Archive of Our Own

Logan Sargeant crashes. A fact of life. 

He gets in a million dollar car and sends it into the wall. Again and again and again. It’s a part of him, just like his accent and blonde hair. Something so deeply engrained it’s impossible to separate from his very being.

Logan Sargeant crashes, and he keeps getting back in the car after. A fact of life.

Bruises cover his body. His bones ache. He climbs into the car with shaking hands and a headache. Again and again and again. Another piece of him that’s impossible to take, just like his blue-green eyes and baptismal record. 

Without either of those things, Logan Sargeant has nothing. A fact of life.

There’s Florida sunshine and his parents’ disappointment. Dalton lets him cry like a child in his arms. Again and again and again. It feels like his life’s slipping through his fingers, he’s desperate and grasping at nothing but his hopes and dreams as they die.

Deep voices speak with American accents and reassure him that he’ll drive again. 

Logan mentally corrects it, he’ll crash again, he’ll crash and get back in again.

The first weeks pass in a haze of ignored text messages and tears. At some point he’s crying in the back pew of a white church, begging God to do something. His mother sits next to him, silent, steadfast, hands clasped in prayer. Hot humid air chokes him as he whispers pleas for salvation.

It never comes. Logan doesn’t go back to that church. God becomes another person he ignores.

Sometimes Dalton takes him out on walks, drives, fishing. Logan laughs and smiles and acts like he’s not living a life with nothing left in it. 

Sometimes Dalton shouts, cries, confesses, at Logan. Years of resentment and pain and love come out in bits and pieces. 

Things are said in the nighttime that can’t be taken back. Dalton talks about how much it sucked to leave him behind in Europe, to realize that his baby brother was alone. Logan talks about how he never felt lonely, because he was always alone. Money, their careers, it all comes up. None of it stings as bad as his older brother’s quiet reveal that for a few years there, he’d hated him.

“You were better than me,” Dalton says, voice hushed, “Our uncle even said it, mentioned he’d get a better return on his investment. It just kinda happened.”

Logan’s sitting on a twin sized bed in his childhood bedroom. His brother’s legs brush up against his, moonlight flooding the room with a silver glow. Animals outside make noise, make it feel real. He’s not looked at Dalton for hours. Staring at some stupid football poster on his wall.

His eyes have traced every crease, curl of the top left corner, color splattered all over. When he’s fully analyzed the poster, he tries to find a new thing to notice about it. Anything is better than seeing his brother’s face.

Dalton nudges him, elbow digging into his side, “Don’t hate you now. Wish I could’ve helped you, taken you with us, ya know? Bring you home.”

A lot of people have said something similar. About bringing him home. Like he hadn’t found a place for himself in Switzerland, in learning German to curse out his racing opponents more effectively, in motor oil and trophy cases. Logan’s not sure when Florida stopped being home, just that it happened.

They sit in silence, listening to the frogs croak and the crickets chirp. His brother’s body heat radiates off him. Logan feels cold. He always feels cold.

“Thanks for not hating me,” he says, as quiet as Dalton had been.

It gets a soft chuckle out of his brother. Another nudge of his elbow, “Well, kinda a low bar, gotta raise your standards, Logie.”

He doesn’t really think it’s that low of a bar. Hundreds of thousands comments about him on any post flash behind his eyes, James Vowles’ interview clips replay in his head, those moments of contempt from people meeting him. 

Someone not hating him feels like a luxury. There’s probably more people that hate him than like him at this point. At least, of those that know him.

Logan realizes a beat too late he’s supposed to respond, Dalton nudging him again, "Appreciate it anyways.”

The poster has no copyright on it. Logan can’t find it. He’s been looking for it for an hour.

“Anytime,” Dalton says, like it’s an oath.

He hears a different voice. A different bedroom, a different person. This oath is not a new one. The last time he’d been sworn it, he’d been young, hopeful. Now he sits in his childhood bedroom thousands of miles away from the very person that he’d placed his hopes in.

Brown eyes, small smiles, gentle hands on his skin. 

There’s a lump in his throat. He can’t tell if it’s nostalgia or regret.

His mother serves wine with dinner sometimes. Logan likes when she does. It gives him a sour escape from his father’s oppressive gaze.

Red wine stains his mouth. He recalls how he’d once gotten punched in the mouth after a race. The blood stained his teeth in a similar manner. 

When Kyle comes and sees him, he gives him a beer. They rock on the ocean’s waves. Every time Logan finishes a can, Kyle gets him a new one. Logan likes it. There’s hops and barely coating every lie and reassurance he gives his oldest friend. 

Beer covers up the bitterness of hiding from the truth. His first beer was split on a racetrack in secret, two boys giggling at getting away with it. It still tasted like shit.

Logan starts supplementing his mediation sessions with whiskey. Logan likes it more than trying to sit and stew on his life and future. It burns his throat as it goes down, distracting him from how his chest burns when he thinks about racing.

Whiskey warms up his body. He’s always so fucking cold.

At some point, a month in, he throws his phone into the ocean. 

Dalton watches, expression somewhere between concern and amusement. It’s September and the sand under his feet is still warm.

He cries about it later. Not about losing his phone, necessarily, but because it’s really bad for the environment to throw your phone in the ocean. Logan’s lost touch with all his friends, he doesn’t need the phone.

His father buys him a flip phone. Orders him to keep it this time. Call his manager, set up test drives with it.

The phone gets used to text Dalton or his mother updates on his location. He never gets around to setting up those test drives. 

Logan Sargeant has no car to crash. No crashed car to climb back in. A fact of life.

It makes him feel like he has nothing left. A fact of life.

Without a car to drive, to wreck and keep pushing afterwards, Logan’s not sure what he can do. People suggest a lot of things to fill the gap. Coaching, college, new cars to sit in and crash. At one point, Kyle tells him he’d be a great stripper, with his abs.

He’s not kept up with his training regime. His abs left with every sip of alcohol and bite of his mother’s cooking. 

Other options leave him empty, a bitter taste on his tongue. Could he really just give it up and be some University of Florida frat guy with a business major? Guide young kids in their karting careers? Sign up for years of crashing into walls in Indycar?

Logan’s been in Florida, the place everyone calls his home for six months. There's a cold wind that wraps around him when he goes outside. He’s always cold. Nothing about this place makes him feel warm.

Dalton, Kyle, his parents. They all ask the same question, in different ways: What's next?

It’s been hard to not answer honestly: Nothing.

Which is the problem. He’s done all this thinking and soul-searching, nothing to show for it. No closer to knowing what his future holds than he was in August. There’s a world that once held a place for him that’s starting back up. Logan wants to point at it and say That’s next.  

There’s nothing for him there. Not anymore.

He comes to the conclusion he’s going to die here, in his childhood bedroom, mouth stained with red wine if he doesn’t come up with something. 

Spending all this time sleeping and ignoring life in America has granted him no peace. He’s not sure this is even home enough for it to have done so in the first place. There’s an apartment in England he’d packed up in a rush, but that’s not home either. A Swiss home that he was left on the front steps of, which couldn’t be home after that. 

Unbidden, he thinks of arms wrapped around him. Floppy hair, sleepy expressions, two moles on a pale throat. It was so warm there, in that bed. 

Logan thinks he’s just tired of being cold. 

Dalton finds him packing his bags, one suitcase, one backpack, in the dead of night. He leans against the doorway, eyebrows knitted up in confusion, “Logan, what the fuck are you doing?”

