Chapter 6 #4
Logan felt his throat tighten as Dean sauntered off toward the bus, leaving a silence that felt like the receding pull of a wave, tugging him back to shore yet keeping him stranded with Adrian.
Adrian’s eyes followed his friend for a moment, then flicked back to Logan.
Leaning in, voice hushed like a confession, he murmured, “He just said it... looks like I care about you. Something like that.” His cheeks deepened in color, gaze dropping to the sand beneath their feet, as if embarrassed by the weight of those words.
He looked restless, uncertain, like he’d been handed something fragile, something too real, and wasn’t sure whether to cradle it or cast it away.
Translating Dean’s words felt like an exposure, a risk; but leaving them veiled in another language felt like building a wall between them.
Caught between distance and closeness, Adrian stood, suspended, as if he’d let something slip that could never be taken back.
But Adrian felt like a jerk because he hadn’t translated it fully; he’d left a part out, too afraid to let it all out there.
The introductions flowed seamlessly together—Tom, Ben, Sergi, Shoam. They were friends of Adrian, each face radiant with sunshine, adorned with easy smiles and sun-kissed shoulders. Logan nodded and smiled, quickly forgetting their names as they arrived.
There were more. Others gathering with boards slung under arms and towels draped over sunburnt shoulders—two guys and three girls from Australia, a tall surfer from New Zealand with a deep laugh, three bronzed men from California, another from Hawaii, all wind-swept and sun-creased.
Logan stood just outside the circle, half-listening, half-floating.
Laughter swelled and broke like waves, the scent of salt and coconut oil drifting on the breeze.
Adrian was deep in conversation with—Shoam, maybe?
Logan wasn’t sure. Their closeness stirred something in his chest he didn’t have a name for.
“Hey,” a voice said beside him, low and easy.
Logan turned. One of the California guys, though he couldn’t place a name. Tall, maybe an inch shorter than him, golden-tan like he belonged to the sun, with wavy blond hair and ocean-blue eyes that lingered when they looked at you.
“Hey,” Logan replied, shifting his weight slightly, one hand brushing the back of his neck.
“Jack,” the guy said, reading the pause in Logan’s face. He flashed a dazzling smile—casual, but practiced. “You’re Logan, right?”
“Yeah,” Logan said, returning the smile, though not quite as effortlessly. “How’s it going, man?”
“All good,” Jack replied, voice smooth and relaxed. “Where’re you from?”
“Seattle.”
“Ah, cool.” Jack nodded slowly, eyes scanning Logan just a moment too long. “Long way from home.”
“Yeah.” Logan chuckled softly, rubbing a thumb along the edge of his surfboard. “What about you? How do you know them?”
“Barely do,” Jack said, with a lazy shrug that made the muscles in his shoulders ripple slightly.
“Most of us met yesterday. I think Justin and Cody—those are the Aussie guys—knew the Israelis from before.” He stretched slightly, arms behind his head, the movement slow and deliberate.
“But someone suggested a group surf, and… here we are. No complaints so far.”
Logan nodded, trying not to overthink the way Jack’s eyes flicked to his mouth when he smiled. The tension was light, almost playful, but unmistakable.
Logan had the sense Jack was about to say something else, something bold, maybe reckless, when another surfer, name forgotten, hooked an arm around his shoulder and pulled him into a different conversation.
Jack threw Logan a parting grin, something teasing in it, before he disappeared into the swell of voices.
Logan let out a breath, shifting his board in his grip. He was just about to slip away—find a quiet corner, maybe trail back to Adrian—when someone else approached.
“Hey,” another voice called out, this time with a thick accent. Logan turned to see Tom, one of Adrian’s friends. Stockier build, quiet eyes.
“Just saw Dean being a dick before and wanted to say,” Tom murmured, stepping in close enough for privacy, “don’t mind Dean.
He’s strange about Adrian. They’ve known each other and were inseparable since first grade, joined the Navy together, went through wars together.
Dean’s protective, you could say. Maybe jealous now that Adrian’s stepping away. ”
Logan’s mouth went dry, an unnamed question catching in his throat like salt from the sea. Was there something between them, something deeper than friendship?
Tom’s gaze softened, as if sensing the rawness in Logan’s silence.
