2
He nodded like that was the answer he expected and disappeared into the bathroom.
The shower ran for a long time. When he came out he was wearing the same dark shorts and a different black tank.
He took the sketchbook—the black one, not the red—and sat at the far end of the couch. The pencil started moving again.
I tried to work.
Every few minutes my eyes drifted. The way his forearm flexed when he shaded.
The quiet focus that made the rest of the room feel louder by comparison.
Once, he looked up and caught me looking.
He didn’t smile. He didn’t frown. He just held the eye contact for a beat longer than was comfortable, then returned to the page.
I closed the laptop.
“I’m going to take a walk,” I said.
“Beach is three blocks east,” he answered without looking up. “Watch the heat. It sneaks up.”
I left without answering.
Outside, the sun was a physical weight. I walked until I could see the water, then turned around before I reached the sand.
By the time I got back to the apartment my shirt was soaked through and my head felt tight.
Ryder was exactly where I had left him, still drawing.
He had opened the blinds a few more inches.
Light fell across the tattoo on his shoulder like it belonged there.
I went to the kitchen and drank two full glasses of water standing at the sink. When I turned around he was watching me again.
“You always this quiet?” I asked, surprising myself.
He considered the question the way he seemed to consider everything—slowly, without hurry.
“When there’s nothing that needs saying.”
The answer should have ended the conversation. Instead it left a silence that felt charged, like the moment before lightning. I dried my hands on a dish towel that smelled faintly of the same soap he used and went back to the bedroom.
I closed the door all the way this time.
For a long while I sat on the edge of the bed with my elbows on my knees, staring at the floor. The heat pressed in from every direction. Somewhere in the building a television murmured. Outside, a motorcycle started and faded.
I thought about the way Ryder had looked at me over the sketchbook. Not curious. Not friendly. Just… present. As if he had already decided something and was waiting to see whether I would catch up.
I told myself it was the heat.
I heard him move through the apartment later. Bare feet on tile. The refrigerator opening and closing. I lay still and listened to all of it.
By the second afternoon the apartment had become a trap.
The ceiling fan turned in slow, useless circles.
The air didn’t move so much as thicken. Every surface I touched—doorframe, countertop, the back of the couch—held the day’s heat like it was storing it for later.
My laptop sat open on the low table, cursor blinking in an empty document that was supposed to become another cover letter.
I had written three sentences and deleted all of them.
The words looked wrong in the humid light.
Ryder was at the far end of the couch with the black sketchbook open across his thighs.
He had been there since morning, pencil moving in short, precise strokes.
He wore the same dark shorts as the day before and nothing else.
Sweat had gathered in the shallow valley of his spine, darkening the waistband.
The large tattoo across his back shifted whenever he leaned forward to sharpen the pencil.
I had stopped pretending I wasn’t aware of it.
I stood up too fast. The room tilted for a second.
“I’m going outside,” I said.
Ryder didn’t look up. “Beach is still three blocks.”
“I know.”
He closed the sketchbook with one hand and set the pencil on top of it. “It’s worse out there than in here right now. Heat index is over a hundred.”
“I don’t care.”
He studied me for a moment the way he studied the page—quietly, without hurry. Then he stood. “Give me two minutes.”
I waited by the door while he disappeared into the bathroom. When he came back he had a small bottle of sunscreen in one hand and a pair of cheap flip-flops in the other. He tossed a second pair toward me. They landed near my feet.
“You’ll burn in ten minutes without it,” he said. “Fair skin.”
I almost told him I didn’t need advice. Instead I stepped into the flip-flops and followed him out.
The hallway of the building smelled like someone else’s laundry and old carpet.
Outside, the sun was a physical weight. It pressed on the top of my head and the backs of my hands.
The sidewalk radiated heat upward through the thin rubber of the sandals.
We walked in silence. Ryder’s longer stride forced me to match it or fall behind. I matched it.
Three blocks east the street opened onto a narrow public access path between two pastel buildings.
Beyond it the beach stretched in a wide, glittering arc.
The ocean was a hard, bright blue under the white sky.
Tourists clustered near the waterline under rented umbrellas.
Farther down, the sand thinned out and the bodies became fewer.
Ryder angled toward a quieter stretch and dropped the small canvas bag he had brought. He pulled out two thin towels, shook them once, and laid them side by side. Then he peeled off his tank top in one motion and dropped it on the sand.
