Archive of Our Own

Love comes quietly,
finally, drops
about me, on me,
in the old ways.

What did I know
thinking myself
able to go
alone all the way.

-- Robert Creeley

The unincorporated community of Rye Beach, New Hampshire had its own zip code, separate from its immediate neighbor: the town of Rye. That little strip of coastline, only half a mile in length, had its own identity even though it barely deserved one. 

When Adam arrived in the town of Rye with a suitcase and a headache, the first thing the receptionist at the inn said was it’s too bad you’re here in the off season, the beach is usually so beautiful and Adam had smiled and nodded and taken his room key from her without saying a word. He acquired a newspaper off the hall table in the lobby, The Portsmouth Herald, and tucked it under his arm as he made his way to the stairwell. The inn was quaint, a family-owned establishment on a street called Love Lane, and possessed the kind of small-town charm that would once have made Adam sick to his stomach. The floral carpeting was garish, the receptionist was listening to alternative rock at a less than polite volume, and the elevator was out of service. He climbed the stairs and unlocked the door to his room. 

It was adequate but ugly, just the basics, with a king bed and a little coffee pot and a cramped bathroom. The bedspread had seen better days, and the television remote was nowhere to be found, but Adam didn’t plan to sleep much and he certainly wouldn’t be watching TV. He balanced his suitcase on the rickety luggage rack and changed into a thick sweater and jeans. Without unpacking the rest of his clothes, he pocketed his room key and went down the back stairs into the parking lot. The ocean crashing was audible from the street, and Adam headed towards the sound. 

Rye was small, with a population of 4,000 odd, but Rye Beach was even smaller: home to two Catholic churches, a golf course, a post office, and for the foreseeable future, Adam Parrish. 

As he tripped down the street in his sneakers, he saw very few people. The ones he did see were aloof, salt-of-the-Earth types in rain jackets and sweaters and practical shoes. It was chilly, but not cold, and it had just rained; puddles gathered on the faded pavement of the main thoroughfare. When he came up to the beach, he saw a rocky coastline, choppy waves, and few fishing boats meandering their way across the water towards the large pier that sat behind one of the two Catholic churches. He took off his sneakers and socks, and stepped over the rocks onto the beach. The sand was dense and wet, packed down by the rain, and he walked easily down to the shoreline. He paused to roll up his jeans, and then, with his shoes in hand, he stepped into the surf. 

Adam had been to the beach only once in his life, on a quick weekend trip with a few classmates a lifetime ago in undergrad. It had been a picture-perfect little seaside town on the Carolina coast designed with tourists in mind, but it was earmarked by its proximity to Appalachia: bright blue plastic Adirondack chairs with frameless mirrors propped up on the seats, piles of sandy sandals on the front porches of the cookie cutter pastel painted bungalows, barefoot boys skateboarding and girls in jean shorts riding bikes. He’d been irritated by the sand and the heat and the crowds, but then he’d walked into the ocean, and he’d understood the appeal. He got the worst sunburn of his life on that trip, but it had been worth the hours he spent within a stone’s throw of warm, salty water. 

This beach was nothing like that beach. The water was freezing cold, gray, and angry, churning like a sick stomach. A fierce tide pulled the sand from beneath his feet until it was uneven and crumbling, and he was forced to take a step forward to find solid ground again. Waves crashed against his shins, soaking his jeans up to the pockets, and he shivered in his wet denim. As he stood, contemplating the horizon and shifting his weight every so often to keep from falling over, clouds rolled over the sky. 

“Hey!” a voice called. 

Adam looked up. He had spent a long time training himself to react appropriately when a man raised their voice in his general direction, and he was proud of the way his stomach clenched only slightly. He didn’t even flinch. Slowly, Adam turned to look behind him. The voice hadn’t come from the shore. 

“Hey!” the voice called again, and then Adam looked out at the water. 

The shouting was coming from a little fishing boat, anchored at the nearby pier. There was a man on the bow, waving his arms overhead to get Adam’s attention. It was impossible to make out any distinguishing features beyond the general shape of him, clearly a man, a large one, in waterproof boots that went up to his knees. 

“It’s a rip current, idiot!” the man shouted. “Get the fuck out of the water!” 

Adam took a step back. He wasn’t really in the water, and he had no idea what a rip current was, but this man seemed to think it was serious business. 

“Don’t make me come over there!” the man called, and Adam rolled his eyes, but he turned and walked out of the surf and up onto the beach. 

He stumbled up over the jagged edge of the shore and back onto the street. His feet were still damp when he put his socks back on, and as he knelt to tie his shoes, someone walked up to him. Adam looked to the side and saw waterproof leather boots that went up to someone’s knees. He looked up. 

It was the man from the boat. He was wearing a knit gray hat, pulled low over his ears, and a thick jacket with shearling lining. Underneath the jacket, his shoulders were broad; he was barrel chested, sturdy and solid, and he had calluses on his palms. His cheeks were bitten red from the cold and the saltspray, and his eyes were very blue, like cut glass. Adam considered the fact they might just look so blue because everything else was gray: the sky, the hat, the weathered wood of the pier, the asphalt. This man represented the only spots of color in the whole town in the red of his cheeks and the blue of his eyes. His Carhartt overalls were snug around his thighs, faded and worn at the seams by years of washing and wearing. A keyring hung from the hammer loop on his right hip. 

Adam stood up. Neither of them spoke for a moment. 

“Ahoy, sailor,” Adam said, finally, without humor. “Where are the professor and Mary Ann?” 

The man rolled his eyes, but then he laughed and said, “Oh, you’re stupid and funny! You just might be the catch of the day!” 

Adam resented being called stupid by a man he’d barely met. If anything, he could be called ignorant by some stretch of the imagination, simply because he didn’t know it wasn’t safe to be in the water. Despite his rudeness, the man held out his hand for Adam to shake. He smelled like saltwater and fresh air and lemon Pine-Sol, a scent Adam was surprised to recognize but could never mistake for anything else. 

“Lynch,” the man said. “Ronan.” 

“Parrish,” Adam said as he shook Ronan’s hand. It was callused, chapped red at the knuckles, and warm against Adam’s own. “Adam.” 

“What were you doing in the water?” Ronan asked. “Didn’t you see the flag?” 

He jerked a thumb over his shoulder towards the pier, and Adam looked over to see a large red flag billowing at the top of a pole. 

“I’m new in town,” Adam said with a shrug. 

“Red flag means bad,” Ronan said slowly, as if Adam was a particularly difficult child, and he was grinning fiercely; it was a mean expression, like he was delighted by the opportunity to be patronizing. “Yellow is also bad, but not as bad as red. Green is good.” 

“Got it,” Adam nodded, dryly, and then he returned Ronan’s unpleasant grin with equal disdain. “Thank goodness you were here to explain that to me. I would never have been able to figure it out on my own.” 

Ronan laughed, a short, sharp bark of amusement, and pulled off his cap. He had a buzz cut underneath, stark and clean at the edges. His ears were chapped red, too. 

“Just don’t go back in the water today,” Ronan said. “It should be fine tomorrow.” 

“Thanks,” Adam said. 

“Sure,” Ronan ran his hand along the top of his head, and then he hesitated. 

It was time for one of them to say okay nice to meet you and then walk away, but Adam didn’t think Ronan was really that nice, and he had no interest in lying to him. Still, Adam had manners, like every good Virginia boy should. He wasn’t sure if Ronan deserved them, but Adam found that sometimes being excessively polite could be just as disarming as withering disdain. Instead of playing games with Ronan, Adam waved, then turned and walked away. 

Ronan didn’t follow him, and Adam didn’t look back. He went back to his room, peeled off his sandy socks and soaking jeans and then turned on the shower. While he waited for the water to get hot, he stood naked in front of the mirror in the small, dimly lit bathroom. There was a crack in the glass running along the top corner. Adam was not surprised to find that he looked just the same as he had in the mirror at home. He was narrow, tall, and not smiling. In the winter, his hair was always darker, and he had fewer freckles, but he had no objections to his own appearance. For a moment, he stared into his own eyes. They were blue, like a darkening sky, and appeared deep-set against the neat cut of his cheekbones. He didn’t have a kind face, or a particularly pretty face, but he thought he was interesting to look at and never had any trouble finding people who agreed. The running shower filled the room with steam, and soon his reflection was indistinguishable in the clouded glass. 

He took a shower, and went to bed early, because he didn’t want to bother with dinner. He slept, and he dreamed that he was standing in the ocean with his legs buffeted by waves. The tide pulled the ground from beneath his feet one grain of sand at a time, until he was forced to take a step forward. 

The next morning, Adam read the newspaper. According to the Classifieds, there were only a few jobs available in town: day laborer, waitress, dental hygienist, dog-sitter. There were even fewer options for places to live: a room to rent for $35 a day, a family home available only for the off-season, and the room at the inn he currently called home. He wasn’t sure what he had expected from a town of no import just a few weeks before New Hampshire winter was set to arrive, but it discouraged him all the same. Instead of ruminating on it, he went for a walk. 

This time, he didn’t head straight to the beach. There were only a few directions to wander in, so he went towards the second Catholic church. It was a Sunday, and Mass had just been let out. Families gathered on the sidewalk and the steps of the building, children in knit caps and bright red mittens, parents shaking hands with the priest and waving goodbye to friends and neighbors. Adam shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and started to shoulder through the crowd, but then the big wood doors of the church opened, and out came Ronan. 

