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Surfer bum, Adam thought, as he watched Jay lie back in the shallows like this was the first day of his vacation and not the first day of Survivor.
Salesman, Adam thought, as Jay toyed with Michelle’s braid and leaned in close to whisper in her ear.
Idiot, Adam thought, when Jay voted out Mari and then shot him a kid-with-his-hand-in-the-cookie-jar grin.
Surfer bum. Salesman. Idiot.
“I don’t care when I get voted out,” Adam muttered to Zeke after Vanua’s first tribal, “as long as I get to write down his name first.”
Idiot.
Idiot.
Idiot.
*
Adam’s shoes feel weird. The concrete beneath his feet feels weird, too. He can’t figure out how to stand, how to walk. He wants to kick off his boat shoes and find sand beneath his toes.
But he’s on a busy street in Fort Lauderdale. There’s no sand here.
He squints in the evening sun. There are palm trees, and the air is dense with humidity, but it smells like exhaust fumes and fried food. It’s nothing like Fiji. So he hobbles onward and tries to ignore the weird feeling in his feet.
The secret of Survivor is how quickly the experience goes away.
Get on the plane and the memories shunt to the back of your mind. Unlock your front door and the whole thing feels like a hallucination. Order a pizza with a buddy and you’re already talking about it like it’s a story. Thirty-nine raw, life-changing, unforgettable days and, just like that, it feels like fiction.
Most of the time, since his return to reality a month ago, the game has felt like a thing that happened to someone else.
Once in a while, though, he’ll be overcome by something like an acid flashback.
A Survivor flashback.
The world is too loud, too busy. His shoes feel weird. And, as he grasps the door handle, it’s unbearably strange. The metal in his hand, the twisting motion—it’s all wrong.
There are no door handles in nature.
Grasp and twist.
Like a pioneer, he navigates the door handle and steps inside.
Dark and dingy, it’s kind of a dive bar. He should’ve expected that. Sticky floor, formica tables, faded surfing photos on the walls. The girls are in short-shorts and bikini tops; the guys are showing off in muscle shirts.
Of course Jay looks right at home.
He’s seated at the bar, but he’s leaning way over to talk to a blonde two bar stools down. It’s an absurd position, his body stretched out like he’s riding a wave. Despite this, he looks as comfortable as he’d be on a couch.
Jay’s laughter carries across the bar, propelling Adam toward him.
Adam climbs on to the stool next to his. This, finally, feels right. Stool. Stump. Whatever. He’s used to perching in this position on a stump of wood and expecting the world to fall out from under him.
He waits for Jay to notice him, but he doesn’t. He’s mid-flow with the woman along the bar. Riding that wave. Making her swoon. Charming her all the way out of her booty shorts.
Adam grits his teeth and scans the chalkboard menu. For the hell of it, he orders a pretentious craft beer named Sensual Hippy. He’s trying to prove something. He’s not sure what. Maybe just that … he’s a San Francisco guy. A weirdo. A sophisticate. He’s not a guy who—he eyes Jay—drinks tequila at 8 p.m. on a Thursday.
The craft beer, when it arrives, tastes like shit.
And, actually, a shot of tequila would be good right now.
“Yo, what’s going on!” Jay says, finally noticing him.
Adam raises his eyebrows. “Not much.”
It’s so much of a lie that he feels like God should zap him with a lightning strike. A few hundred thousand dollars is about to drop into his checking account and, oh yeah, his mom just died.
Real answer: Too much, Jay. Too much is going on.
“That’s cool, man. What are you drinking?”
“Oh, just a local beer.” He sips it pedantically. “It’s pretty good.”
Lie, lie, lie. But if he doesn’t lie, he’ll probably start crying. And, God knows, he’s done enough of that.
“Aw, I was gonna buy you one, say congrats, man.”
Jay hooks an arm around Adam’s neck and pulls him in. It’s half-hug, half-older-sibling-razzing-his-kid-brother. Adam wants to wriggle free and tell him to fuck off. Then Jay drops a kiss at his temple and all Adam can feel is warmth and squirming excitement.
Jay smells like booze and seawater-salt and something else, something familiar that resonates for Adam as … home.
“But, hey, you should be the one buying me a drink.” Jay unhooks and gives Adam a light shove. “This guy just won a million bucks.”
“Not a million after taxes,” Adam mutters, still feeling dizzy. “And I’m … donating … you know … investing …”
Jay’s ignoring him, calling over to the blonde along the bar as he points at Adam.
“Bonafide millionaire!”
