19. Adam
19
ADAM
I couldn’t remember the last time I celebrated a birthday.
Maybe when I was eleven years old, the year before my mother died in a car accident, and all semblance of warmth left my family for good. She’d taken me to the seaside for the day without my father. That morning was the first time I ever surfed, the lesson bought as a surprise by my mum. It would be our secret because Lord Peter Andrew Yardley, Marquis of Pemberton, would never allow his heir to do something as pedestrian as surf.
I’d fallen in love instantly, just as Mum had known I would.
The cold of the water despite my wetsuit, the symphony of waves lapping against the board and crashing into the shore, the bright adrenaline of finally catching a little wave and standing poised on the surfboard as it carried me in like the tide.
It was euphoric.
After, we bought sweets in a local treat shop on the boardwalk, then browsed the little storefronts before grabbing sandwiches at a local café and eating them with our feet dangling over the stone pier.
To this day, the sound of seagulls calling and the scent of ocean brine brought a smile to my face.
Ironically, Savannah didn’t care for the sea or its accruements. The sand got in everything, and her fair skin went straight to hot pink under the sun's glare. It was one of the reasons she resisted moving to LA even though there were so many opportunities in Hollywood. She preferred the cool, cultured elegance of London.
“You’re being very quiet and cupo ,” Sebastian said beside me as he drove us in the Rolls through the streets of London to some surprise location.
I propped my elbow on the window frame and looked over at him because he was so fucking gorgeous it eased some of the turmoil still sitting like rancid meat in my gut. A lock of wavy ink-dark hair had fallen onto his forehead, and my fingers literally itched to push it back and cup that stubble-darkened, strong jaw. I’d never seen anyone with eyes like his, twin gold coins like something found in pirate ships and at the end of rainbows. They were fantastical and covetable and every time he looked at me, I felt a surge of greed. I wanted to own him, possess him, and fucking hoard him, a dragon with its treasure.
“ Cupo ?” I questioned.
“Sullen,” he supplied with a sidelong glance. “Remember, you had twenty minutes to get your shit together before we commenced our day of fun. No bad thoughts on your birthday, Adam.”
“Easier said than done,” I muttered, but it did make me feel better just sitting with him in the car.
The smell of leather and Sebastian’s spicy cologne were a strange aphrodisiac after our first rendezvous in a car. Part of me was tempted to close my tired eyes and listen to his voice as a kind of lullaby to ease me into sweet dreams.
“Fine, let’s utilize Strasberg’s emotional recall to help you out,” Seb announced, unperturbed by my cranky arse. “What’s one of your happiest memories?”
I hesitated, and he clucked his tongue.
“Uh, uh, uh, you owe me stories about your past, remember? In the garden at Pinewood Studios, I shared, and you did not.”
I loosed a long, dramatic sigh that only made him grin in triumph.
“I was just thinking of one, actually,” I murmured, turning my gaze out the window so I didn’t have to watch the play of emotions on his expressive face when I told him about her. “The last birthday I actually celebrated. It was with my mum the year before she passed away.”
Passed away was a bloody idiotic term. As if it was a choice. As if she took a left instead of a right at a fork in the road and walked to her demise.
She was torn away, not passed away. Ripped bloodily from my literal hands.
I didn’t realize I was sharing that until the silence pressed hard against my eardrums, and they popped with a jaw-aching pressure. Even then, though, I didn’t stop.
I wasn’t sure why.
Why I was telling Sebastian about Juliet Holland Yardley when I hadn’t even spoken her name aloud in years.
“She was lovely,” I admitted to him, the scenery blurring outside my window into a grey watercolour mass. “Warm and vivacious enough to fill our fifty-room house with sunshine every day.”
“Ah, so that’s who you got the charisma from,” he said, softly like he was afraid to puncture the atmosphere and lose the sense of a confessional we’d established.