He was wearing a heavy sweater and dark jeans and a leather jacket, with sensible lug-sole boots, and he was holding his gray hat in his hand. As fate would have it, he looked up and saw Adam. His eyes widened in surprise, but then his face split into a delighted, teasing grin. He held up a finger, the universal sign for wait, and then thundered down the stone stairs and across the lawn to stand on the sidewalk in front of Adam. 

“Parrish,” Ronan said. “Right?” 

“Yeah,” Adam said. “Ronald, was it?” 

“Haha,” Ronan annunciated, not laughter, but still wryly amused. “What are you doing in this part of town?” 

“Keeping an eye out for flags,” Adam said, and he lifted a hand to his brow and craned his head upwards to look at the top of the church. “I saw some red and white striped ones on the post office back there. What do those stand for around these parts?” 

Ronan peered over Adam’s shoulder towards the post office at the end of the block, and then he laughed. It was a loud peal of laughter, revealing strong white teeth and creases at the corners of his eyes. Adam had almost forgiven him for their abrasive introduction the day before; if Ronan laughed or blushed or made another snide remark, Adam could probably consider it all water under the bridge. 

“Are you just visiting?” Ronan asked. 

“Yeah,” Adam said, and then he shrugged. “I heard this was the off-season, so it seemed like a good time to drop in. I’m not big on crowds.” 

Ronan eyed him oddly, like he couldn’t quite tell if Adam was joking or not, and then he said, “Are you big on breakfast?” 

“I have been known to eat breakfast on occasion, yes,” Adam said. “Are you asking if I’d like to have breakfast with you?” 

“There’s a diner near here,” Ronan pointed to somewhere behind Adam, vague and unhelpful, and then he fell silent while Adam considered the offer. 

He had nothing else to do with his morning, and Ronan had a nice laugh and nice shoulders and had gone out of his way to speak to Adam twice so far. Adam’s standards weren’t usually much higher than that. He hadn’t come to Rye expecting to meet somebody, he had, in fact, come to Rye to be left alone, but breakfast didn’t sound too bad. 

“Sure,” Adam said. “Lead the way.” 

Ronan shoved his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket and they fell into step, side by side, meandering down the sidewalk towards breakfast. There were no rain clouds, and the late autumn sunlight barely felt warm on Adam’s shoulders as they walked. Only a few businesses were open: Sunday was still a day of rest in small towns. He knew that back home there would be more things open, coffee shops and gyms and stores, and the streets would be clogged with traffic. Sunday drivers, as his boss would call them. On Sundays, Adam would always sequester himself in his apartment and try to pretend the Monday looming ahead of him didn’t fill him with dread. 

The diner was open, and it was small, with little two-seater tables shoved up against the windows and a few leather booths in the back. Behind the counter a young girl with pigtails was chewing on the end of a pencil while oldies played on the stereo. It was kitschy, like a television parody of a small town diner, red checkered tablecloths and novelty salt shakers and a Kit-Cat clock on the wall behind the cash register. A chalkboard on the far wall outlined the daily specials, and a Bible verse had been doodled in chalk alongside the Pie Of The Day, which was blueberry. 

“Jesus Christ,” Adam muttered as Ronan led them towards a booth at the back. “Is Barney Fife a regular?” 

Ronan shot him a look and said, “Could you try drawing comparisons to things that aren’t television shows from thirty years ago?” 

“Futue te ipsum et caballum tuum,” Adam said primly, and he slid into the booth. 

“Podex perfectus es,” Ronan shot back, and then he waved over the waitress. 

Adam wasn’t sure if he should be impressed or annoyed that Ronan apparently understood Latin well enough to know when he was being insulted and to respond in kind. Ronan was grinning, obviously fiercely proud of himself and pleased with Adam’s clear surprise. He quickly took stock of what he knew about Ronan so far, and struggled to match it up with the shape of the man in front of him. Arrogance and intelligence combined, kind but not necessarily friendly, and for some reason, interested in what Adam had to say. 

Their waitress was a cheerful middle-aged woman wearing a flowered dress and an apron but no nametag. She greeted Ronan by his first name when she brought them their menus and two glasses of water. When she came back a few minutes later, she had a steaming pot of coffee and two brown porcelain mugs. 

“Can I interest you boys in today’s specials?” she asked politely as she poured Adam a cup of caustically hot coffee. 

“No,” Ronan interrupted. “We’ll both have the blue plate.” 

He did not say please or thank you, and he did not smile, but the waitress beamed at him as though he had just called her darling and asked after her husband’s wellbeing. She took their menus and the coffee pot and disappeared into the kitchen. Adam gave her credit for her unflappable good cheer in the face of Ronan’s blatant hostility. 

“Do you come here often?” Adam asked. 

Ronan leaned back in his booth seat and regarded Adam for a moment. He was, at that moment, cold and closed off, and his face was impossible to read. They sat in silence, assessing the other. 

“Is that a line?” Ronan finally asked. 

“No,” Adam said. “The waitress seems to know you.” 

Ronan leaned forward over the table and said, in a low, conspiratorial voice, “The waitress doesn’t know I play for the other team.” 

Adam laughed lightly at that, because it didn’t surprise him to hear. Clearly satisfied by Adam’s response, Ronan sat back in his seat and started opening packets of sugar to dump into his coffee. He stirred the sugar in enthusiastically, a series of discordant clangs against the rim of his mug, and then offered the spoon to Adam. 

Adam, who took his coffee black, declined. Ronan shrugged indifferently and dropped the sticky wet spoon onto the tabletop. 

“So,” Ronan said, once he’d sipped his coffee and set his mug back down. “What brings you to Rye?” 

“I think I’d rather hear your answer to that question, first,” Adam said, because it didn’t make any sense that Ronan would be here, alone, in the middle of this forgotten town. 

Ronan shrugged again, as if it didn’t matter to him which of them ended up doing all the talking. 

“My dad died,” Ronan began, and then the waitress came back with bowls of fresh fruit and slices of hot buttered toast. 

Adam slid his grape jelly over the table towards Ronan, who took it and slathered it onto his bread liberally. 

“My dad died,” Ronan repeated, mouth full of toast. “Left me and my two brothers a whole lot of money. My older brother went mad with power. I dropped out of school because I thought it was bullshit, and when I turned eighteen I stopped returning his calls. Two years ago I slit my wrists,” and then Ronan held up his sweater covered arms, as if to remind Adam what and where wrists were, “So he put me in a hospital, and the staff there made me return his calls as part of my rehabilitation,” that word was said sarcastically, with air quotes on one hand, but he didn’t look upset as he continued, “Turns out he’s married, he’s worried about me, he misses me, and he wants me to come home. I said fuck no and spent the rest of my commitment researching creative new ways to piss him off.” 

“So you bought a fishing boat,” Adam guessed. 

“Sure did,” Ronan grinned, and he poked his fork into Adam’s fruit bowl to take out all the grapes. “He blew a gasket. It was a joke at first, living out here, being on a boat, but I started to like it after a while. I don’t really catch anything, but boats are a lot of work. I’m never bored. The weather here sucks, though. I probably only have another year or two in me before I sell the stupid thing, but I’ll use that time to come up with something else he’ll really hate.” 

“What about your other brother?” Adam watched as Ronan started picking out the strawberries, and then he pushed his entire plate of toast and fruit towards him. 

“Thanks,” Ronan said, and then he waved his fork eloquently as a fond, genuine smile overtook his face. “He’s a saint. He came down last summer and I taught him how to tie knots and notch lobsters.” 

The waitress came back with two big plates of food, sunny-side up eggs, salty, crispy bacon, a short-stack of blueberry pancakes, hash browns, and another bowl of fruit for Ronan. Adam noticed that particular bowl was mostly grapes and strawberries, with none of the bullshit honeydew or cantaloupe filler. Ronan did not say thank you when their plates were dropped off, but Adam did, and the waitress smiled at him. She cleared away their toast plates and refilled Ronan’s empty coffee cup, and then they were alone with their breakfast. 

Adam’s stomach chose that moment to remind him he had skipped dinner the night before, and Ronan lifted a wickedly amused eyebrow at the sound. 

“Easy there, Parrish,” he teased. “Nobody’s gonna take it from you.” 

“Oh, fuck off,” Adam muttered, but he bit back a smile as he unrolled his silverware and cut into his eggs. “Is it my turn to share?” 

“Sure,” Ronan had set about the task of pouring another handful of sugar packets into his second cup of coffee. 

“Okay,” Adam said. 

He ate a small, tidy bite of eggs, chewed slowly, and then took a deep breath. 

“I had a nervous breakdown,” he said, and he said it just as casually as Ronan had said I slit my wrists. “I realized I don’t like my job, and I was tired of corporate fundraisers and networking and playing golf every other Sunday with big clients. I spent my whole life trying to get where I am now, and it took me getting there to realize I fucking hated it. So I cashed in all my PTO and bought a bus ticket to the first place my travel agent had never heard of. Nobody knows I’m here. My boss, my therapist, my secretary. Nobody. They think I’m in the Bahamas.” 

It was a partial truth. Two weeks before he’d packed his life into a suitcase and gotten on the first bus to Nowheresville, Adam had stopped returning his therapist’s phone calls. We should work on your emotional avoidance, his therapist had said, and then Adam had started avoiding him, which was poetry in motion, in Adam’s opinion. It was the funniest possible thing he could have done in response to that topic being broached. Adam didn’t suffer with all the grandiosity and aplomb of a saint actively being martyred in a public square, even though he sometimes wished that privilege might be afforded to him. Just once, Adam would like to make a big deal about something. He would like to do whatever the Adam Parrish equivalent was to slitting his wrists or blowing part of his inheritance on a fishing boat just to piss someone else off.  