He doesn’t look up from where he’s folding a shirt on his bed, “Going crazy, most likely.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” Dalton asks, groggy from sleep.

His suitcase has been mostly packed for an hour now. The shirt in his hands had been a last-minute addition. Something that was meant to remind him of his past, of what was taken from him.

Logan puts it in his opened suitcase with care. There’s both too many things crammed in there, and too little. Proof of this being premeditated, evidence it was born of impulse.

“I’m leaving, wanna give me a ride to the airport?” he asks his brother, smiling with all his teeth for the first time in months. 

Dalton suddenly looks much more awake. His mouth opening and closing a few times in shock. He rubs at his eyes, like he’s double checking Logan is real.

“Where the fuck are you going?” he asks, far more concerned than before.

Logan shrugs, “Somewhere warm. Might learn how to surf or something.”

He goes back to the suitcase, making sure he’s got everything. The white shirt sits on top of his clothes, taunting him in a way, like bait luring him to do something about its presence. He bites, zipping up his suitcase.

Dalton is still leaning against the doorway, dressed in plaid pajama bottoms and an old ratty t-shirt. He’s not smiling, but he’s not frowning. A good sign.

“Do you wanna elaborate on that or nah?” he asks, like he’s not sure how he ended up here.

“I think crashing on a surfboard is less expensive than in a car. I like the sun. Win-win,” he says, probably too calmly all things considered.

“So, you’re going to learn to surf because it’s a more financially secure option?” Dalton sounds both proud and worried.

Logan nods, “Yeah, I’ve become very financially conscious in the last six months.”

His brother snorts, “You’ve been unemployed for the last six months.”

“All the more reason to be financially aware!” Logan jokes, placing his suitcase on the floor as he does so.

At this point, Dalton seems to realize that Logan is fully dressed, black sweat pants and an old hoodie stolen from Kyle. He’s even got his tennis shoes on. 

Logan reaches to sling on his backpack, watching his brother’s face contort to all manner of expressions, “So, uh, ride to the airport? You up for it?”

There’s familiar animals making noise outside. Silver moonlight filling up his room. 

“Yeah, sure,” Dalton sighs, clearly taken aback by it all, “You gonna tell me where you’re landing if I give you a ride?”

“No, it’s more fun if you have to guess,” Logan says, smiling widely.

Dalton just nods, and leaves to get shoes and his keys. 

Logan sleeps like a baby dealing with the jetlag. His flip phone gets no service. It’s quiet. 

His shitty hotel room probably has bed bugs. It does have air conditioning. If he wasn’t busy ignoring God, he’d have sent up a prayer of gratefulness.

Instead, he sleeps in starch white sheets. Waking up only to stumble down for free breakfast once a day, and to watch an hour of the local news. The front desk attendant has grown oddly fond of him in her brief interactions with him. 

To be fair, he chose a decently small town to stay at. The Uber from the airport was egregiously expensive and spent dodging questions on why he’d come here of all places if he wasn’t a local tourist. 

By the fifth day of his stay, he’s gotten pretty chummy with the front desk attendant. An older woman named Fiona. She’s got tanned, wrinkled skin, with sun-bleached blonde hair streaked with grey. 

She makes him stand with her while she takes her smoke break. 

The smell of her cigarettes reminds him of something. He can’t place it. Just knows that it’s something good.

“Okay, so, no working phone, no job, and no plan,” Fiona rattles off what he’s just told her, gesturing with her hands to really emphasize how stupid he sounds.

Her accent is comforting. Logan reviles in it for a moment, before responding, “Well, look, Fiona, I have a plan.”

She stares at him, blue eyes disbelieving, “Your plan is to learn to surf. That’s a hobby. Not a plan.”

“Actually I think surfing is technically a sport,” he huffs, arguing for the fun of it.

Fiona takes a drag of her cigarette. Logan’s smoked before, but he feels no need to ask for a hit of his own. The taste of nicotine lingered in his mouth funny. 

“Christ, you’re so lucky you’re cute. Wouldn’t have got this far without that helping you,” Fiona says with a small smile.

Logan nods, “Thank you, I really try to maintain my looks.”

Which is objectively untrue at the moment. His hair is too long, unstyled and messy. There’s dark circles under his eyes that clearly didn’t originate in the last week. He’s lost some of the weight he’d put on in the last couple of months, but he’s still softer than usual.

A part of him preens at the thought of being successful because he’s pretty. He cannot crash pretty. Not like he can crash a car.

Fiona snorts, “You serious about the surfing thing?”

“Quite literally the only thing I am serious about at the moment,” he says, still smiling at the idea he’d been able to coast on his looks.

“Have you ever been surfing?” Fiona asks like she’s afraid of the answer.

Memories of a week spent with sunscreen on his face and sand between his toes resurface. A hand on his back, on his waist, the waves of the ocean soaking them both in saltwater.

He smiles wider, “Of course, I just don’t really know how to be good at it. Want to learn.”

She stares at him like it’s going to reveal some truth about him. Some inherent tell that proves he’s lying. He’s not.

“Okay, well, I’ve got a nephew that teaches surfing lessons. Runs a company that does it. Been complaining about needing more help, and he’s got a little girl that needs a babysitter,” Fiona says, then takes a long drag from her cigarette.

“Sounds good,” Logan responds, because, well, it does.

Fiona sighs, “Christ, can you at least pretend to care about your safety? I could be setting you up for the organ trade.”

That gets a laugh out of him, loud and bright in the sunshine. 

“Can a man not have faith in the hotel worker he met five days ago?” he asks a little too happily.

It takes another two days to arrange a meeting between him and Fiona’s nephew. Partly because she makes him go buy a cheap phone that can connect to the internet and communicate with his family. Partly because Logan then spends a day begging his mother to not file a missing persons’ report. 

Dalton calls him a dumbass over Whatsapp. Logan replies with a thumbs-down emoji.

When he meets Simon, in his thirties, tan, blonde, incredibly Australian, Logan smiles his way through whatever weird interview Fiona has set up. Within five minutes Simon tells him he’s the dumbest person he’d ever met. Logan feels like that’s a compliment. 

After two hours, spent in the hotel breakfast area, the two men hash out an agreement. Logan learns to surf with Simon in the mornings. He’d assist with Simon’s surf shop after. When Simon’s daughter, Layla, got off school, Logan would mind her until the man returned from the shop.

He somehow negotiates his way into Simon’s spare bedroom. Room and board taken from his under-the-table cash salary. Fiona stops by once or twice, reminding them that Logan is fully violating a visa or two. Simon ignores her, oddly uncaring of the fact.

By his second week in Australia, Logan has a job and a place to stay. 

It was odd, how he could spend so much time in America and come up with nothing. It felt easier here, in a place filled with memories of a young love. 

Maybe it’s because they broke up in America. Australia was always kinder to him.

Simon takes him home that day. Shows him around the small home, the spare bedroom, Simon’s own bedroom, Layla’s. There’s a lot of photos of Simon’s late wife. Brooke was a pretty blonde woman rarely pictured in anything other than a wetsuit. Logan is informed that Brooke would’ve loved him and his stupidity.

He puts his clothes in the closet with red eyes. He thinks he would’ve loved Brooke and the way that her loved ones still loved her after she’s passed. He wants to be loved like that.

They don’t surf that day, but he does meet the child he’s now essentially a nanny to. 

Layla is eight, and named after the Derek & The Dominos song. She’s as blonde as her aunt. As blunt as her too.

“Are you like, a weirdo or what?” she asks him over pizza that first night.

