Chapter 2 #8
Adrian had imagined this meeting in a hundred different ways.
If he was being honest, he’d spent most of the day circling it in his mind—picturing how it might unfold, fearing how it might fall apart.
He had feared it would be stiff, filled with obligatory gratitude and a beer that neither of them really wanted.
He had overthought it, running through every possible scenario, trying to temper the excitement that had sparked in him the moment Logan had opened his eyes on the shore.
That spark had caught him off guard. He’d told himself it was adrenaline.
Relief. Nothing more. But here, now, in the soft noise of a bar that smelled of sea air and Logan’s cologne that drove him crazy, it didn’t feel like nothing.
It was nothing like he’d expected.
The conversation flowed like an easy current, carrying them forward without effort.
Adrian hadn’t anticipated how natural it would feel, how every sentence seemed to unravel something deeper, pulling him in like an undertow he didn’t want to escape.
Logan wasn’t just a man he had pulled from the sea—he was a quiet storm of his own, a contradiction of sharp wit and soft laughter, of eyes that held both gratitude and something else, something Adrian wasn’t ready to name.
For a moment, their conversation fell into a tender silence, like the hush between waves. They leaned in, words lingering on their lips, tasting the promise of all that might follow. At last, Adrian broke the quiet, his voice soft, colored by curiosity.
“When did you first start surfing?”
Logan smiled, the memory already pulling him inward.
“I was about nine or ten. We were getting ready for a summer vacation in Costa Rica. My mom had just bought me a camera, one of those waterproof ones, because I was obsessed with taking pictures. I’d spend hours on the beach, just watching the waves and trying to capture the surfers through the lens. ”
He paused, the edges of the memory soft and sunlit.
“I kept going back. Every day. Just standing there with my camera, taking the same shots over and over. I guess one of the surfers noticed how long I stood there watching. One afternoon, he came over. He didn’t say much, just offered me a board.
Told me I should try it instead of only watching it.
” Logan’s smile deepened, quieter now. “He taught me that summer. Nothing official, just here and there—little tips, bits of balance, how to read the water. And I don’t know…
it just stayed with me. Like the ocean gave me something that never really left. ”
Adrian studied him, his interest warm and unguarded. “And now here you are,” he said, the words almost a thought being uttered aloud, an ocean of secrets and unsaid words behind the soft voice and gentle, inviting smile. “How old are you now?”
“Twenty-four. You?”
“Twenty-five.” A slight smile softened Adrian’s features.
Logan looked at him, intrigued. “So, how did you start?”
Adrian’s gaze dropped, his words slower now, thoughtful, as if each one needed to be chosen with care. “I was six,” he said, his accent curling gently around the memory. “My mother had just died. Everything felt… hollow after that.”
His eyes flicked toward the bracelet on Logan’s wrist, then back to the table.
“My father… he didn’t really know how to live without her.
He was there, but not really. Just a shadow of himself.
He was not in a good place, mentally, after she died, and I didn’t really understand it.
” He paused, turning slightly to glance at the ocean beyond the bar, as though the memory had drifted there and he was trying to catch it.
“Some of my mom and dad’s friends were surfers,” he continued.
“They started taking me with them. Let me sit on the sand, then on the boards, then eventually… they pushed me into the waves.” He let out a breath.
“They gave me a board that year. Encouraged me. Taught me how to move with the water instead of against it.”
Adrian’s eyes met Logan’s for a second—quiet, unguarded—before looking down again.
“It was an escape, at first. But it became something else. It made me feel… steady. Like I belonged somewhere, even if it wasn’t with anyone.
” He let a small, breathy laugh slip out, almost self-conscious.
“It saved me,” he said, voice roughening at the edges.
“Back then, I didn’t understand grief. I just knew I missed my mother.
And I missed my father, like… you know I missed how he was before she…
” A beat passed. He smiled faintly, then shook his head. “I’m oversharing, sorry.”
“No. That’s okay.” Logan’s voice softened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… bring up anything painful.”
“It’s alright.” Adrian’s gaze was open, reassuring, as if the waves of the past had long since softened their edges. “It’s been a long time.”
Logan caught the waitress’s attention, and they ordered another round, a quiet camaraderie settling over them.
