by Mia Terry
He got a sharp poke on his bicep in response. “I sexed him up great,” Kris said, even as he got up to go out to his boyfriend and other friends. “He’s just a responsible timekeeper.”
Pushing open the gauzy curtains, Ollie followed Kris out onto their shared deck. Jai and Luke were wrapped around each other, dressed in just their board shorts. Ollie automatically noted Jai was looking a little beard burnt on his neck—not to say anything about the beard burn on his chest and stomach.
As a group, they would be welcomed, even if it was just from a purely decorative point of view.
Walking behind them, as they went two by two until his lonely ass brought up the end of the line, Ollie felt suddenly self-conscious.
“Sunglasses,” he blurted out, glad of an excuse which wouldn’t have him arriving looking like the absolute fifth wheel. “Guys, I left them in the back of the car. I’ll grab them and meet you at the pool.”
Luke threw him the car keys from the bottom of the bag they’d stored all their stuff in. Thank goodness for cops. Ollie had heard Jai and Luke disagree on the necessity of bringing all the car and room keys with them. Luke took security more seriously than the rest of them, something Ollie appreciated.
“I’ll meet you at the pool,” Ollie called, before heading the opposite way back down the rainforest path.
“Don’t be too long. There might be an unveiling you don’t want to miss,” Kris called in reply, with a distinctive giggle.
Ollie smiled and lengthened his strides. He had been a gay man long enough to know that even if he didn’t want to sleep with any of the group—and that was something he certainly wasn’t allowed to think about as they were all happily monogamous—he would not turn down having a short—or long—look at the dick of any of his good looking friends. He might be a fifth wheel on this trip, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy the scenery.
Arriving at the car, parked far enough away from the cabins to protect the much talked about peace of the resort, Ollie beeped open the door and grabbed the last bag he’d crammed under the seat earlier. Just as he closed the SUVs door, he turned towards the movement he caught out of the corner of his eye.
Okay, that was something beautiful. The man who was loading an expensive board into the back of a ute was attractive enough that Ollie couldn’t stop staring in his direction. Shoulder-length, dark hair had obviously been wet earlier in the day, and it held the tangled quality of someone who hadn’t had time for a hot shower. Ollie could see long muscular golden limbs under old board shorts and a t-shirt with the arms ripped out. The beautiful man’s leg was covered in fascinating tattoos that had the rhythmic patterning of the islands, although the man’s golden glow looked to have come from the sun rather than any particular heritage. Ollie catalogued all those things even as he knew he should look away, before he was caught staring rudely.
However, that message didn’t seem to be penetrating Ollie’s far too interested brain. The truck the stranger was putting the board into was old enough Ollie could only assume he wasn’t one of the resort’s guests. One week of the exorbitant cabin rate would almost pay the resale price of the older ute.
Almost as if he could feel the force of Ollie’s intense regard, the stranger looked up. Luckily, Ollie’s social training kicked in and he managed a friendly smile rather than continuing to gawp like the slightly creepy man he had been moments earlier.
“Hey, sorry if I startled you. I’m just finishing unpacking my car,” Ollie called over, his voice upbeat.
“No problems,” came the friendly reply. “I’m just finishing up for the day. Is there anything I can help you with?”
Ollie had to hide a smirk at the distinctly juvenile replies his brain supplied himself with. Luckily, he was a mildly civilized grown-up, so he managed not to repeat any of those particularly filthy thoughts. “Not at all,” Ollie said, gesturing to the very lightweight bag in his hand. “Just grabbing something I missed when unpacking earlier. You don’t happen to be the surf instructor?”
He got a laugh in reply and that deep, resonant sound, along with the capable way he was strapping down the large surfboard, had Ollie biting the inside of his mouth.
“What gave me away?” asked the very attractive man. “Yeah guilty as charged, I’m Rhys.”
