CHAPTER 19
Ipull up to Tek’s place half expecting him to not answer the door, half expecting him to take his van key back at gunpoint. Neither would be an ideal outcome, but in one of those scenarios I at least get to see him.
After cancelling his appointments and closing the shop, the only words he spoke to me on Thursday night were regarding directions to his house.
Part of me did expect him to invite me in, and an even smaller part was hoping it would be the catalyst for him admitting he’s been a total ass clown, and that he does in fact want me as much as I want him—at least physically, anyway.
But it was no dice for me. He snatched the keys out of my hand, took off the one for the van, and got out without so much as a look back.
I’m starting to understand how Jake Gyllenhaal felt in that damn movie because I can’t fucking quit him.
I know I deserve better, but also, I like knowing that he’d fall apart completely without me.
My god, I'm such a glutton for punishment. Or, more specifically, whore for punishment may be more accurate. Because if the perfect dick exists, it definitely belongs to Jeon Wootek.
I mean, holy shit!
I don’t know if it's morally right to lock down something that perfect. But if it is, I’m the man to do it. The sounds he made while trying to hold everything in were proof enough of that. And the way he tried to remain strong, and rigid, and in control, but melted into me every time I touched him.
He wanted me to ruin him.
To guide him—
No. Fuck it. He wanted me to take over. He damn near begged me for it.
There was no possession in the way he held my hair. There was jealousy, that was plain as fucking day, but I could feel in the weight of his forehead as he pressed it against mine that he's desperate to take the mask off, he’s just not sure yet if I’m strong enough to hold him up…
I get out of the van and start walking to his front door.
His house looks like a cute cottage from the outside.
Just like the ones in whatever Portland suburb it is where the Simpson’s characters are named after the streets.
Niche reference, I know, but it’s the best example I’ve got.
There’s a high, A-frame roof on one side, and porch on the other with white eaves.
In the way my brother’s apartment suits him perfectly, this is villain alter ego shit. Like he’s trying to cover up his life of crime. Or maybe it’s more like dressing for the job you want. Except it’s him buying a house for the life he wants.
My fist doesn't even get a chance to connect with his front door before he opens it.
Standing there in sweats and a ski jacket, he just stares at me; a duffle bag flung over his shoulder that I can tell is half full.
“You gonna step back and let me out?“
I move to the side, and with a smart alec flourish of my arm, I gesture for his highness to exit.
Tek rolls his eyes and I smile to myself.
If he didn't actually want to come he could just tell me to fuck off. It’s only two words. He’s a fully grown man with a business and a mortgage. I would give him his key back if he asked for it.
But he doesn’t.
With an annoyed grumble he locks the front door.
I beat him to the van and slide the side open. The small space between where the mattress ends and the kitchenette starts is already full.
“Only two nights?” he says, but I know he doesn’t actually want an answer.
He tosses the duffle on top of the cooler I bought for the apartment.
“Did you wanna go back in and grab a few more things?”
“Where are we going?”
“I’ll know it when I see it.”
“How delightfully vague.”
I grin at him in the same way I always do.
“What are we doing?”
I reach up to slap my hand on the top of the van directing his attention to my surfboard strapped to the roof racks. “I don’t know what you’ll be doing, but my days are full.”
“So you force me on this thing and I’m expected to, what? Sit there on the beach and watch you?”
My face goes blank like I don’t understand what he’s saying. “I don’t expect you to do anything. You’re a big boy. You can take your bag and your key back and walk inside your house right now, and there’s no way I could stop you.”
There’s a slight flicker of panic in his expression before he looks away. As if he’s scared I really wouldn’t stop him.
I slide into the driver's seat, shut the door, place the van key on the passenger's seat, and wait to see if he’s actually going to climb in next to me. I keep my face forward, both hands on the wheel.
For a long while nothing happens. Then I hear the side door close and I watch as he walks around the front of the van to the opposite side.
I wring my hands back and forth over the steering wheel's leather as he hops in beside me. He doesn’t look at me, or speak, just throws on his seatbelt and glares out the window.
There’s no fight for who should be driving, or any of the same kind of animosity he gave me last week when it came to who could and couldn’t drive his precious van.
He just accepts his position with a cute little sulk.
I don’t know how a person can be so hard and so breakable all at once, but he manages.
I start the engine and pull away with a smile. Breaking him down might not be anywhere near as hard as I thought it was going to be.
We cruise through the outskirts of Broadrock until there are no signs of civilization in the rearview mirror.
I intentionally skip the I-5 turn off and avoid the Pacific Coast Highway as much as possible, preferring to follow the narrower coastal roads.
The kinds where it looks like the snow covered trees are trying to reclaim it back on one side and the ocean on the other.
After about half an hour Tek finally opens his mouth. “How much further?” It's cute how hard he's trying to stay angry.
“Over the border.”
“That’s kidnapping.”
“You got in voluntarily.”
“It’s still illegal to detain a person for more than twelve hours.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“Law & Order.”
“Regular, or SVU?”
“SVU.”
“Well it’s a good thing I’m not a cop then.” I put on the blinker and pull over to the side of the road. “There you go.”
Tek looks at me, but doesn’t move.
I undo my seatbelt and kneel in the driver's seat so I can reach over him to open the passenger door. “Go. An Uber won’t cost you that much from here.”
“So instead of kidnapping me you’re gonna steal my van instead?”
“Consider it my Christmas bonus.”
“And if I don’t get out because we’re in the middle of fucking nowhere?”
“Then you need to quit complaining and just pretend to be my friend for two days. I don’t give a fuck if it’s all fake, but you gotta stop this moping.
You’re thirty-four, for Christ’s sake. You might be a big important grown up with more to show for your life than I have, but I’m a hell of a lot more mature than you are. ”
Tek's mouth does this twitchy thing like he can't decide if he wants to bite me, or bite down on his own tongue. In the end, he just stares out the windscreen, and asks, "Are you even prepared for this?"