“So, how long have you been in Hawaii?” he asked, trying to hide the fact that he’d been observing every detail of Adrian’s face—the strength in his jawline, the way his laugh flickered just behind his whiskey-brown eyes.
“A week, give or take,” Adrian replied, his gaze steady, almost as if he knew Logan’s thoughts.
“So, you’re heading out again soon?”
“No deadlines,” Adrian replied, his words barely above a whisper, carrying a quiet invitation.
“I’m in no hurry to leave here.” The phrase hung between them, its meaning like a hidden reef beneath the waves.
Did he mean here, this table, this instant suspended in time—or Hawaii, the island of dreams?
But before Logan could follow that thread too far, Adrian’s voice drifted on, easy and unhurried, yet touched by something deeper.
“I go wherever the world calls me,” he continued, his gaze drifting somewhere distant, beyond even the horizon. “Australia’s next… at least, that’s what I think.”
Logan’s face lit up. “No way. I’ve always wanted to see Australia. Sri Lanka too. Those are my dreams, you know? To drift, to feel places rather than just see them.”
“You should,” Adrian replied, his eyes meeting Logan’s with an almost electric sincerity. “I started about six months ago.”
“And you’ll keep going?”
“Until the world has nothing left to show me,” Adrian said, his lips curving into a smile that held both lightness and gravity, “or until my money runs out. Whichever comes first.” They laughed, lifting their glasses in a silent toast, and as they drank, they could each feel it—the undercurrent of a story yet unwritten, hanging in the balance between the present and the unknown, like a wave waiting to break.
“And you…” Logan started, the question slipping out with a softness he hadn’t expected. “Traveling the whole world… alone?” Logan did not expect the expectation burning in his chest as he held his breath, waiting for the answer.
Adrian’s mouth tilted in a faint, knowing smile that made Logan’s heart stir—a look that carried something implicit, something shared only between them.
“Not sure I’ll see the whole world,” Adrian’s tone was as light as the night air, “but mostly, yeah. Solo.” His eyes held Logan’s a moment longer, that smile turning almost playful.
“Though some friends are out there too, wandering their own trails. We meet up when we can. Surf. Hike. Drift.”
Logan leaned in, something wistful pressing at his words. “Must be nice, to have friends willing to do that with you.” He said it casually, like a small truth he barely noticed—as if it weren’t a lie. As if he, too, had a circle of friends ready to follow him into new worlds.
Adrian nodded, watching him, a gentle understanding in his gaze.
“In Israel, it’s tradition,” he began, his voice taking on a reflective note.
“Everyone travels after the army.” Adrian paused, catching Logan’s questioning look.
“It’s a way of finding yourself, after years of being… someone else. I guess.”
Logan’s eyebrows lifted. “The army? Did you serve?”
Adrian nodded, a shadow of a memory in his eyes.
“It’s no big deal. In Israel, every citizen must enlist at the age of 18; it’s the law.
It’s just life there. A rite of passage, part of growing up.
” But his words carried a weight, as if the past lingered beneath them, an undertow pulling him briefly back.
Logan dropped his gaze, tracing the edge of his beer bottle, a smile curling at his lips. “Where’d they put you?”
“Navy,” Adrian said, his gaze drifting as if following something across a distant horizon, a faint, quiet ache there.
Logan chuckled, his laugh barely louder than a breath, touched by a sudden lightness. “Of course,” he muttered, half to himself, shaking his head with a slow smile. “Well, that explains how you pulled off the impossible mission of rescuing me.”
Adrian’s gaze snapped back to Logan’s, his eyes darkening, as if shadows of unspoken memories had flickered to life.
For a moment, something haunted passed over his face—a vision of Logan, motionless, adrift in the ocean’s unfeeling pull.
He could still hear the silence beneath Logan’s chest, feel the weight of those towering waves crashing toward shore, indifferent to life or death.
Then, as if severing himself from the memory, Adrian’s expression softened; the smirk returned, quieter now, a look that reached across the table, bridging the fragile, wordless space between them.
Their laughter faded, slipping into silence, as both felt the presence of what had just been shared and the countless words left unsaid.
In that stillness, past and present seemed to fold together, binding two lives for this single, breath-held moment.
Adrian’s voice dropped a little, teasing but genuine. “How about you? Are you traveling with anyone? Someone waiting for you back home... or maybe joining you out here soon?”