“Damn,” Ronan said. “You’re on the run. You’re just like Harrison Ford.” 

“If I’m Harrison Ford, does that make you Tommy Lee Jones?” Adam asked wryly. 

“Nah,” Ronan said with a teasing tilt to his mouth. “I’m the dead wife you only see in flashbacks.” 

“Really?” Adam cocked his head curiously and looked at Ronan. “Is that what you want, Ronan? To be somebody’s wife?” 

“Shut the fuck up,” Ronan said, but he blushed, a brilliant, beautiful pink that spread out over his cheekbones and to the tips of his ears. It was incongruous to his nature, a soft, surprising betrayal of what assumed could be a deep sensitivity he did his best to keep carefully hidden behind a veneer of bravado and contempt. 

Adam didn’t push it; he’d been trying to make fun of Ronan, but his words had their desired effect. Ronan was handsome, and Adam had never held himself back from a good time, but Ronan’s response had surprised him. He was not what Adam had initially thought he was, and suddenly, Adam felt like taking this very seriously, whatever it might become. 

The music playing seemed louder, more oppressive somehow, aggressively saccharine songs about corvettes and slow dancing and good old-fashioned puppy love. Ronan had finished his food and was eyeing him carefully from the other side of the table. His fork and knife were placed on his plate in the signal for finished, an obvious lingering remnant of a privileged childhood that Adam immediately resented him for. He’d spent hours of his free time learning how to act at fundraisers and partner dinners, big nine course meals with six forks and three glasses and little dishes of frozen palette cleanser. Those things were second nature to Ronan; he’d done it without thinking, and it was likely if Adam pointed it out to him he would move his silverware to avoid anyone thinking he had manners. 

“I’m only good at one thing, and I hate it,” Adam said. “I guess I was hoping some time off might help me clear my mind.” 

He didn’t share the fact that he was terrified that he might never snap out of his little episode. It worried him not to have a plan, because Adam always had a plan. He’d stuck to a plan his whole life, a neat little checklist of seemingly impossible goals, all hurdled, not without his fair share of sleepless nights and desperate, angry tears. His plan had been clear cut since sixth grade. Step one, survive his childhood. Check. Step two, get a good education. Check. Step three, start making a lot of money. Check. Step four, work his way up in his field until he possessed the kind of position that would afford him the kind of power he’d always wanted. Check. Step five, enjoy it. He was failing terrifically at step five. He had stalled out on the plan and was now eating bacon in a diner in New Hampshire with a perfect stranger while his boss thought he was at an all-inclusive getting his rocks off with a barfly in a string bikini. 

“What is it you do?” Ronan asked. 

“I’m a white collar defense attorney,” Adam said glumly. 

Ronan whistled, long and low, but it was unclear whether he was surprised or impressed. 

“My brother’s an attorney,” Ronan said. “He was in politics for a while. Now he’s in litigation. I think contracts. I’m just waiting to get the phone call from Capitol Hill telling me he took a swan dive off the Lincoln Memorial.” 

Adam wanted to say is this the brother you claim to hate or if you’re worried he’s suicidal maybe you could sell him your boat, but he didn’t. He had hated contract law in school, so he said that instead. 

“I hated contracts,” Adam said. “Do you want the rest of my pancakes?” 

“Fuck yeah,” Ronan reached across the table and took Adam’s plate. “Where are you staying?” 

“At an inn nearby,” Adam said vaguely, but Ronan seemed to accept that, and silence lapsed between them. 

The music had faded into the background again, replaced by the faraway sounds of conversation coming from the kitchen and bells tolling from the churches. Ronan finished Adam’s pancakes in the quiet that had lapsed between them, and the waitress brought them their tab: hand-written on a little pad of paper that said PLEASE COME AGAIN! She had drawn a smiley face at the bottom. Adam dropped a ten dollar bill on the table, and Ronan matched it with one of his own. 

“Want to see my boat?” Ronan asked. 

“Fuck yeah,” Adam said, and Ronan grinned again, vibrant and contagious. 

Adam tried to parse what he knew about Ronan as he followed him out onto the sidewalk. It was hard to imagine someone with a smile like that ever wanting to die. Adam knew if he’d succeeded, somebody else would have bought Ronan’s boat, and nobody would have warned Adam away from the riptide. Had Ronan killed himself, Adam would’ve eaten breakfast alone that morning. Underneath his leather jacket, Ronan was corporeal and alive and still smelled like lemon Pine-Sol, but he smelled a little musty, too, like the inside of a church. 

They walked back towards the church, and Adam was about to ask did you forget where you parked the boat because the ocean is that way when Ronan turned a sudden corner, and walked up to the driver’s side door of a glistening red BMW 507 tucked into a barely legal spot against the curb. 

He unlocked it and said, “Get in.” 

Adam stopped himself from running a palm over the roof of the car as he opened the door, but once he was in the passenger seat, he couldn’t stop himself. The leather of the dashboard was smooth under his hands, all black, with tortoiseshell accents on the radio and the gearshift. 

“Holy fuck, Ronan,” Adam said. “Didn’t they only make like five hundred of these?” 

“Yeah,” Ronan said smugly. “My dad had one of them.” 

“Wow,” Adam said, and he watched the delighted, self-satisfied smile on Ronan’s face get bigger as he turned the key in the ignition and put the car in gear. 

It was a comically short drive to the harbor where Ronan’s boat was docked, but Adam enjoyed every second of it. The radio was on, playing something alternative and electronic and unfamiliar, and Ronan drummed his fingers on the steering wheel in time with what must have been the bassline. He didn’t get higher than third gear before he was pulling into the harbor lot, into a space with the word LYNCH spray painted in garish red letters on the washed out asphalt. 

Ronan set off towards the perimeter of the harbor without a word, and Adam followed him closely. It was Sunday, everyone’s day off, so everyone was on their boat. Men sat on bows and leaned over railings, most with beers in hand before noon. Some of them wore casual boating clothes, deck shoes and hats, while others wore waterproof overalls and faded plaid shirts. All of them were strong, all of them were smiling, and none of them looked at either Adam or Ronan as they passed by. 

It was colder by the water, with a wet breeze that seemed to pierce through the weave of Adam’s sweater to send a chill racing up his spine. He ground his teeth together so he wouldn’t shiver and hurried down the warped plank walkway towards Ronan’s dock. 

Ronan’s boat was clean, all white with gleaming chrome accents. The name AURORA was painted on the bow in flowing, green script. An enormous flower bloomed from the last A in the name, something brilliant and impossible, unlike any flower Adam had ever seen at a street florist or in a park. 

“Isn’t she a beauty?” Ronan asked proudly, and Adam paused for a moment before replying. Ronan was haughty by default, but he seemed more excited to share the boat with Adam than he had been the BMW; the car was important to him, but the boat was clearly something else. 

“She is,” Adam said, and he crouched on the edge of the dock to run his fingers over one of the vivid, painted petals of the huge, impossible flower. “What kind of flower is this?” 

“I don’t know,” Ronan said with a shrug. “I saw it in a dream.” 

Adam pressed his thumb into the flat, painted pistil of the flower, and stood up. “Who’s Aurora?” 

“My mom,” Ronan said, and he didn’t elaborate. He jumped off the dock and onto the boat. The movement shifted the collar of his jacket, revealing the dark curl of a tattoo on the skin of his neck. Adam’s eyes caught there and held, and then Ronan said, “Come aboard.” 

The tour was brief; it was a small vessel. Ronan kept it clean and organized, an outward expression of care and attention to detail that surprised Adam. There was a winch for the nets, a little above-deck cabin, an outboard motor, a small pile of rope and a large pile of netting, a huge steel cooler with three locks on it, and a bench on the exterior deck. Ronan pointed it all out and explained its purpose briefly that’s a net you catch things with it and Adam responded with sarcasm where appropriate so where do you fly the skull and crossbones from Edward and earnest approval where it seemed to be expected. 

Ronan didn’t offer to take them out on the water, but Adam was trying very hard to keep his teeth from chattering, and he didn’t really want to go out on the water. Instead, they parted ways on the dock because Ronan had boat things to attend to, and Adam wanted to go inside where it was warm. He walked from the harbor to the inn, and stripped off his damp clothes to take a hot shower. This time, he didn’t linger in front of the mirror, and when he was dressed, he went back to the newspaper. 

There was a crossword inside, easily finished, nothing at all like the Times. He read the few local interest pieces, and he noted the minimal advertising and amateur quality of the photography. It was charming in a way, like a town from a postcard or a movie. Adam knew he couldn’t build a life here. He was going to have to go home eventually, back to his sterile high rise apartment with granite countertops and a TV bigger than the coffee table in his childhood home. From there, he wasn’t sure what he would do. He wasn’t sure if he could stay where he was, helping rich men hide from the law, attending cocktail mixers, going home to an empty apartment with all the lights off and the fridge empty. 

Adam folded up the newspaper and went down to the front desk to ask for a TV remote. There were only six channels available. He settled on a black and white movie, frenetically paced, a dozen quips a second, and somehow, the day passed. 