“Ollie.” If they had been standing any closer than the five meters that separated them, Ollie would have offered his hand. He settled for an awkward wave and cursed himself. Damn it, he was never socially awkward. Just because a man happened to be beautiful and exactly his type didn’t mean all his social ease had to fall by the wayside. “I was planning on getting some lessons while I’m here.”
Ollie was glad he had already made that plan and could make the statement without blushing. The truth was he probably would have signed up for knitting lessons with Rhys, although his eager participation would have been a little more embarrassing.
Rhys finished strapping down his surfboard and took a few strides over to where Ollie was standing. “Usually I’d tell you to book through Robert, but he’s probably doing the rounds being the perfect host next to the pool, and I don’t have anyone booked in tomorrow morning. My preference is reasonably early morning lessons, because the wind is usually better and there are fewer backpacker surf schools cluttering the waves.” Rhys sent a wry look at Ollie. “However, if you are planning a massive night, that won’t work. Hungover isn’t pleasant in the water, and still drunk from the night before is probably not the safest.”
Ollie lifted his hands in surrender. “Yeah, no big blowout in my immediate future. Apart from being a little past the party hard stage, half my group here is sober, so drunken behavior would be more than a little grotesque.”
Rhys smiled as he dug in his pocket for a pamphlet he tossed Ollie. “Sounds good then. My numbers are on this, so text me tonight and I’ll be able to buzz you in the morning to meet here at the car park. Can you survive a 7 a.m. start?”
“I’m a rower, my usual start time is 5.30 a.m.”
“Great,” Rhys replied. “I’ll see you at 6.30 a.m. You’re on holiday so I’ll give you an hour to sleep in.”
“So kind,” Ollie said, only half sarcastically. He did the awkward wave again. “So, I’ll see you then?”
“Definitely,” said Rhys, as he made his way back to his beat-up ute. “I’ll bring a few boards for you so you can choose what’s comfortable.”
Ollie stood there a little too long, as he watched Rhys turn his old truck around with the ease of long familiarity. He shouldn’t be feeling excited about tomorrow, beyond a surfing lesson, but he actually felt a flutter in his belly thinking about seeing Rhys again. He tried to reason with himself, the man might be straight, into hipster twinks—a category to which Ollie would never belong—or the man could be in a committed relationship—like every single other decent man Ollie knew. However, the flutter remained.
Chapter 2
The Byron hinterland had never stopped calling to Rhys, and tonight was no exception. His drive home wasn’t long, but it sure was beautiful. The view from the hill’s ridge down to the ocean was all consuming. There weren’t many places in the world where the curve of the bay also had a panorama of hills behind it. However, tonight even as Rhys took his customary deep breath of thanks for being back home, he was also distracted by images of the charming large blond man who had booked a surf lesson for the next day. Rhys lived in a town where beauty was a dime a dozen and working up at the Acacia Resort meant attractive gay men were also a common sight. He’d never managed the art of being completely indifferent to gorgeous men; the level of cynicism that required wasn’t in his nature, but he had stopped reacting to it. He never let any of his interactions with guests go beyond a light verbal flirtation, and honestly as he got a little older, keeping his distance didn’t even feel like much of a sacrifice. Today though, there was something in this man that made him almost impossible to dismiss from Rhys’s thoughts—part chemical attraction and part the way Ollie so easi
ly denied any intention of hard partying because of the sober status of his friends. The immediate attraction was rare enough Rhys couldn’t help but smile at what he knew his mother’s theory would be, either a meeting in a previous life or a predestined connection. The Byron hills were definitely the place where those kinds of theories abounded, and that was exactly the reason this would never get mentioned in front of her.
