Page 34 of We Are Just Us

He wasn’t scared. He was just careful. Always so careful.

He let out a sharp breath and untied the drawstrings around his shorts. In as confident a manner as he could manage, he dropped them, kicked them aside, and sat quickly on his half-folded towel. He lay back. Planted his feet. Let his knees fall apart.

The air brushed skin that had never seen daylight. It was a bizarre, intimate sensation.

“You’re still all clenched up. You have to let go.” He shifted onto his knees beside Kieran. “Can I—?”

Kieran nodded before he could think about it. He could say no and Rory would stop. The problem was, he didn’t really want him to.

Rory’s hands, sweaty and sure, came down on the inside of Kieran’s thighs. He pressed, gently but firmly, spreading Kieran open to the sky, lifting his legs until Kieran had nowhere to hide.

A choked cough escaped Kieran’s throat.

Rory’s thumbs were a breath away from touching him, stroking the trembling skin of his inner thighs.

“There,” Rory murmured, his voice husky. “Now breathe. Let the sun in.”

“How long,” Kieran asked carefully, “does one…sun?”

“Thirty seconds,” Rory said. “It’s not a lifetime commitment, man.”

“Okay,” he said, before he could reconsider. “But if I combust, that’s on you.”

“Deal.”

Kieran focused on the sky. On breathing. On not thinking about how exposed he was.

It was happening before he could admit it to himself. There was a distinct internal shift—the kind his body made without consulting him first. A sudden rush. A traitorous sense of oh no, not now, followed by oh god, it’s already too late.

He stared at the sky like it might intervene.

Nope.

There was no pretending this away. No subtlety. No polite ambiguity. His body had made a clear, confident decision and was standing by it. Literally.

Cool, cool, cool.

Kieran let out a slow, defeated breath.

You absolute menace, he thought at himself. We are outside. In daylight.

He risked a glance downward and regretted it.

This was a full, unmistakable response—his body reacting as if it had been handed a live wire and decided to grab it with both hands.

Which meant this wasn’t just an erection. It was a declaration.

His brain began filing incident reports.

Cause of incident: sun, vulnerability, Rory

Location: public, unforgiving

Witness: Also Rory

“Oh my god,” Kieran muttered under his breath.

He became acutely aware of every sensation at once, the temperature of the sand, the sun pressing down, the breeze moving across his skin in a way that suddenly became overwhelming. His body was loud. Enthusiastic. Absolutely not taking cues from his desire to remain chill.