles at me.
“I’m glad you came today,” he says. “Thank you.”
I stare hard at his face, eyes connecting the dots between the spray of freckles across his nose.
His curls are a mess; skin already a deeper brown than it was before, after an afternoon of sun exposure.
I flush, thinking about the state of my own skin and fearing that I probably look like a distant cousin to the tomato.
He drops his hand, but I catch him before he can get too far away, pulling him back in with a hand on his waist. My pulse kicks up a notch, but I push against the nerves, tired of being ruled by things I’m afraid of.
Desmond allows me to bring him closer, a slightly quizzical look on his face.
When I lift my free hand to his cheek, fingers shaking slightly, he smiles.
“You don’t have to, Jack,” he whispers. I wonder what it is he can see on my face, to know exactly what I’m trying to do; to know how nervous I am.
I want to tell him that I want to. I want to tell him that he’s my safe space, and I think I might have fallen in love with him the first time I saw him. It’s taken me a long time to catch up, but now I’m here. Instead, I kiss him.
Desmond tastes like the sea. He presses closer until there’s nothing between us and his body is flush with mine.
I’m burning with the desire to do more—move my hand, kiss him deeper, hold him so close we’re one instead of two.
I don’t know how to manage any of it, so I settle for small kisses.
A press of the lips against each corner of his mouth, one to his nose and another to his chin.
He sighs when I make my way back to his mouth, fingers pressed tight where his hands are cupping my ribs .
Needing space enough to breathe away the lightheadedness, I lean back slowly.
Desmond follows, chasing my lips. I’m dizzy with a heavy mixture of nerves, relief, and affection.
When his eyelashes flutter upward, revealing big brown eyes, I think about the sea glass in my pocket.
It’s not the only beautiful and rare thing in the room.
He gazes at me, silently cataloguing whatever tells I wear on my face.
When he smiles—lips soft and plump and kissed by me —I relax.
“I can stay?” I ask quietly, leaving only enough space between us for the words.
“Please,” Desmond responds, arms sliding around my waist as he hooks his chin over my shoulder and sighs.