Rhys pulled into his driveway and felt his usual happiness that his surf-circuit winnings had allowed him to build such a great place on his parent’s generously sized farm. They were half a kilometer away down the long driveway. It was a short enough distance he could easily walk if he wanted the company and far enough away to guarantee some semblance of privacy. After he’d injured his knee on the circuit, he’d gone home for a brief minute and really realized how much he needed his independence. He adored his parents, adored even his mother’s tendency to be so completely Byron with her natural remedies and spiritual fancies, but he’d spent enough of his life traveling alone he could no longer be that guy who lived at home and got constantly babied. So instead he spent a good portion of his sponsorship money and winnings on a two-bedroom house with an adjoining barn-like structure which had enough room to store his collection of surfboards. It was a collection worth roughly the same amount as a very high-end sports car, so even with the low crime rate in the hills, it didn’t hurt to keep it under lock and key. Knowing tomorrow was going to be an early start, Rhys headed over there now. He wanted to pick out a board that would be perfect for his student. He didn’t question his impulses too much when he headed past the boards he usually chose for students, the boards where he probably wouldn’t cry if they got the occasional ding, and instead went for his rather better long-board collection. He didn’t go as far to reach for the custom-shaped boards that were the jewel of his collection; his own father wasn’t allowed to ride them. But his long-board collection was lovely on its own merits, collected over the years from prominent board makers. For some reason he wanted Ollie to have a good lesson, to feel the joy that came from riding a well-made board down a glassy wave. He pictured the man in his head, his experienced eye gauging height and weight. Blond and built, Ollie was taller than Rhys and probably heavier. While Rhys’s muscles came from wrestling his board against the waves, Ollie’s physique must have come from the rowing he had mentioned and surely quite a few hours in the gym.
* * *
Six-thirty rolled around, and Ollie was waiting for him, in the resort’s car park as promised. Rhys had had to get Robert to rouse more than a few guests from their beds for a morning surfing lesson, so he appreciated the promptness. He also couldn’t help his rather primal appreciation of the man who hopped up into the seat next to him with a warm smile.
“I should have asked if you wanted me to bring you an extra coffee,” Ollie said. “They have the pod kind in the rooms and I scoffed one this morning on automatic pilot.”
“That’s cool,” Rhys said. “I save my first caffeine moment of the day for after I’ve been in the water and can hit up a local coffee truck.”
“I never say no to a second cup of coffee,” Ollie said, his cheerful morning mood so different to most of the guests Rhys had.
They were silent for a minute as Rhys let himself out of the resort’s gates. Because of the nature of the resort, and the intrinsic need for the privacy of the guests, security here was particularly tight. Each person who entered needed a complicated code, and each code could only be used for one car to enter and exit.
Turning right, they headed along the narrow road that would take them to town and then out to the beach. Rhys glanced over at Ollie and couldn’t help but appreciate the way Ollie looked out the window taking in the admittedly very pretty views. Too many people who had done the same drive with him had barely looked up from their phones.
“Have you surfed before?” Rhys asked. He liked to get the formalities out of the way so they could enjoy the serenity of the beach when they arrived.
He sensed rather than saw Ollie’s shrug. “I’ve mucked around with my mate’s boards before. But…” Ollie paused and then resumed speaking with a resigned amusement evident in his voice. “I’m not great at sticking to things I’m not very good at or that I look stupid doing, so I haven’t really tried much else.”
“I can’t promise you’ll be completely past looking uncoordinated by the end of the lesson,” Rhys said.
“I’m sure by the end of the week you’ll be able to get me to the respectable stage,” Ollie said confidently.
Rhys couldn’t help a little flush of pleasure that Ollie obviously intended for this to be not his only lesson. He had a few more afternoon lessons booked in this week, but not many of his clients were willing to get up this early on holidays. Okay, and he had to admit, while he got a quite a few gay clients from the resort, not too many of them perfectly suited his taste for strong-bodied blond men with tall frames.
As they got into town, Rhys concentrated on the road. Byron was a geographically small town with a hell of a lot of visitors. Even in the early morning, he had to keep his eye out for cyclists, drivers, and reasonably reckless people crossing the road, all of whom felt that being on holiday meant the normal road rules just didn’t apply. Rhys loved living where he did, but sometimes Byron was so damn Byron. Chaotic, busy and, the sight of a girl wearing a tutu with a hula hoop around her neck, just confirmed his thoughts. Yeah, that was Byron, fucking crazy.
