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It’s sunny, as it was written, as it is pictured in every promotional booklet, in every “Bem-Vindo!” sign at the airport. It’s sunny as it was fifteen years ago, and every time since then.
The sun is high in the sky. The bridge of Phil’s nose is already tinged pink. Dan wants to kiss it, so his cheeks match. Mostly, he wants Phil to put on more sunscreen so he won’t have to hear him complain about being sunburned and peeling and how Dan is a horrible boyfriend for not applying aloe to places he can very well reach on his own. The second thought wins, and he hands Phil the facial sunscreen wordlessly.
They should’ve have gotten an umbrella, but those fixed, wicker ones were too far from the water—and too close to the bars and restaurants. The only thing worse than hearing an English person on holiday was to hear an English person being loud and drunk in the early afternoon, and feeling personally responsible for the behaviour of their fellow countrymen.
There were people selling various colourful umbrellas at the entry of the beach too, but they didn’t want the extra weight, or to buy something they’d have to leave at the house. So they didn’t get an umbrella. So they don’t have an umbrella. So Dan is pretty sure they won’t leave here unblemished.
He would regret their decision, if regret was the kind of thing he was capable of feeling right then. It was not. The sunny is shining, the waves are crashing gently against the shore, and Phil is right by his side, his hand next to his own on the sand, close enough to hold. Regret is the farthest thing from his mind.
The warm rays hitting his skin make him languid and lazy, like a cat on its preferred patch of sunlight. His eyes close on their own accord. The sound of the waves and distant laugher are lulling him to sleep…
“Olha a bola de Berlim! Sem creme, com creme ou chocolate!” Someone yells, somewhat melodically, dragging out whatever the first word was—loud enough to be heard for miles, it feels like.
“Jesus fucking Christ!”
Next to him, Phil laughs at his outburst, but the open bottle of sunscreen on the sand lets Dan know he wasn’t the only one spooked.
“What was that?” He asks, sitting up and blinking away the last remains of sleepiness. “What is that?” He repeats, when the yelling continues.
“He’s selling… doughnuts, I think? Something like that. I’ve never gotten one. I don’t think they take card.”
Dan looks at their left, maybe 50 meters out. A smiley, middle-aged man has gotten up, and is chatting with the vendor. He hands him a bill, and takes in return multiple transparent plastic bags, which he distributes promptly amongst his wife and young children. One of the kids bites into the doughnut immediately, and gets his little face covered in a yellow cream. Neither he nor his parents seem to mind.
“Do you want one?” He asks Phil, already reaching into their shared backpack.
“You have cash? Since when do you carry cash?”
Dan doesn’t bother with a response.
“Do you want one or not? He’s leaving.” He’s not leaving that fast, as he’s being stopped by multiple people on his journey. Still, neither of them ate a sweet treat after lunch, and they didn’t bring any food to the beach. It feels like divine intervention. Besides, it seems like everyone tanned rather than red in this beach is getting one, and Dan wants to take part in what is clearly a cultural tradition.
“Yeah, sure. When have you ever known me to say no to a sweet treat?” Phil laughs.
“You’re very inquisitive today.” He mocks back, unable to keep the fondness out of his voice. He doesn’t need too.
A small, informal line has formed around the vendor. Dan walks over and joins it. The vendor seems lively and chatty, he has dark hair, sun-bleached and dry at its curled ends. His shoulders are dark under the loose tank-top he’s wearing. He’s clearly a boy with a summer job, maybe between university semesters.
“Uh, bom-dia.” Dan nods awkwardly at him, when his turn comes. He’s the last one in the little group. “Dois?” He holds up two fingers, for good measure.
“Bom-dia? Boa-tarde! Duas de quê?” The young man says with an easy smile.
Something akin to panic must’ve shown on Dan’s face, because the vendor switches effortlessly to English. Dan would be insulted, except he did not, in fact, understand a single word beyond bom-dia, and he doesn’t want to return to Phil empty-handed when he was promised a doughnut.
“What flavour do you want? I have plain, with cream, or with chocolate.”
Dan hadn’t realized he had options.
“Uh, what do you recommend?”