The next morning, Adam went for a run. It was cold, no longer chilly, but truly cold, and he had only brought shorts to run in. He put on a crewneck and his shorts and ran anyway. His lungs ached and his legs were bitten by the wind, but he pushed through. It didn’t rain, but the air was wet. There were only a few streets available to him, all with obvious, unoriginal names like South Road Central Road Sea Road Ocean Boulevard, and when he doubled back to the inn, there was a bright red BMW 507 in the parking lot. Ronan was waiting for him in the lobby. 

“What the fuck,” Adam said immediately the second he laid eyes on Ronan. He was still breathing heavily from exercise, but he was pissed off, too. “Did you follow me last night?” 

“What?” Ronan seemed briefly taken aback by Adam’s sudden temper, but he quickly schooled his shock into something glacial and impassive. “No. You said you were staying at the inn.” 

“No, I did not,” Adam said. “I said an inn.” 

Ronan stared at him incredulously for a few long, blank seconds. 

“There’s only one inn,” Adam realized. “Sorry. Hello. You caught me off guard.” 

“Yeah,” Ronan’s face was still blank. “Should I go?” 

“No,” Adam said, but then he gestured to himself and grimaced. “I need a shower.” 

“Give me a second,” Ronan said, and he went up to the counter. The receptionist gave him a pen and a piece of paper, and then Ronan came back and handed a folded up note to Adam. He said, noncommittally, “See you around.” 

Adam unfolded the note. It was an address. Hopefully Ronan’s home address. There was also a small message written on it in blocky, bold handwriting: 7:00. I’m making chowder. 

He took a shower and he read the newspaper and he was disappointed again by the Classifieds, even though this time the grocery store was hiring, which brought the available job tally up to six. Boredom set in well before lunchtime. Adam debated writing a novel or learning to knit or getting into jigsaw puzzles, but he wasn’t sure what he’d write a novel about, and he wasn’t sure where he would get knitting needles or jigsaw puzzles in the middle of nowhere. 

There was a dime store not far from the inn. Wracked by the agony of his idle behavior, Adam laced up his sneakers and walked to the store. CIGARETTES SOLD HERE said a sign in the window, next to a faded ad for Butterball Turkey from last Thanksgiving. Classic country songs played from tinny speakers overhead, and the black and white linoleum floor was cracked and scuffed underneath Adam’s shoes. It reminded him of the corner store in his hometown, a dingy little place owned by a miserable old man with vending machines that always leaked onto the floor and a cash register that never worked. 

The store did not carry knitting needles, or jigsaw puzzles, but there was a decent selection of books: fiction, local interest, crosswords and sudoku, and every existing version of The Bible. Adam pored over the fiction until he found something pulpy and ridiculous and eye-catching. After that, he stood in front of the Personal Health section for a long time and eyed boxes of condoms and plastic-wrapped bottles of Astroglide. As he stared, he tried not to overthink Ronan’s invitation. I’m making chowder could only be read one way: There was going to be chowder served. He wanted to buy condoms, anyway. He had known since the afternoon of the rip current that he wanted to fuck Ronan. 

Typically, once Adam decided he wanted to fuck somebody, he had the deal sealed in a timely manner. Dinner, drinks if the mood called for it, at least one orgasm for each party involved, and a polite half hour of pillow talk before they went on their way. Adam couldn’t imagine Ronan engaging in polite pillow talk. He could imagine Ronan doing a lot of other things, though. 

During his brief stint as a pre-med student, Adam had reviewed countless anatomy diagrams and maps of the human body. He knew where the softest, most vulnerable parts of the body were, and he knew what was required to take a man apart. He didn’t necessarily want to hurt Ronan, but he wanted to see him like an anatomy diagram: laid out on his back with small dotted lines pointing to all the places that would make him sob or writhe or say please, every trace of his cocksure swagger gone, vanished under Adam’s hands, in Adam’s bed. He was sure that Ronan would beg. He seemed like the type. 

Adam bought condoms and lube. The elderly cashier regarded him with disinterest as she rang up his Snickers bar and his Astroglide and his copy of The Vampire Lestat . He went back to his room at the inn and read half the book and ate half the Snickers bar, and then he put two condoms and the lube in the pocket of his windbreaker. At 6:45PM, he started the short walk to Ronan’s house. At 6:58PM, he knocked on Ronan’s front door. 

Ronan lived in a cottage by the shore, a clean, white-washed little house with gingerbread trim on the roof and dormant rose bushes in the front yard. The screen door was painted blue, and the mat by the front door read WELCOME, and then in smaller font, JOSHUA 24:15. It seemed odd to him that Ronan would have a welcome mat. When Ronan opened the door, the savory smell of cooking greeted him first, and Ronan greeted him second. 

“Parrish,” Ronan said, and he pushed open the screen door to invite Adam inside. “Shoes off.” 

Adam toed off his sneakers. Ronan shut the front door behind him. The house was just as quaint on the inside, with white shiplap walls and dark wood floors. A braided rag rug dominated the living room, with two comfortable looking armchairs and a big overstuffed floral sofa clustered around an enormous coffee table and a small TV. The entryway opened directly into the kitchen, where Ronan had all the lights and the stove and the radio on. He was listening to the weather forecast. An enormous stock pot of something was simmering away, letting off fragrant steam. It was a comfortable, lived-in space, full of knick knacks and bric-a-brac and low, warm lighting. 

“I hope you like chowder,” Ronan said. He’d stepped past Adam and gone back into the kitchen. He was barefoot, in jeans and a sweatshirt, and his head looked freshly shaved. 

“New England or Manhattan?” Adam asked. 

Ronan snorted, an inelegant sound, and said, “Don’t make me laugh, Parrish. It’s Portuguese, obviously.” 

Adam smiled, and he took off his windbreaker to hang it on one of the hooks near the door. The pockets were heavy with his dime store spoils, but he put that out of his mind. Chowder first, because chowder was the only item mentioned on the invite. He wasn’t given any direction from Ronan about other activities or rooms that might be off limits, so he showed himself around the cottage. There were only two other rooms: the bedroom and the bathroom. The bathroom was tiny, all seafoam green porcelain tile, floor to ceiling. Ronan’s toothbrush and razor sat on the lip of the sink. His bath towels were white and fluffy. The bedroom was a little bigger, but solely consisted of a king bed with a heavy patchwork quilt. There was a stack of books and a half empty glass of water and a half empty bottle of cream lube balanced precariously on the windowsill by the bed. Adam laughed softly to himself under his breath, and then nearly jumped out of his skin when Ronan said, “What’s so funny?” 

“Nothing,” Adam said. “Jesus, you scared the shit out of me. Are you a big reader?” 

Ronan followed Adam’s gaze to the windowsill. If he was embarrassed by the lube, he didn’t show it. 

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed yet, but there’s fucking nothing else to do here,” Ronan said. “I read out of desperation. Dinner’s ready, if you’re done snooping.” 

It was New England chowder, thick and hot and shiny on top with fat. Ronan served Adam a big bowl from the giant pot with a comically large ladle, and then pointed to the living room. 

“There’s bread on the coffee table,” Ronan said. 

Adam went into the living room and sat down on one of the armchairs. When Ronan came in with his own bowl, he sat down on the couch opposite Adam. There was bread on the coffee table, a loaf of sloppily sliced pumpernickel, and a butter bell with cows painted all over the sides. It was good chowder, lobster, not clam, and Adam finished his portion before Ronan. They didn’t talk much as they ate, which wasn’t purposeful, Adam just couldn’t think of a single thing to say. He was on uneven footing in Ronan’s dimly lit living room eating a bowl of hot chowder while Ronan sat near him with his legs crossed on the couch cushions, just as still and just as quiet as Adam. 

When Adam was finished, Ronan stood up and took his bowl into the kitchen. Adam watched through the doorway as Ronan moved the pot off the heat, put the bowls in the narrow sink, and turned off the kitchen lights. He opened the refrigerator and took out two bottles of beer. 

The quiet, somehow, reigned. With chowder out of the way, all Adam could think about was his windbreaker. Reflexively, he took a beer when Ronan offered it to him, and then he sat in his armchair and held the cold glass between his sweaty palms. 

Ronan seemed to luxuriate in the brittle tension. He wielded the silence in his own favor, and the sudden languid quality to his movements didn’t escape Adam’s attention. Ronan spread himself out on the sofa, his legs wide, his grip easy around the neck of his own beer. 

Adam was a paragon of self control. Adam was impenetrable. Adam was losing his mind. 

On the wall behind Ronan’s head, a novelty cuckoo clock ticked away the seconds. 

“Ostende mihi tuum et ostendam tibi meum?” Ronan finally asked with a wolfish grin, and his voice seemed inappropriately loud in the room, like he had prematurely shattered a reverie and taken the moment into his own aggressive, eager hands. He took a swig of his beer and lifted his chin, almost challengingly, towards Adam. 

Adam always responded well to a challenge. He stood up and set his beer down on the coffee table. Without hesitating, he started taking off his clothes. By the time he had his sweater and shirt off and was unbuttoning his jeans, Ronan was muttering shit fuck wait hang on and rising from his seat to fumble out of his own clothes. Adam stopped when he was down to his underwear and socks. Ronan stopped, too, when he was standing in nothing but tight white cotton boxers and a gold crucifix. He was heavy with muscle, his arms and thighs and chest were thick, with dark hair and a few odd scars or freckles. He had a full sleeve on one arm, green snakeskin, and the tattoo that Adam had seen on his neck also spread over his shoulders with little hints of black, suggestions of something larger. 

