November 10, 2020—Seattle, Washington—Two Years Later #2
Zack paused mid-motion, his expression shifting as if weighing whether to say what was on his mind. Finally, as he pulled on his underwear, he spoke. “So, Logan… does your wife, uh, know?”
The question hit Logan like a slap. He froze, mid-step, his heart thudding uncomfortably in his chest. “Know what?” he asked, his voice just a shade too high, betraying the panic simmering beneath his composed exterior.
“About us…?” Zack shrugged casually, though his tone held a pointed edge. “I mean, I’m not judging. Some wives are cool with the fact that their man is… gay—”
“I’m not gay!” Logan snapped, the words cutting through the air with sharp finality. Too sharp. Too quick. He could hear the desperation in his own voice, but it was too late to take it back. “I’m not into men. I’m not gay.”
Zack blinked at him, his brows lifting slightly as he studied Logan’s face, searching for some crack in the armor. When Logan didn’t flinch or retract, Zack burst into laughter, a loud, disbelieving laugh that made Logan’s jaw clench.
“What’s so funny?” Logan growled, his anger rising to the surface.
“You… oh, God. You’re serious!” Zack said between chuckles, a smirk still curling at the corners of his lips.
“Logan, come on. You can’t honestly stand there and tell me you’re not attracted to men; you must be at least bi.
I just fucked you, and let’s not forget the part where you fucked me, so, yeah, I think that ship has sailed. ”
“Shut up, Zack!” Logan barked, his voice thunderous, his chest heaving with the effort to control the fury that burned through him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this angry, this exposed.
Zack’s amusement faded slightly, though a trace of his smile lingered. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have laughed. It’s just… come on, man. The wife doesn’t know, then? I didn’t think you were still, you know, in the closet. I mean, with the way you—”
“Stop.” Logan’s voice dropped, cold now, his hands clenching at his sides. He moved with purpose, grabbing his shoes and heading for the door, the overwhelming need to escape driving him forward.
This was Logan’s method, wasn’t it? Run. Always running.
He ran to Hawaii. He ran from Adrian. He ran right back to the life he knew. He ran to his wife. And then he ran as far from that life as he could.
He ran to Zack when he needed. He ran from Zack when he couldn’t bear it.
Run, run, run. And now?
Now, he was exhausted. The kind of tired that devoured every glimmer, darkening even the brightest light.
Drained from carrying an ache as he fled from his life, he could never outrun himself.
No distance could unravel this tether. No matter how far he journeyed or how swiftly he moved, Adrian lingered, forever just beyond the breakwater.
Zack followed, his expression softening as he caught up to Logan.
“Lo, wait. I’m sorry,” he said, his tone gentler now as he reached for Logan’s arm.
“I didn’t mean to upset you. I just… I don’t know.
This whole thing with you being married…
It’s starting to feel a little wrong. Like, I didn’t sign up to be a part of that. ”
Logan hesitated, his hand on the doorknob, his back to Zack. He didn’t turn around, didn’t let the apology sink in too deep. “I get that,” he said quietly, his voice hollow, stripped of the earlier fury. “I have to go. I’ll see you, okay?”
Before Zack could respond, Logan yanked his arm free, his movements jerky, uncoordinated.
He didn’t look back as he walked out the door, the weight of the conversation echoing around him, joining his usual shadows.
As he stepped into the early morning hours, the cool air bit at his skin, but it did nothing to ease the fire still raging inside him.
Logan spent the day locked in his office, ignoring the steady stream of well-wishers who visited to congratulate him in advance on his upcoming birthday.
The words grated on him, every chirped greeting a reminder of the passage of time, of everything he’d buried and couldn’t seem to forget.
He loathed his birthday; the forced smiles, the shallow congratulations, and the weight of another year spent living a lie.
When night finally fell, he sent a text to Sandy, claiming he’d be out with colleagues from work.
He told his father that Sandy had planned something special for the two of them, a fabrication designed to keep everyone at bay.
Then he slid behind the wheel of his car and drove away from the expectations, the lies, and the suffocating pretense.
His destination was clear in his mind before he even started the engine: Zack’s bar.
The bar was warm and dimly lit, a haven that smelled of spilled whiskey and faint citrus cleaner.