“Not like that, not romantic,” he hurried to explain, though his words washed over Logan like a sigh, a tide both soothing and stirring.
“But yeah, Dean’s possessive. Adrian’s been his anchor through it all, and I think maybe he’s not ready to see him drift, you know?
Ad said he wanted to do some, soul searching, you might say, in English, but seeing him traveling with you was not easy on him. ”
Logan nodded, trying to ignore the pull of his own thoughts, the churning questions lodged deep beneath the surface.
As he watched Adrian laugh, saw Dean’s lingering glances from across the beach, Logan felt himself caught in a riptide, something powerful and undeniable pulling him further into waters he was only just beginning to understand.
Logan nodded, already liking Tom. “Thanks.”
Tom offered Logan a brief smile and a reassuring pat on the shoulder before leaving him to his turbulent thoughts, which now resembled sharp rocks protruding from a tumultuous shoreline.
Their group had gathered by the edge of the sand, boards stacked on the battered old bus, the ocean glinting in the morning sun.
Logan tried to focus on the water, on the thought of catching the day’s first wave, anything to steady his nerves—when a figure sprinted toward them, calling Adrian’s name with a familiarity that detonated inside Logan, like glass shattering through a hundred floors of silence, every shard finding its way into his heart.
The newcomer barely paused before crashing into Adrian, wrapping him in an embrace that felt too tight, too long, too close.
Logan felt the flicker of a simmering, inexplicable rage take hold.
This stranger didn’t hold Adrian like a friend would.
The man hugged him fiercely, head bent, face hidden against Adrian’s shoulder.
Logan watched, fists clenching, as this stranger’s hand drifted over Adrian’s back, possessive, caressing.
Logan’s voice was tight, edged with something raw. “So… he knows Adrian, then,” he muttered to Tom, forcing nonchalance even as his pulse pounded in his ears.
“Yeah, you could say that,” Tom replied with a sigh. “That’s Itay.”
Itay. He hated that name. The sound of it punched through him, jagged and merciless, as if it had been carved to wound.
His chest tightened, something hot and volatile flooding his ribs, rising fast, unbearable.
Each beat of his heart struck like stone splitting under pressure, ready to crack wide open.
Itay, bronzed skin, sun-washed curls, long, lean muscles flexing as he held onto Adrian like he owned him, like Adrian wasn’t Logan’s world but his.
Itay finally pulled back, and Logan watched with a growing sense of helplessness as he gazed at Adrian with undisguised admiration, his blue eyes smoldering with something that stirred every instinct in Logan to step between them.
Itay leaned in, murmuring something to Adrian in Hebrew, his hand lingering just a little too long on Adrian’s arm, as if staking a claim.
Every fiber in Logan screamed to shove that hand away, to tear Itay from him, to make clear that Adrian was his—if only he could admit it out loud.
Adrian’s eyes found Logan’s across the sand, an uncertain softness in them, almost like an apology.
He stepped away from Itay’s grip, and Logan felt a flash of relief, a hope that maybe Adrian was pulling back, that this was all just a moment of awkward reunion.
Adrian moved toward him, his focus fixed on Logan with an intensity that was both grounding and fragile, as if whatever was between them was written only in the way Adrian’s gaze sought his, unspoken but real.
“Itay, this is Logan,” Adrian said, eyes still on Logan as if Itay were an afterthought. “Logan, this is… Itay.”
But Adrian didn’t add a single word to explain. He didn’t say who Itay was, or why the sight of him had twisted Logan’s heart into a vice. And before Logan could gather himself enough to respond, Tom jumped in, filling the silence.
“I thought you weren’t supposed to be here,” Tom said to Itay, an edge of tension in his voice. “Didn’t you say you were off with Aaron, Dmitri and Luke today?”
Itay’s expression turned from feigned indifference to sharp irritation, his eyes flicking between Tom and Logan before landing back on Adrian. “Yeah, well… someone forgot to mention that Adrian would be here.” He spoke in Hebrew, and Tom, already on Logan’s side, translated right away.
The words hit Logan with an ache he didn’t want to acknowledge, and then Itay, without hesitation, slung his arm around Adrian’s back and shoulders, pulling him close, like he’d done it a thousand times before.
The sight of it cut through Logan, each beat of his heart a painful reminder that Adrian had belonged to someone else once, someone who still looked at him with open longing.