Logan turned slowly, nodding despite the tumult inside him.
“I’m off to see that everything is set,” his father said, his tone light and dismissive. “You need to meet your bride soon.” He added, chuckling.
As his father left, Cole lingered. “Man, are you okay?” His words held a hesitant concern, but Logan barely caught them. He felt a tremor in his hands as he glanced at his friend. Cole’s eyes widened slightly as they settled on his pale face.
“I’m fine,” Logan murmured, but the words hung hollow, strange, like they’d wandered off someone else’s lips and taken refuge on his.
How many times had he uttered this phrase, a quiet anthem to the lie he’d grown used to carrying? It rolled from his tongue smoothly now, practiced, too easy, like he wasn’t crumbling, like his soul wasn’t splintering under the weight of everything left unsaid. In truth, he was anything but fine. Each “I’m fine” was a stitch in the fabric he used to wrap himself, a disguise woven to keep the ache hidden. It was a thin shield against the urge to reach for his phone in the dead hours of the night, scrolling through Adrian’s photos as if they were a lifeline, trying to touch the ghost of a time when he was whole.
How many times had he lingered there, tracing the images of sunlit beaches and stolen glances, holding his breath as though he might somehow step back into those moments? He could still hear Adrian’s laugh—low, unguarded, echoing over the waves as they’d run together, salt-stung and breathless, in that wild and endless summer. He could still feel Adrian’s presence beside him, a constant reassurance of safety and love, the warmth of another soul, one that felt impossibly, unmistakably his, right there next to him. He’d close his eyes, pretending he was back there, in that fleeting eternity where nothing else mattered. And each time he whispered “I’m fine,” it felt like erasing that memory all over again, betraying the one part of him that still longed for Adrian’s warmth, his smile, his voice.
Yes, sure. He “was fine.”
He turned back to the window, where voices drifted, murmurs from another world—one filled with Sandy’s laughter, his father’s sternness, colors bleeding into the edges of the worst day of his life. He stared outat the garden as though it were an altar, his eyes lifting to the vast blue sky, a silent prayer clawing at his chest. For the sun, for the waves, for anything that had ever held him gently. For the pieces of himself he’d left buried in that July ocean, beneath salt-stained memories and the ache of everything he could never say.
And then his eyes froze.
A lone figure, unmistakable and haunting, wove through the distant crowd, a flicker of shadow against the daylight. Logan’s breath stopped, trapped somewhere between fear and longing.
Adrian.
It was as if the sky, the sun, the tides themselves had heard his silent plea and answered—not with comfort, but with a sharp reminder of what he’d lost. Adrian, the one who had once dived into the depths after him, pulling him from the clutches of the waves when he had allowed himself to sink below the surface. Adrian, who understood the labyrinth of Logan’s soul better than anyone ever could. Adrian, who had shared not just his bed and his body but the very essence of his being for the past months. Adrian, to whom he had surrendered his heart completely. Adrian, who cherished Logan as though he were the greatest treasure of time, more precious than the sky, the sun, and the tide itself.
Was it a trick of the glass? A shadow, a shape cast wrong by light? Was this a dream? A cruel trick of his breaking mind?
And time... it just fractured.
Adrian moved like something sacred through the crowd, a quiet figure slipping past clusters of strangers. His hair, still sun-kissed and wild, spilled softly over his shoulders, just as it had when they were tangled together in summer light, that endless summer. And now, here he was in a tailored,elegant suit, an impossible vision of a life Logan could never touch. The sight of him felt like a blow, a piece of earth splitting open, shifting under Logan’s feet, leaving him unsteady.
Logan’s breath caught mid-inhale, sharp and dry, as if the air had turned to salt. A sudden heat climbed up his spine, collided with a cold that bloomed under his skin. Every nerve fired at once, then collapsed. His fingers trembled, blood draining from his hands as though fleeing the moment. He pressed them to the windowsill, but it felt miles away.Everythingdid—except Adrian.
Adrian stood at the far corner of the garden, eyes scanning the sea of faces, but Logan knew—he knew—that Adrian’s gaze was meant only for him. He could see the quiet grace in Adrian’s stance, the way he held himself like a storm barely restrained, a force of nature dressed in mourning clothes. Logan’s breath stilled, and in that instant, he was back in July, back in the surf, when the world had been as simple as the pull of the tide and the warmth of a hand pulling him to shore.
Jane approached Adrian, her smile wide and effortless, the kind of smile that always seemed to light up a room. But to Logan, it was like a blade sinking deep into his chest. His body was locked in place, unable to move, unable to breathe. His eyes were trapped on Adrian’s face, where the pain was too raw, too exposed. It hit him—sharp, sudden, and violent—and he could feel the burn of it deep inside, an ache that spread through him like wildfire. He wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. His gaze clung to Adrian, drawn to the subtle sorrow etched there, to the quiet weight of everything that happened between them. Jane reached out, offering a greeting, her hand extending toward Adrian, probably welcoming him and creating a conversation effortlessly with someone she might have presumedwas just another guest, not the water and tied and the force that kept Logan’s heart beating.
His knees weakened. Not from fear, not entirely; but from the unbearable, impossible joy that clutched at his chest like a vice. His heart didn’t beat. Itthrashed.
Adrian.
Here.
Now.
A single drop of sweat traced his temple. The suit clung to him like wet paper. And still he couldn’t move, just stared, shaking, as the world folded in on itself.
It was as if someone had torn open the sky and let both heaven and hell spill through. The two halves of his life suddenly stood on the same soil. Logan felt something break inside, something brittle and long-ignored, like a rib that had mended wrong and finally given out.
All his wishes, all his silent, aching prayers—answered. And yet, in the same breath, he wanted to run. To scream. To weep.
Because Adrian was not supposed to be here.
Adrian’s lips moved, and Logan wanted nothing more than to hear the sound, to catch even a whisper, something to anchor him in the present, to remind him of the reality he had buried beneath layers of sand.
He only knew he needed to hear them.
He needed to hear him. He needed to hear Adrian’s voice more than he needed to breathe right now.
And then Jane smiled at Adrian, gesturing toward the hotel, and Logan’s world shifted. The space between him and Adrian felt like an impossible distance, like everything that had happened—everything he had tried to bury—waspressing in on him all at once. His heart hammered in his chest, the rhythm offbeat and erratic. He couldn’t stay here, couldn’t let this moment slip away. With a burst of urgency, he left the room, his carefully constructed mask cracking and falling, slipping like sand through his fingers.