Logan laughs, “I think I’m just a bit stupid.”

That gets both Simon and Layla to laugh. He thinks it means he’s starting off strong.

Using a borrowed board and wetsuit, Logan gets dragged out at dawn to surf. Layla, apparently, doesn’t have to go to school until they’ll get back. She’s very self-sufficient according to Simon. Logan’s not sure if he believes that.

The pacific ocean produces waves that leave him disoriented with a mouth of saltwater. He’s not very good at surfing.

Simon teaches him. He’s prone to swearing and cursing and complaining. Logan likes it. It’s honest. 

Nothing like the way he learned to drive. Learned to race.

He gets one good wave before Simon’s dragging him back home. Layla is awake, in a school uniform. Logan makes them breakfast, because he can prove his worth in pancakes. Simon and him drop Layla off at school with wet hair and saltwater clinging to them.

Logan is then taken to the surf shop. He quickly learns he’s not very good at answering the phone or stocking the shelves. Simon puts him at the cash register. He learns he’s good at being funny while he counts back people’s money.

Briefly, for a moment, he considers the tourists and locals he checks out. Wonders if any of them recognize him. His hair’s longer, his body softer, but he’s still him. 

Then he remembers that he’d told Fiona his name and she simply laughed at how American it was. 

Perhaps his lackluster career was a good thing.

Logan falls into a routine with frightening ease. Wake up too early. Be bad at surfing. Let Simon complain about how bad he is at surfing. Make breakfast. Drop off Layla. Go to work. Pick up Layla. Try to not kill a child. Make dinner. Sleep.

A month flies by. He responds to his mother twice. Dalton gets a call or two. His father doesn’t reach out. Kyle asks if he’s alive and he sends back a thumbs up emoji. No one else reaches out.

He missed the start of the Formula 1 season because he was distracted by his attempts to surf at a new spot with Simon and Layla. There’s old hurts that flare when he realizes it. No one reaches out. Not his former teammates, nor former friends. 

It’s a little odd to be what amounts to a live-in nanny. He walks Layla home from school, Simon was very much a man that did not let other people drive his car. She insists on holding his hand because it’s the safe thing to do.

She talks a lot. Logan tries and fails to keep up with her rants and ramblings. 

In her incredibly thick Aussie accent, Layla tells him about her day, “Then, Sophia, the annoying one, was bragging about how she’s going to America on holiday. So I told her that you're American and very lame and she didn’t believe me at all!”

“Well, that’s because I am not lame, I'm very cool actually,” Logan replies as they trot down the sidewalk. 

An old lady waves at them from her garden. Her name was Mary, Logan recalls as he waves back, she’d introduced herself once.

Layla scrunches her freckled nose at his response, “No, dummy, she didn’t believe you were American.”

Logan laughs at that, “Why doesn’t she believe I’m American?”

“She said you were too tan!” Layla exclaims, lifting their joined hands up in frustration, “You aren’t even that tan!”

He looks down at his arms. Sophia, the annoying one, might have a point. Even after only a month, Logan’s gained a healthy brown tone to his skin. Layla is still darker, but not by much. The tan lines hadn’t felt important, but now they feel like proof he’s made it this far. 

“Seems like she can’t be reasoned with,” he says, not really sure if he wants to argue about how tan he is with an eight-year-old.

That gets a frantic agreement from the girl, “She’s convinced Evan likes her. Even though Evan makes slime for Molly after school.”

Logan nods, like this is sage wisdom, “Clearly Sophia’s unreasonable.”

“The worst part is that Ruby likes her!” Layla bemoans, Ruby is Layla’s best friend. Their friendship is eternal and should remain unquestioned, “So anytime she wants to hang out with Sophia, I have to.”

“That’s awful!” he exclaims, all dramatic. His free hand over his heart.

Layla giggles, “Yeah! It’s awful! She just wants to talk about that Pastry guy and cars and America and Evan. Those are all so boring. Surfing is much cooler.”

Logan stumbles, caught off guard at her mention of Oscar fucking Piastri. He thought he was safe with the little girl. No need to close his eyes as he passed advertisements with his face on them in a small town. No need to dodge the conversation topic when he can always talk about surfing instead.

The girl doesn’t seem to notice his distress, tugging on his hand to keep him moving. 

“Y-Yeah, surfing’s much cooler,” he chokes out, attempting to salvage his dignity.

Layla agrees, and launches into a rant about how Noah, who sits three rows ahead of her, thinks he’s going to be an olympic surfer one day. She thinks he won’t make it past the junior competition categories. 

A little vicious mindset from a child. 

One he used to have. 

Simon sometimes is quiet in the mornings. Logan doesn’t mind, just tries to be a decent surfer in the silence.

He’s got his own wetsuit, his own board, and he’s actually capable of riding a wave without bailing out halfway. He’s been at it for almost three months now, so he’s at least not incompetent.

The morning starts off like all the quiet ones do. Loading the car without a word, radio on some local channel that discusses politics at a low volume, unloading separately. He zips Simon’s wetsuit without asking. Simon zips his without asking. It’s a ritual at this point.

There’s not a lot of waves, so Logan lays stomach down on his board, an orange monstrosity Layla lovingly named Garfunkel, lets the ocean rock him. The rising sun casts the horizon in a warm glow. Simon sits on his board, beside him, feet treading water.

Logan’s letting his newly buzzed hair get wet when Simon speaks, “Did you lose someone?”

The question is so innocuous. So understandable. They’d been cohabitating in the same house for months now. 

It hurts like he’s been shot with one of his father’s prized rifles.

“No, not like you did,” he says, voice almost swallowed up by the noise of the ocean.

“But you lost someone,” Simon repeats, “That’s why you’re here.”

Logan doesn’t know if he lost someone or himself or something. Has to breath in the salty air, feel the board underneath him. 

“I guess I did. Mostly just had an abrupt career change,” his response weak, hurt obvious.

That was the story he’d told Simon and Fiona. An abrupt career change, relocating back home, needed a break or a new place to figure himself out.

Simon sighs, tired, weary, “Okay, so like, be honest. Was it the career change or the loss that hurt more?”

His question has world-shattering implications for Logan. 

Somehow he doesn’t have to think about it. No, he’s got the answer right away. He doesn’t know what it means, what it meant for him back in late August with tears rolling down his face as he tried and tried to call. 

“The loss,” Logan whispers into the morning air.

“Thought so, felt like we were similar when we met,” the other man replies, “You looked sad.”

He sits up on his board, rocking it as he changes his position. With some effort, he resituates himself without falling off, “I thought I looked like an idiot when we met.”

Simon chuckles, eyes still watching the waves, “Two things can be true at once, ya cunt.”

They sit, letting the ocean gently move them with its small waves. Seagulls are loudly calling in the distance. The sun keeps rising. 

“It gets better,” Simon says, breaking the quiet that’s come over them, “You think it’s never going to for a while. Then one day, you wake up and realize you haven’t cried in a week. Obviously you immediately fucking cry about that but, it gets better.”

“My, uh, person’s not dead. I could probably call them right now if I wanted, they might pick up,” Logan explains, because he’s not sure he can handle Simon comparing his wife to Logan’s first love.

Simon nods, “I figured. Still applies. I don’t know what kind of dumbass you were before they left, but I think you’re getting back to that the longer I know you.”

That hurts. Hurts in the same way that a bruise can hurt, when the pain feels a little good every time you press on it. Talking with Simon hurt like that often. 

A small wave rocks him enough he has to kick his legs to not move too far into the shoreline.

