March 9, 2020—Seattle, Washington—One Year and Eight Months Later
Logan slammed the glass against the bar with a force that rippled down his arm, the sharp crack against the wood cutting through the dim hum of voices and clinking glasses.
It was his fourth drink, and the night was young.
He’d tethered himself here, to this dark and cheap bar, where the sting of whiskey ebbed through him, tugging him under, drowning out the voices that filled his head.
As he lifted his phone, he noted the time: eleven.
Sandy would still be awake, her light still on in their quiet, picture-perfect house.
He’d be sure to come home only when her breathing had settled into deep, unbroken waves, when she was miles away in dreams that he wasn’t part of.
The clock marked time, but his mind was somewhere else—somewhere where the air was warm and salty, where Adrian’s laughter had lifted like spray off a breaking wave, bursting against the walls he’d kept so carefully guarded.
But that was over a year ago, wasn’t it?
His life now felt like the empty shore left behind when the tide pulled too far out, leaving nothing but sand and the bitter residue of salt.
He’d married Sandy like a man clinging to a rock in rough water, convincing himself he could build something solid if he tried hard enough.
But every night, he felt the pull of memory, dragging him back to Adrian, to those wild and shimmering days.
Now, even with Sandy, intimacy had withered, cracked like dried seaweed on sun-bleached rocks.
Without something artificial to drown out the ache, without the blaring images he forced between them, he felt his desire slipping further into the deep.
Sandy had noticed, of course. Her husband was doing everything in his power to get away from her touch.
Maybe she also saw the shadows deepening under his eyes, the way his laughter—once rare but real—had vanished like sunlight swallowed by storm clouds.
It had come up, more than once, that maybe he needed help, that maybe some invisible weight was draining him.
Her words curled around him like ripples on a still lake: perhaps they should seek some medical help together, maybe even therapy, or that his job—the unyielding hours, the constant demands—was grinding him down and needed to be set aside, if only for a while, so he could find himself again.
He remembered how hopeful she was, how much her eyes pleaded with him.
After all, he imprisoned her as well in that marriage and she had given everything within her to make it work.
He’d laughed it off, stormed out of the house, leaving her words to crash against him as he fled. And now he was here, clutching the bottle like a lifeline, craving the sweet, numbing flood of the next drink, the only thing that dulled the undertow of memories.
He drank to drown in the sunlight of Adrian’s gaze, to chase away the melody of his voice that once wove through Logan’s soul, smoothing even the jagged edges like gentle waves caressing ancient stones.
The warmth of the alcohol was a soft tide, subtly silencing the dawn’s scent of Adrian—his skin’s tender glow, the whisper of his favorite soap, and a raw, pure essence that sent shivers whispering along Logan’s spine.
It was a delicate fog, blurring the vivid memories until they shimmered like muted dreams, fading, yet lingering.
Just enough to forget, or perhaps to pretend, how Adrian’s stubble, rough and warm, left a trail of fire upon his skin when they kissed, a whisper of heat that echoed long after the moment was gone.
Just enough to erase the feeling of those slow, deliberate touches, the way Adrian’s mouth moved over him, the scrape of stubble against his chest, his stomach, over his cock and between his cheeks, kisses that felt like a reunion with the other lost half of his soul.
But each glass brought him back to it, the bitter taste morphing into salt on his tongue, a persistent reminder that some loves, once felt, linger forever—crashing like relentless waves, regardless of how far he’d drifted.
He scrolled down Adrian’s Facebook page once more, eyes tracing each familiar line and picture, knowing well there would be nothing new, not even a shadow of a post. The absence didn’t surprise him, but still, he lingered, drawn by a need to connect, to cling to this fragment—the last remaining trace of Adrian, a digital ghost of his existence, proof that once, somewhere, he had been real.
Sometimes, in those late, dragging hours, a green dot would appear beside Adrian’s name, like a faint light over dark water, a signal that somewhere—maybe only a heartbeat away—they were both afloat in the same night sea, each of them gazing out at the vastness of what they’d lost. He yearned for it, that fragile thread binding two souls across the divide, a whisper of presence at opposite ends of the earth.
