Then, without warning, Adrian pulled him in—his lips brushing against Logan’s, soft and tentative at first, like the gentle swell of the tide, rising, hesitant, yet utterly irresistible.
Logan’s breath caught in his throat, and then it was as if the ocean had reclaimed him, he was back under the current and was being pulled to air, to shore again.
Being rescued, again.
His hands moved, almost of their own accord, circling Adrian’s waist, pulling him closer. And when their lips met, it was a storm, a violent, beautiful collision. Adrian moaned into the kiss, his body pressing against Logan’s with a force that stole his breath. The world around them disappeared, drowned out by the crashing waves of their bodies, the salt of their skin, the heat that burned between them like the sun scorching the horizon at sunset.
Logan tilted his head, his tongue finding the seam of Adrian’s lips, and when Adrian opened to him, he dove in, sliding his tongue into the warmth of Adrian’s mouth, tasting the salt of his tears that still streamed down, drowning in him. One of Logan’s hands slid down Adrian’s side, fingers tracing the curve of his body, and he melted under the touch, lost in the sensation.
Adrian’s hands were everywhere—one holding Logan’s face with a fierce tenderness, the other traveling to the back of his neck, threading through his hair, feeling the pulse of his skin.
Logan took control of the kiss, his body pressing Adrian against the side table with a force that sent a vase crashing to the floor, its shatteringsound drowned out by the urgency between them. The hunger was raw, too strong to hold back, a tidal wave crashing over them both. The kiss was frantic now, desperate—a chaotic dance of lips and hands, each trying to chase the other, to hold on to something they knew might slip away. It was no longer about gentleness, but about needing, about feeling, about chasing the fire that burned between them.
It was about reclaiming the fragments of himself that Logan had abandoned in that tiny cabin on the edge of the world. Pieces left behind like whispers in the wood, echoes in the dust. The feeling he had tried to bury beneath dunes of time, pressing it deeper with each shifting grain, hoping the wind might scatter it forever. But the air—the air he had been starved of for months—was calling him back, stirring through his ribs like a forgotten song, pulling him toward something he could no longer escape.
It was the most alive Logan had felt in months, as if the very air between them sparked. He’d almost forgotten what it was like—how Adrian’s warmth wrapped around him, how his attention was making him feel invincible, how cherished he felt in Adrian’s presence. In that moment, nothing else existed. It was the best feeling in the world, like surf crashing against his chest, pulling him deeper into the current, and he couldn’t breathe without it.
Logan felt the groan slip from his lips, raw and unbidden, like something torn from deep within. Fire crackled over his skin, an electric current of memory igniting every nerve. The taste of Adrian lingered on his tongue, searing and intoxicating, dragging him under. And suddenly, he was flying, weightless, untethered, back to their last moments together. Back to the edge of the world, where nothing else mattered. Where he was free.
He could feel it all as if no time had passed. The quiet mornings wrapped in Adrian’s arms, his breath warm against his skin. The hand on his face, now and then, holding him close, anchoring him. Laughter tangled in sheets, soft and breathless, Adrian’s fingers trailing down his spine, his grip tightening on his hip, pulling him impossibly close, kissing him like a starving man.
The lazy afternoons stretched across the deck of a yacht, the Australian sky endless above them, the sun painting their skin in gold. The salt-heavy air, the distant hum of the waves, the world slowing to the rhythm of their breathing.
Adrian’s desperate moan against his lips. The heat between them, unrelenting, insatiable.
And the ocean… pulling him under, releasing him, the cool air filling his lungs as he surfaced. His gaze searching for Adrian, finding him. His surfboard bobbing at the edge of his vision, the sunlight catching in his hair. And in that moment, Logan had known—the world was good. The world was theirs. They were the tide and the shore, two forces destined to meet and part, drawn together by something older than time, crashing into one another again and again, until nothing remained but the rhythm of their hearts echoing in tandem, the pulse of the ocean threading through their veins, and the quiet thunder of a love too vast to outrun, too wild to cage.
Logan let himself drown in Adrian, just for a moment longer.
He let the sunlight and the sky and the scent of saltwater linger on his body, let the echo of all the days they had lived under the same sun take hold of him like something he’d been waiting for without knowing it. He let the memory of Adrian become everything, let it flood every corner of his soul.The way Adrian held him, like something sacred, like something he had fought for. The way his neck strained from bending down to meet Adrian’s sweet lips. The way he smelled, salt, the shampoo he’d always used, and something that always made Logan feel safe. The way his touch made Logan feel seen. Loved. Known. He memorized the shape of Adrian’s body against his, the heat of his palms, the way his hands and body moved, slow and frantic all at once, like he was both savoring and starving for this. Adrian was gentle and impatient, desperate and soft, all at the same time.
Logan kissed him like it was the last time, because in some way, he knew it was. He kissed Adrian with everything he had left—every broken shard of his soul, every piece he had hidden, every apology he couldn’t say, every ounce of love that had lived like a ghost beneath his skin. He poured it all into that kiss. And he took everything from it too—every breath, every taste, every tremble—because the last time they had kissed, he hadn’t known it would be the last. But now the sky and the sun and the ocean had granted him this one final moment, and he wasn’t going to waste it. He wanted to carry it with him. Forever.
And then the weight returned. The unbearable weight of what had to come next.
His chest seized with it, thick with grief and guilt and all the pieces of the life he’d broken. His hands trembled as they rose, and then—
Logan pushed Adrian away.
The movement was soft, but final. Like tearing a limb from his own body. He watched, powerless, as the hurt flooded Adrian’s whiskey-colored eyes, that sudden flinch like a wound ripped open. And still—Logan didn’t relent. He couldn’t. Not now. Not when every part of him was unraveling.
“Go,” he rasped, the word catching like glass in his throat. “Just… go.”
Adrian’s voice was barely a whisper. “Logan, don’t marry her. I get it, you don’t want to be with me. But don’t do this to yourself... or to her. She does not deserve it!”
How could Adrian think that? How could he believe Logan didn’t want him? Wanting him had been the only truth he dared to speak, the only dream he’d ever whispered into the dark.I want you.
But all he could say was, “Adrian! Get the fuck out of here. I don’t want you here!” The words tore from him like shards of glass, bitter and merciless, a lie sharpened to wound. He lied to Adrian, wounding him with intention, even as the aftertaste of him still clung to his tongue, even as his lips still tingled from the softness of Adrian’s stubble. He pushed him away while the burn of his touch still seared his skin, while the ghost of his warmth still pulsed through him. His heart drummed with the echo of that kiss, yet he forced himself to bury it, to buryhim. Logan could not breathe; his chest tightened, seized, his lungs collapsing beneath the weight of denial.
Adrian’s voice trembled as he tried again, “It’s 2019. You can be yourself. You can love who you love, you can be openly gay—”
“I’m not gay! I’m not!” Logan shouted the words in a frantic attempt to hold himself together, to keep the world from slipping into the deep, dark ocean that threatened him.
Adrian’s eyes were shattered, his lips trembling. “Who are you trying to convince? Me or yourself?”
“Leave now!” Logan screamed, the rawness of it ruining him. “Go back to wherever the hell you came from!”
Please, don’t go... the voice in his mind screamed, but he couldn’t say it. He couldn’t let Adrian see him crack.