“If you ever want to tell me about before, I won’t make fun of ya,” Simon offers, like he’s offering Logan an extra serving at dinner.

Logan craves it, and looks at the man. So similar, heartbroken blonde men on surfboards. If anyone could get it, understand it, despite not having been in it, it’d be Simon.

His voice cracks when he replies, “Y-Yeah, I think I’ll do that one of these days.”

A folded white shirt sits under his bed. Taunting him.

There’s trophy cases and record books with his name all over them. That white shirt feels more damning. 

Another wave rocks them. If he closes his eyes it feels like the ocean is rocking him to sleep.

Logan Sargeant has no car to crash. No crashed car to climb back in. A fact of life.

He’s starting to feel like that doesn’t matter anymore. A fact of life.

There’s been six months of surfing and sand and being a nanny to a girl that seems determined to make him spend more time dealing with the first two items listed. Australia slips into fall, summer fading away as he keeps toeing a tight rope line. Things have changed, he’s changed, and still, he’s not made any plans for his future beyond this.

Simon learns about the white shirt under his bed. They talk over the first beer Logan’s had in months, well into the night. They don’t go surfing the next morning. 

Over one of Layla’s breaks from school, they have a little bonfire. She burns her least favorite homework assignments. He burns the shirt.

The past is naught but ash in the sand to him at this point. He’s almost forgotten of the upcoming anniversary, the start date of his life being forever altered.

Working in the surf shop becomes unbearably boring as the traffic slows. Less tourists, less visiting surfers. Simon makes him stock shelves for real this time. Logan does so, but takes off his sandals and does it barefoot. Just to piss off the older man.

He’s reorganizing their display of wax, meant for surfboards, probably used for all kinds of weird shit, when the bell rings. Two voices, women, chat quietly as they look through the store. Simon’s got some truly awful dad rock playing softly in the shop, making it less awkward for the duo to be the only customers in here.

Moving a row over on the shelf, Logan contemplates the merits of organizing the wax based on how edible he thinks it is. The voices grow louder. He bends over to pick up the box with the new containers of wax, and sees two pairs of shoes heading his way.

Instead of greeting them like a good employee would, Logan keeps his focus on stacking the containers on top of each other. Maybe he could make it like a game of jenga? 

The two women keep chatting, moving around him.

He chooses to not arrange the containers like a jenga tower. Simon would probably just make him redo it once he notices.

Then, one of the women gasps, making him instinctively tune into their hushed conversation.

“Mate, I’m like 90% sure that’s fuckin’ Logan Sargeant,” a quiet voice whispers.

Another voice responds, accent less harsh, tone terribly familiar, “We are in a surf shop in Inverloch. That is not Logan Sargeant.”

“Look at him and tell me that’s not Logan Sargeant,” the first voice whispers. 

Neither of them are all that quiet. 

Logan could run. Could escape to the back room where Simon’s crunching numbers and ordering inventory. It would probably make things worse.

He tunes back out, hands shaking a little as he continues to stack the containers of wax. They make small clinking noises as they hit each other. The voices continue to whisper. He continues to ignore it.

There’d been little thought on how he’d handle being recognized. In all honesty, he did not think it was a possibility. 

He was regretting that now. Woefully unprepared and unequipped to handle it.

Someone clears their throat, and Logan turns to look at them with dread building in his stomach. Familiar brown eyes, swoopy hair, and pale skin look back at him in shock.

Hattie Piastri was Oscar’s oldest sister. The one that Logan sometimes called his twin because of how similar they looked. She was also probably the worst person to find him working in a surf shop in Australia.

Briefly, he spared a thought for his appearance. Hair buzzed, lighter from the sun. Tan skin and a more filled out figure. Logan was lean, muscular in a new way that spoke of how often he’d been swimming. His shoulders are broader than they’d ever been. He was wearing a pink Hawaiian shirt and green shorts that were probably too short.

He’s also barefoot. His little act of rebellion really only makes it seem like he’d gone crazy in the last year or so since he’s seen Hattie.

Which, he might’ve. Gone crazy. 

For her part, Hattie was not staring at his bare feet. But she was staring at him, eyes trailing over his body in shock.

“Logan, what the fuck,” she breaths out, surprise clear.

Her friend flees out the store with the chiming of the bell on the door signaling that they are now alone in the shop. Simon is in his office, likely unaware Logan’s past is standing in front of him in a flowy skirt with a flower hair clip behind one ear.

There’s a million things he thinks and should say. He takes long enough to decide that the silence grows awkward and thick.

“I’m breaking like so many immigration laws, can you please not tell anyone I’m working here?” he says instead of any of the other well-thought out possibilities. 

Hattie laughs on impulse, “What the fuck, do you think I’d snitch on you to the government?”

“Well, you were a pretty notorious tattle tale,” Logan defends, “Besides, we both know Edie is the one that wouldn’t snitch on me to the government. Free spirit that one.”

It’s way too casual and friendly to be acting with her. The last time they’d seen each other was at a distance, hurts too big to be set aside to actually talk.

“You know that people think you died? Like, there’s a whole fanpage dedicated to guessing where you are,” Hattie says in a rush.

Logan held back a laugh at that, smiling widely as he waved his hands, “Well, surprise! Not dead! And you found me! Alert the presses and the fanpages!”

She stares at him like how Layla does when he tells her that she will be caught by an octopus if she swims out too far without him there. Disbelief, a touch of annoyance.

“My mom literally cried when she saw the rumors you were dead,” she says, deadly serious.

“Oh,” he responds, because he really didn’t know what to say to that. 

Nicole Piastri was kind, and had been a safe person for him as he progressed in his racing career. She’d once called his parents and cursed them out for leaving him all alone in Europe, abandoning him, as she said. 

He’d thought of her, in these last six months. Wondered if Oscar ever told her the truth.

Hattie huff, indignant, “Logan what the actual fuck are you doing in Australia? Why haven’t you reached out to anyone?”

“Uh, surfing, I wanted to learn how to surf,” he replies, as truthful as he can be. It’s not like he’s going to admit to spiraling panic attacks, a bad breakup, and questionable alcohol use in the middle of his workplace. He continues at her confused expression, “My family knows I’m alive. Dalton probably made a statement or something. But yeah, wanted to surf mostly.”

“You dropped off the face of the Earth for almost a year because you wanted to learn how to surf?” Hatties asks.

He just nods. It was stupid. Logan was prone to being stupid.

“So, you just go off the grid without telling anyone other than your family where you’re at? Not even telling your closest friend or his family that you’re in Australia? Where we all live? Like two hours away?” she asks, even more disbelieving this time.

“Oscar and me, uh,” he starts before he realizes what he’s about to say, then tries to save it, “Hadn’t really spoken since the race in Miami. Had a bit of a falling out.”

Hattie’s eyes widened dramatically, “What?”

Logan slowly nods, “Thought he’d tell you. I don’t even have his number anymore. Or your family’s.”

The first part is a lie. He’d memorized Oscar’s number years ago. If he wasn’t so attached to this newfound peace of his, he’d go over to the phone on the counter and punch it in. See if Oscar would pick up when it wasn’t his old phone number calling.

“What the fuck,” Hattie breaths out again, like this is something incredibly strange.

He tries to sympathize, he’d be pretty confused to see his brother’s friend from a different country working in a surf shop barefoot in his home country. He offers a weak smile, “I threw my old phone in the ocean. Very Gossip Girl of me.”

