That’s my hoodie now… I found the aloe vera gel brand you love and got some antiseptic cream and ibuprofen. I’m waiting in line to pay, and I’ll be back in 15 minutes.
Ad, Ijust cut my arm on some coral… you’re overreacting…
November 2, 2018
Where are you? I’m waiting for you at the market’s entrance like we said.
Trying to barter with a local for fresh fruit. I think I accidentally agreed to help him move furniture.
What?!
Would you answer the fucking phone?
Sorry, he had a lot of furniture! I got like six kilos of mango, though.
Kilos?
American…
November 5, 2018
You are so beautiful when you sleep. I went for a run, didn’t want to wake you.
Did you for real leave me in bed for a run?
You were sleeping…
Come back.
I’m trying to run here.
*attached photo*
Fuck. You are so hot. I’m on my way.
Now, years later, the photo flickered back to life on the small screen, and Logan felt heat rise in his throat, his pulse hammering as if Adrian might appear in the doorway again. He scrolled past too quickly, as though speed could protect him, but the image clung like fire to the inside of his skull.
There he was, sprawled across tangled sheets, bare and unguarded, morning light dripping across his skin. His body was all heat and shadow, golden tones catching on the ridges of his stomach, the broad weight of his chest, the long cut of his flank, narrowing into the hips. His hair fell in loose disarray, his eyes half-lidded with that lazy, reckless invitation that made restraint impossible.
The camera caught everything: the thick line of his forearm, veins rising faintly beneath the skin, the casual sprawl of his shoulders that made the bed seem smaller beneath him. And lower—his hand curled loosely around himself, head exposed, flushed and wet with the promise of more. Not explicit enough to give everything away, but enough to taunt, enough to command Adrian back to him.
It was more than a photo. It was a challenge, a seduction, a trap. He had known exactly what he was doing.
And Adrian had fallen for it instantly.
Logan’s thumb hovered over the screen, his body suddenly feeling too small for all the weight inside him. His fingers clenched around the phone,around the past, around the unbearable realization that he had spent two years pretending he didn’t miss something that had been a part of him.
That Adrian had still seen him. Even when Logan had left him in the dark, Adrian had still reached out.
Though the weight of his choices and the separation from Adrian still burned in his chest, and the notion of being ‘alright’ felt foreign to him, he once again experienced that surge of hope swelling within. After everything that had transpired, it was the only thing he had left. It was this very hope that compelled him to board a plane, to come here, and to try to explain to the love of his life why he had left him stranded, why he had suffocated their love instead of letting it bask in the rising sun.
Adrian’s gestures—the blanket, the heater—spoke volumes in their quiet simplicity. They weren’t just acts of kindness; they were whispers of something that hadn’t been completely extinguished. Maybe, just maybe, there was still a sliver of a chance to mend the devastation he had caused.
Perhaps Adrian hadn’t entirely locked him out. Not yet.
With trembling hands and a heart burdened by years of unsaid words, Logan unlocked his phone. The faint glow of the screen illuminated his tear-streaked face as he began to type, every keystroke like a pebble dropped into an endless ocean, rippling outward with a mixture of hope and fear.
11:27 PM