"This isn't the first surfing trip I've been on."
"In this weather?"
"I've lived on my own since I was eighteen. I'm not an idiot."
He shrugs like he thinks I might be.
"Trust me. I've got everything I need. You're the one I'm concerned about."
He finally turns to me. "I didn't know what we were doing."
"I gave you a chance to get more stuff. You chose not to."
"That's cause the van has everything I need."
"Does it?" I say ominously, knowing full well that I haven't removed anything.
I gesture toward the door. "Last chance."
Tek faces forward again, crosses his arms, and doesn't move. "Pass."
In a huff, I lean back over him to close the door. "You're a fucking child."
"I hate you."
With my fingers still wrapped around the handle, I turn my face towards him.
I make a point of dragging my eyes down his face to his lips where I let them linger for several seconds before looking at him again.
"Lie better next time." I smirk, then settle into the driver's seat before pulling back onto the road.
The radio is low. Every now and then I flick through to another channel when we’re out of range. Tek doesn’t comment or ask to pick the station, he doesn’t take out his phone, he just watches the snowy coastline pass us by in silence.
About ninety minutes later I veer off onto a small exit, and after following that road for five minutes, I pull up at a roadside general store. There’s one gas pump and the exterior paint is peeling, but the signs say they have beer and food, and that’s what we need.
“Pit stop, old man,” I say as I unbuckle my seat belt. When I’m out of the van I look back to see Tek hasn’t moved. “This is your last chance to piss in a toilet,” I tell him, then close the door and walk inside.
I head straight to the liquor section and contemplate my options. I put my chosen cases of beer on the register and tell them I’ll be back. When I turn around I see Tek in the snacks aisle already holding a pack of Skittles. “Get whatever you want. Just add it to the pile on the counter. My treat.”
I prowl the aisles gathering supplies for the days to come.
At the register I see Tek added graham crackers, chocolate and marshmallows, and it takes everything for me to not tell him how cute he is.
I’m carded for the beer, and all told were in and out of the store in fifteen minutes. No sales tax—cheers Oregon.
Back in the van I pause to check the directions and take a screenshot on my phone because google maps will be no help to me for much longer.
I don’t pull back onto the highway, instead following a long stretch of road that narrows until it’s flanked on both sides by seemingly endless rows of pine, fir, and spruce.
The branch tips are loaded with snow, and it feels like everything is compressing around us like we’re in a tunnel to a secret world nobody else knows about.
Another twenty minutes passes without us seeing a single house or car, and I stop in the center of the single laned road to check my phone again, fearing I missed the turnoff.
Five minutes further on, I’ve slowed considerably, my eyes more focused on the tree line to the right of the van instead of the pavement in front of me. Then I spot it, a break in the trees that no one would notice unless they were trying to find it.
I steer onto the gravel, the van instantly jittering on the loose stones.
The dirt road carves through the woods for a good mile. The trees crowd in, forming a corridor where only sporadic rays of full sunlight cut through. In the rearview mirror it looks like we’ve been swallowed whole by nature, and none of the real life bullshit can find us here.
Eventually the trees crack open and the tires crunch onto a patch of more tightly packed gravel.
Beyond the van there’s nothing but wet stone and driftwood for a hundred yards, then the ocean picks up the slack.
I pull to the side of the small clearing only just big enough for the van and a tent beside it.
I jump out, needing to be amongst it as quickly as possible.
There’s no sign that anyone has even been here before. Not a dent or a fire pit, or tire tracks other than the ones I just made. Logically I know we aren’t the first ones here because it looks just like the pictures I found on the ‘Hidden Beach’ forum, but I’m happy to buy into the delusion.
I step off the gravel onto the pebbles, and see that the shore slopes down towards the water ever so slightly.
Out in the surf, two giant boulders—bigger than houses—squat amongst the waves. And on either side, cliffs gate the beach off from the rest of the world.
The air smells like brine and kelp, and the only sound is the shush of the waves as they break and vanish into the stones.
Even though it’s teetering on freezing, I want so desperately to sprint towards the water and dive straight in.
I hear the rocks crunch beside me, and am instantly comforted by Tek’s presence. He digs his hands into his pockets, but the sulking is gone. I watch as he shifts his gaze from the water, to the cliffs, then up at the sky.
Even though I’m the one who planned this, I’m just as awed as Tek is by the beauty and the silence.
It’s not only the contrast after so much engine noise and incidental music, or the emptiness of the place.
It’s a perfect, impossible kind of quiet that I’ve never felt anywhere else.
Not even when I was a kid and would sneak out to surf before school, back when I’d talk to the waves.
No. This is different. Here, it’s like if I address them directly, they might actually answer me back.
“You wanna check it out?” I ask Tek, nodding towards the ocean.
He shrugs, and we make our way across the slippery stones, skidding down a stretch where the tide has swept them clean.
“How did you find this place?” he asks when we’re close enough that the sea spray hits our faces.
“I have my ways.”
I move closer until the water is only an inch away from reaching my shoes.
I breathe the misty ocean air like it’s my life force.
I glance over my shoulder and see that Tek hasn’t followed me. He’s standing back, just watching me but pretending he isn’t.
“It’ll start getting dark soon… What do you feel like for dinner? Hot dogs, or…”
“Fine.”
I tilt my head to the side. “Fine?”
“I mean, I don’t care. I’m happy with whatever.” He gives me a little smile, then instantly turns away. I do the same and stare back out at the waves.
I hope he can relax out here.
I hope he can see I’m only trying to help.
And I hope that being this secluded, this far withdrawn from Broadrock and everyone in it, that he’ll bring down some of his walls.