“Turn around,” Adam said. 

Ronan dropped his jeans onto the floor, and turned around. 

The tattoo was a full back piece that encompassed nearly every square inch of skin, from the top of his spine to the dip of his back, below the waistband of his underwear. That same incredible flower from the bow of Ronan’s boat spread itself over the wing of his shoulder blade, woven in among vines and feathers and a dozen other dizzying motifs and designs Adam could hardly make sense of in the dim light of the evening. At the center of it all was a Celtic knot, the heart of the design, with vines shooting off of it like arteries, tying everything back to the knot itself. It was dark and bold but oddly delicate, with undulating petals and delicate leaves clinging to soft, inky vines. 

“Sit down,” Adam said. 

Ronan turned again and sat down on the sofa. Some of his earlier bravado had disappeared, but he was still relaxed. His posture was easy, but his attention on Adam was rapt. Adam regarded him from the other side of the coffee table. Warm light spilled from the standing lamp and carved his face into more severe lines. He was starker in shadow. 

“Would you let me hurt you?” Adam asked. 

Color rose briefly in Ronan’s face before he said, “Yeah.” 

“Really?” Adam asked. 

“Shit, yeah,” Ronan said. “I think I’d let you do anything to me.” 

Adam ran through a long mental list of ways you could hurt a man, and then he considered the different ways you could make a man cry. Adam knew from experience that the threshold for tears depended on the man. Ronan didn’t seem like the type to cry; he was brash and tough and had been raised in a traditional Irish Catholic home. Adam wondered if there were soft spots he could dig into without crossing a line. Ronan’s obvious desire to obey, maybe. The fact he seemed to be waiting for someone to come along and tell him what to wear and what to read and what to watch on TV and when to take off his clothes and what to buy at the grocery store. 

He knew that Ronan was capable of crying, if he was given the right prompt, but he wondered if it would be because of pain or embarrassment or desperation. Adam imagined Ronan like a bruise, or maybe like an overripe plum, and he wanted to press down with his thumb until Ronan cried out and his skin split and he was nothing but exposed flesh, open and wet and waiting for Adam to sink his teeth in. 

“I’m not really a crier,” Ronan said, as if he could read Adam’s mind, as if they were sharing the same thought. 

“I think you could be,” Adam said. “If I wanted you to be.” 

After a moment, Ronan nodded. He didn’t look surprised by Adam’s line of inquiry. It was possible that he had Adam all figured out, that he had expected to end up bent over something while Adam wrung every last shred of obedience out of him. 

The cuckoo clock popped open with a ludicrous sound, announcing the hour. Outside, the sun had fully set, and a harsh wind had come in off the sea to rattle the windows in their panes and slam the shutters against the exterior of the house. 

“Turn around and kneel on the couch. Put your hands on the wall,” Adam instructed, and when Ronan complied, he said, “Keep your palms flat. If you make a fist or move your hands, I’ll punish you. Can you do that?” 

“Yes,” Ronan said softly. 

“Stay there,” Adam ordered, even though he knew Ronan would be still, because Adam had already asked him to be. 

Adam went into the entryway and took the lube and condoms out of his windbreaker, and then he went into the kitchen. 

He opened all the kitchen drawers and looked in all the cabinets. Ronan had a lot of knives. He had a sturdy looking wooden spoon. He had a box of clothespins and a roll of cooking twine. Adam dumped the box of pins out onto the counter and unrolled a length of twine. He measured it against his own body, and started threading and knotting pins in equal distances along the string. When he went back into the living room with his makeshift device, Ronan was still where Adam had put him, kneeling against the back of the couch with his knees sunk into the cushion and his back arched. His head was hanging slightly between his arms, and Adam could see his eyes were closed. 

Adam set everything but the clothespins down on the coffee table, then crossed the room and ducked underneath Ronan’s arm to stand in front of him, between his elbows. He was more vivid up close, almost impossibly appealing, with a fine tremor of anticipation running through his body. There were stretch marks on the inside of his arms and the curve of his hip, barely visible against the pale of his skin; evidence of multiple growth spurts and the impact of muscle mass earned over years of doing whatever it was Ronan did before he started mending nets and charting courses and pulling hard to starboard. Ronan lifted his head to look at Adam. His eyes were wide and clear, and the furious knit he usually wore between his eyebrows was gone, replaced by something open and trusting and a little terrifying. 

Carefully, Adam reached up and pinched the skin of Ronan’s chest near the bend of his armpit between his fingers, and he clamped the first pin down around it. Ronan gasped. His skin bloomed pink immediately under the pressure, and then the blood drained out of it, leaving it white. Adam grabbed another fingerful of soft tissue, this time on the meat of Ronan’s ribs, and clamped it. He had enough pins and enough twine to make a U shape on Ronan’s torso, woven up and down the sides of his chest. 

“Does it hurt?” Adam asked. He flicked the end of the first clothespin he’d attached. 

Ronan choked slightly, and said, “Yeah,” in a quiet, pained voice. He was still. Adam didn’t have to look behind him to know that Ronan’s hands were flat against the wall. His chest rose and fell a little more rapidly, and the skin of his torso was deadened a numb white under the pressure of the clothespins, but he was placid. 

Adam leaned over the back of the couch and kissed Ronan on the mouth gently as he reached between Ronan’s body and the cushions to twist the two pins closest to his navel. He cried out against Adam’s mouth, a loud, almost desperate sound, and Adam kissed him until he was quiet again, panting softly against Adam’s chin. Carefully, Adam stood back, and looked down at his handiwork. Ronan was bright red, and he was sweating at his temples, along his shoulders, down his belly underneath the wooden clips. The ends of the pins were moving slightly, because Ronan was shaking. Adam hooked a gentle finger under Ronan’s chin to lift his head, and he kissed him softly on the cheek before he whispered in his ear, “Good boy.” 

He felt the blush rise in Ronan’s face, hot and pink, and then he ducked back under his arm to cross the room again. 

“Put your knees here,” Adam reached out and touched Ronan’s thigh gently, to guide his knees back to the edge of the seat. “Wider.” 

Ronan adjusted himself as he was directed, with a deep bend in his back and a wide spread of his legs. A muscle in his back jumped when Adam hooked his fingers into the elastic of Ronan’s underwear and pulled them down, slowly, over the meat of his hips. The flush from his face had spread over his entire body, ruddy and warm, from his ears to his thighs. 

Adam took the plastic wrap off the lube slowly, loudly, without placing himself too close to Ronan’s body. He uncapped it, and pressed a palm to the small of Ronan’s back. He was covered in dark hair, coarse and plentiful over his thighs and chest, but the skin of his back was pale and soft. Under Adam’s hand, he arched obediently and pressed his hips backwards. Adam skated his palms up the back of Ronan’s legs, from ankle to thigh. It was quiet again; Ronan wasn’t making any noise beyond the occasional shuddering exhale, and the wind outside had abated. The distant sound of waves crashing underscored the riotous thump of Adam’s pulse in his ear as he warmed up lube on his fingers and then reached down to spread Ronan with one hand. 

He teased Ronan at first, with the pad of his finger making careful circles against his rim, but he knew he didn’t have long before the pins had to come off. The first finger made Ronan tense all over, and it took Adam leaning over Ronan’s body to kiss his shoulder blades and gently stroke his cock with his other hand to relax him. Ronan accepted the second finger more easily, with a surprised sound and a hitch of his hips. He was warm and wet, with sweat and lube and the slow, steady drip of his cock that smeared against the cushions. 

Adam heard it as Ronan started to cry, when Adam was sliding two fingers in and out in a slick, practiced rhythm. The subtle sniffle followed by a thick, wet hitch of breath in the back of Ronan’s throat was what Adam had been waiting for. He slowly sank a third finger inside just to hear him whine. 

“Let me see,” Adam said, and he wrapped a hand around Ronan’s throat to tip his head back. 

He was crying steadily, with earnest, fat tears rolling down his face, and Adam made a soft, approving sound at the sight. Adam kept Ronan’s head back with a firm grip and took him in, palms still flat against the wall, back arched almost impossibly, face turned to the ceiling with tears standing in his eyes. It was better than Adam had thought it would be when he’d first started entertaining the thought of Ronan like this, more real, more visceral, with Ronan hot and willing and trembling all over. 

“Keep your head up,” Adam reached down and tugged gently on the free end of the twine, equally a warning and a test. 

Ronan whined deep in his throat, and Adam hushed him gently with a steady stream of murmured compliments so pretty so perfect look at you so pretty when you cry for me and then he started to pull slowly on the twine. The first pin snapped off Ronan’s skin, and the sound he made was guttural, shocked and pained. Adam had to pause to take a deep breath. He had mirrored the intensity of Ronan’s reaction, deep in his stomach, in his own cock, but he breathed out slowly through his mouth and stroked Ronan’s jaw gently with his thumb. Ronan was tight around his fingers. 

“So fucking perfect, Ronan,” Adam murmured, and he gently spread his fingers wide inside of him as he pulled off another pin. Ronan opened his mouth and wailed, and then he hiccuped around a sob. As Adam slowly pulled off the pins, Ronan got quieter, but he cried harder, until there was only one more pin dug into the meat of his underarm, and he was shaking and red-faced and blotchy. He was exactly where Adam wanted him, given over to the pain, lax enough around where Adam was inside of him that Adam was able to tuck his little finger in alongside the rest of his hand. 