Adam ends up ordering more tequila for Jay. While he continues to doggedly sip his bad beer, Jay does shots and then settles into a Bud. Adam even buys the blonde a couple of drinks. She’s nice, actually. Her name is Steffie and she volunteers at a dolphin sanctuary.
The three of them wind up in an absurd conversation about sea life as a metaphor for altruism. He has no idea what he’s talking about; he’s just talking to keep his mouth occupied, to keep from screaming. He feels it building in the front of his brain like a crackling storm of electricity—
I don’t care! I didn’t come here for this! My mom just died!
MY MOM.
JUST.
DIED.
The conversation shifts from sea life to real estate, from altruism to sex. Jay’s leaning in close to Steffie, telling her a story about hosting an open house at “one of those tacky mansions on the coast”, wandering into a bedroom and finding a couple going at it – “right there in the middle of my fucking open house, man!”
Jay tips back his head and lets out a throaty laugh that shivers down Adam’s spine. Steffie’s hand is laid across Jay’s arm. She’s staring at him with bedroom eyes. And Jay is all cued up and ready with another story, another charming anecdote about absolutely nothing.
Adam’s hardly drunk a thing, but his stomach feels slick and yellow with nausea.
This is all Jay is.
Surfer bum. Salesman. Idiot.
He can’t fucking stand him.
Adam pushes down onto the ground, stumbling off his stool-stump.
“I’m tired, man.” His voice is an undertone. “I gotta head out.”
“What? No, stay!”
Adam angles his face away, waving a limp goodbye to Jay. He hastens across the bar, hobbling on feet that feel weird.
He casts a final glance at Jay before he reaches for the door handle, but the salesman is still on his bar stool, still gulping down his brand-name beer.
He’s tired. He’s been tired for so many weeks now and sleep never seems to help.
*
On the island, they slept in a puppy pile.
Adam was a city kid. He’d gone camping before, in Yosemite, at Joshua Tree, but only at crowded campsites, where floodlights illuminated the shower block.
Fiji was not like that.
The darkness was intense. Absolute. Like being dropped down the bottom of a well.
That only left sound, smell, touch to orient yourself.
“You hear that?”
The voice was a whisper. He’d only known Jay for a week, but he already recognized his voice intimately.
Adam – wired, exhausted, and unable to sleep – pulled his buff down off his face. He listened. He knew what it was.
“Sounds like a turtle slurping up a fish dinner,” he said under his breath.
“Right?”
Jay’s laughter was his gift, low and throaty and genuinely amused. In the darkness, Adam heard Jay shift positions. He felt the brush of skin against his arm, the tickle of long hair against his shoulder. Jay was invisible to Adam’s gaze, but his warmth, his closeness, overwhelmed Adam’s other senses.
Figgy and Taylor were making out less than five feet away, but it was possible to pretend it was miles away. In that moment, it was possible that only Adam and Jay existed, cocooned together in the darkness.
Jay’s breathing steadied next to his ear and Adam drifted into sleep.
Adam was a student of insomnia. He’d gotten really good at it in the months since his mom’s diagnosis. He’d learned how to kill the night time hours. He was studying Italian; taking Intro to Theoretical Physics online. He’d even bought a home-brewing kit, mashing malt in his kitchen at three a.m.
Other people slept like crap on Survivor.
Adam had some of the best sleep of his life.
Maybe it was just a relief, to be doing the thing he’d wanted (and his mom had wanted) for so long.
Maybe it was something else.
Adam woke up slowly, with a luxuriant Sunday-morning feeling. His face nuzzled into the curve of a neck; his body pressed against sinewy back muscles. In the chilly pre-dawn, he craved warmth—and something more, too.
A lock of hair brushed his face, causing his nose to twitch.
The warmth receded even as he wished for the opposite, that the warmth would envelop him. Hands would caress his body and friction would hitch up his heartrate.
He licked his lips, anticipating the kiss that would surely come within seconds. He was ready, he was open, he was—
Hard.
“Good morning.”
The familiar voice held the echo of low and throaty laughter.
Adam’s eyes opened.
Embarrassment congealed his insides as he watched Jay roll away.
Oh, Jesus.
Adam’s body flinched in on itself.
Jay raked his unruly hair out of his face and shot him that hand-in-the-cookie-jar grin.
“Buy me breakfast, sweetheart?” he said, standing up.
Jay gave a lazy wink and ambled away in the direction of the ocean.
*
why don’t u come and see me sometime in fl?