Logan found a stool near the far end and settled in, watching Zack work behind the counter.
Their conversation was light, effortless, and for the most part, shallow.
They slipped back into their rhythm, unacknowledging last night’s tension, choosing instead to drift in the easier currents of familiarity.
“You’re not paying,” Zack said with a teasing grin as Logan reached for his wallet, pulling out a crisp bill. “I thought you’d be used to that by now.”
Logan smirked, his lips curving into something softer than his usual mask. He folded the bill and dropped it into the tip jar with deliberate slowness. “So, it’s all for you, then.”
“Oh, when you put it like that…” Zack’s grin widened before he turned to serve another customer, his laugh carrying lightly through the air.
When the bar emptied out and the hum of conversation faded to nothing, Zack turned back to him. “You coming up?” he asked, his voice low, his smile laced with something dangerous and seductive.
“Hell, yeah, I do,” Logan replied, his voice laced with more eagerness than he intended.
“Good. Let’s go,” Zack said with a wink, turning to usher out the last stragglers. “I’ll clean up tomorrow.”
Minutes later, they stumbled into Zack’s apartment.
The tension between them shimmered in the air, but Logan barely noticed.
He moved on autopilot, letting Zack guide him, letting the night press its weight down until he couldn’t feel anything except the pull of familiarity.
The world blurred at the edges, sounds muffled and indistinct, like he was wading through a thick fog.
His hands traced Zack’s skin, but the sensation felt distant, muted, like touching glass instead of flesh.
The movements were automatic, mechanical—reaching, pressing, clutching—yet his mind was somewhere else, slipping further and further from the room with every breath.
The smell of saltwater filled his nostrils, sharp and vivid, even though the sea was nowhere near.
He could almost hear it, the rhythmic crash of waves, the low hum of the tide pulling away, over and over, endlessly.
Adrian.
The name hovered on the edge of his consciousness, unspoken but deafening.
He wasn’t here, not in this room, not in Zack’s arms. Logan was adrift, caught between the heat of another body and the haunting memory of Adrian’s touch.
He could feel him—surely it was him—the weight of his body against Logan’s, the warmth of his breath grazing his ear, the way he smelled like the ocean itself, like sunlight and salt and the impossible.
Logan’s fingers stretched across Zack’s back, but it wasn’t Zack he felt beneath his hands.
It was someone else entirely. He closed his eyes, and the room dissolved into a vision of golden light and endless blue, of Adrian chuckling, his voice untamed and alive.
Logan could almost see him there, riding a wave, the sea curving around him like it was meant to carry him and no one else.
The vividness of the image was uncanny, a near-perfect echo of the man he loved.
It felt like a herald from hell itself, bearing only sorrow yet wearing Adrian’s borrowed face, destroying him with the very thing he longed for most. It taunted him with that merciless “almost,” a cruelty shaped in familiar light.
He believed he stood only at the threshold of damnation, taking hesitant steps toward it, never realizing he was already burning.
And then, suddenly, hands pulled him back—Zack’s hands, solid and insistent, grounding him in the now, when his mind kept slipping into the past. Logan moved, his body responding without thought, falling into the rhythm Zack set.
Words tumbled from his lips, but they were fragments, incoherent and fractured, whispers from a place far away.
He couldn’t remember what he said, didn’t know if Zack understood, and he didn’t care. It wasn’t for him.
Adrian’s laughter echoed in his ears, louder now, almost mocking. For a moment, Logan thought he might reach out and touch him, hold him, but the image slipped away like water through his fingers.
“Adrian,” Logan’s lips shaped the name, but no sound escaped.
It was a whisper without a voice, a ghost of a word that had haunted him for two years.
He hadn’t spoken it aloud, not once, not since the day he left.
He’d thought about it endlessly—sometimes as a comfort, more often as a wound—he let his lips form the word with out a sound, but now, the shape of it felt foreign on his tongue, like an artifact unearthed after years buried in the dark.
His chest tightened as the name lingered in the air between thought and speech, a fragile thing threatening to shatter.
Adrian. It wasn’t just a name; it was a life, a moment, a choice he couldn’t undo.
And now, as his lips moved soundlessly, saying his name like a prayer as he came by the hands of another, it felt as though saying it might break him entirely.