I laughed, but it was only an exhalation of scorn. “I’m merely a weak replica. She was the original. She used to captivate people at dinner parties with her stories. I think she made most of them up, but she didn’t hide it, and people didn’t care. They just loved that she made them laugh.”
I rolled my head against the seat rest to look at the man beside me, the words bubbling up my throat before I could swallow them down. “You make us laugh like that.”
“I’m honoured by the comparison,” he said solemnly, and it made an indent in my soul because Sebastian was so rarely solemn.
He was bright and beautiful and filled with wonder, a young man who had tasted misfortune but decided to focus on the positive in life instead of wallowing in misery. He was so admirable, this eighteen-year-old who shouldn’t have lived as much life as he had, who shouldn’t be sitting there like a warm hearth for me to rest my weary self in front of.
“She was too good for my father,” I whispered, but I wasn’t sure if I really meant you’re too good for me .
He seemed to catch something in my tone, chin sliding to face me for a moment to gauge my expression. One hand fell from the steering wheel to clasp over my knee and squeezed.
“I’m not sure you have to be worthy of love,” he protested. “I’m no expert, but I think love just exists. Outside of worth and currency and measurements. It’s not something that can be quantified based on a set list or characteristics.”
“Maybe not, but it can be earned. And he didn’t earn it.”
And I don’t know how to earn you.
How could I when all I had to offer him was a life of secrecy and shame?
Because no matter what, I would never share my private predilections with the public. It would be pouring gasoline on my career and setting it on fire.
It would be roasting myself alive on the burning tongues of thousands of people’s mockery and criticism and cruelty.
I couldn’t survive something like that.
It was all I could think of when he and Savannah had confessed their feelings for each other before Sebastian left for his trip to Naples, and it was all I could think of the entire time he was gone.
It was one of the reasons we’d fought, Savvy and me.
“Why can’t we keep him?” she’d yelled at me. “Why can’t you love what’s good for you for once in your miserable life?”
They were both good questions, fair enough.
But loving what was good for you didn’t make you worthy of its goodness.
Loving him didn’t mean I had anything of value to give him.
“Hey,” Sebastian called, shifting his hand into mine and threading our fingers together so they were clasped on my thigh. “It’s a happy day, si ? If you want to remember your mother today, let’s remember her with laughter.”
I sucked in a deep breath through my teeth, trying to cleanse the gunk in my soul with the scent of Sebastian.
“Okay, I’m in your hands,” I told him, clapping my other hand on top of our joined ones. “Be good to me.”
“Always,” he promised, solemn again, as an oath this time, and my joking tone felt rude in contrast. “Always, Adam.”
We drove for four hours.
I wasn’t expecting such a long road trip, but I also wasn’t worried about it as time stretched out behind us. For once, I was not in charge, and I was not expected to perform. I was merely a passenger, driven by a man I trusted more than I cared to admit, even to myself.
Still, I was shocked when we turned off the motorway and passed a quaint painted sign that heralded our arrival in Croyde.
My gaze snapped to Sebastian, suspicion warring with something like unfiltered joy.
“How did you know?” I demanded.
Sebastian remained calm in the face of my snapping energy. “There’s a painting of Croyde Bay in your study beside a photograph of you and your mother on a beach. I don’t need to be Sherlock to tie the two together.”
Air leaked from my mouth like a tire puncture. “Oh.”
“Oh,” he agreed, slowing to turn down the lovely streets of the oceanfront town.
“I haven’t been back here since I was eleven.”
“Well, twenty-nine is a good time to come back,” he declared with a smile as he pulled his sunglasses out of his pocket and opened them with his teeth before sliding them on.
It was ridiculous how sexy I found everything he did.
It was ridiculous that my heart was flapping about my chest like a fish out of water, unable to process how kind and thoughtful a gesture he’d made by taking me here. The site of a clearly cherished childhood memory.
“It’s not the whole surprise, though,” he warned me slyly. “I hope you’re a strong swimmer.”