It gets Hattie to laugh, the reference. They’d watched it one winter break. Him, Oscar, Hattie, sitting on their family couch in front of a too-small TV. 

She shakes her head, smiling now, “I thought you were some random lookalike.”

“Would be a terrible side gig, the world’s first and only Logan Sargeant impersonator,” he says, gesturing with his hands like the last part was on a billboard.

Hattie stares, those familiar brown eyes piercing into his soul, “Logan, if I give you my number will you text me back?”

Her question hurts. A good hurt. Like he’s healing and reached the itchy stage.

He nods, “Yeah, probably. Just, like, please remember that me and Oscar really did not leave on good terms.”

She nods, slowly, like she’s thinking about something other than his statement. He pulls out his incredibly shitty phone from his back pocket, then holds it out to her.

“Go ahead. I really would love it if Nicole didn’t cry over any rumors of my death again,” he says, more calm than he feels.

His heart’s beating faster than it did when he was riding a big wave. When he boarded that plane six months ago. 

He missed Hattie. Missed her mother and her father and her sisters. 

It was definitely getting too close to Oscar. Too close to the sun. He’d be Icarus, melted wax on his back and arms, feathers in his hair, falling into the ocean.

He took back his phone with a smile, “Well, uh, good seeing you, Hattie.”

“Good seeing you, Logan, even if you have your toes out,” she says, giggling.

Logan groans at her comment, shooing her out the store. The bell jingles as she leaves.

A glance at his phone confirms that she’d made a contact for herself. And texted herself. Smart woman, ensuring she’d have his number even if he never reached out.

His past is breathed back to life from ash and sand not even a month after he’s finally burnt it and left it behind. Ideally, he’d have been wearing shoes when it happened.

Hattie texts him more than Dalton did. It’s about more things than he and Dalton talk about. His brother reached out to make sure he wasn’t dead, asked when he was coming home, and if he could make a post reassuring people he’d not gone missing. His mother would send him some bible verse once a month. Kyle would send a question mark. He’d send back a thumbs up emoji. His father did not reach out.

Hattie reached out a lot. Like, right after his first text that he’d gotten away with being barefoot  his whole shift, she was responding and talking like they were old friends.

In a way they were friends through Oscar, knowing each other for years. But he’d never been all that close with her. Definitely not close enough to be texting back and forth this often.

It starts small. She’d ask what he was doing. He’d send some low quality picture of the beach, his board, Layla, his dinner with a little blurb about it. Hattie would send one of her own, her family, her homework, her boyfriend, one of those kpop icons she loved. Her own little blurb accompanying it. 

Then she asks him about surfing, why he liked it. Logan found himself being too honest in his reply. He mentions that week he spent learning how to surf with Oscar by his side. How he missed the sun. How it let him crash without destroying a million dollar car.

He asks her if she’s got something like that. She kindly responds with a ton of heart emojis, explaining that she had never crashed a car and did not need to replace the urge to do it with another sport. It makes him laugh.

After a week or so, she starts to mention her mother and sisters and father more. Small things, like how Mae is doing in school. Edie’s new boyfriend. How her father lost his reading glasses three times that week. Which Pilates instructor her mother likes best.

Logan thinks she wants information about his family in exchange, but he doesn’t really have that. So he tells her that they’ve started a swear jar for Simon, Fiona has begun exchanging cigarettes for a neighbor’s tomatoes, and Layla’s never-ending well of complaints about her classmates.

They both don’t mention Oscar. Logan has no clue if he’s winning this season, if he’s at risk of losing his seat. He’d let the race season pass him by. Hattie seems more than fine with letting him continue on that way.

Texting someone so often was strange at this point in his life, but he didn’t really want to stop. Couldn’t stop. It felt nice, to feel seen, sought after in any way.

Simon’s quiet on the cool water one morning. Logan and him had shit luck today, barely any waves worth waking up before dawn for.

His wetsuit is tight, clinging to him. It reminds him of his old fireproofs when he’s caught up in his past. Now though, it makes him think of his tacky orange surfboard and salty air.

They sit on their boards, treading water as they are rocked by the ocean. He keeps his eyes on the horizon as he speaks, “I’m texting someone, the sister of that person I lost.”

Simon hums, “Probably going to fuckin’ hurt.”

“It does. But it’s nice,” Logan responds, kicking his feet anxiously.

“Does your person know?” Simon asks, voice softer than it is usually. Like how he sounds when he’s reading Layla a bedtime story.

Logan shakes his head as he talks, “No, I don’t think so. That’s probably stupid. He left me, though, and I missed his family.”

“He not tell them?” Simon asks, in that same soft tone. 

“I guess not. His sister asked why I ran off and didn’t tell them I was in Australia, had no clue,” he explains. 

The sun’s rising, the sky pink in the dawn’s light. Logan lets himself be rocked by the ocean, lets himself hear the seagulls’ cries. The water’s cold. 

Simon lets out a sigh, “You’re gonna get yourself hurt, fuckin’ idiot.”

“I am aware,” Logan replies, “I think I need to know if this version of me would survive it, or if all possible versions of me are doomed to be heart broken.”

The older man groans at his words, “That’s far too deep. You miss that little cunt, and don’t care if you end up hurt going back.”

Logan laughs at his bluntness, “Okay, fair. Still, it’s just his family, not him.”

Simon shoots him a look from the corner of his eye, “I swear, I think you get dumber every day.”

He fakes offense, gasping loudly, “Simon! I thought we were friends! Fiona would be ashamed of you! And imagine if Layla had heard you say that!”

“If I felt like moving, I’d push you off that fuckin’ horrendous board of yours and go back home without you,” the older man says, amusement evident in his tone.

“Excuse you, Garfunkel is a beautiful board!” Logan shouts, continuing to pretend to be offended.

It gets Simon to laugh. Logan joins him not soon after. 

The ocean rocks them, the water cold against his skin.

He gets invited to dinner with the Piastris on a Saturday. It makes him hesitant, but Hattie offhandedly mentions how her father’s going to be in Europe so it’s just the girls and him. The unspoken question and concern answered.

Logan chooses to commit to his new aesthetic. He’s in some well worn cargo pants he wears while working, the black faded to the point of being grey. A red Hawaiian shirt follows. This time he wears shoes, and a jacket to brace the mild Aussie winter temps.

Nicole opens the door when he knocks. She hugs him before he can speak.

“Logan Hunter Sargeant if you ever pull a disappearing act again I will kill you with my bare hands,” she says into his ear.

He’s bent over to hug her back. Squeezing a little too hard.

They pull apart and she waves him into the house with a bright smile. Edie and Mae hug him, greeting him as he enters. Hattie waits for her turn, hugging him for the first time since she’d run into him a month ago. 

It’s long. They hold each other tightly. 

When he sees a picture of him and Oscar on the fridge as he helps set the table, he freezes mid-step. Edie’s been watching him, and takes the plate from him without a word. Mae comes from behind, pulling him to the table.

Hattie and Nicole smile knowingly, kindly, with far too much sympathy. 

He laughs and eats and talks with the women gathered around the table. Mae tells outrageous stories about her teenaged friend group. Edie cuts in to give an update about someone’s poly relationship that the whole family’s invested in. Hattie talks about kpop until the groans from her sisters’ silence her. Nicole shares gossip about the neighbors with glee.

Logan finds himself sharing stories about surfing with Simon, weird tourists, and being Layla’s sorta nanny. The table bursts into laughter as he recounts the time he’d been forced to clean glitter out of the carpet because he’d gotten duped by a child into an impromptu craft time.

