Just when he almost reaches the end of the crowded pier, it happens.
James is scanning the pier one last time, in desperate need of a drink, when he catches the eyes of a single man through the sea of bodies. They’re piercing and clear, nearly hidden by half-wet locks of brown curls.
Time stops.
James senses the crowd continue to swarm and move around him while he stands frozen on the pier, eyes riveted and breath throbbing right at the back of his throat. The other man is staring, too. He holds his gaze as people continue to pass obliviously between them, as the air horn sounding the end of the current surf heat blasts across the beach followed by a wave of fresh cheers down on the sand.
James feels the dryness in the back of his throat, feels the aching flush spread up through his neck and onto his face. The man is looking at him like he’s surprised by James’ very existence. Like he’s slowly blinking out of a fog, and James is his lighthouse in the storm. James has never been looked at like that in his entire life. He sucks in a breath of air and moves to step towards the stranger, licks his lips to speak—to say what, he has absolutely no idea.
Then it’s over. The spell broken.
After what could only have been three seconds, the other man is gone, absorbed back into the crowd and leaving James adrift in a weaving swarm of people. He lets out a shaky breath and fights the urge to rub his hand over his scar. His eyes trace the splintered boardwalk railing, the distant mirage-like sand, the glass sea.
For the life of him, he can’t remember the color of those eyes.
Half an hour later finds him back on the beach, frosty bottle of Coke in hand as he spots Rob in the middle of a circle of his oldest surfing buddies—guys James knows by name but barely anything more. He plops down on the sidelines of their group to a more mellow chorus of well wishes and pats on the back, ready to sit back and take a deep breath for the first time since he shot up from bed that morning. He looks out over the roaring waters as the sun slowly bakes the saltwater off his skin. The top of his wetsuit still hangs limp down by his hips, and he burrows his toes under the first layer of hot sand to reach the cool, wet mud underneath.
A group of French surfers walk by, followed by two from Mexico. They all look at James with mild acknowledgement, even appraisal. It makes his skin itch to realize he’s no longer anonymous. He’s almost up there with them. Almost.
“Tough luck on your draw for the final heat, Jimmy,” one of Rob’s friends, Kip, calls over to him.
“Shit, I haven’t even had time to look. Who is it?”
A snicker passes over the group beside him, and a strange warning tingle zips down James’ spine.
“Facing off against that fucking fairy,” says Dean, as he runs his fingers through his long beard and sneers.
Fairy.
James’ heart stops beating in his chest. It takes everything in his power not to look over at Rob, to find solace in the shape of his broad shoulders, or in the way his shorter hairs curl softly at the nape of his neck. He wills his body to stay neutral, digging his heels a bit harder into the earth. The air horn starting the next heat echoes across the beach, and James wishes desperately he could just sit silently and listen to the commentary on his competitors.
Instead, he takes an invisible, slow breath and faces Kip. “Who?” he asks.
Kip finishes taking a swig of cold Budweiser and sticks the frosty bottle down into the sand.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t seen him here yet. That kid from over in Hawaii—Danny Moore.”
A small chorus of girly, high-pitched voices echo the words “Danny Moore” after Kip speaks, causing another round of laughter from the group.
James prickles as a cold sweat breaks out over his skin. His heart’s beating faster now than it had been when the horn sounded at the start of his last heat. He takes a deep breath and stares straight ahead at the waves, eyes unseeing.
He knows exactly who Danny Moore is.
Who doesn’t? The second day James had ever surfed with Rob, Rob got stars in his eyes and told him how he read in Surfer’s Journal that last month a nineteen-year-old kid stole someone’s board, ran straight out into the water in the middle of the First Annual Billabong Masters without even registering to surf, and took on the biggest fucking wave anyone had seen all day like it was just business as usual. Then he’d simply untied the ankle strap, left the board floating in the whitewater, spat his name over to the judges’ table, and disappeared off into the palm trees. It had taken almost six months to track him down to mail him the prize money.