Ollie’s gentle laugh next to him showed him his passenger had also been keeping a close eye on the passing foot traffic. “Where do you think she’s going with that?”
Rhys flashed an answering smile in Ollie’s direction. “It’s hard to tell. From the glitter in her hair you’d think it was a walk of shame, but you never know, she could be going to work as a barista and the hula is just a walking accessory.”
“Makes the passing traffic on the way home from rowing look very boring,” Ollie commented. “All we get are the morning joggers, all the corporates heading in to work way too early, and the trades getting on the road before the traffic.”
“Half of the Eastern Suburbs are probably getting in their morning exercise here this morning.” Rhys pointed at the steady stream of runners, many of whom were probably heading up the lighthouse loop. They were a well-heeled lot and probably most of them were here from Sydney and Melbourne’s more elite suburbs. “But you’ll find most of the tradies here in the water trying to get their surf in before work. I’m pretty sure if you run a building site in Byron you soon know if the surf is great, your staff are going to be late arrivals.”
Coming out the other side of town, Rhys headed for Belongil Beach. With the northerly swell coming in, it definitely wasn’t the best place to surf in town today, but that just meant, in the pre-seven-o’clock morning, apart from the dog walkers and joggers making their way across the sand, they should have the surf to themselves. The half-empty beach car park he pulled into confirmed the instinct behind his plan.
When he started pulling boards out of the ute’s tray, Ollie was there to lend a hand.
“I think this one should work for you,” said Rhys, as he handed one of his Malibu boards over. This one was probably a little too lovely for a beginner to be mucking around on, but it would be a great board for Ollie, large but not too heavy.
“It’s beautiful, though it is a hell of a lot bigger than the one my friend had me playing on,” Ollie replied. If he hadn’t spent a lot of time with a board, he’d certainly watched enough surfing on TV to carry it correctly. The length of his arms probably didn’t hurt, as he securely held the board to his side.
Rhys easily unpacked his own board. For him it was all muscle memory. “When it comes to surfboards, smaller doesn’t always mean easier to take.” He knew the look he flashed at Ollie came a little too close to flirting to be completely professional, but in this minute he didn’t particularly care. “You’ll get more buoyancy on this type of board and there is a lot more stabili
ty when you stand up.”
“I think I’ll appreciate it not sinking every time I lie on it.”
Rhys led the way over the dune onto the sand. They both stayed quiet for a minute and took in the sheer beauty of the beach. It was a sight Rhys never tired of, even on days when everything else about his hometown annoyed him. This place was somewhere deep within his DNA. The curve of the bay, the ever-changing blues of the water and the sky, and the rise of the lighthouse standing protectively on the escarpment was all very much part of his identity.
A dog barking in the distance broke the spell that had them both staring at the view, and they made their way down to just above the high-water mark and a safe spot to dump their clothes.
Rhys had to severely remind himself he wasn’t here to perv when Ollie stripped down to his board shorts. His body didn’t have the deep tan of a man who spent several hours every day in the sun, but it was still a lovely gold color, and there was definitely nothing wrong with the thick chest and heavily muscled arms which must have come from the rowing practice he had referenced earlier.
Once they were both stripped down to board shorts, Rhys threw Ollie one of his extra rash shirts. “It might be a little tight, but you’ll be glad when your chest doesn’t get irritated from lying on the board’s wax.”
Now if he’d been a slightly less kind man, Rhys might have let Ollie experience a bit of irritation. Then he would have been able to sweep in with some Aloe and maybe help spread some across that appealing wide chest with its dusky nipples and the smattering of blonde hairs running down to an intriguing point into his low-slung board shorts. Yeah, Rhys put a little too much thought into that and found his dick stirring at the idea. Professionalism really had departed the beach.
Rhys started walking towards the water and Ollie paused for a moment before following him. “You’re not going to have me practicing standing up on the sand?” Ollie asked.