4

“Theeeooo.” Carter’s voice is gravelly and low. Close.

My eyes flick open.

Shit, where are we?

A bed.

Specifically, I’m clinging to the edge of the mattress in our room, burrioted up in the sheet, skin clammy. My throat is dry, and I cough as I squint at him, contacts in again .

What happened last night?

My memories are annoyingly fuzzy.

Carter’s manspreading next to me, legs wide, one arm flung out, no sheet, and a sleepy grin on his face.

Why does he look so happy this early in the morning? At least that’s good—I must not have done anything weird.

Although… I slept in the bed with him. I dig through my memories, trying to latch onto last night. Fragments, drinks, stumbling. Laughing so loud someone yelled at us to be quiet. Carter tripping, and me helping him up.

Talking . His amber eyes as we laid here, white sheet between us, his toes brushing mine when he spread out his legs.

What did we talk about?

Why didn’t I stumble over to the ballsack couch?

I swallow hard, blinking to clear my eyes.

Jesus, I hope I didn’t?—

“You look cute bundled like that.” His smile extends—still sleepy but so sweet somehow. “Like a big pink worm. Except with blue eyes. Do worms have eyes?”

“Not really,” I say distractedly. “They have receptors.”

What did we talk about last night? It’s all jumbled together. I remember… football. I remember… him listening. Jesus, I hope I didn't cry.

He blinks at me. “What are receptors?”

He seems normal. He’s just looking across at me, hair sticking out everywhere, lines from the pillow crossing his cheek, a tiny hit of drool in the corner of his mouth that he wipes away with the back of his hand.

“They use them to tell if it’s light or dark,” I say. “If they’re underground or not.”

“Cool.”

“Yeah.”

He grins. “I wish I could tunnel underground.”

“You do?”

“For sure. Why not? I’d get to class that way.”

“Pop out in the Quad with dirt all over you?”

“Yep.”

“Okay, that would be kinda cool.” I take inventory of myself. I’m wearing some boxer briefs, but there’s no sand between my toes—or anywhere else. I must have showered?

Did I shower with him again? Seems like I would have remembered that. He’s still spread out next to me, dark green boxers twisted, and his… well, his dick is doing what dicks do in the morning.

I clear my throat. “Uhhh, do you remember much of last night?”

Say no. Please, for the love of God, say no . Don’t say I cried.

“Bits and pieces.” He flexes his thighs, then adjusts himself, stretching his dick to the side before letting it go. It lobs back to center, half hard and— “Yesterday was fun as shit. I don’t remember leaving the beach, but I remember dancing a bit. And something with D and—?” He shakes his head. “I mean, I don’t remember that. But I remember coming back here and talking.”

I am tense.

He smiles again. “It was cool, hanging out. I think we must have talked for hours . That never happens to me. Most people don’t…?” His smile fades, that usual light in his eyes disappearing with it.

There are about fourteen different points to what he just said that I need to unpack, and I’m attempting to do it all while forgetting the way his dick is pointed straight at me and being worried about whatever I said last night, but I’m stuck on the way he ended that sentence.

“Most people don’t what?” I ask him.

His lips press, his cheeks tightening, and it’s strange that it makes his dimple pop out too. I don’t know if I’ve noticed that before. Or maybe I haven’t seen him wearing this expression before? “I mean, it was hard stuff to talk about. Knowing the draft is coming next month and how you’d planned your whole life for this monumental moment. And now…?”

My chest compresses, my throat heating. Moisture wets my contacts.

“I didn’t mean to say something wrong,” he says in that quieter voice.

“You didn’t. Finish what you were saying.”

He blows out a breath, fanning my face. “Nah, we can just talk about you.”

I frown. “We always talk about me.” Way too much. As I think back, it’s all been about me over the last six months. Maybe it was all about me before that too. So cocky and full of myself.

That makes me feel really shitty. It’s not the reality either—I absolutely want to talk about Carter.

“Tell me,” I say, inching my sheet-burrito closer.

“I guess… I’m like…?” His forehead wrinkles. “I’m like a… wiener dog.”

“A wiener dog?” Holy shit, I bite back a laugh. “Shit, I’m sorry. I just didn’t expect that. How in the world are you like a wiener dog?”

He shrugs a shoulder. “You’ve seen how they walk, right? Ears waggling, tail straight up, body swaying side to side.” He sways his hips, dick bouncing.

“You don’t walk like a wiener dog, dude.”

“I know. It’s just… they’re kind of silly.” He ruffles his hair. “I think maybe a lot of people kinda look at me like that. Just… most people don’t take me seriously.” He pauses. “But you do.”