I had seen him shirtless in the apartment.
This was different. Out here the light was merciless.
It caught every ridge of muscle along his shoulders, the way the tattoo wrapped the curve of his ribs and disappeared under the waistband of his shorts.
Sweat already sheened across the black-and-gray ink.
He sat down on one of the towels, knees up, and reached for the sunscreen.
“Back,” he said, holding the bottle out without looking at me.
I stared at it.
“You going to make me ask twice?” His voice stayed flat, but there was a dry edge underneath. “I can’t reach the middle. And I’m not spending the next three days peeling.”
I took the bottle. The plastic was warm from his hand.
He turned and presented his back to me, settling his forearms on his knees.
The tattoo filled my entire field of vision.
Up close I could see the fine cross-hatching of the shading, the places where the needle had packed the black denser.
A thin line of sweat ran from the base of his neck down the center of the design.
I squeezed lotion into my palm. It smelled clean and chemical, with a faint coconut undertone that did nothing to cover the salt already in the air. I rubbed my hands together and hesitated.
“Just do it,” Ryder said. “I’m not going to break.”
I set my palms on his shoulders.
The skin beneath my hands was hotter than the air.
Smooth in the places without ink, slightly raised where the tattoo sat.
I spread the lotion outward, following the slope of muscle toward the tops of his arms.
He didn’t flinch. He didn’t speak. The only sound was the low rush of the waves and the distant noise of people farther down the beach.
I worked lower.
My thumbs traced the outer edges of the broken-wing design.
The lotion turned thin and slick under the heat of his skin.
I could feel the individual bands of muscle along his mid-back flex and release with each slow breath he took.
Another drop of sweat slid from his hairline and disappeared under my left hand.
I kept moving, covering the wide plane of the tattoo in long, even strokes because stopping felt more dangerous than continuing.
When I reached the lower curve of his ribs I felt him inhale and hold it.
I pulled my hands away too fast. Lotion smeared across my palms and the insides of my wrists. I wiped them on my own shorts, then realized I was still holding the bottle.
“Shoulders,” he said without turning.
I squeezed more lotion and set my hands on the tops of his shoulders again.
The deltoids were hard under the skin. I worked the cream in with my fingertips, careful not to press too deep.
The scent of the sunscreen mixed with the clean-sweat smell I already associated with him. My pulse had moved into my throat.
He rolled one shoulder under my hands, testing the coverage. “Good enough.”
I capped the bottle and set it on the towel between us. My fingers left faint white streaks on the plastic.
Ryder turned his head just enough to glance at me over his shoulder. His eyes were half-lidded against the glare. For a second something moved behind them—recognition, or amusement, or neither. Then it was gone.
“Thanks,” he said.
Just that.
I sat down on the second towel and pulled my own shirt over my head because the alternative was sitting there fully dressed like an idiot.
The sun hit my chest and stomach like a slap.
I lay back on the thin fabric and closed my eyes.
The heat soaked in immediately. Behind my lids the world turned red-orange.
I could still feel the exact shape of his back on my palms.
Time stretched. The waves kept their steady rhythm.
Somewhere to the left a group of people laughed too loud.
A radio played something with too much bass.
I kept my eyes closed and tried to catalog every reason the contact had felt like more than it was.
Heat. Proximity. The simple mechanics of sunscreen. None of the reasons held.
After a while I heard Ryder shift. The soft sound of him settling onto his stomach. I didn’t open my eyes. I didn’t need to. I could picture the tattoo facing the sky now, lotion already turning clear on the black ink.
My body had started reacting somewhere between the second and third pass of my hands across his back.
I had ignored it on the walk down and during the application.
Lying still made it impossible to ignore.
The thin fabric of my shorts did nothing to hide the fact that I was hard.
I bent one knee up and draped my forearm across my eyes, buying a private second to breathe through it.
Fear arrived right behind the arousal.
Not fear of him. Fear of the fact that the simple act of putting lotion on another man’s back had done this. That I had wanted to keep my hands there longer. That the short, flat “Thanks” had landed somewhere deeper than it should have.
I stayed still until the worst of the urgency eased.
When I finally sat up, Ryder was on his stomach, cheek resting on one forearm, eyes closed.