Adam weaves along the crowded Fort Lauderdale street, feeling flushed and overdressed in jeans and a plaid shirt. He can’t find his car. He can’t even remember exactly what his car looks like. It’s a rental and it’s white, but beyond that …
No idea.
Maybe he’ll be stuck here forever. In this trashy town in this crackpot state full of Trump voters.
He shouldn’t have come.
why don’t u come and see me sometime in fl?
The message Jay sent him a week ago was followed by a winky-face.
Jay’s whole personality is a winky-face. Juvenile. Flirtatious. Infuriating.
He shouldn’t have come.
It’s true that he’s on sabbatical from work – some kind of combination of compassionate leave and hey-you-just-won-a-reality-show sanity break. It’s also true that there are a couple of editors in New York who want to talk to him about maybe writing a book (what the hell does he know about writing a book?). If he’s heading out East, why not make a brief stop in Florida?
It was supposed to be a vacation. Totally chill. No big deal.
So why does he feel like he might throw up?
“Hey, Adam!”
He turns to see Jay jogging towards him.
“Made me chug my beer, man.” Jay is panting slightly when he catches up to him. “You wanna go to a different bar?”
“No, I’m beat. Gotta head back to my hotel.”
He doesn’t want to look at Jay, who’s standing there in board shorts and a t-shirt, with out-of-control curls, looking exactly as he did in Fiji, give or take a few layers of grime.
Scanning the row of cars, Adam finally spies his rental (what he thinks is his rental, anyway) less than half a block away. He turns to walk in that direction, but Jay’s hand is on his shoulder.
“What? We’ve barely hung out at all. C’mon, the night’s young. You’re a millionaire and I’m so pretty it don’t even matter that I don’t have a pot of gold.”
Adam shakes his head, but he can’t bring himself to shrug off Jay’s hand.
“You like the look of Steffie?” Jay asks. “Want me to go see if she’ll come with us?”
Exasperated, Adam shoots him a sidelong look. Nearby, someone leans on their horn, long and hard. Is Jay pimping him out? Is Jay suggesting a threesome?
He has literally no idea what goes through Jay’s head. And how the hell can you have a relationship with someone like that?
Not that he wants a relationship. Not that Jay even wants him.
“No …” Adam says at last, his voice sinking. “I’m just tired … I shouldn’t have come. I don’t know why I came.”
Adam looks at his shoes (his shoes that still feel wrong) and then up at Jay.
Jay’s eyes are wide. The perma-smile has slid off his face. He looks. Stung.
“Cool, man, cool,” Jay mutters and there’s hurt in his voice.
Adam’s throat closes up. He doesn’t want to be the one to provoke that kind of dead-eyed look in Jay.
“Sorry,” he chokes out. “I’m mixed up right now.”
His expression begs Jay for forgiveness and a little bit of light leaks back into Jay’s eyes.
“You’re allowed,” Jay says. He palms his hand against the socket of Adam’s shoulder, his fingers digging in through the material of Adam’s shirt. “I’m sorry about your mom. I know I already said it. But not in person. And probably not enough. I feel like I should say it a thousand times or something. Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry—”
Adam slaps his hand against Jay’s mouth, smiling in spite of himself.
“Stop it, I thought we were doing something,” Adam says. “If you’re gonna say sorry a thousand times, we’ll be here all night.”
Jay rolls his eyes. Slowly, Adam lowers his hand from Jay’s lips. His fingers itch to touch Jay again, to rub at his jaw, to trace down his throat, to roam lower on his body, but his hand just falls uselessly to his side.
“So it’s a no on going to another bar?” Jay asks.
This time, it’s Adam’s turn to roll his eyes.
“Fine,” Jay mutters. “Gimme your phone, mine’s dead.”
Without hesitation, Adam pulls his phone from his pocket, unlocks it and hands it to Jay.
Jay’s thumbs skim across the screen. Adam catches a glimpse of what he’s doing. Waze. He’s typing a destination.
“Come on. This is where we’re going. Road trip.” Jay slaps the phone back into Adam’s hand and leans on his shoulder. “You’re driving, because I’m just a little bit buzzed.”
He’s close enough for Adam to breathe him in again, that scent that’s beyond familiar to him. It’s a part of him.
*
They’ve been driving for an hour and Waze has taken them on a dubious shortcut down some lonely, badly-lit backroad. Adam’s not a great driver – he mostly takes BART – and tiredness is making him jumpy. On the stereo, a honey-voiced lady from NPR is telling the audience in the nicest way possible that the world’s going to hell.