“Can you come?” Adam asked, and Ronan nodded immediately, almost frantically. “When I pull the last one, you’re going to come for me.” 

Ronan nodded again, and then he tipped his head back, eyes open and almost unseeing, glazed and full of tears. Adam yanked on the twine to pull the last pin off quickly, a fast snap of wood, and Ronan’s entire body went rigid as he bore down around Adam’s fingers and came with a groan, all over the hideous floral upholstery of the sofa. His posture was still perfect, head up, arms straight, and Adam almost couldn’t bear the sight of him. 

“Let go,” Adam said. He pulled his hand free and guided Ronan gently until he was slumped against Adam’s chest with his shoulders heaving and his torso a vivid mottled mess of red and violet. 

“Adam,” Ronan sobbed. “Adam, I was good.” 

“You were,” Adam murmured as he rubbed gentle circles into the darkest of the marks with his thumbs. “You were so perfect for me, you did exactly what I wanted.” 

Ronan relaxed slowly, like he was being unwound, as Adam talked softly into his ear and kept his hands moving in careful circles over the numb skin of Ronan’s ribcage. Heat rolled off his body in waves, and he was clammy with sweat, salty and sticky and still shaking under Adam’s hands. When Ronan was completely quiet, with his eyes closed and the tears dried on his cheeks, Adam asked, “What if I fucked you? Can you take it?” 

“I can take it,” Ronan said. He opened his eyes and blinked up at Adam furiously before he repeated, “I can take it.”

Adam took Ronan’s elbows in his hands and guided him to stand. The walk to the bedroom wasn’t far, but Ronan’s legs were unsteady, and he seemed relieved when Adam pushed him onto his back on the mattress. He let himself be moved into position, with his arms stretched up over his head and his legs bent at the knee. Adam kicked off his own underwear and rolled on a condom, and then knelt on the bed between Ronan’s legs. He pressed a hand to the inside of Ronan’s thigh, behind his knee, and lifted until Ronan was braced against Adam’s body with one leg hooked around his narrow waist. Adam’s other hand was planted firmly on the bed by Ronan’s shoulder. 

Tentatively, Ronan brought one of his arms down to take Adam’s wrist in his hand. That single point of contact seemed more charged, somehow, more intimate than the place where Adam was slowly pressing the head of his cock into Ronan’s body. Adam watched Ronan’s face as he sank inside him, and he cataloged the way Ronan’s mouth fell open slightly and his eyelids fluttered. He lifted his other leg and pulled Adam closer to him, still with a tight grip on Adam’s wrist and a deep, hot red flush in his chest. 

When Adam started to fuck into Ronan, he leaned down and pressed his tongue to one of the small bruises in the soft flesh of Ronan’s chest. He worried it between his teeth, rolling the bruised skin until it bloomed larger and darker under his mouth. Ronan’s cock was soft, and he was pliant and responsive, his defenses lowered in a way that made Adam feel suddenly fiercely protective of him. 

Adam wasn’t going to last long, because he was sure he’d been hard since he’d stepped up onto Ronan’s front porch and looked down at the chintzy welcome mat and realized that Ronan had a home here, and he was inviting Adam into it, like he’d invited him to the diner and to his boat and now, into his bed. Adam had second guessed nearly every invitation he’d ever received, because nobody had ever really wanted Adam around; he wasn’t supposed to be born, he was ostracized by his peers, and he lied his way through college and into the workforce. He lived in constant fear of being found out, of being unwelcome, but with Ronan, he had taken everything at face value and gone wherever Ronan asked him to because he believed Ronan wanted him to be there. 

“Ronan,” Adam said, and Ronan acknowledged him with a quiet hum. Adam wasn’t sure what he’d wanted to say, but once he’d opened his mouth, he couldn’t seem to close it. He heard himself talking, saying g ive it to me let me have it come on and Ronan answered him, just as nonsensical but perfectly in tune to Adam’s demands, anything anything please take it please until Adam was burying his head in the juncture of Ronan’s shoulder and coming with such intensity that he saw white behind his eyelids, bright pops of pleasure and surprise, and then Ronan wrapped his arms around Adam’s shoulders and held him tightly. 

After a moment, Adam lifted his sweaty forehead from Ronan’s shoulder and said, “Satis bene futuis,” and Ronan laughed, a little more reservedly than Adam was used to, but warm and wickedly amused, all the same. 

The wind had returned, and it seemed to scream outside the house, tearing past the walls and clamoring at the windows. Ronan ran his hands up and down the span of Adam’s back until Adam sat up, and tied off the condom, and took a washcloth into the living room to wipe off the couch. He put his underwear back on, and turned on the stove to put the chowder back on the heat. Ronan came out of the bedroom naked, walking a little stiffly, and peered into the pot. 

“You’re a freak,” Ronan commented, and then the atmosphere changed. The fraught intensity was gone, replaced by something easier, but more familiar than it had been before. 

“Yeah,” Adam said. “You like it.” 

Ronan snorted a laugh, but he didn’t refute that. He only served one bowl of reheated chowder, and he took two spoons out of a drawer and then he sat himself in Adam’s lap on the sofa while they ate. 

“You should stay,” Ronan said later, when he had his pants back on and they were watching the Weather Channel on the little black and white TV in the living room. 

He had looked up at Adam when he said it, and Adam looked back at him. 

“Alright,” Adam said. 

They turned away from each other and went back to watching the choppy doppler radar move across the screen. Outside, the waves crashed onto the shore with increased fervor, churned by the wind and pushed by the current. Inside, Ronan was vibrant and bruised and oddly quiet in front of the TV. The enormity of what Adam felt for him was terrifying. The last time Adam had felt like this, he’d packed a bag and bought a bus ticket. Now, though, he didn’t feel like packing a bag or fleeing to the coast. He instead found himself looking forward to tucking himself into Ronan’s big, soft bed and wrapping his arms around Ronan’s big, soft body and letting himself feel it, whatever it was, even though it was giant and strange and felt, to him, a lot like being cast adrift in waves whipped by the wind. 

Adam stayed the night at Ronan's. He stayed the next night, too, and then the rest of the week, and then on Monday morning Ronan said, “You should check out of the inn,” so Adam checked out of the inn and brought his suitcase to Ronan’s cottage, and he stayed there. 

He only had seven more days of PTO left, and the bus ride took an entire day, so really he had six more days in Rye, six more nights in Ronan’s bed, six more days of following Ronan to the docks and fucking around on Ronan’s boat and trying to combat the terrible chapped skin of his knuckles and palms with lotions and salves and beeswax. 

It was easy, with Ronan. Adam tried to let himself believe that things could be easy. After that first night, he wanted Ronan all the time, but it was alright, because Ronan wanted Adam just as much even though he had strange, carnal ways of showing it. Adam had thought it was a joke at first when he had come back from a run and Ronan happened to be home, and he intercepted Adam on the way to the shower to lift up the hem of Adam’s compression shirt and suck a series of wet open-mouthed bruises into Adam’s sweaty, quivering belly. 

Adam hadn’t known what to make of it all, of Ronan curving his head into Adam’s neck or smelling his hair or wearing Adam’s dirty t-shirts out of the hamper. He’d made fun of him, too, but Ronan had shrugged and said they smell like you and Adam had sat and thought about that for a while. Adam had never been wanted like that. He had never been given something like that, so casually, as if Ronan had just handed him an apple instead of offering him raw, unfettered desire at any time of day in any type of way. 

He matched Ronan in intensity, but in his own way. Ronan had at least twenty pounds on Adam, most of it solid muscle, but he was graceful in a way that only someone who knew exactly what their body was capable of could be. When he swung his leg over Adam’s lap it was easy and practiced, when he spread the long line of his body out facedown over the bed it was languid and alluring. It was hard to take his eyes off of him when he was supine in an armchair or taut and heaving with effort winching up a net or battening down the hatches or looking oddly pensive while he washed dishes in the narrow sink in his kitchen. He liked to be looked at, he liked that Adam openly admired him, and he preened, sometimes, but Adam liked him best when he wasn’t performing. 

In theory, attraction was a two-way street. In theory, Ronan also stared at Adam when he was at rest, washing dishes, sleeping, fucking, brushing his teeth, reading a book, and he also wanted Adam in all those different moments. Sometimes to Adam, their situation felt like a roundabout, with every exit leading to Ronan while Adam himself sat on the island in the middle, an untouchable observer. Adam kept his concerns to himself. Ronan didn't seem to have any such similar qualms, but if he did, he also kept them to himself. 

There were awkward moments, too, like when Ronan had sat on Adam’s deaf side and then they’d fumbled through the oh I’m deaf on the left and the really what happened and the my dad never want to jail for it and then Ronan had offered up my dad was actually murdered and then they’d somehow managed to move on from that without anyone getting their feelings hurt. Adam was proud of himself for that one. If he hadn’t been dodging his therapist’s calls, he would have expected a pat on the back for his excellent conflict resolution skills. 

Ronan wore a gold crucifix around his neck, and sometimes Adam would catch the eyes of the enraptured miniature Jesus and think bitterly what the fuck are you looking at you martyr and then he would feel ridiculous for having that thought about a piece of jewelry, but then he thought maybe he was jealous of the relaxed, euphoric look on Jesus’ metal face. He wished it really felt like that to martyr yourself; he wished nailing himself to a cross really was the answer to all the world’s problems. Adam was a runner and a leaver: he’d left behind his parents, his hometown, all his superficial college friends, numerous sexual partners, and now his job. In six days, he was going to leave Ronan, too. 