I stare at him. “Of course I do.” My skin is tight from all the sun and salt water yesterday, and I’m suddenly very aware of the space between us, the way his hand splays out, palm down, on the sheet.

“You’re exactly who you should be,” I say.

So easy with himself.

So sure and confident. Open and friendly. Happy. Brave. Energetic. Honest.

Carter is who he is. All the time.

And he’s staring across at me, his hand still flat between us, his chest moving with an inhale.

“Theo,” he puffs out my name softly.

My pulse echoes in my throat. This need flutters. To sneak a hand out and… touch him. Brush my fingertips up his chest. Along his jaw. Over the rise of his lips that are usually hitched in a smile but are softened right now.

I shake my head. I can’t think about this. I twist around until I’m free of the sheet, then set my feet on the floor, my back to him, cool air grazing my clammy skin.

I’m screwing with something I never wanted to screw with again. Jesus, what am I doing? I scrub my hands through my hair, staring at where the carpet dead-ends into the wall.

The sheets rustle behind me. “You always make me feel good about myself.” His voice is rough, quiet.

“You should feel good about yourself.”

The bed creaks as he moves, the silence heavy. “I’ve got a surprise for all of you today.”

“Yeah?” I swallow hard.

“It’ll be fun.”

I push off the bed. “I can’t wait.” My knee aches, but I hide my reaction, knowing that he’ll worry about it. “You’re a good friend.”

I cross to the bathroom before he can respond, shutting the door behind me. I take a piss and then wash my hands. I deal with my contacts before setting my palms on the counter, fingers splayed out like his were on the sheets, and I drag my eyes to my reflection.

Blue eyes.

He’s right, my eyes look so blue in Clua.

“It’s a surprise, dude.” Carter tells Rory as we climb out of the Uber van. “Do you not understand the meaning of ‘surprise’?”

“An unexpected event.” Rory tugs up his sunglasses, settling them on top of his head, his hair bright copper in the sun, freckles running across his nose. “One that typically creates a rush of noradrenaline in the brain, heightening the experience of whatever causes the startling moment.”

“Yes, exactly . We’re gonna noradrenaline the shit out of ourselves!” Carter practically throbs as he flings his arms out toward the building behind us. “Look!”

I laugh.

Fuck yes .

“Waverrunners?” Dorian slaps Carter on the shoulder so loud it echoes. “My man.”

“I know, right?” Carter’s grin takes up his entire face, that dimple so deep that something could get lost in there. “Good for your knee?”

“For sure.” Is that why he chose this? Something he knew I could do?

I mean, he paid for this by pooling all of our extra money from the one bed situation. Which reminds me that Rory and Dorian are sharing a bed too. I side-eye Dorian. I wonder how that’s going.

But anyway, we’d talked about surfing and parasailing, and of course they should go, but I wasn’t sure where I’d be at with my knee, and I have to admit I was putting on a brave face. Although it’s not like Carter would have noticed and done this for me.

Right?

Carter’s already bounding to the building, almost knocking over a postcard stand and catching it at the last minute. Inside, the guy behind the counter is talking and pointing out the window toward the twin two-seater Waverunners softly rocking by the dock.

Jesus, I can’t be on that with Carter. My dick snuggling in his ass crack. Or him pressed against the back of me, his dick nestled in mine? All that vibration. Rocking on the waves. I feel a pang of heat just thinking about it.

No way.

I nudge Dorian. “Wanna ride together?”

He blinks and glances over at Rory. I suppose that I always pair off with Carter, and he goes with Rory, but there’s nothing which says that has to happen.

Then Dorian smiles, slapping me on the back and seeming to warm to the idea. “We’re gonna be scorchers out there. So fast the hair’s gonna strip off our balls.”

I laugh. “Sounds slightly uncomfortable, but I’m game.”

The guy shows us to lockers where we can keep anything we don’t want to get wet. As I shove my phone into the locker, a text comes in from Maxim.

I work all day, but I’m off tonight.

I slam the locker shut without responding, an uneasy twist in my stomach.

Regardless, twenty minutes later, it all disappears as I crank the throttle. The Waverunner slams against the waves, and I forget my knee. Forget my life. Football. Maxim.

That thrill that I’ve rarely felt since football feeding the adrenaline through my entire body.

It’s intense out here. The sun is bright overhead, the salt from the water drying on my reddened shoulders. Dorian whoops behind me, and I turn, glimpsing the other Waverunner.

Rory’s driving with Carter on the back. Rory’s more careful than me, but Carter is making up for it. He’s standing, arms flung in the air, and laughing this big, mouth-wide-open laugh that bounces off the waves. There’s no chance that he won’t get bucked off, fuck if he seems to care.