In the passenger seat, Jay is snoozing. Adam’s eyes slide over to look at him. Then he cuts away, cheeks flushed, staring resolutely at the dark road ahead.
He misses the island because it was Before.
Everything that happened before his mom died is, by definition, better.
It’s not just that, though. He also misses how straightforward everything was. Sure, the game was stressful. But it was only a game. Even after he woke up snuggled against Jay’s back with a hard-on, Jay was never weird about it. He still slept next to him in the big puppy pile. Because it was Survivor. It was a game.
He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do in this new world, this After.
He grips the wheel, too hard. His shoulders are up at his ears.
When he feels a hand slip into the crook of his arm, he starts, eyes darting sideways.
It’s Jay.
Sleepy-eyed and rumple-haired, he’s still slouched down in his seat, but his arm is outstretched to Adam. He doesn’t say anything. He just runs a hand up Adam’s arm, experimentally, the way you’d run your hand across the surface of the water while riding in a boat.
“You’re all tension and nerves,” Jay says, his voice sleep-slurred.
“Yeah.”
Adam shrugs and, as he does so, Jay’s hand falls away. He misses it instantly. Swallowing down the emotion, he says:
“Where is it we’re going? Some beach?”
“Not just some beach.” Jay sits up, his face growing animated. “The best beach. Sick waves, I’m serious.”
Adam frowns. “We’re going surfing? It’s dark.”
“Dude, I’m not into surfing. Skimboarding, man. And it’s not all you do there. We’re going ‘cause it’s a dope-ass place.”
“I’m not really a beach guy,” Adam says.
“Come on.” Jay’s smile is teasing. “You just spent thirty-nine days camped out on a beach …”
“And that’s why I’m saying maybe I don’t wanna go to another beach.”
He knows he’s being pedantic, but he can’t help it. Jay brings it out in him.
Survivor throws people together. That’s the whole point. They’re people who’d never meet in real life. He and Jay were never meant to be friends. Never meant to be … more.
And, if Adam is pedantic at his core, Jay is reckless, quick to anger.
“Fine,” he says, his smile hardening, his voice rising. “We won’t go to the beach.”
Jay grabs Adam’s phone from the cup holder and tosses it over his shoulder. It bounces against the back seat and on to the floor. The Waze voice goes muffled and sputtery, cutting out every few seconds.
Adam turns to look at him, open-mouthed. His phone is probably toast. He’ll have to get it fixed or buy a new one, and it’s not like he’s rich—
A gasp of laughter makes it out of his mouth.
But Jay’s not done. He reaches over and grabs the steering wheel, swerving the car over to the side of the road.
“Hey!” Adam slams his foot against the brake.
“Let’s stop right here!” Jay says. His voice is jovial but hiding steel.
The car bumps against the curb and Adam’s foot is still way down against the floor. He finally eases it up and cuts the engine.
The road is dark, headlights creating a ghostly glow. The car, cooling down, hums. And the two of them just sit there, in silence, breathing heavily.
“We could’ve crashed,” Adam says at last.
“Please.” Jay makes a dismissive gesture. “Only car on the road.”
Without the sound of the car engine, he can hear insects and bird calls – the stuff you rarely hear in the city. It reminds him of Fiji, of that dense darkness, the way every sound seemed amplified.
He glances sideways at Jay, telling himself the reason his heart is beating too fast is because Jay just ran the car into the curb.
“For the record, I wasn’t taking you to Vero to go skimboarding.” When Jay speaks, his voice is low, anger simmered down into frustration. “I know that’s not your thing. I’m just … I’m showing you my life, man.” His hand bounces against the dashboard. “The way you’ll show me Cali one of these days.”
Jay’s hand stills and he meets Adam’s gaze. His eyes are still narrowed, nostrils flared like he might tell Adam to go fuck himself, but when he licks his lips, Adam spies nervousness hiding in his expression.
I’m showing you my life, man.
Adam unclenches his hands from around the steering wheel. His palms are clammy and it’s not due to the fact that the A/C cut out with the engine.
He feels sick and suddenly he knows why.
Ever since he got off the plane in Florida, there’s been that feeling in the pit of his stomach. What if he and Jay try for something and it doesn’t work out? What if he’s not fun-cool-interesting enough for the surfer-salesman? What if Jay gets bored and ditches him?
The real question whispers in the back of his mind.
What if Jay dies?
What if they get together and they’re happy, really happy, and it’s love, deep-down-in-your-soul love, and then—
Jay dies, the way that Mom died, the way that everyone eventually dies.