James decides to play aloof. If he doesn’t, he’ll go and sink right down into the sand, small and forgotten.
“Ah yeah, him,” he says, falsely casual. “He actually that good?”
Dean snickers. “Oh, he’s good alright. Not some fucking kook or anything. Won the Billabong Masters in Oahu the first two years they ran it, and they say he didn’t even break a damn sweat to do it. Kid barely leaves Hawaii, only seen him out here once before. Son of a bitch goes after the huge ass surf they got over there in Waimea. Word is he’s going for the world big wave record—”
“But man he’s a miserable asshole, Jimmy,” Kip cuts in. “Thinks he’s Jesus Christ or something looking down on all of us poor losers. And keep fucking far away from him out there unless you want him checking out your ass as you paddle out, sick fucker.”
James swallows hard and slips his shades back over his eyes to hide the panic he knows is showing. He thinks, with an alarm of quiet terror building in his chest, of how careless he’s gotten with his looks at Rob over the years. His stomach fights against the banana and slice of bread he ate earlier before his heat as he agonizes over whether Rob’s ever noticed him checking out his ass as he paddles out in front of him in the early morning waves day after day.
He feels sick. “I’ll keep my ass thoroughly out of sight,” he says with a forced smile after a beat.
James goes to look back out over the waves, studying the lines the other surfers’ boards are cutting through the surf, when he feels his curiosity start to boil over within him. He barely stops from wincing even as his mouth forms the question, “Wait, what makes you say he’s a queer?”
Another friend, Jeff, chuckles deep and ironic in his chest. “Shit, you never heard? Not sure what you’d’ve called it, Jimmy, if you’d been the one to walk in on him with his tongue down some whore’s throat last year in a bar toilet after the Laguna Beach competition. Harry said he almost upchucked all his beer when he saw it,” Jeff finishes with a dramatic shiver.
“He’s lucky we all still even let him surf, isn’t he?” Kip adds.
James’ mind flashes back to the memory of his own hand between his legs just the night before, and the images that had been running through his mind as he tried to stifle his own moans. Miles of sand-covered tan skin rolling through the waves. Long curtains of soft hair falling across his own muscled chest. Deep brown eyes and a stubbled jaw.
His skin burns hot with shame.
Then it occurs to him. “Wait, if he’s such a big shot, what the hell am I doing in his heat?”
“Matt Randley twisted his ankle on his last wave,” Rob explains casually, as if his voice hadn’t groaned other words in the deepest corners of James’ mind last night as he came. “Would’ve been you against him, based on your rankings, but—”
“But that miserable fucker jumped in and volunteered to surf against someone still in the qualifiers,” Kip interrupts. “Like some surfing Mother Theresa. If that doesn’t scream hidden goddamn motive, I don’t know what does. Probably just wants to see someone get crushed.”
James swallows hard over the ice at the back of his throat. Five minutes of fame after his first heat aside, he’s still just a nobody. A local boy getting too old for all of this with a forgettable face, who only got people talking because he seemed to materialize out of thin air two years ago and wasn’t a complete limp noodle on a board.
He has absolutely no
business in hell going up against someone who won the Billabong Masters not just once, but twice. The inevitable humiliation feels like someone pouring thick, wet sand over his face, closing off his lungs from the brilliant clear sun and sky and dragging him back down slowly to the depths. Back to the dockyard.
He startles when a hand with glossy, bright red fingernails clamps down on his shoulder.
“Jimmy, dammit I’ve been looking for you!”
Lori looks flushed, as if she just ran to him across the beach. “You know you’re up in fifteen minutes?”
James curses under his breath and leaps to his feet, almost head butting Lori in the process.
“Lor, you’re an angel!” he calls over his shoulder as he sprints through the crowds to his board, a chorus of “Good luck, you’ll need it”s hitting his back.