He’s all in. Loud and euphoric and over-the-top. Chaotic and big and way too much.

Exactly who he should be .

I’m grinning at him when a sudden play of silver light behind him catches my eye.

Wait—not light. A fin? I squint against the sun. There are hardly any sharks around Clua, but possibly dolphins and sunfish. And whales. And it’s March—still close enough to winter for whales to be around here.

I slow and point toward it. Rory notices, turning them too.

We come to a stop, rolling on the waves. And all stare toward where I’d pointed, eyes peeled.

“I see it!” Carter yells just as a slip of silvery gray crests, then disappears, a shadow underneath the water.

My mouth tips open. Holy fuck, I know what’s out there.

“A blue whale.” I stand on the rocking Waverunner. “That’s a fucking blue whale .”

“For real? Guys!” Dorian shouts to Rory and Carter.

We’re bobbing on the waves, holding our collective breaths because the thing is massive . Dark in the water and swimming toward us. My nerves ratchet, my pulse rocketing.

I glance over at Carter, and his eyes meet mine. A wave rolls between us. Our Waverunners suddenly seem tiny.

But I don’t want to stop looking at him.

I want to see his reaction to the whale. I want to see him break into that dimpled smile.

But he’s not looking at it. He’s looking right at me, sunlight glinting in his hair, sunglasses over his eyes.

The shadow moves under us, somehow graceful even at its size, silent under the water, and then Carter looks down and laughs.

It’s underneath us.

This behemoth of the ocean, more enormous than I’d ever imagined, swimming right below us, streamlined and silvery, almost like a mirage.

It passes silently, sliding over onto its back and then rotating onto its stomach as the tail passes underneath.

I’m not breathing. Not thinking, just spellbound.

This is life . I feel like I’ve forgotten that. I’ve been too consumed with what isn’t to remember what is.

Sunlight ripples underneath the water, and then the whale changes speed, darting forward, that perfectly shaped tail rising, so damn close that?—

“Theo!” My name echoes from somewhere, and a split-second later, the force of the tail shifts the water, and we’re under.

Salt water fills my mouth, shockingly cold. I can’t tell which way is up, and I have this weird weightless moment before it clicks where I am. I swim, my head popping out of the water, kicking hard as I suck in air. Shit, where’s everyone else?

Dorian’s next to me, sputtering out water. Our Waverunner rocks a few feet away, toppled over.

I spin until I find the other Waverunner, upright, with Rory in the driver’s seat and…. Where the fuck is Carter?

Jesus. “ Carter !” His name roars out of me, like every muscle I have is made of that word.

And then he’s suddenly there, his hand latching onto my arm, water trickling down his nose, sunglasses gone, and this look on his face—unlike I’ve ever seen.

His amber eyes are dark, flicking around my face, that dimple non-existent.

He’s not smiling. Not the Carter that I usually know.

My heart thumps like it’s hollow, my relief all encompassing, my hands trembling as I tread water around him.

He’s still clasping onto my arm, and I have to kick carefully so I don’t ram him in the shin.

“Carter,” I say, because he hasn’t spoken, and he’s still just looking at me like that.

I shiver, water tugging on my board shorts as I kick, cooling my armpits and drying on my lips.

“You guys okay?” Rory calls.

Carter’s eyes burn a path, a swath across my skin, as he looks from my face down to my chest and then back, and then he yanks me against him, his jaw brushing against mine, his fingers firming around my biceps.

I squeeze my eyes shut, bobbing in the water with him, feeling his chest moving, my mouth filled with the taste of seawater, my nose with the smell of his sunblock.

He grips onto me. “I need you to be okay.”

My heart stutters. A heat filling my throat.

“I need that too, Carter.” My arms keep treading automatically, my chest compressing. Warmth bites at my eyes.

His eyes move around my face, his forehead wrinkling. What does he see? “We should get back.” He pauses. “Bro.”

Bro .

“Yeah.” I nod, glancing toward the overturned Waverunner.

I can’t look at him right now.

I swim to the Waverunner, a deep pain lacing into my knee as Dorian and I flip it upright and then crawl on.

For the rest of the day, Carter and I are two islands, with a gaping ocean between. And I think that later, when shit gets clearer, it’s gonna tear through me. It’s gonna hurt more than I ever guessed it would.

So, I try to get back into it—or at least part of me does—I laugh and I say the things I’m supposed to say.

I try to come back to myself.

But it’s like the person I come back to isn’t fully there. There’s a gap, and I’m tired of it. I need to fill it. I need to get back. Even if it’s only for a little while. Even if it’s temporary.

I came to Clua with a plan.