“They were men, though?”
“They were everyone.”
“And they used you?”
“Hey, no, careful,” he warns. “Don’t believe for a second that I didn’t use them, too. If this is—if you and I are doing anything here, I need you to understand how many of my lows have been my own damn fault. There are things they’ve been right about, and they're—perfect moments don't last, Mateo. Please don't sit here and pretend that's not true.”
This time I cut him off with a kiss, deep and devastating, my tongue dragging against his when he meets me there. It feels too good to stop right away, and we don’t try, desperate little sounds offered back and forth. I’m not sure how much time passes before the awkwardness of being turned sideways on a bench isn’t working for me anymore, the blanket already falling off our laps. I grab it and pile it on the other side of me before I tug at Jamie, needier than I should be when nothing we’ve said tonight makes him any less of a stranger.
But I already know I want him to be more.
I’m not usually this careless. Not that I haven’t had my share of semi-anonymous encounters lasting a matter of minutes, but those were years ago, in situations that called for it. Even before Jamie and I agreed to leave the alley behind, this was going to be something different for me, the spark between us impossible to smother against a stucco wall. There’s danger now in holding too tightly to something that would need room—and plenty oftime—to grow, but when I pull Jamie into my lap, he comes so willingly that I can’t be embarrassed by the moan I pass from my mouth to his. He swallows it before he takes my blanket into his hands and drapes it over his shoulders, both of us shielded from the ocean breeze that’s grown sharper since we first sat down.
“You’re right, and I’m sorry,” I say, moaning again when Jamie bumps my hoodie aside with his nose and sucks the bare skin he’s uncovered. “Perfect moments don't last, but we can love them while they do.”
“In a hammock?”
“Anywhere.”
Jamie leans back at that, and the space between us is cold. “You barely know me, though. Once you get a closer look, you might change your mind.”
He’s not wrong, I suppose. And I’m not sure he means it literally, no matter how much he’s used his hat and my hoodie to hide tonight, but I take the chance I’ve been given now and I look.
Closely.
I’ve given up trying to figure out whether I should recognize him, though there’s some small part of me that pauses to consider the unwanted attention I’d draw at work if he’s anybody the kids would know. But then he lets me push his hood away and run my fingers through his thick hair, and when I hold him there, he doesn’t close his eyes. I use my other hand to trace the arc of an eyebrow, the shell of an ear, the slope of his nose, and the strong line of his jaw. Jamie’s classically beautiful, but as much as I could stare at him until morning, I’m already convinced his looks are the least interesting thing about him. I press a thumb to his chin when I open his mouth for mine, not because I want to kiss this pretty boy, but because I might get to know him better if I can taste him one more time.
And then another thousand times after that.
Eventually, I stop to nuzzle at his neck. “I believe that you’ve played a role in a lot of your lows, but what about the highs? Are you giving yourself credit for some of those, too?”
“You think I’m gonna say no, don’t you?”
“I think it would be stupid of me to assume anything about you is that simple, but I sure hope you don’t say no.”
“Yeah, I’ll take credit for some of the highs, too,” he says, his smile there and gone again. “I think I’ve made a decent number of my own decisions, for better or worse.”
“Agency’s good. It probably earned you some of the arrogant, selfish rap, too.”
“Probably.”
I bring him into another kiss, just because, and then look up at him. “You don’t have to tell me what it is, but of all the highs in your life, is there a number one? A single high that stands out as the very best?”
“Yes,” Jamie answers.
“That was fast. Do you also have a single lo—”
“Yes.”
“And that was even faster,” I say.
There’s a pause when I think he might tell me about them, but then he cocks his head. “Why do I feel like you don’t have a simple answer for either one?”
“Because I don’t have a simple answer for either one. I’ve had a lot of wonderful days—getting my degrees or my nieces and nephews being born. And yeah, obviously shitty ones too—breakups and funerals and that sort of thing. But I couldn’t pick one event. One memory.”
I yawn then, an obnoxiously exaggerated thing I can’t cover well enough. Jamie is quick to laugh at me and then kiss the sleepy smile that must’ve been left behind. It’s too good, again and still, all happyand tired and honest and smitten, so we don’t rush our way through it, even when every clock must be ticking. I need to go home and sleep, and Jamie has to fetch his car from wherever he left it. The beach has been closed since shortly after we arrived, and while I’m increasingly confident nobody will find us here, I’m not sure we have an actual reason to stay.
But I really, really don’t want to leave.