Page 13

Liam

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 15TH

“So, there’s a pool,” was the first thing Liam said when Jonah closed the door behind him. “To be clear, I didn’t choose this hotel with the express intention of partaking, but I thought you should know it’s there, as an option.” Before Jonah could respond, he added, “There’s a solid chance it’s overrun by tourists and unsupervised children and maybe full of pee, and I don’t know if you even like swimming, but I thought...why not offer, you know?”

Jonah raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t exactly come prepared with swim trunks.”

Liam procured a pair of kelly-green shorts from his bag. “I brought extra, just in case,” he said. “You’ll probably be swimming in them—pun intended—but there’s a drawstring, so I’m sure we can make them work.”

Jonah accepted the offering, turning the material over in his hands. “Do you want to go to the pool?” he asked .

Truthfully, pools—or anywhere that encouraged putting your body on display—were not at the top of Liam’s list. But it was there, and they had access to it, and Liam was constantly worried about boring Jonah with their uneventful routine. Jonah didn’t seem like the type to judge him for his body, and, it was worth noting, he had already seen Liam shirtless under less appropriate circumstances. If it was just the two of them, he thought it might actually be fun.

“I’m game if you are,” he said.

In the end, it was not, in fact, overrun by tourists or children, unsupervised or otherwise. The jury was still out on the pee. When Liam and Jonah keyed into the small, humid pool room, they were the only ones there. Liam chose to take that for the tiny miracle it was.

They placed their towels on a faded chair and walked to the edge of the pool. The smell of chlorine was almost strong enough to burn Liam’s eyes.

“I haven’t been swimming in a long time,” Jonah said, looking down at the water. The drawstring on the borrowed shorts was pulled tight, the excess string tucked into the folded waistband. Liam was, very respectfully, keeping his eyes above shoulder level.

“You can swim, right?” Liam asked, suddenly nervous. “I promise it wasn’t my intent to drown you tonight.”

Jonah pointed out the black lettering in the tile beneath their toes. “It’s only five feet deep,” he said. “Worst case, I’ll just stand up.”

Then, to his surprise, Jonah leapt forward with his knees tucked to his chest and crashed through the surface of the water. Liam let out a startled laugh as the tidal wave splashed back on him. Jonah surfaced a few seconds later, water running off of his cropped hair and down his face. His first thought was: his eyelashes look even longer wet.

“It’s warmer than I expected,” Jonah said.

“Yeah, well,” Liam said, sinking onto the ledge of the pool, “you know me. I spare no expense on the luxuries.”

Jonah smiled at him, then sank back beneath the surface. Liam watched as he kicked off the wall and darted gracefully to the other side, surfacing a few feet away from him. “Aren’t you getting in?” he asked.

He had been, before he got distracted by the carefree way Jonah moved around in the water. Wordlessly, Liam hoisted himself off the edge. Jonah was right: it was warm.

Liam couldn’t exactly call what they did swimming . Well, Jonah swam, occasionally dipping beneath the surface to pop up somewhere else a few seconds later. But for the most part, the two of them sort of just...floated, idly bouncing between the walls, running their arms through the smooth texture of the water, bending their legs to keep themselves submerged to the chin.

As they talked, they began to move in a sort of unconscious orbit around each other. Something about the languid movement made it feel like a dance.

Eventually, they resorted to childhood challenges, like who could hold a handstand longer, or who could keep their eyes open underwater without blinking.

The world went quiet when Liam submerged his head. When he opened his eyes, Jonah was there, looking back at him. For a moment, just that moment, nothing outside the silence of that water existed. For a moment, they were just two boys, alone in a pool. Liam found he didn’t want to surface.

Their fingers were pruned by the time a hotel employee knocked on the door to let them know the pool was closed, but he caught Jonah’s reflection on the elevator ride to their room and saw he was smiling. Liam couldn’t help but smile, too.