Had no way of knowing that it would unravel everything.
That it would wreck him.
That it would carve itself into his bones as the day his world fell apart.
That, for years to come, he would look back at this date and wonder—if things could have been different.
But for now, there was only this—the quiet rhythm of the waves, the heat of Logan’s sun-kissed skin beside him, the illusion of forever stretching out before them, endless and untouchable.
Adrian nodded, then stood, brushing the sand from his shorts and offering Logan a hand to help him up. “Let’s go back inside,” he suggested, his voice dipping lower. “I’m dying to show you how much I appreciate my gift.”
Logan’s eyes darkened, his gaze locking onto Adrian’s with an intensity that made his cock grow hard in his pants. He could already feel the night stretching before them, filled with music, laughter, and sweat drenched bodies as they rode their pleasure, and moments that would linger like the melody of the song Adrian had just played.
Adrian will play to him all night long, but… after.
Chapter 7
Almost Is Never Enough
There is an ache inside me, deep and boundless, like the hush before a storm, like the tide that pulls and pulls but never returns what it has taken. Something is missing. A piece of me is lost in the vastness, in the space where you used to be. I feel it in the hollow of my ribs, in the silence between heartbeats, in the way my hands reach for something they will never hold again.
I have spent a lifetime at the water’s edge—though perhaps it has only been months, or days, or mere moments stretched thin beneath the weight of remembering. The ocean knows my name now. The wind hums lullabies through the bones of the cliffs, and the waves, tireless and unyielding, lap at the shore as if trying to soothe something raw inside me.
I sit here, watching the horizon blur into nothing, and I let myself rewind. Again and again. You, turning toward me in golden light. You, laughing like it was something sacred. You, eyes full of words you never said. I pick apart each glance, each breath, as if I could find some hidden meaning, some secret thread that might have changed the ending. But there is no changing it. The past is a tide that does not return.
And still, beneath the sorrow, beneath the wreckage of what was and what had been and what could have been, I find something else—something almost like gratitude. Because for a brief and beautiful moment, I was yours.
For a breath in time, I lived in the warmth of your orbit, and that is more than most ever get.
But even the brightest stars burn out. Even the strongest waves must break.
I am tired now, in a way that sleep cannot cure, in a way that is deeper than the body. I have been carrying the weight of something too heavy, something that lingers in my blood and in my bones, something I no longer wish to fight. It is not fear, this surrender—it is relief. It is the quiet acceptance of an ending long written in the spaces between words.
I do not want the struggle, the slow unraveling. I have seen it before. I have seen it hollow out those who fought with everything they had, only to lose anyway. I will not let that be my story. I will not let it strip me down, steal from me piece by piece.
I will go on my own terms, like the last ember fading into the night. I will slip into the wind, into the water, into the hush of things left unspoken.
And maybe, in the place where endings fold into beginnings, where time is soft and love is not something to be lost—maybe there, I will find you again.
June 27, 2020—Seattle, Washington—One Year and Nine Months Later
ThehammeringinLogan’shead was relentless, a rhythmic pounding that felt like someone was driving nails into his skull. He forced his eyelids open, squinting against the dim light filtering through a sheer curtain covering a large window. The room was unfamiliar, a stranger’s world of mismatched colors and thrift-store charm.
His eyes drifted to the floor, an ugly shade of brown that clashed with a round, threadbare carpet. Nothing about this place jogged his memory. He jolted upright, his heart racing, only to cry out as the pain in his head intensified, shards of glass stabbing behind his eyes.
Where the hell am I?
Logan scanned the room, the layout slowly coming into focus. It was a loft apartment, open and spacious, with a small kitchen and a cozy living room visible from the bed. The furniture didn’t match, but the space had a certain warmth, an odd, homey charm. Tangled white-and-blue sheets clung to him, and the athletic pants and T-shirt he wore weren’t his.
Oh fuck.
The realization hit him like a wave crashing onshore: these weren’t his clothes, nor the ones he’d been wearing last night. And he couldn’t remember anything past a blur of alcohol and pain. He tried to piece it together, the pounding in his head growing louder with every failed attempt. He pushed harder, trying to claw his way back to the moments before the oblivion, and then—
Adrian.
The name sliced through the fog. The video. The song. Adrian, sitting under the dim lights of an open bar, his voice trembling with raw emotion as he sang about Logan. Aboutthem. About love and heartbreak and longing. Adrian’s tears, the way his voice cracked with every note, the way his words laid Logan bare. It was too much to process, and last night, the only way Logan had known how to deal with it was to drink. And drink. And drink.
Now, the memory of Adrian’s face in the video made the ever-present ache in Logan’s chest burn with fresh intensity. His breath caught, the weight of everything—the lies, the choices, the years—pressing down on him until he thought he might suffocate. He wanted to curl into himself, to disappear into nothingness. And yet, a small, desperate part of him wanted to find Adrian and hold him. Just once.