“Please,” I scoffed. “I grew up in Cornwall. I practically swam before I walked.”
“Good,” he declared. “Because I’d hate for you to drown on your birthday.”
I laughed at him, shaking my head even though his irreverence was one of the qualities I loved most about him.
Loved.
Loved .
Like a best mate, I rationalized a little frantically as he searched for a spot in the car park along the Bay.
Like a man loves a man who is also a friend.
NO, my soul screamed, don’t lie.
Don’t lie like you always lie.
Not about him.
The purest man I’d ever known.
The absolute best man I’d ever known, truth be told.
I’d had other male lovers.
School at Eton with bumbling boys of a similar age, all hormones and horniness. College at Oxford where experimentation was a widely established rite of passage not spoken of in the bright light of mornings after. In those brief military years, when the fear of getting caught amplified everything to dizzying heights. Gay and lesbian citizens had been allowed to enlist in the British Armed Forces since 2000, but it was still something most soldiers kept hushed up to avoid the likelihood of bigotry.
Then, Savannah, who had suggested our first threesome after I disclosed my membership at a popular BDSM club in London. She’d been addicted from the first. Two men lavishing her with attention was her ultimate kink, and one I was only too happy to indulge her in.
But I’d never had anything like I did with Sebastian.
Not with Gregory in school and not with Bryce in the Royal Armed Forces.
They’d been my friends and Bryce could have been something… more.
But only Sebastian had ever stirred this insatiable need that went beyond lust.
I found myself just wanting to… be with him.
Breathe the same air.
Watch the same film with our bodies pressed in one long line, shoulders to knees.
Witness the way he’d conquer the industry with his wit and beauty and warmth.
I wanted the privilege of living beside him, and I didn’t want it to end.
Ever.
The thought knocked me upside the head with a resounding crash and stole the breath from me.
I didn’t want Sebastian to move out and move along in a few weeks or months or years.
I wanted selfishly and earnestly for him to be ours––no, honestly, mine ––forever.
“Adam?” His voice was distant like the crashing waves through my cracked open window. “Adam!”
I jerked out of my horrifying revelation and blinked at him blankly. “There’s no need to yell at me. I’m sitting right here.”
“Your mind was gone,” he argued, but he wasn’t irritated. Only concern marred his brow. “Maybe up in Yorkshire with your wife?”
My heart gave a hollow pang at the thought of Savannah up north. I was angry about her histrionics, but mostly, I was fatigued by them. As soon as a problem erupted between us, she fled in a flurry of drama so we never had time to actually talk through our issues.
I knew she’d come back when she was ready, pull me into bed with sweet words and kisses that were her versions of an apology she’d never verbalize properly, and then we’d just keep on living as we’d done before.
For an American, Savannah had always been startlingly good at being British.
“Maybe,” I admitted because it was easier to admit to that than the truth of my pining for him. “I promise, though, I’ve done enough brooding today. I am at your mercy.”
“Oh?” Sebastian practically purred, eyebrow raised. “I think I’d like that.”
I was a grown man, and I didn’t think I’d blushed in ages, but I came close there, imagining what he might do to me if given full access and control.
A shiver curled like smoke up my back.
He laughed, catching the telltale movement. “C’mon, vecchio , it’s time to have some fun.”
Of course, a plum spot in the car park was available, and he pulled in smoothly, jumping out of the car almost before he’d even put it in park. I followed more leisurely, pretending I wasn’t uncharacteristically giddy at the chance of spending the day at the beach with him.
I leaned against the side of the car as he rummaged in the boot, reappearing with two plush beach towels, an unfamiliar cooler, and a book he held between his teeth because he was out of hands. I reached over to pluck it from his mouth.
“ Grazie .” He beamed at me, knocking the cooler against my thigh to push me along. “Let’s go, or we’ll be late. The surf peters off late in the afternoon.”
“You do know I haven’t a clue how to surf, right? I was eleven the last time I stood on a board.”
