———
We promised ourselves we’d keep it slow. That was the deal, the only way either of us could handle the possibility of everything going to shit, one thing at a time, no surprises, no headlines.
But there are some nights where the universe decides to put its thumb on the scale and see what we’ll do if it tips.
Tonight it’s Alki Beach, which is just a long, flat strip of sand and driftwood with the Olympic Mountains lurking on the horizon, snow-topped and sharp, daring you to look away.
The wind’s up, like always, and the salt air catches in my throat and makes my eyes sting, which is as close to emotion as I’m willing to admit.
Darius picked me up in his car, which smells like gym socks and the cherry air freshener he thinks covers it.
We barely talked on the drive, just let the radio fill the space, some classic rock playlist that makes me want to be old enough to hate it.
Every time I looked at him he had one hand on the wheel, the other drumming a nervous pattern on his thigh, but his jaw was set, eyes straight ahead, like he’s lining up a penalty shot he can’t afford to miss.
We park at the north end, way past the restaurants, in a lot full of sand drifts and broken bottles.
The city’s behind us, the world’s ahead, and for a minute it’s just us and the hum of distant traffic.
He kills the engine and glances at me, eyebrows raised, the universal “you sure?” expression. I nod, and we get out.
It’s colder than I thought, the kind of wet chill that slides under your clothes and makes you regret every dumb decision you ever made.
Darius is wearing that old hoodie, the one I stole from him after the run last week, but tonight he’s got a jacket over it, and he looks… safe. Solid.
Like the kind of guy you’d trust to keep you from drowning, even if you’d never say it out loud.
We walk down to the water.
The sand is hard and uneven, littered with driftwood and seaweed and the occasional burst of foam from a rogue wave.
There’s almost nobody out here. A couple dog walkers in the distance, a kid with a metal detector, a pair of gulls fighting over a dead crab.
The city lights shimmer on the Sound, but the rest of the world is dark, the mountains a jagged shadow against the last pink of sunset.
Darius sits first, right on the cold, wet sand. I hesitate, then drop next to him, close enough that our knees touch.
I pretend not to notice, but my skin remembers. My skin keeps a running tally of every time we’ve touched, every brush of shoulder or nudge of hip or lingering glance in a crowded room.
He picks up a handful of sand, lets it sift through his fingers. “You ever think about the first time you did this?” he asks, voice low.
“Sat on a beach?”
He shakes his head. “No. Like, the first time you let yourself want something and didn’t kill it right away.”
I think about it. I think about the eighth grade sleepover when Jake Halpern dared me to look at porn on his dad’s laptop and I ended up way more interested in the “wrong” part of the videos.
I think about every time I told myself I was just lonely, just broken, just looking for a reason to believe I mattered.
“Can’t say I remember,” I say. “It’s like trying to find the first breath in a hurricane.”
He laughs, a real one, and the sound is so much like a dog barking that we both lose it for a minute. When he calms down, his shoulder drops, the line of his body angling toward me.
The world goes quiet. Just the slap of the tide, the wind in the grass, the thud of my heart trying to beat through my ribs.
We sit that way for a long time. I want to make a joke, but there’s no room for it, not with the way he’s looking at the water and not at me. I want to touch him, but the pact is still too new, the rules too strict.
Then he says, “Can I…” and doesn’t finish.