Adam looks away, dropping Jay’s gaze. He’s not sure he can handle any more hurt.
*
Of course Jay’s favorite beach is gorgeous.
When they arrive, Adam kicks off his shoes in the car and walks across the sand barefoot. It’s powdery beneath his feet, retaining the heat of the day. He curls his toes into the sand and breathes deep, filling his lungs with salty air.
Jay angles in close, so that when he speaks, his breath tickles Adam’s neck.
“Wanna go swimming?”
“No,” he says stuffily, still stuck on Survivor rules: don’t get your clothes wet right before bed.
Jay lets out a cackle of a laugh.
Oh, right.
Jay meant skinny dipping.
And, also, they’re not on Survivor anymore.
He shakes his head and reaches for Jay’s arm, yanking at it awkwardly.
“Let’s just sit a minute, okay?”
Jay shrugs and lets himself be pulled down onto the sand. They’ve sat like this so many times: side by side, rounded shoulders, concertinaed knees.
It’s past midnight and, in Fiji, the night would be inky-black. Here, light pollution from a nearby town takes the edge off the darkness, but there’s still a velvety quality to the night that’s entirely absent where he lives in San Francisco.
A slant of moonlight illuminates the churning ocean.
“This place really is the best for waves,” Jay says.
“Yeah?”
“Are you kidding me? What you’re looking for with skimboarding is really good shallows. Like, here, you have waves that break hard and close to the shore …”
Jay descends into a long, drawn-out explanation and, as he talks, Adam sneaks glances at him, his smile deepening until he’s grinning. Jay finally catches his grin.
“Aw, shit, you’re making fun of me, aren’t you?”
“No … Maybe a little.” Adam relents. “But I like listening to you talk. And I do wanna know—about your life. Your actual life. Separate from the game and all that drama.”
Jay makes a little mmhmm sound in the back of his throat. He uses his shoulder to bump Adam. Instead of nudging him back, Adam leans in, close enough that his skin melts against Jay’s.
They’re quiet for a long time, just sitting, watching the waves lap at the shore, the water inching nearer to them ever so slowly.
“So how was it?” Jay asks quietly. “The funeral?”
Tears spring to Adam’s eyes automatically and he wipes them away with a flick of his fist. He’s so sick of crying.
“Awful,” he says, when he’s recovered his voice enough to speak. “Filled with awe.”
Jay’s hand reaches for his, closing around the fingers that are still clenched into a fist. Gently, he pries them loose, so that they’re laced with Jay’s fingers instead. Adam squeezes his hand so tight that it must hurt, but Jay doesn’t complain, he doesn’t try to pull away.
“I would’ve flown out,” Jay says, “if you’d asked. Shit, I should’ve flown out anyway.”
“No,” Adam says, frowning, “I was a mess. I don’t even remember most of it. Just moments.” He lets out a shuddering breath. “That’s the thing about funerals. Everyone’s there for you at a funeral. But what about a month later, at two a.m. when you get a song stuck in your head—”
He knows he’s rambling, but he doesn’t care; he just wants to let these thoughts out.
“—a stupid song from the Muppets, and it makes you think of her, and you’re crying into a jar of peanut butter? Who’s there then?”
“Well … maybe throw a lid on that peanut butter. No point in getting that saltwater all up in it.” Jay’s thumb strokes a pattern across their tightly-clasped hands. His voice drops. “You know I’m here, right? You just have to call, text, send a carrier pigeon. I mean. If you want me.”
“I want you.”
Adam dips his head, closing the gap between them. His first kiss lands on Jay’s jaw and he lets out a little breath of laughter, embarrassed. He almost turns away, but Jay won’t let him.
Jay’s free hand, the one that’s not caught up in the death grip, cups Adam’s face and guides him firmly into another kiss. Adam’s tentative, but Jay’s the opposite. He crushes their mouths together, all heat and honey.
When he lets Adam go, Jay’s expression, only half-lit in the moonlight, is defiant. It makes Adam smile.
He noses into Jay’s personal space and kisses him again, braver now. His heart is drumming in his ears, his chest is fluttery, but he doesn’t feel sick anymore. The pit in his stomach has closed up.
When they come up for air, Adam whispers, his voice slurred with contentment:
“Are we gonna watch the sun rise? I heard a rumor you can look at the sun and it doesn’t hurt your eyes …”
Jay rolls his eyes and then drops a kiss on Adam’s nose.
“Maybe buy me breakfast instead.”
The end.