The sand falls off the legs of his wetsuit in wet clumps, and he fruitlessly runs a hand through his bangs to try and get out the crunchy tangles. He really needs to wax his board a second time. To stretch and condition a little bit, go for a jog or chug some water or find some damn sunscreen or just sit down and breathe. But instead he’s just sat and listened to everyone tell him all the ways Danny fucking Moore is going to demolish him without doing anything to even try to set himself up for a chance at success.
He flies through his preparations on autopilot, ducking behind a tent to rip off his shirt and zip up his wetsuit top before nearly sprinting to the starting area of shore near the judges’ tent.
He breathes a sigh of relief when his competitor isn’t even there yet. James isn’t ready to face him, to see him face-to-face knowing that every wave out there during the next thirty minutes will have the other man’s name written all over it. There’s no way he can compare the monolithic terror of a man—no, kid—that he’s built up in his mind over the past hour with a real human being.
James stares straight ahead, taking the final minutes before the air horn to study the rises and falls of the water. Trying to plot out the surf breaks and find the best pathways to catch the smoothest barrels. Trying desperately not to think about his competitor’s tongue down another man’s throat in a dirty bar restroom. His hand between another man’s gripping thighs.
James forces air slowly into his lungs and gradually settles into his pre-surf calm. The familiar meditative state of watching the lungs of the ocean rise and fall in beat with the earth.
He considers his actual chances: it’ll just be the two of them in this heat—no fighting with a whole group of other surfers for the best waves. Whoever wins gets 10,000 more circuit points, a reasonably fat pocket of cash, and the ability to say they made it to a second-round qualifying heat of a major international surf competition.
James Campbell would go pro.
Except why the hell a fucking two-time Billabong Masters champion would ever want to boast about making it to a second-round qualifying heat of a major international surf competition makes absolutely no sense. And so James’ careful contemplation of the water turns once again into churning anxiety, his eyes fighting with him to start glancing around frantically for the man who should be next to him in the sand.
“And here we have a special treat down on the shore today, folks. Those of you arriving just now for the afternoon’s Championship heats, you’re in luck, because first here we have Jimmy Campbell, fresh from a primo first qualifying heat and ready to face off in a chance encounter with Oahu’s own champion of big wave surfing—Danny Moore—“
James nearly winces at the sound of his own name booming from the crackling loudspeaker. It feels like being stripped naked in front of the giant, surging crowd. Like he’s in a dream where he looks down after surfing for three hours and only then realizes he’s completely naked.
The announcer sounds like he’s had one too many beers already that day, and not a little bit of heatstroke. The buzzing murmur of the spectators mixes with the static of the loudspeaker and songs from three different boomboxes to create a wave of pulsing sound at James’ back, pushing him forward inch by inch towards the calm of the waves. He grips his long, waxed board harder under his arm and curls his toes into the sand. Sweat trickles down his sides beneath his wetsuit, and his heart pounds blood through his legs.
Suddenly, like a mirage appearing above the sand, someone materializes to his right.
In one calm, smooth movement, the empty space next to James becomes inhabited by a man in long black wetsuit bottoms and, of all ridiculous things, a skin-tight light grey hoodie. The crowd at their backs draws in a collective breath of silent awe and anticipation as the infamous young surfer plants the tip of his board down into the sand. James wants to laugh as he stands there trembling with nerves and sweating in his wetsuit. He must be ten years older than this kid, he learned to surf before this kid was even alive, he’s seen war. James turns his head sideways to get a better look.
It’s him.
James nearly gasps. The man from the pier stands next to him utterly transformed. Gone is the shocked curiosity, the vulnerable, searching stare covered by loose curls and locked on to James’ eyes from the center of a swarming crowd.
In its place is a statue. A God. James knows his mouth is hanging open as the man next to him slowly strips off the hoodie to reveal tanned bare skin, his entire muscled back covered in an intricate tattoo that James can’t quite fully glimpse from where he stands off to the side. He stops himself just in time from dashing over to get a better look.