“They’re all good, but most people prefer with cream, it’s the most traditional. It’s like an egg-yolk custard.” Dan purses his lips, and it seems like the young man takes that as scepticism. In reality, he was thinking whether or not he should get chocolate for himself knowing he couldn’t share with Phil but, to be fair, egg flavoured didn’t seem like something Phil would enjoy, either.
“It doesn’t taste like egg. It’s not savoury or anything like that.” The vendor reassures.
“Have you had pastéis de nata?” He asks. Dan nods enthusiastically at recognizing something in this conversation. It makes the vendor smile wider. “It’s like that. They’re not exactly the same, but they’re both egg yolk. It doesn’t taste like eggs, it’s just sweet and creamy.”
Phil does like a pastel de nata. And he wouldn’t be upset at Dan having chocolate. “I’ll get one chocolate and one cream, please.”
“Of course. Four euros, please.”
Dan glances helplessly at the coins he has before settling on handing him a five-euro bill and telling him to keep the change. The man hands him two transparent plastic bags with one pastry each. They’re both overflowing enough for him to be able to distinguish which is which.
Phil is sitting up and smiling at him when he returns. He now has a baseball cap on, and his nose is protected from the sun for the time being.
“My hero.” He jokes when Dan sits down next to him. For a moment it seems like he is going to kiss his cheek, but he squeezes Dan’s thigh affectionately instead. It’s okay. They’ll get there. He squeezes the top of Phil’s hand on his thigh. They’re getting there.
“I got chocolate for myself, I hope you don’t mind.”
“’course not.” The reply is immediate. “We’re on holiday, you can treat yourself.”
Dan rolls his eyes and bites back a response that they don’t need a reason to treat themselves. It’s not worth the effort. He flicks Phil’s shoulder instead, and the offended laugh it gets him makes him surer of his choice.
There are napkins in the bags, but nevertheless his hands get covered in granulated sugar and chocolate immediately. There are worse problems to have.
He closes his eyes and moans the seconds he takes a bite. His arm is swatted before he’s even done.
“Shut up!” Phil reprimands in a whisper. Dan doesn’t need to look at him to know he’s smiling. “People can hear you.” Then he takes a bite of his own and shuts up.
He holds it out to Dan.
“Do you want to try mine? It’s really good.”
Dan takes a bite from the pastry while it’s still in Phil’s hand. He moans again.
“The chocolate’s good, but yours is better. The guy said it was like an egg-yolk cream.”
Phil wrinkles his nose and the motion pushes his sunglasses further up on his face. It’s cute, but Dan still wishes he could take the words back into his mouth. Phil is now holding the pastry at a distance, examining it like the fluffy, sugary dough ball will turn into a live grenade at any moment.
“Why did you tell me it was egg?” He asks eventually, a whine in his voice. “I was fine before you told me it was egg.”
“You’re so dramatic. It’s just custard. You like custard. You were liking this too!”
“Yeah, but it’s like—a million degrees! And it’s egg. We’re getting food poisoning.”
“Oh my god.” The words come out exasperated. “We’re not getting food poisoning. If we were getting food poisoning, everyone else here would be getting it too.”
“Maybe they are. Maybe it’s a national hobby. We don’t know their lives.”
Dan makes a move to grab the bola de Berlim out Phil’s hand. “I can eat yours.”
Phil quickly turns his body away from Dan and holds the pastry closer to his chest. The motion sprinkles the hair there with sugar. Dan swallows dryly and snaps his gaze back to Phil’s face. There’s sugar on the corners of his mouth, too.
“No! It’s fine.” He takes a small, hesitant bite. “We’ve enjoyed holidays with food poisoning before, we can do it again.”
It’s the exaggerated sigh that clues Dan in.
“You little shit. We’re not— Shut up. You’re just trying to annoy me. Rage-baiter.”
“You shouldn’t be so fun to rage-bait, then.”
Phil smiles, wide and lovely, biting the tip of his tongue. Dan wants to bite it too. Later. They eat in silence, turned towards the ocean. Dan thinks he’d be fine if this moment were to last forever. As all things, it must end, and this one ends with Phil complaining that his hands are sticky and covered in sugar, which makes Dan notice the similar state of his own.
“Lick it.” He orders, as he puts the tip of his own thumb into his mouth. It tastes like chocolate and sunscreen—he doesn’t do same to the rest of his fingers.
“Here?”