One by one, the girls leave the table, all with a smile and hug. 

Nicole and him sit across each in a reflection of the first meal he’d eaten at their house. They each have a glass of red wine in hand, talking about nothing of substance.

Then she pauses and looks at him, really looks at him, “Logan, I want you to know that even if you and Oscar broke up, you’re always welcome here.”

He sputters, probably spitting red wine everywhere, “We weren’t– it wasn’t like–”

“Please don’t attempt to insult my intelligence, Logan. Me and Chris used to make bets on when you’d tell us,” she interrupts, tone kind and understanding.

It makes him want to cry. His own parents had no clue. He’d never tell them. Dalton wouldn’t ask, not even when Logan dropped hints and made it obvious.

For Nicole to have noticed, accepted it, and waited for him to say something. 

It felt like she cared.

“We didn’t tell anyone,” he admits in a whisper, eyes now locked in on the table instead of Nicole’s face, “The stress of the sport, what it could do to our reputations, our seats.”

He glances up, and she nods, eyes watery. His own eyes start to water.

Logan takes a deep breath, speaking with a wavering voice, “I was already the odd man out, being American. Wasn’t ready to also be openly gay. Then all the Alpine stuff went down and it was clear we weren’t coming out anytime soon.”

“Is that when it started? 2021?” she asks, gentle, like he’s about to break if she applied pressure.

“Yeah, when it got serious. I, uh, think he’s the only person I’ve ever dated, had eyes for him back in F3,” he laughs, wet and small.

Nicole smiles, her voice so kind, “He talked about you like you were the greatest person in the world that year. So impressed, had to tell us all about how you raced when he called home.”

Something warm blooms in his chest. His ribs tighten up. There’s a mix of relief, of knowing Oscar had cared, and pain, knowing Oscar no longer cared about him like that.

“We broke up in Miami, last year,” Logan blurts out, “It wasn’t a good relationship. We were too stressed, too busy. Oscar was–he was doing too good and I was doing too bad. Wouldn’t work out if we’d kept trying to force it.”

“Your home race?” Nicole asks, sounding as heart broken as Logan feels.

He nods, “Just happened to occur then, I don’t think Oscar did it on purpose.”

Or at least, he hopes not. Things had been weird, awkward between them. Too many unanswered texts, not enough calls, he’d been desperate for just one hug by the end of it. Just one kiss to prove he still mattered.

Nicole’s face turns to stone, “My son broke up with you at your home race, when you were having the worst season possible, with a shitty boss and a shitter car?”

“It wasn’t just him,” Logan protests, the need to defend Oscar still so strong, “He just was the one to finally rip off the band aid.”

She looks at him. Brown eyes kind, her face sympathetic. 

He keeps speaking, something compelling him, “I think he realized he had a shot at being a champion. It was stressing him out. I was terrible to be around, trust me, it was probably making his performance worse.”

“I really hope you two didn’t break up for the sake of Oscar’s race performance, Logan,” she says, voice unwavering.

Unfortunately, he flinches back at her words. He’s pretty confident that was his exact reasoning in the end. Words exchanged in a Hilton hotel room without much kindness left to make it land softer. Oscar had cried. Logan cried a lot more.

Nicole clocks his reaction, and immediately downs the rest of her wine, “Christ, you two broke up because Oscar was worried about his race performance." 

“I also was worried about his race performance?" he weakly offers up.

“Hattie says you threw your phone in the ocean. Didn’t have our numbers anymore. That’s not something you do when you lose your seat, that’s something you do when you lose everything, Logan,” she says. 

It lands right at the edges of his open wound. The one he felt was healing. 

A whimper escapes him before he can stop it. Revealing all his hurts and truth in one noise.

Nicole stands up, and is hugging him immediately. Her perfume is sweet and comforting, the same one she wore when he first met her as a kid. He wraps his own arms around her, weak but still there.

She strokes his hair, rubs his back. Logan ends up crying, face tucked into her neck.

“It’s okay, hun, I got you,” she soothes him, all gentle and soft, “You’ve really been through the ringer, haven’t ya?”

Logan sobs louder. So simple, so honest. He had been held together by pure desperation and willpower by the time he’d lost his seat. It probably didn’t matter if he’d kept it until the end of the season, he’d already lost Oscar.

Nicole holds him, like he’s still that fourteen year old kid that was upset about his parents not attending any of his races.

Logan Sargeant has no car. Has not crashed a car in over a year. A fact of life.

He doesn’t want to drive a car. Doesn’t want to crash a car. Not anymore. A fact of life.

There’s a third part to this. A third fact that he could call true, a tenant of his personhood. He’s not sure he can name it yet. Something about home, about being home.

Nicole keeps in touch. It’s nice. He’s not responded to his own mother in months.

His visit opens the floodgates. His phone is filled with texts and calls from almost every member of the Piastri family. Even Chris shoots him a text or two, asking about his board and the shop. Mae and Edie make plans to have him teach them how to surf.

Hattie is probably fighting the urge to gloat at how great she is, at being the one to facilitate all this. Logan chooses to send her pictures of the ocean at dawn, showing her the one thing he’s gotten great at. Watching the sun rise.

The missing space where Oscar should be is clear. He aches at the reminders of him, at the glimpses of his presence in the Piastri family house. There’s a hole in his heart that’s not been filled in yet, but he likes to think it’s slowly getting there. Living with the fact that Oscar isn’t there gets easier, feels harder.

Simon gives him life advice between surfing advice. Layla tries to convince him to dye his hair pink. Life keeps moving.

Summer returns, and so do the tourists. Layla’s school year is wrapping up, but not quick enough for the young girl. Christmas is approaching. Logan misses Thanksgiving, texting Dalton and Kyle a day late. It doesn’t hurt him when pictures his Christmas being held in Australia. Fiona, Simon, Layla, and him would decorate some fake pine and make it feel like home.

It’s late November, and he’s in the store. He sits behind the register, going over some of their inventory when the bell on the door jingles. 

A group of girls, late teens. Logan smiles, greets them, and watches as they disperse around the shop. He returns to the inventory, counting all the extra stock they kept behind the desk. Rock music plays at a low volume in the background.

After a few minutes, he’s cashing out the group of girls’ purchases. All separate transactions of course. They all leave, one by one. The last girl looks oddly nervous, fidgeting with her hands as he rings her up.

“You surf?” he asks, just to ease the tension.

She shakes her head, handing him her money, “N-No, just an observer.”

He nods, handing back her change, “Good choice, got real banged up last week and considered hanging up the board after.”

The story is true. Logan got caught in a wave, and found himself getting scraped along the rocks and coral. His poor back and left side were covered in scratches and bruises.

Despite his attempts, the girl is still clearly anxious, accepting her change with a shaking hand. Logan’s about to say goodbye when she says, “Are you Logan Sargeant?”

Ah, well, at least it’s not his ex-boyfriend’s sister this time. He smiles, small and tight, nodding, “Yeah, recognize me?”

She nods, eyes wide, “I really miss you on the grid. You didn’t get a fair shot at Williams. Can I take a picture with you?”

It’s all rapid, Logan barely registering her words before he’s agreeing. Leaning over the counter, he smiles, the girl’s phone held up for a selfie.

They take a few pictures. He doesn’t offer to sign anything.

“Thank you!” she shouts as she leaves, “Glad you aren’t dead!”

He recalls Hattie mentioning a fanpage dedicated to figuring out if he was dead or not. At least they’d get an update.