On Wednesday, Ronan took them out to sea. It was afternoon, and the sun was high. There was snow in the forecast for next week, so it was one of the last good days to go out on the water, as Ronan explained it. He didn’t mention that Adam would be gone next week, so even if the snow didn’t happen, Ronan could go out whenever he wanted but Adam wouldn’t be with him. That fact hung heavy and weighted between them, anyway. 

A salty, frigid wind stung Adam’s face as Ronan steered them out, away from the pier, until the coastline was a narrow beige strip, a suggestion of land in the distance. When they were sufficiently removed from civilization Ronan cut the motor and sat down on the deck next to Adam. 

“Nice, right?” he asked. 

It was nice. It was quiet with the engine no longer running. Water lapped at the sides of the boat and rocked them gently. The sun was barely warm, but there were no clouds, and Adam felt oddly centered, adrift in what might as well have been the middle of the world. 

“What was she like?” Adam asked. 

Ronan looked over at him. He was wearing his faded black overalls and his knit gray cap and a warm jacket with a soft lining. His face was red and raw at the apex of his cheekbones, and his heavy eyebrows were drawn together pensively as he considered Adam’s question. 

“Aurora wasn’t really my mother,” he said, finally, and then he looked away, back out at the horizon. “I didn’t know until she died that I had a different birth mother.” 

“I’m sorry,” Adam said. He rubbed his left temple with two fingers. “You loved her.” 

“Yeah,” Ronan said softly. “She never treated me like I wasn’t hers. I miss her.” 

“But what was she like?” Adam asked, and he wasn’t sorry for being persistent, he didn’t regret trying to break Ronan open in his hands so that he could get as much out of his tender insides as possible. 

“Beautiful,” Ronan said. “Always really patient. She taught me how to tie a sheepshank. I was a shitty little kid and didn’t really care at the time, but now I think of her every time I tie one. My brother didn’t love her like I did, but he knew our birth mother. I didn’t, and I don’t want to.” 

Ronan rapped his knuckles against the deck and said, “Did I tell you why I bought this boat?” 

“To piss off your brother,” Adam said. 

“Yeah,” Ronan said with a light laugh. “But I mean this boat in particular.” 

“No,” Adam said. 

“It was already named this,” Ronan tilted his head up towards the sky. The sun made his eyes water. “It was like a sign. All I added was the flower.” 

Adam didn’t believe in fate or signs or destiny, not in the way he knew Christians did, but he could see why Ronan thought that. He had caught himself thinking that perhaps this was all fate, that Adam had bought a bus ticket to this particular place for this particular time of year and stood in the water on that one particular day. Adam couldn’t conceive of any other reason why things might have played out as they had. He thought about Ronan last week saying why would anyone choose to vacation in Pissville Shitfuck, USA and himself replying Shitfuck is a terrible name for a state you should workshop that and Ronan’s but Pissville isn’t bad right and he still didn’t have a good answer for the initial why . 

He didn’t know why he had chosen Rye, New Hampshire. He did know why Ronan had chosen Rye: because that’s where the boat had been, and he didn’t want to have it transported. Ronan had been looking for something to do after he got out of the psych ward, and he’d found a boat named after his dead mother, so he’d put himself on a plane and then a bus and put down his fragile, shallow soil roots on a little half mile strip of New England coastline. He’d put his trust in something, thrown all caution to the wind, and seized that sign from God in both hands. It was foolish, and had rightfully pissed off his family and all the people who cared about him, but he’d done it anyway. 

Adam wished he was able to believe in something like that. He’d changed his major three times in college, and had transferred schools twice, and had still spent the rest of his undergrad career wishing everything was different. 

Maybe now it wasn’t his job he wished was different. Maybe it was just himself. His coworkers would come back from Switzerland or Tahiti or Canada and say oh that vacation was life-changing and Adam, who had never taken a vacation, would nod and smile and pretend he knew what they meant. Adam had never left the country. Adam had never been blackout drunk. Adam had never been to a party that he wasn’t required to attend. Adam had never had the same person in his bed twice. 

Adam didn’t know if he could let himself believe he could truly be happy, anywhere, doing anything. So far, everything had seemed wrong: professors, outfits, friends, job interviews, short-term girlfriends. The only consistent variable in every situation was himself. It couldn’t be the whole world that was wrong. It had to be Adam making himself miserable, maybe because he didn’t think he deserved anything else, or because he was scared to believe anything else was possible just in case he ended up disappointed. 

“Maybe I’m the problem,” Adam said. 

“Maybe,” Ronan said, effortlessly picking up the disjointed thread of conversation. “If you hate your job, get a different one.” 

“I don’t know if it’s my job, actually,” Adam said. “Have you ever wanted to disappear?” 

Ronan dropped his head to the side and raised an unimpressed eyebrow at Adam. “Which one of us was in the loony bin? I forget. Pretty sure it was me, though.”  

“Okay,” Adam muttered. “I thought I did. Now I’m not so sure.” 

“You know people who survive suicide attempts sometimes say they regretted it right before they thought they were dying,” Ronan said. “Like that guy who jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge and lived. He said he got about halfway to the water and thought shit my life really isn’t so bad and he didn’t want to die anymore. I wanted to die up until the second I passed out. I woke up in the hospital angry. I was angry at my roommate for calling the ambulance, and I was angry at the doctors for stitching me up, and I was angry at my brothers for coming to visit me and acting all sad and making everything worse by crying and asking me what was so bad about my life. I couldn’t tell them what was so bad about it. I just fucking hated it, and I didn’t want to do it anymore. I think I’d been in the hospital for a few weeks when I realized that there wasn’t any one specific thing about my life I didn’t like. I just had gotten so mixed up in so many things I fucking hated that everything seemed awful. I called my brother and told him I was gay and I called my roommate and told her I was moving out and then I called my accountant and told him I was buying a boat. You know I’ve never caught one single fish on this thing?” 

Adam did know that; the nets on the deck were in near mint condition, though weathered by exposure. Ronan never brought fish back to the cottage, and there was no fish in his fridge or his freezer. He wasn’t even sure if Ronan ate fish at all. 

“I don’t think I’m really happy here, either,” Ronan continued, and he scratched his chin pensively, a harsh, audible scrape of stubble against his short fingernails. “But it’s different. I don’t hate it.” 

“I can’t stay,” Adam said. 

“I know,” Ronan said, and then he stood up. “Come on, I’ll teach you some knots.” 

He went to the pile of rope on the deck and tossed a length of it to Adam. With quick, sparing instruction, he showed him a cleat hitch and a clove hitch and a bowline and an anchor hitch. The rope was coarse, and it irritated the already broken skin of Adam’s hands, but he re-tied his length of rope over and over again until he was making butterfly knots with as much practiced confidence as Ronan. Once he’d mastered the basic boating knots, Ronan sat down on the big steel cooler and said okay here’s a fun one and then he had taught Adam a handcuff knot. He held out his wrists and talked Adam through the sequences of loops and twists. By the end of it, Ronan’s arms were tied together in front of him. 

After a taut, breathless moment, Adam took Ronan’s length of rope and tied another handcuff knot around Ronan’s thighs, and then he tied Ronan’s wrists to his legs. When he had him immobilized, he took a step back and looked down at him. 

“This one seems real useful,” Adam said lightly. 

Ronan slowly slid forward off the cooler, until his knees bit the wood of the deck. Adam hadn’t given him very much slack; he was bent over slightly, his wrists secured between his legs by the short lead. The column of rope around his thighs dug into the meat of his body, muscle and skin displaced, held back by the snug knots Adam had tied. He couldn’t straighten his back all the way, but he lifted his head. 

“I know you can’t stay,” Ronan said. “I’m not going to ask you to stay.” 

“I want to,” Adam said. 

“You want to,” Ronan said. “Sure. You’re not going to.” 

Adam took a step towards Ronan and rested his hand on the top of his head, the curve of his palm snug against the short cropped hair on his skull. Ronan looked up at him from underneath his dark eyelashes, and slowly, pointedly, opened his mouth. Underneath Adam’s feet, the boat rocked. Above Adam’s head, the sky was clear and cloudless, pierced by the sun. In front of him, Ronan’s mouth was pink and wet and his eyes were soft and fond. Adam unbuttoned his jeans and took Ronan by the neck and fucked his throat until tears glimmered on his lashes and he was swallowing Adam’s release with a self-satisfied moan. Somehow, with Ronan still secured at the wrists, Adam unhooked the straps of Ronan’s overalls and pulled them down as far as they’d go, a tangled mess of fabric at the tops of his thighs. He sat on the deck in front of him and spit into his palm and stroked him slowly, on and off and on again until Ronan was crying, really crying, and every other word he said was please. 

The ropes came off Ronan’s wrists with a simple tug of the loose line, and he held onto Adam’s shoulders as he pulled up his pants. He left one strap of the overalls swinging loose, and he took them back to the harbor. For dinner there was a hearty minestrone, no fish, there wasn’t a single fish in Ronan’s house, not even a novelty singing trout mounted on the wall, and then he fell asleep in Ronan’s bed with Ronan’s arm around his waist. 

Adam did, eventually, have to go back to his life. He had already bought the return bus ticket. On Saturday, he packed his suitcase, and he fucked Ronan, and then he took a shower. After that, he let Ronan drive him to the bus station. 