“Oh, I’m counting on it,” he teased, eyes flashing bright in the late spring sunshine. “If I’m going to look like a fool, I’d rather be in good company.”
I laughed. “You arsehole. You think my idea of fun on my birthday is to look like a bloody idiot?”
“Yes,” he said firmly as we walked down the path to the beach, and he toed off his trainers, waiting for me to do the same. “I think spending the day doing something new, where you aren’t expected to look your best or be the best will be refreshing. You aren’t Oscar award-winning actor Adam Meyers today. You’re just a bloke having a good time with a friend at the beach.”
Why did that sound so fucking dreamy?
Just a bloke at the beach.
Only, in my dreamiest fantasies, Sebastian wouldn’t just be a mate; he’d be something like a… boyfriend.
Lord, that sounded trite to say as a grown man.
But it also sent a secret thrill trilling through my heart.
“Sound good?” he prompted me as he walked up to a surf shack at the edge of the sand.
“Perfect,” I agreed, unleashing the grin I’d been holding back so he could see just how much the whole idea meant to me.
“ Bene ,” Sebastian said as we walked into the store. “Because I’m thoroughly looking forward to seeing you knocked on your ass.”
I was still laughing when a tall, slender girl with a thicket of blonde hair bounded over to Sebastian the moment we entered the shop. She was all elbows and knees poking out of an oversized vintage Dior tee and rolled-up boxer shorts.
“Seb,” she called even though she was currently throwing her arms around his neck to give him an exuberant hug. “It took you long enough.”
He chuckled, ducking her under the chin in a brotherly way. “I had to get the old man out of bed. Be happy we made it here at all.”
The girl turned her smile on me, and I was shocked by its vibrancy. She had eyes the colour of concord grapes surrounded by a thick golden fringe of lashes. Crinkled with mirth, I thought they might have been the prettiest eyes I’d ever seen, second only to Sebastian’s. She was just a kid with a gangly body and a face with features she still had to grow into, but years in the industry had taught me that she’d be a great beauty one day.
“Hi,” she said, bouncing lightly on her heels as she stuck out a long-fingered hand for me to shake. “We’ve kinda met before, but not really. I’m Linnea Kai.”
Miranda Hildebrand’s daughter, I thought, but didn’t say.
My own experiences had taught me that not everyone enjoyed being linked to their parents.
“Pleasure to meet you,” I said instead, gripping her warm palm. “I’m Adam.”
Her wide grin stretched wider. “Hi, Adam. Are you ready to surf?”
I shot a disgruntled look at Sebastian. “Well, I was until Sebastian told me he’d be laughing his arse off every time I fell off my board.”
Linnea threw her head back and laughed, a throaty, frothy sound that made me grin. “Oh, he’s just deflecting. You were in the RAF, and I’ve seen you horseback ride in movies. I bet you’ll take to it easily. It’s this big oaf”—she jerked her thumb at Sebastian, who mock glowered at her—“who I predict will swallow his fair share of ocean water.”
I couldn’t be sure if it was her age, clearly younger even than Seb, or because I had a whole day in front of me without posturing or posing or responsibility, but I felt like a teenager myself again.
“Is that right? Maybe we should place a bet on it, hmm?” I suggested, arching my brows at Seb. “Best surfer as declared by Linnea at the end of the day wins.”
“Wins what?” he countered immediately, crossing his arms in a way that made his biceps bulge, testing the limits of his grey tee.
“A favor.”
His brows rose too, and he took a slight step forward, crowding me slightly. “A favor?”
There was only a slight insinuation in his tone, but I matched it with my own slightly throaty, “Yeah.”
“An anything favor?” he pushed because that was who Sebastian was.
He pushed me to test my limits but never to exceed them. It was funny that he could be so like Savannah in that way yet so different. He respected my boundaries and the landmines that littered my history that were so easily triggered today. Instead of pushing me forcibly beyond them, he held my hand and led me through them.