A part of him is relieved someone remembers him after all this time. Another part is glad he didn’t vomit as a stress response.

His birthday is approaching. Logan spends Christmas in Australia with a hotel front desk attendant, a surf instructor, and a newly nine-year-old girl. It’s probably one of the best Christmases he’d ever had. His hair grows out, he keeps surfing. 

He gets a new wetsuit for Christmas. It’s got a strap so he can zip it up himself. When he goes out without Simon for the first time, it feels strange to be able to zip up his own suit.

Edie and Mae drive two hours and try to learn how to surf as Nicole watches on. It takes Logan a moment to recognize that he’s gotten pretty good at surfing. They shower him in too many compliments and cheers as he shows off his skills. It inflates his ego a little.

So, he thinks he’s going to borrow Fiona’s truck, and find a new spot for his twenty-fifth birthday. Go on a little day trip. 

Last year he’d spent his birthday drunk, trying to ignore the fireworks around his parent’s house.

It’s an upgrade to spend this one surfing, he thinks.

Layla with Simon, at the shop. Logan takes the chance to go hit up the beach in the middle of the day for the first time alone. He’s practicing for his birthday run if asked. Definitely not getting out of his day shift.

His bright orange board gleams in the sunlight. He’s balancing on it as he rides a solid wave. Surfing always feels a bit like he’s flying, the wind and water on his face as he moves. 

Muscle memory carries him, guiding his feet and arms as he lets the wave carry him towards the shore. There’s more surfers, a lot more beach goers, than he usually sees here at dawn. He has to dodge a few fellow surfers as he rides, a newer challenge for him.

The sun beats down on him, warming up his black wetsuit and damp hair.

As the wave dies, Logan decides he needs to track down his bag and water bottle, half buried on the beach under one of his sandals. It’s his stealthy anti-theft measure. 

He’s shaking off the excess water, board in hand when he hears someone shout. He looks over, cautious of it being an emergency, and sees a man that’s definitely not dressed for the beach sprinting towards him. Logan squints, not recognizing the man.

Probably after someone else. He keeps walking towards the spot he knows he left his stuff at. It’s close, and he reaches it without fanfare.

Resting his board on the sand, he kneels down to start digging up his bag when he hears someone shout again. This time he can make out the first half.

“LO–”

His head snaps towards the voice and he sees the same man in a t-shirt and joggers running on the beach. He’s closer, more characteristics able to be made out. Light brown hair flopping as he sprints, pale arms gleaming in the sunlight.

Logan’s breath catches in his throat, his hands still in their place in the sand.

This is not a stranger. This is someone he knows. 

“LOGAN! WAIT!” Oscar shouts, still running. 

It’s a pointless request. He’s frozen in his spot, head turned to watch as the man that broke his heart tries to not sink into the sand with every step.

He considers what he should say. What he should do. None of it makes sense, or matters.

Because the second Oscar reaches him, kneels down in the sand across from him, his orange surfboard separating their knees, Logan loses all ability to think or speak or move.

Oscar’s face is flushed, his lips parted as he pants. He’s just ran on a beach in joggers in the middle of summer for Logan. The physical exertion visible on his face. 

“Logan,” Oscar pants, “Oh my fucking god, Logan, you’re here.”

He nods, slowly. His eyes are wide, he’s trying to take in all of Oscar. It’s been over a year since he’d seen the other. There were obvious changes, the other was more muscular, his jaw sharper. Oscar’s brown eyes repeat his motions, trailing over all of Logan’s body and face. He wonders if he’s also cataloging the differences. 

Oscar lets out a pained noise, “You’ve been here, in Australia. This whole fucking time you’ve been in my country.”

Logan does not think Oscar gets to claim the entirety of Australia as his. Layla has laid claim to this beach in particular.

“I saw a stupid instagram post, some fan and you at some surf shop. Hattie tried to pretend it was fake, but my mom, she told me you had an ugly orange board,” Oscar blurts out, all uncollected and uncool, “I’ve been hanging around random beaches in the area for like a week. Hoping I’d find you.”

He simply nods, eyes still wide. Logan is oddly charmed at the lengths Oscar’s gone through to find him. Wished he’d called instead so that Logan isn’t in a wetsuit for this conversation.

Oscar takes a deep breath, shaky and wobbly, “I won. I won it, the championship. But I just kept thinking about you, Logan, every second of this season I kept thinking about how you should’ve been there. And no one knew where you were, what had happened to you, and I was going insane.”

Logan opens his mouth, then closes it. He’s not sure where this is going, just that his heart is pounding in his chest and he’s got something resembling hope building in his stomach.

“I am so sorry. Logan, I fucked up. I didn’t see how bad you were suffering, not until it was too late. We didn’t need to break up to protect my performance, I should’ve been focused on you and your struggles,” Oscar says, still talking like if he pauses he’d not be able to start again, “And you were gone and I didn’t reach out until it was too late to matter.”

One of Oscar’s hands reaches up, then he stops himself before it can touch him, “Logan, I love you. I won a championship and all I could think about was how much I loved you and missed you.”

This time Logan is about to get his voice to work, “O-Oscar, what are you saying? What are you doing here?”

“I’m begging for your forgiveness, I’m trying to do some really corny romantic confession that gets you to take me back after I grovel for three days straight,” Oscar rambles, “Logan, I need you. This last year has been the worst year of my life and I need you.”

Last year, in Miami, this is all he would’ve wanted. This year, on the beach he’s spent hours crying at, learning to be a new person at the place he’s made his own? He doesn’t know what to think.

Oscar’s eyes are filled with tears, his face still flushed. Logan can tell from his dark circles that he’s not been sleeping. He doesn’t look like he’s won a championship. He looks like he’s lost something. Lost someone.

This is what Logan probably looked like to Simon last year. Desperately trying to keep moving. Attempting to fix the hole left behind by loss.

“You hurt me, Oscar, you hurt me so bad that I literally gave up all my dreams and plans and became a some rando surfer in Australia," Logan says, a little unkindly, because he might cry alongside Oscar if he doesn’t force himself to stay angry, “I lost my seat and had to go back to fucking Florida. Not one person on the grid reached out, not you, not my own teammate. Forgive me if I find this a bit unbelievable.”

Oscar’s crying now. Tears run down his face. He’s a pretty crier, he simply had to be better at one more thing than Logan.

“When things got bad, I’d rewatch that video of us dancing in your hotel room in Austin. Again and again and again. Between races, on the plane, if they’d let me have my phone in my car I’d have watched it there,” Oscar confesses, raw emotion on his face.

Logan remembers that video. They’d been hyped up on rookie season nerves and he’d taught Oscar how to two step in his hotel room. Oscar had recorded it, said it was to prove he was the better dancer. Over three years ago, something shared between them in private kept after their breakup. 

When he’d chucked his phone into the ocean, he’d lost every photo, video, text message between them. He’d thought it’d be easier that way.

His heart aches as it pounds in his chest.

“I–, I don’t know what to say, Osc,” he whispers, the nickname slipping out unconsciously, “You left me. I’m not the same person anymore, things are different now.”

Oscar nods, voice cracking as he speaks, “I will love you in any form. Any shape or phase or size, Logan, I will love you as a surfer as much as I love you as a driver. It doesn’t change my love for you. I need you by my side in any way you’ll let me have you.”

And that seals Logan’s fate. The complete certainty in his eyes, the pure vulnerability in his body. 

