37. Chapter 37 #2
Both girls screamed and jumped together, instantly swallowed by the music and the crowd.
Ody stood there for a second, the noise washing over him while the knot in his stomach tightened.
He stepped off the platform onto the sand, leaving the music and neon lights behind as darkness stretched along the beach ahead.
Cool sand shifted beneath his feet while he pulled out his phone, scrolling until he found Mano’s name.
He hit call and kept walking, the silence broken only by the soft crash of waves and the distant thump of music.
He tried again. Still nothing.
A flicker of movement caught his eye, a distant shape against the shoreline. Someone sitting close to the water. Alone.
He followed the faint sound of a phone ringing somewhere down the beach. With each step, the figure grew clearer. The moon caught on something glassy in their hand.
The ringing grew louder in the dark, and Ody’s pulse jumped. That’s when Mano lifted his phone to look at the screen, just as he tipped back the last swallow of vodka.
Ody ended the call and slowed, approaching him cautiously. “Mano? What are you doing out here?”
Mano didn’t answer. He only reached beside him and grabbed a beer bottle half-buried in the sand. He raised it and took a long swig.
“Where’d you get that?” Ody asked.
Mano leaned back into the sand, staring up at the sky like he was looking at something a thousand miles away. A shaky, humorless chuckle escaped him. “It’s always like this, isn’t it? I knew it.”
“Knew what?” Ody frowned, lowering himself beside him.
Mano inhaled, his chest rising unsteadily. “Didn’t you say you were… my friend… and you wouldn’t leave?” He used the word friend like it could shrink whatever existed between them into something harmless.
“I did…” Ody answered, unsure where this was heading.
Mano’s next breath trembled. His words came low and slurred, heavy with hurt more than alcohol. “I was right. Again. I’m always right… Always…”
Then Ody heard it. Shaky breaths breaking apart. A sob.
“I knew it…” Mano choked out. “I told you this would happen. I said I’d be right… and here we are.” Tears drifted down the side of his face, disappearing into the sand beneath him.
Ody’s chest tightened painfully.
“Why doesn’t anyone want me?” Mano whispered, raw and broken. “What did I do? What have I ever done to you? Huh?” The words sliced straight through Ody. “I was right not to open up to anyone.”
“Mano…” Ody reached out, but Mano pushed himself up and shoved him hard, tears streaking down his cheeks.
“This is your fault!” he cried, breath hitching. His eyes glistened with betrayal, the kind that didn’t belong to a simple friendship. “You… you made me think I had a friend.”
Ody stayed frozen, the words hitting harder than the shove.
“Just because you could,” Mano went on, his voice trembling. “You wanted to go shopping… go out to eat… so you thought, ‘I’ll call that fool. Drag him along. Take him on vacation… Then play with him whenever I feel like it.’” His face crumpled.
Ody felt like something inside him was collapsing.
“I never should’ve let you get this close,” Mano said, barely holding himself together. “Never should’ve told you anything. It was all a mistake.”
He stared out at the ocean, shoulders shaking. “You even lied to me,” he said, quieter now, like it hurt to say it. “At the beach… when you said you like me.” His jaw clenched hard. “Must’ve been hilarious for you. Watching me get flustered like an idiot.”
He turned back toward Ody, eyes burning through the tears. “Are you having fun, Ody? Huh? Are you?”
Ody opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Mano’s pain hit him so hard it stole every word from his throat.
Mano started to rise from the sand, but Ody shot forward and caught his wrist before he could stand. “You’re right,” he forced out. “I lied to you.”
Mano went completely still.
“But not about that.” Ody pulled him a fraction closer, until there was nowhere else for Mano to look but at him. His chest was rising and falling too fast, panic and something deeper pushing up through him.
He stared straight into those teary honey eyes. “I lied about not kissing you if Anna hadn’t walked in,” he said quietly.
Mano blinked, slow and stunned.
“I would’ve kissed you,” Ody whispered, the confession trembling out of him. “I would’ve kissed you so fucking bad… I like you, Mano.” The words ripped out of him, rough and strained. “I like you so much and I don’t know what the fuck to do about it.”
Everything he’d been fighting against collapsed all at once.
He dragged a shaky hand through his hair, like he couldn’t believe what he was saying. “I’m with Anna,” he rasped. “I know it’s wrong. I know.” He looked away for a second. “But ever since that first kiss… I can’t stop thinking about you.”
Mano’s eyes were still wet under the moonlight, wide and shaken, like he didn’t know how to breathe.
Ody’s heartbeat hammered against his ribs, loud enough that he felt it in his throat. “Maybe I’ll regret this tomorrow,” he whispered. “But I can’t stand seeing you like this. Not because of me.”
Their faces drifted closer, neither of them resisting the pull between them. Ody lifted a trembling hand and cupped Mano’s face. His thumb brushed over tear-damp skin, slow and gentle. “I never played with you,” he said. “Ever.”
His fingers drifted along the edge of Mano’s lips, barely touching.
“Everything I did these past few days…” Ody’s voice faltered.
“Showing up half-naked in your room… pinning you to the wall… teasing you…” He let out a shaky breath.
“I did all of it just to be close to you,” he admitted. “To touch you. To have you for myself.”
Mano stared at him like the world had tilted. His chest rose in uneven, shallow breaths, every inhale catching, every exhale trembling.
Ody’s gaze dropped to his lips, drawn there without meaning to.
Mano swallowed hard, the movement visible in his throat, his pulse racing under Ody’s hand.
“God, I want you so much.” Ody pulled him in and crashed their mouths together.
It wasn’t careful or gentle. It was raw, hungry, almost violent with need, like something inside him had snapped and the only thing that mattered was Mano’s lips under his. His fingers tightened against the back of his neck.
Mano gasped against Ody’s mouth, his body jolting with the force of it. But the shock lasted barely a heartbeat. His lips parted under the pressure, melting into the kiss. His fingers curled into Ody’s shirt, weak but desperate, pulling him closer.
The kiss turned messy fast, all heat and need.
Their mouths collided again and again, deeper each time, their breaths mixing. Ody kissed him like he needed him to survive. Mano kissed him back like something inside him had finally broken open.
Their bodies pressed tightly together as they kissed, Ody gripping him. Mano’s shaky exhale hit his mouth, and he swallowed it in another hungry kiss, rougher, hotter, almost trembling with the force of everything he’d held in.
Ody had wanted this for so long. The need had twisted into something sharp, something that ate at him every night. It had gotten so bad that he let Kash touch him because it was the closest thing he could get to what he actually wanted. Because Kash was there and Mano wasn’t.
It was ten percent curiosity, panic, trying to understand why he suddenly wanted men at all, and ninety percent pure desperation. Desperation for this. For Mano. For the lips he was kissing now, the body he was holding, the boy he could never have.
And now Mano was right here. Right in his hands. Kissing him back with the same shaking need Ody had been drowning in for days.
They stayed impossibly close, the world fading beneath the sound of the waves. The kiss deepened again, tongues meeting, breaths tangling, both of them disappearing into it.
Then, like a punch to the chest, reality slammed into Ody. He had a girlfriend. Anna. Waiting for him back at the beach bar, trusting him.
And this… this wasn’t some confused moment with another girl. This was Mano.
The kiss slowed. Their lips parted, only by a breath. Foreheads hovered close, almost touching.
Ody’s breath hitched, his lips parting like the words didn’t want to come out. His grip tightened where he still held him, like letting go would make everything crash down around them. “What are we gonna do…?”