The small but visible huff of laughter I earn is enough to make me break into a stupidly fond smile, and I can’t help but want him to see it. Jamie isn’t really looking at me though, and the next time he sends the ball my way, I trap it beneath my foot and give him a way out.
“You don’t have to answer any of that,” I tell him, flicking the ballinto the air and catching it with my free hand. “You’re allowed to have fun without also having to talk about it.”
I put the ball away a second later and close the trunk a second after that, and Jamie shakes his head. “That.That’swhat’s throwing me.”
“That we’re not taking the soccer ball with us, or that I’m not making you talk?”
I step closer to him then, close enough that our arms brush against each other when we leave the parking lot behind and walk toward the ocean, the contact as much for my own good as it is for his. We continue down the sidewalk, passing homes that cost more than I’ll make in my lifetime, and I give him the bottle. He takes a long, grateful sip and wipes water from his mouth with the back of his hand.
“That you’re okay with me having fun without conditions,” he finally says. “There’s a period at the end of every sentence with you. We can eat tacos. We can go for a walk. We can have fun. Most people want those sentences to run on and on, and I’ve never been good at putting the period there myself.”
“You seemed relatively sure of yourself at the bar, but this isn’t actually a habit of yours, is it? Inviting someone to spend time with you.”
“It's never had to be.”
I nod, probably to myself. “You’re the prettiest man most people have ever seen, and they’ll give you a ride before you ever have to ask for one.”
It’s careless, a mistake even before the words have fully fallen between us, and Jamie’s suddenly further away from me than I want him to be. I’m not even sure which part hurt him the most—only that something did, and I don’t know how to take it all back. My next step falters, and then I stop entirely, because maybe we can return to the parking lot or the taco truck or the bar. I’m still holdingthe blanket close to my chest when he notices the distance between us and turns to face me from a few feet away.
“Mateo—”
“No, it’s—I’m sorry.”
“For calling me pretty?” he asks. “I led you halfway there, didn’t I? Maybe I should’ve worn a better hat.”
I smile and sigh, somehow simultaneously. “Or maybe I shouldn’t have been looking so closely.”
Jamie stares at me for a long time, and I shouldn’t stare back, breathless at the sight of him in something I’ve worn a hundred times. He’s not at all small, but my Baja hoodie is a size too big for him anyway, and while I’ve been happy to get peeks of him from beneath his cap all night, I’d rather see him curl further into my clothes if he has to hide at all. As it is, it’s later now and predictably dark, except for the streetlights and a moon kind enough to bless me with a glimpse or two, but I’m struck again by something familiar about the man in front of me.
I’d made a probation joke earlier, but it’s far more likely that he’s famous for something I haven’t figured out. I’m almost certain he’s not a tv or movie star, and I couldn’t say why except that he doesn’t strike me asthatkind of celebrity, and I’ve spent years with the children of plenty of them. He’s beautiful enough to be a model, but I’m not sure I’d know if I’m walking shoulder to shoulder with a guy who’s tried to sell me cologne during an unskippable ad, and I shrug off the idea now. He could be a singer, maybe. Or anyone in a band, I suppose.
Of course, he could be nobody but Jamie, and I could ask him exactly that.
I swallow the question because I don’t think I want to know.
It almost looks like he swallows something too, but then he toys with the water bottle in his hand and cocks hishead. “Do you still want to go to the beach with me?”
I clear my throat and take a step closer to ask the same question I’ve already answered twice. “Do you have somewhere else to be tonight?”
“Don’t want to be anywhere else.”
His honesty makes me ache, and I can’t do anything but keep walking toward it despite the longing that will leave me hungover tomorrow. We’re quiet when we reach the end of the street, but I make some sort of sound when he leads us to the left, surprised that we’re not going to the main stretch of beach further to the right.
And then wholly unsurprised when I think about it again.
“Not a fan of the late-night beach crowd, huh?”
“Probably mostly teenagers doing the end-of-summer thing. Music, fire pits, cheap beer, first kisses,” Jamie says.
“Other than the cheap beer, it doesn’t sound like a terrible night,” I joke, but he’s right that we should avoid whatever is happening down there, for reasons I hadn’t considered and won’t thank him for now.
“It’ll all get shut down anyway,” he mumbles. “The beach closes soon.”
With my phone in my pocket, I haven’t cared what time it is, but Jamie’s probably right, and it only makes me wonder how he thinks we’ll get away with something after hours. We’re approaching a much smaller area now, but it’s subject to the same rules, and I can’t imagine we’ll find it empty when we make the last little turn toward it. Still, I’ve gone this far, and I know I want to go all the way, every typically cautious part of me left in an alley miles from here.
Or at the bar with a half-drunk Sam Adams.
I hear laughter and the faintest bits of conversation just as other people come into view—probably twenty or so sprawled on blankets or kicking at the water as waves fade into nothing—but when I lookat Jamie, he seems unconcerned by their presence. Our steps get clumsy in the sand, and if the silence didn’t feel so right, I’d ask for the chance to go barefoot here. We keep moving though, and after another minute, I understand—and absolutely don’t.