Danny Moore is no fucking kid.
The loose curls from before are now slicked back hard against his skull, harsh and sleek like the lines of a jet-black Porsche. He has gleaming aviators on over his eyes, and suddenly James would bet anything that the man has no plans of taking them off, even in order to surf. The wetsuit bottoms are so tight they seem to melt into his skin, hugging the sharp curves of his hips and clinging to every muscle.
James’ heart beats double time in his chest as his eyes guiltily roam over the warm, tan skin. The rippling strength as the man bends to pick up his board and tighten his ankle strap. The way a dusting of hot sand drips down his ankles like honey, clinging to the bottoms of his calves. The pure, unadulterated focus that beams out of him like a laser. The slow rise and fall of lungs that have no reason in the world to be nervous.
And James has always known, deep down, years before he ever first shook Rob Depaul’s hand, that men were always gonna be what did it for him, but- Christ. He can barely breathe. The sheer presence of the man next to him dazzles into the air and aches across his skin. He forces himself to look back towards the water, but not before Danny quickly turns his head to look at James.
Even behind the sunglasses, there’s no recognition there. No acknowledgement of the pier. There’s only competition in the harsh lines of his face. The sharp, fierce focus layered over a sizzling burn of adrenaline and competency. Full, pink lips pressed into a harsh line of determination.
That one glance is all James needs to know that he’s about to be absolutely pummeled. He might as well set his board down now, strip off his wetsuit for good, and hop on his skateboard right back down to his thankless job at the docks. Go back to earning paychecks and paying rent and buying groceries instead of playing around in the sand, convincing himself he’s still allowed to be carefree in the waves.
He distantly realizes the two announcers are still babbling about their predictions for the waves and the heat when the air horn blares unexpectedly, starting the heat with an awkward anticlimax.
James flinches at the horn, startled, then quickly regains his wits as the caught-off-guard crowd hesitantly starts to applaud. An invisible relief floods through his chest when he realizes his flinch was too small for anyone to have seen.
He thinks he hears his competitor mutter, “Idiots,” under his breath as they both jog towards the waves and throw their boards down into the water to a fresh roar of cheers, pushing and pulling at the small shoreline swells until they reach the wide open blue.
Jam
es tips the nose of his board down and duck dives under an incoming wave, losing himself to the sensation of the current ripping and writhing at his body. When he surfaces, though, he nearly curses out loud. The ocean looks like smooth glass—not a ripple in sight. The sounds of the crowd have long since faded, even the booming of the announcers disappearing up into the clouds. All James can hear is the soft trickle of water droplets falling off his arms as he paddles. That and the smooth, even breathing of the man ten feet to his right.
“Well shit,” James breathes as he looks out at the waveless water. He perches on his board and tries to count the minutes in his head. Each second that ticks by without a swell feels like another chance at going pro is slipping effortlessly out to sea, just out of the reach of his fingertips, gone for good. The only benefit of waiting there like a sitting duck is the fact that the Danny Moore can’t knock him on his metaphorical ass if the ocean isn’t giving him jack shit to surf on either.
It’s awkward, sitting perfectly still just ten feet away from each other with absolutely nothing to do and hundreds of people watching them not do it.
James clears his throat. “We haven’t met yet. I’m Jimmy,” he says.
His competitor doesn’t even turn his head. “Obviously.”
His voice is rough and deep, like he hasn’t used it in days. The sound of it makes James clench his stomach muscles as his board rocks beneath him. He’d honestly half expected Danny’s voice to be effeminate. A perfect embodiment of the walking stereotype Kip and Dean and the rest all painted so vividly for James back in the sand. He wasn’t expecting melted dark chocolate. The sound of a rich, thick wave slapping hard against a rocky shore.
The water beneath them continues to ripple and roll in soft, slow curves. No waves in sight. James licks his lips against the sun and runs a hand through his drying hair.
The Sea Ain't Mine Alone Page 3