So even though it scared me to think about handing over control to anyone, I sucked in a deep breath and looked down my nose at him as if he’d insulted me. “Of course.”
“Deal,” he said instantly, taking my hand in a fierce grip before pointing at Linnea who was watching us with catlike intensity. “You stand as our witness.”
“And very willing judge,” she added, clapping her hands together. “Now, let’s get you boys outfitted properly and get out there while there’s still daylight.”
Fuck , it was cold.
Even with a wetsuit, the Atlantic was frigid, and my feet were numb as they dangled in the water. We’d been at it for two hours already and even though I was fitter than most men, exhaustion had settled into muscles I didn’t even know I had. Surfing looked so bloody easy when a professional did it, but it was challenging.
I watched as Linnea picked up the next wave, her long, thin arms slicing neatly through the surf to maintain pace with the wave before it crested, and then, smooth as butter, she dropped into the trough of water just as it started to curl forward. Even though the waves were relatively small to accommodate Sebastian and me as beginners, Linnea carved it up like the seasoned surfer she was.
“ Magnifico ,” Seb murmured from my left as we watched her finish out the wave with a spray of water, the sunlight hitting the molecules so it looked like she passed through a rainbow and out the other side.
“Truly,” I agreed, a little dazed by her elegance as she slid into shore and then began an easy pace back out to us beyond the break. “She’s a surprising girl, isn’t she?”
Nothing like her mother, which I was grateful for.
Miranda, like Savannah, loved to talk shop. Industry gossip and knowledge. Only, she wasn’t as smart as my wife, not as successful, and her desperation was uncomfortably palpable.
There was nothing desperate about Linnea Kai. For a teenage girl, she was oddly self-assured, full of life and laughter that seemed bursting beneath her skin. There was only an occasional glimmer of something melancholy I caught when she watched Sebastian and I banter. A kind of longing that said maybe she was lonely.
Was it strange that I wanted to comfort her by divulging that sometimes I was lonely too?
“I hope you don’t mind her being here. She offered lessons to me, and at the last minute, she was the only one I could think of who was free to help out.”
“Not at all. As I said, she’s surprising… in a good way. Very charming really, if a little exuberant,” I noted, amused by the way she spoke wildly with her hands and seemed never to be still.
“More graceful at sea than on land,” Sebastian told me, paddling closer so he could lock his foot with mine beneath the water. The little gesture warmed my chest like I’d swallowed the sun. “Just like you’re more comfortable on stage or before a camera than not.”
“Oh, you think you know me so well, do you?” I taunted, splashing water up into his face.
He only blinked again, and I had to watch the water bead in his pretty lashes and roll down the hard, bronzed expanse of his chest.
“I do,” he told me seriously. “And everything I know, I like very much.”
“You’re just trying to distract me from my prize,” I joked because I didn’t want to talk about how well he knew me and how good it felt to be known by him.
Fun , I told myself, fun. Not longing and pining and wanting to wrench my own heart out of my chest and force it into his hands .
Fun.
Seb’s full mouth twitched. “Maybe, I am. I’m very motivated to win.”
“What will you ask for if you do?” I asked.
“Are you sure you want to know? Anticipation can make things so much sweeter.”
“If it involves any part of your naked body and mine, I don’t think it can get any sweeter.”
He blinked at me, a little shocked, apparently, that I could be sweet.
“Okay, lazy bones, who’s going next? Right now, I’d say Sebastian is leading the boards, but maybe if Adam gets one or two great rides under his belt…who knows?” Linnea called as she closed the distance between us.
She sat up on her violet longboard and grinned as she pushed her braided hair over her shoulder. “Well? What do you think, Meyers, have you got it in you to beat the youngin’?”
I laughed. “Jesus, between the two of you, you’d think I was eighty, not yet thirty.”
“Prove us wrong, then,” she coaxed. “It looks like a big swell coming in.”