It was surprisingly anticlimactic, to say goodbye to Ronan and leave him standing in the parking lot by his car. He kissed Ronan on the mouth and he said I wish I’d gotten your chowder recipe and Ronan had said I’d never give it to you anyway that shit’s classified as fuck and then he’d taken his suitcase and walked away. 

He slept the whole ride home, not because he was tired, but because he wasn’t sure what he’d do with his time if he stayed awake. It was easier to not think about the fact he wouldn’t see Ronan again, because it didn’t really make any sense that it should hurt him so much. If there was one thing Adam knew how to do, it was walk away without looking back. 

His apartment was dark and cold, so he turned on all the lights and the heat and dumped the contents of his suitcase into the washing machine. Ronan still had some of Adam’s t-shirts, but it didn’t matter. He did not have Adam’s phone number or address. 

Adam went back to work. He told everyone the Bahamas were lovely, but next year, he’d probably wait and go during a better time of year because the water had been too cold to swim in. There was a client dinner on Friday. Adam went. There was a cocktail reception on the following Sunday. Adam went to that, too. He smiled and shook hands and built rapport and told himself that he loved it, he really did, because he could call himself Adam Parrish, Esquire, Attorney at Law, and he could afford a six figure condo in a good neighborhood. 

That next Monday, Adam quit his job over the phone. He applied for another one that same morning, and by 4PM he was on his way to an interview. By 7PM he had another job with a smaller firm that took on fewer, but higher profile cases. They’d heard all about him, and were so flattered he’d considered them, and would he like them to order one hundred business cards with his new office address, or two hundred? 

On Tuesday, someone knocked on Adam’s apartment door. He opened it, expecting his dry cleaning. It was Ronan, and he was holding Adam’s dry cleaning. 

Instead of hello, Adam said, “What are you doing here?” 

“Christ alive,” Ronan muttered. “It’s nice to see you, too.” 

Ronan shouldered his way into Adam’s apartment and dropped the bag of clothes onto the sofa. He took a long, unimpressed turn around the room, and then he looked up at Adam and said, “Don’t you have a job to get to?” 

“You can’t be here,” Adam said. 

“Careful there, Parrish,” Ronan warned. “You’re dangerously close to hurting my feelings.” 

“Ronan,” Adam said, and he slammed his apartment door shut. “How did you find me?” 

“How many men named Adam Parrish do you think practice law on the East Coast?” Ronan asked conversationally. “The answer is seven. You are the only one of the seven who doesn’t have a listing in the Yellow Pages. This is a godawful apartment. Probably the most hideous apartment I’ve ever seen. No wonder you want to blow your brains out.” 

“I never said I wanted to blow my brains out,” Adam shot back. “Why are you here?” 

Ronan didn’t have a suitcase with him. He was wearing a sweater and his leather jacket. His expression was infuriatingly calm, unreadable, and instead of answering Adam’s question, he checked his watch. 

“We can talk when you get back from work,” Ronan said. 

“And what are you going to do all day?” Adam demanded. 

“I’m going to see my brother,” Ronan said. “I really just came by to drop off your dry cleaning.” 

With that, Ronan showed himself out of Adam’s apartment and shut the door behind him. Adam went to work. He had his own office and his own paralegal and they had already installed the plaque on his door that read A. PARRISH, ATTORNEY AT LAW. He wasn’t sure if the change of scenery would help, or if the same job in a different office would be any better, but at least it would be different. 

When he finished for the day, Ronan was waiting for him on the sidewalk outside. 

“You have got to fucking stop with this,” Adam said furiously. “Do not follow me.” 

“I didn’t,” Ronan said. “This is the sixth law firm I’ve loitered outside of today.” 

Adam scoffed and rolled his eyes, but he led Ronan down the block and to a diner on the corner that everyone in his new office claimed was the best in the city. He guessed their favorable opinion of it might have something to do with proximity, but he already vowed he would try to be more open-minded in his new environment. The New Adam Parrish was game. The New Adam Parrish valued his coworker’s opinions and was no longer jaded with antipathy. 

The corner diner was quaint, cute, not as charming as the diner in Rye, but it still had that quintessential all-American ambience. They were seated in a red leather booth, and Adam ordered two blue plate specials. The waitress brought them hot coffee and slices of toast and bowls of fruit. 

“Explain,” Adam said. 

“My brother lives here,” Ronan said. “I’m in town because it’s our little brother’s birthday next week. We were at dinner, and my brother told me all about this call he’d gotten with some office trying to recruit him because one of their best attorneys had come back from the Bahamas without a suntan and quit, out of the blue. Just like that. I asked him what office, and he told me, and I looked them up. You were still named in all their advertising.” 

“Oh,” Adam said, because it seemed plausible. He’d handled some of their biggest clients, an essential cog in their machine, and it made sense they would have tried to replace him right away. “How did you find my apartment?” 

“I called in a favor,” Ronan said. “You forgot to give me your phone number.” 

Adam felt himself flush with shame, because he hadn’t given Ronan his number on purpose, but it seemed worse in hindsight, to have that thrown back at him. 

“My lease on the cottage is up on the first of the year,” Ronan said, and then, in a different tone of voice, “I decided not to renew.” 

Adam frowned, and said, “Where will you go?” 

“I guess that’s up to you,” Ronan said. 

The waitress came back with plates of sunny-side up eggs and breakfast sausage and hashbrowns. Adam stared down at his plate. The blue plate special in Rye had come with blueberry pancakes. Here, it didn’t. 

“What about the boat?” Adam asked. 

“Sold it,” Ronan replied, mouth full of toast, his fork already poking around in Adam’s plate, trying to steal his sausage patties. “Got a couple hundred for it.”

“Dollars?” Adam looked up, surprised. 

“Thousand,” Ronan corrected. “Are you gonna eat that hashbrown?” 

“No,” Adam said slowly. “I’m not going to eat the hashbrowns.” 

Ronan shrugged, and scooped the hashbrowns off Adam’s plate. Adam watched him eat. Somehow, Ronan had done it again. He had sold his boat and opted out of his lease and gone to see his family, and somehow, as luck would have it, his brother had been in the right line of work and good enough at his job that he’d heard about Adam quitting. And somehow, for some reason, he’d decided to tell Ronan that story over dinner, and provide just enough detail that Ronan would know who he was talking about. Ronan had tossed a bowling ball down the lane and then turned his back on it, trusting blindly it would find the pins. 

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Adam asked. 

“Do what?” Ronan arched an imperious eyebrow. “Eat hashbrowns?”

“I’m not easy,” Adam said. “I feel like you should know that.” 

“What the fuck are you talking about, Adam?” Ronan asked, and the use of his name in replacement of his usual sarcastic but fond Parrish was almost enough to make Adam flinch. 

“It just doesn’t seem right,” Adam said. “For you to leave behind your life. What if we’re not really that compatible?” 

“Christ on the cross. Are you stupid? Being with you is the easiest goddamn thing I’ve ever done,” Ronan said. He had set down his fork, which meant serious business. “I’ve never thanked God so much in my life. Quit it with the goddamn pity party. I love you. You’re mean as shit and you’re so high maintenance they should sell you with an instruction manual like a VCR but you’re too fucking smart to be acting so motherfucking stupid. Jesus God. Apologize to me for making me listen to you say that shit.” 

Adam didn’t apologize. He sat, slack-jawed, and stared at Ronan. In his silence, the waitress came and refilled their coffee cups. 

It was Adam’s job to be logical. He had been tested, thoroughly, at great length, in law school on his ability to think logically. Any reasonable person would look at this situation and laugh. He had only known Ronan for two weeks, and he had intended to never see him again outside of those weeks. Practical, logical people didn’t sell their six figure investments and show up at someone’s front door in the hopes they might be interested in having a relationship. 

There was music playing in the diner, trite and upbeat, with verses about love and fate and signs from the universe, or from God, or the endless, convenient string of coincidences that resulted in Adam and Ronan sitting at another diner, in a different city, eating another blue plate special and drinking burned coffee. 

Against Adam’s better judgment, he wanted Ronan to stay. He tried to imagine what it would be like to go home to his apartment and find Ronan barefoot in his kitchen making minestrone or eating toast. During their brief time together in Rye, Adam had shied away from those thoughts. He had let himself get swept up in the whirlwind of it, like sand pulled from the shore, but he hadn’t allowed it to gain any real sense of permanency. Adam was a runner. Adam was always the one leaving. 

“I want you to stay,” Adam said, finally, with some effort. 

“Sure,” Ronan agreed easily. 

“You’re going to,” Adam said. 

“Yeah,” Ronan grinned then, as brilliant and as fierce as he had the first time Adam had really laid eyes on him. 

When the waitress brought the check, she had drawn a little smile at the bottom where it said PLEASE COME AGAIN! 

Later that week, Adam told his coworkers he’d tried the diner on the corner, and they were right. It was the best in the city, even though their blue plate special didn’t come with pancakes. In Rye it came with pancakes, and you could hear the ocean from anywhere in town. In Rye there was a boat named AURORA bobbing up and down in the harbor with a stranger’s name on the deed.

In Rye, four years later, there was an arbor wedding on the half mile strip of beach with its own zip code in the middle of winter on the day of the fiercest rip current in over a decade. 

At every cocktail event and partner dinner and retirement party Adam attended for the rest of his life, people would ask him where did you two meet, and Adam would say this little town in New Hampshire you’ve probably never heard of, but when someone asked Ronan where did you two meet, Ronan would say, “In Rye.”