“What?”
A few beats pass.
“Oh my god, shut up!”
In an effort to slap Phil’s torso with the plastic bag, he loses his balance and catches it by putting his hand into the sand. The sensory feel of sunscreen, spit, chocolate, sugar and sand is not a pleasant one. He grabs both of Phil’s wrists and rubs them into the sand too, before he can realize what’s happening. When he does, he fights back, and soon enough both their bodies and their towels are coated in sand.
Dan lays back, breathing heavily. Half of his head is out of the rumpled towel.
“I’m thirsty.” Phil proclaims. Dan looks at him. He’s flicking his gaze between Dan and their backpack. Dan can’t see his eyes through the sunglasses, but he recognizes the play. He might as well be batting his eyelashes.
There’s even more sugar around his mouth now. Dan wants to lick it, but he remembers how his fingers tasted. That’s the first thought, not the publicness of it all.
“You’re not holding my water bottle like that.” If Phil notices his voice fail, he’s kind enough not to mention it. He notices of course, smiles softly. Dan tries not to linger on it.
He takes off his sunglasses and gets up, hold out a hand to Phil.
“C’mon. Let’s go on the water.”
“Together? We’re just leaving the backpack here?”
“I’m sure it’s fine, everybody is doing it.”
Phil doesn’t even look around to confirm, and that blind trust doesn’t do anything to ease the knot forming in Dan’s throat. Phil takes Dan’s outstretched hand, and doesn’t let go of it as they make their way towards the water. Dan doesn’t think he can speak. He squeezes Phil’s fingers between his own instead and, even through the rough grains of sand, Phil squeezes back.
Everything is blue and bright. It’s a moment he wishes they could’ve had fifteen years ago. It’s a moment he wishes he could’ve enjoyed for longer, but a wave creeps up over their feet and Phil winces and pulls away.
“It’s always so cold.” His shoulders are hunched, arms crossed over his chest. “I thought the Mediterranean was meant to be warm.”
“This is still the Atlantic ocean, babe.”
“Is it?”
“I think so?” Dan pulls up his phone, in its silly waterproof case. The brightness is turned all the way down.
“I can’t see shit.”
“Let me have this, then.” Phil argues. He’s distracted enough that they’re now already ankle deep.
“No no. It’s a whole thing that the Mediterranean only starts in Gibraltar, I think. And that’s like... Spain.”
“Pretty sure it’s still U.K..”
Unaccomplished in his mission, Dan gives up on his phone. “You know what I mean.”
“Don’t try to derail.” He continues, snapping back to the task at hand. “We’re all sticky and sandy, and we need time to dry before meeting your family for dinner.”
“Are we not going back to the house to shower?”
“No, they’re meeting us near here. It’s one of the restaurants on the beach. We can’t show up dripping and shirtless, but otherwise anything goes.”
Phil looks suspiciously at the water under them. It’s cold, but not unbearable. He takes his time deciding.
Dan watches his profile like a painting, like he could write entire sonnets about the way the sun hits the bridge of his nose, stains it pink along with the top of his cheekbones. His eyes become even brighter and bluer under clear skies, the wind tussles and tangles his hair like Dan had just run his fingers through it, like he has done so many times before, like he’ll do for the rest of their days. The whole pale expanse of his skin is littered with freckles and Dan wants to connect the dots with a pen, with his fingers, with his tongue. Maybe they should go back to the house.
“Okay.” Phil says, with an air of finality. Dan doesn’t remember what they were talking about anymore. “Can you hold my hand again?”
It’s an easy enough answer today, somehow. He doesn’t know how he was lucky enough to get here. He does. It was not luck. He takes Phil hand. “Always.”
They walk towards the horizon, hand in hand.
The water is up to their shoulders when Dan dives first.
“Your turn. You have sugar and cream up to your forehead.”
Phil is a little bit of a baby about it, but he does dive in too. His hair is pushed away from his forehead when he emerges.
“What? What are you looking at?” He asks Dan, smile toothy and eyes squinting against the harsh sun.
Dan doesn’t answer. He can’t. He holds the back of Phil neck, traces his jaw with his thumbs. His lips taste of sugar and salt.
The world continues to spin.
The waves continue to crash.
The sun continues to shine. They bloom under its light.