“If you don’t care, though, I’ll take the win very happily,” Sebastian baited me with a waggle of his black brows.
“Oh, sod off,” I muttered, flattening my torso to the board so I could paddle into position. “This old man is going to make you eat your words.”
Sebastian snorted, but Linnea let out a whoop of support as I got into place, looking over my shoulder to time my strokes to catch the wave.
This was the easy part, getting caught up in the ridge of water and powering myself forward by my arm strokes. Even getting up, balancing my feet just so on the board to balance it over the moving current was muscle memory at this point in the day. I hopped up and into my athletic stance as the wave curled under the board.
It was the ride that kept tripping me up. I lacked the patience to let it carry me and kept maneuvering out of the wave too quickly. This swell was deeper than I’d thought, my stomach lurching as I dropped into the bowl.
This time, Sebastian’s goading voice in the back of my mind, I took a deep breath and just… enjoyed it.
The wind was a cold slap against my salt-tight skin, the rush of water all I could hear, and the corrugated water before me the only thing in my sightline. I felt, for one brief, brilliant moment, like I was part of the wave, a piece of an ocean that stretched across the equator, between multiple continents, and occupied nearly a quarter of the water’s surface on the planet.
I had never felt less like Adam Meyers and conversely, more like myself.
Before I realized it, I was sliding into shore still balanced easily on the board, the water burbling into white froth below it.
I blinked at the beach, the handful of people out on the sunny April day to enjoy the rare sunshine.
When I turned back to look at Sebastian and Linnea, they were both clapping. As I watched, Seb turned his fist in the air and gave two barks of celebration, and Linnea cupped her hands over her mouth to yell, “ Hell yeah, Meyers! ”
A shocked laugh spilled out of my mouth, growing louder the longer I let it take me, riding it just like the wave.
“Take that, you wanker!” I called out to Sebastian triumphantly.
And he laughed and laughed all the way until I made it back to them both beyond the break. When I did, he leaned forward to clap me strongly on the shoulder and drag me closer enough to hug me.
“ Bravissimo ,” he whispered into my ear, his wet cheek against my own, stubble as rough as sand. “You are magnificent.”
A small part of me wanted to pull away instantly, uncomfortable with any display of affection, even platonic, in public.
But I wasn’t Adam Meyers today.
I was just a bloke out with a good mate in the surf.
So I leaned forward and hugged him back, clapping a hand over his back and pressing my cheek just a little harder into his. “ Grazie, amante .”
He stilled at my use of the Italian pet name and then grinned as I pulled away. He was a bloody vision sitting on that board, strong thighs splayed, all that Italian tanned skin pulled tight over well-honed muscle and the fall of wet black hair over his forehead.
He was the magnificent one.
“High five.” Linnea cut into my thoughts with her demand, hand lifted for me.
I clapped it and grinned, boyish contentment curling through my chest. “I crushed it, I know.”
She laughed. “You did! All it took was removing the stick up your bum.”
“Hey!” I retorted as Sebastian burst out laughing.
Linnea ducked my hands as I made to playfully push her off her board, but I wouldn’t be deterred. She was tall, but so light I could pluck her off her board and haul her over to mine. She flailed a little, and I took advantage by cupping my hands in the ocean in order to splash her full in the face with the water.
She sputtered indignantly, but before she could retaliate, Sebastian caught on and sent a huge wave of water over her body.
“You bastards!” she crowed, diving off my board into the depths.
Sebastian and I locked eyes over the splash she made and grinned wickedly in tandem.
When she emerged, we were right behind her, pursuing her with shark-like intensity into the shallows, where we proceeded to have an all-out splash war like we were twelve years old. Something about them, their sunshine energy sloughed all the years and miseries of my life off my back and made me feel reborn with fresh enthusiasm. I tackled Sebastian to the sandy bottom and laughed until my belly ached when Linnea tickled him until he begged for mercy.
It was more fun than I’d had in ages, and I owed it all to Sebastian.