Logan slid from the Facebook app to his gallery, his fingers brushing over the hidden folder where he had buried the photos—each one a breath of air he could still hold onto. He had learned that drowning in them was the only way to feel anything at all.
One year and five months since he’d run, the distance between him and Adrian stretching like an endless shore. One year and three months since he last saw Adrian, since he last kissed him—those moments now slipping through his grasp like water in a hand.
One year and three months of marriage to Sandy.
Logan murmured the melody, the words barely escaping, heavy with the weight of all that had been lost. The pain stirred within him, growing, until it became a pulse he could not ignore. And in that ache, his mind came alive again, sharp and clear.
“Hey, you.” Logan raised his empty glass, his voice a low drawl. “Another.”
The young bartender, caught in the moment with the guy he had been flirting with, gave him a quick, apologetic smile—a fleeting touch on the hand before he turned to Logan.
“I think you’ve had enough. Go home,” the bartender said, taking the empty glass from his hand.
Without waiting for a reply, he turned to the other end of the bar, where a few ladies beckoned him with eager eyes.
Logan watched as he flashed them a flirty smile, effortlessly slipping into the role of charm.
God. He has no limits. Logan thought, bitterly, as the bartender’s laughter blended with the hum of the bar, a world he no longer felt part of.
Every time Logan came in, which was most nights now, the bartender was either slipping out of the place or heading to the restroom, always accompanied by someone.
The man was a magnet for desire, drawing people to him; he was the flame, and they were the moths.
It wasn’t just the way he looked, though that certainly didn’t hurt.
No, it was something more—a palpable energy, a raw current of sexuality that seemed to pulse from him, effortless and intoxicating.
He wore it like a second skin, and Logan couldn’t help but see how much he reveled in it, the way it flowed from him, unabashed and alive.
“Hey, fucker, when I tell you to pour me a drink, you pour me a drink.” Logan’s voice cut through the murmur of the bar as he shoved his phone back into his pocket.
The bartender turned, his eyes locking with Logan’s. “Are you talking to me right now?”
“Yeah. Can you see another fucker here?” Logan muttered absently; his eyes half-lidded as he leaned against the bar. “You do two things—fucking and pouring drinks. Since you’re not busy with the first, pour me a drink.”
The words landed, and the bartender paused, his expression shifting. He walked over, his gaze sharp and almost intrigued. “Your wife’s waiting for you,” he said, glancing at the thin gold band around Logan’s finger. “Go the fuck home.”
Logan didn’t flinch, didn’t even look down at the ring.
His voice was cold, direct. “Drink.” Tension hung in the air.
“Then you can go back and find your chip fuck for tonight. I wonder… what would that be this time, huh? The hot dick over there,” and he nudged his head toward the guy the bartender had just chatted with, now leaning in and laughing with his friends, “or some fine pussy?”
“And I wonder why a rich motherfucker like you,” the bartender said, leaning over the bar with a smirk, “someone who wears a suit that costs at least five thousand dollars, comes to this cheap-ass bar, night after night, drinking himself into oblivion, wasting away until he can barely stand, instead of going home to your little wife?”
Logan’s chest tightened. He hated the way the bartender’s cocky grin stretched across his face, the daring glint in his eyes.
It was too much, like a needle driving straight into his pride.
“I just saw someone throwing up in the restroom,” Logan shot back, trying to deflect. “Shouldn’t you go clean that up?”
The bartender chuckled, shaking his head. “You’re so pathetic… Not only do you spend every miserable night of your life here, in this rotten bar, alone, but you’re also jacking off on someone’s Facebook page.”
The words hit like a slap. Logan froze, as if time itself had stopped.
His face went blank, his body went still.
He’d heard the insult, but the sting of it pierced deeper than anything he had expected.
The weight of his own shame crashed down on him, and the ache that had never fully left him surged back, raw and real.
He was drunk, but not drunk enough to miss the venom in those words.
For a long moment, all he could do was sit there, the bartender’s daring gaze boring into him, waiting for some kind of response.
But Logan couldn’t speak. The words tangled in his throat, and instead, he stood up, pushed his chair back with a sharp scrape.
Without a word, he grabbed his wallet and tossed a few bills onto the counter.