Because that’s what got him here in the first place. Logan had spent years loving every possible version of Oscar, so deeply that losing him made him feel like he’d lost everything. It was more than just crashing cars and getting back in. It was the fact he was doing it with Oscar.

Now, he’s kneeling in the sand as the sun beats down his back, listening to Oscar tell him he feels the same way.

He reaches out with one hand, and Oscar leans into his touch. Sand gets in the other’s hair, but neither seem to care. Not in this moment, not when Logan feels tears run down his face to match Oscar.

Logan puts their foreheads together, gentle, tender. They stare at each other, eyes locked.

“I won’t survive you leaving a second time.”

“I can’t bear the thought of letting you go again.”

Then he presses his lips against Oscar’s. They kiss like they are trying to fix it without speaking more, moving as one. Logan brings his other hand to tangle both in Oscar’s hair. One of Oscar’s hands comes up to cup the back of his head, the other to grab at his waist. 

Their lips move, the kiss growing frantic. It’s desperate, it’s all their emotions and fuckups and needs being poured into one act of passion. Logan clutches Oscar’s head like he might somehow slip through his fingers. Oscar’s hand digs into his side, nails cutting through his wet suit.

Eventually, they have to pull apart, panting into each other’s open mouths, foreheads pressed against each other’s. Their hands stay on the other’s body, tangled in their hair and skin.

Oscar whispers, so quiet it’s almost impossible to hear above the noise of the beach and waves, “Logan, please, let me love you. Stay with me.”

He’s overwhelmed, salty air and that scent that has always been just Oscar filling his nose. Familiar, the thing he’d have called home once upon a time. His knees dig into the sand. Logan knows his answer far too quickly.

“Keep me, Oscar, keep me and love me and I will stay with you forever,” he whispers back. 

Oscar surges forward, capturing his lips in another kiss. Logan thinks this might be heaven.

They take a while to piece together their future. Both of them have grown and changed. It is weeks of exploring the new edges of the other’s shape, the new parts of them that have been left untouched. Hands trailing over soft skin, voices low in the morning light, lips pressed against each other. 

Logan takes Oscar back, makes him see the life he’s built. Simon and Layla are far too happy to meet him. Fiona tells Oscar he’s too pale for an Aussie. It feels better than any of the hundreds of imagined scenarios he’s had of introducing Oscar as his boyfriend to his family.

Of course, Logan forces Oscar into a borrowed wetsuit and on a borrowed board at some point. The waves crash over them, soaking them in salt water and sun. There’s memories from a lifetime ago of them, younger, kinder, doing the same thing. They’re replaced by ones of them now, happier, freer.

Talking with Oscar comes so easily. Tears, yelling, every emotion at once, it all happens between them. Sometimes on the beach, in the ocean, sun on their backs. Sometimes in messy sheets, quiet rooms, moonlight painting them silver. Logan tells him everything and anything. Oscar tells him more.

Eventually, they have to pull themselves out of their hideaway. Oscar ignored calls, texts, emails from everyone. Logan has to learn to say goodbye and see you later and mean it. Layla cries. Logan cries harder.

Then they go and tell Oscar’s family. Like they’d always said they would.

Nicole cries, Logan cries, Oscar pretends he’s not crying. Chris breaks out the good whiskey and gives them a toast. It burns on the way down, but he’s so warm already it doesn’t even linger in his throat.

Hattie informs them they are idiots. He has no defense, long humbled outside of a shitty hotel while cigarette smoke filled his lungs. Oscar and her bicker over it, playful, joyful. Edie and Mae ignore them in favor of asking Logan if he’s really going to move in with Oscar.

“Well, you can surf in Europe, and I’ve been getting a little bored with Aussie beaches,” he says, Nicole’s hand on his back as she mediates her two eldest children’s arguments.

Edie tilts her head to the side, eyebrow raised, “You can surf a lot of places, Loges, you don’t have to follow Oscar.”

“Yeah, Oscar’s kinda lame, and you’re this cool surfer dude now,” Mae interjects, dark eyes serious.

It makes Logan laugh to hear Oscar’s sisters call the reigning world champ lame. He has never lived in a world where anyone thought he was cooler than Oscar.

Still he nods, “Valid points, I’d be able to use his money to go to those cool places. Let me live my best trophy wife life, please.”

That has the girls giggling. They discuss how Logan should drain Oscar’s bank account by buying new boards and clothes and maybe some gifts for them. He fully commits to the idea of being Oscar’s sugar baby, offering to buy them cars.

“Oi, you are not buying my sisters cars with my money,” Oscar cuts in when they’ve gotten too loud discussing their plans, “That money is for you not for them.”

His chest tightens, it’s a joke, of course, but still it fills him with pleasure. Logan nods, “Well, maybe I want to spend the money on them.”

Edie and Mae cheer. Oscar shakes his head as his parents laugh at his misery.

“Does this mean you’ll fund my dreams of TXT VIP passes?” Hattie asks, eyes on Logan and Logan alone.

“Oh, fuck yeah I will,” he says, leaning over the table to give her a high-five.

Oscar groans, putting his head down against the table. The room laughs, warm and happy. It feels like home. He feels like he’s finally done chasing down his future. 

Logan Sargeant does not drive cars. A fact of life.

He’s become oddly infatuated with being in the passenger seat. Fiddling with the aux, making Oscar listen to anything but house music for once. The world passes him by as he looks out the window. If he drives, it’s because he’s hauling him and his surfboard to some new beach. There’s no one timing him, making him push to go faster, harder.

Sliding into the passenger seat is a habit. Again and again and again, he finds himself sitting beside Oscar or Hattie or anyone of the people he loves. His only job is to ensure he’s got his seatbeat on.

Logan Sargeant does not crash, and does not get back in after he crashes. A fact of life.

The therapist he gets when they go back to Monaco tells him he’s very resilient to have kept going in the face of all his hardships. That he’s got an incredibly strong mindset to have been willing to get back into the car after all those crashes. He thinks he likes that interpretation more than being told he’s stubborn and doesn’t know when to stop.

His body is strong, healthy, arms steady as he paddles towards his next big wave. Oscar teases him about how tan he is, how he makes Oscar look so pale in comparison. Again and again and again he uses his body to show how much he loves Oscar, how much Oscar loves him. It’s nice to use his body for something that doesn’t hurt.

Without either of those things, he has everything. A fact of life.

Oscar holds him with reverence, Logan is treated like he’s been hard fought over, like he’s the championship trophy and not just Logan. His time on the waves gives him more peace and salvation than any church service had. There’s friends made that work at the corner store and the supermarket that make him feel more alive than the ones he’d made on racetracks.

Accents and languages of all kinds tell him stories and compliments. He teaches tourists how to surf when he’s at a new beach. Again and again and again, he finds new things to enjoy about his life. The freckles on his nose, the callouses on his hands, the way it’s all a part of him forever.

Logan’s home is in a fancy Monaco apartment, hidden between soft bedding and kisses. Logan’s home is on the coast of Australia, warm sandy beaches and swear jars. Logan’s home is in the water, on the waves, under the sun.

He can sleep at night. He can breathe in the daylight. He can be whole.

Logan Sargeant is in love. A fact of life.

Oscar buys him the ring without telling him, then buys him ones he can wear while surfing, then buys another one just in case Logan hates the first one. Of course, Logan loves all of them. As much as he loves Oscar.

Because loving Oscar is a part of him, just like his hair being blonde, his eyes being that blue-green shade, his accent being a little funny. 

It can feel like he’s dreaming at times. Logan doesn’t mind.

Not when he’d been unable to dream for so long.