Page 16 of Heatstroke

"Look at me," Thierry murmured.

Daniel did.

Their eyes locked as Thierry pushed inside him, the stretch burnished sweet by the ocean's buoyancy, by the way Thierry's hands trembled just slightly as they gripped his waist. Daniel wrapped his legs around him, pulling him deeper, the water rocking them together in a rhythm as old as the reef beneath them.

No guilt. No ghosts. Just this—the salt, the sweat, the way Thierry's breath hitched when Daniel clenched around him. Pleasure built like a storm surge, inevitable, overwhelming.

Daniel came with a soundless cry, his body bowing against Thierry's as the waves swallowed his gasp. Thierry followed, his groan muffled against Daniel's shoulder, his fingers leaving crescent moons in the skin of the latter’s hips.

After, they floated together. Their limbs were loose in the water as the current nudged them toward the shore. The last of the sun finally dipped below the horizon, painting the water inshades of rose and indigo. Daniel turned his face into the crook of Thierry's neck, breathing him in—salt, sweat, something indefinably warm.

Thierry carded a hand through his hair. "Stay this time."

Daniel closed his eyes.

For once, he didn't want to run.

SEVEN

HEATSTROKE

The realization should have terrified him.

Instead, it settled between Daniel's ribs like something warm and living, curling there as he stared at the boat ticket on his dresser. The departure date glared back at him, circled in red ink—a relic from another life, another version of himself who still believed in clean exits and surgical goodbyes.

He picked it up. The paper felt stiff between his fingers. For a long moment, he simply held it, contemplating, suspended between the life he'd planned and the one that had somehow, impossibly, begun without his permission.

Packing was a mechanical act. Shirts folded with military precision. Toiletries zipped into neat compartments. His hands moved without conscious thought, as if his body had already decided what his mind still continued to wrestle with.

Outside, the dawn painted the sky in watery pastels, the air thick with the scent of sea salt and impending rain. Daniel paused as he was about to tuck a pair of socks into his bag, and looked out the window. Somewhere beyond the palm trees, the ocean breathed against the shore, steady as a heartbeat.

He zipped the bag shut.

The dock wasquiet at this hour, the fishermen already gone, the tourists still asleep.

Daniel's duffel hung heavy from his shoulder, and the weight of it pressed into his flesh like an accusation. The boat loomed ahead, its engine rumbling low in the still air, a beast stirring to life. A few passengers milled about—backpackers with sunburned noses, locals hauling crates of fruit, all of them blurring at the edges in Daniel's vision.

Then he saw him.

Thierry stood at the edge of the sand, a surfboard tucked under one arm, his hair still damp from the sea. He wasn't looking at Daniel. His gaze was fixed on the horizon, where the waves rolled in, smooth and unbroken.

He didn't call out. Didn't wave. Just stood there, solid as the cliffs behind him, waiting.

Daniel's feet stopped moving.

The boat's horn sounded, sharp and final. A crewmember shouted something about last boarding. The world narrowed to two points—the ticket in Daniel's pocket, and Thierry's silent silhouette against the dawn.

His bag hit the sand with a soft thud.

The boat pulled away in a churn of foam and diesel, its wake fanning out across the turquoise water. Daniel watched it go, his chest curiously light, as if some invisible tether had snapped. He'd expected panic. Regret.

Instead, there was only a quiet certainty, the kind that came with stepping off a ledge and finding out that the air could hold you after all.

He bent to pick up his duffel, then stopped. After a moment, he toed off his shoes instead, leaving them beside the bag as he walked back up the beach, the sand warm and yielding underfoot. The wind tugged at his shirt, the salt stinging his lips. He didn't look back.

Thierry hadn't moved.

Daniel approached slowly, the surfboard still resting against Thierry's hip like an extension of his body. Up close, he could see the faint sunburn across Thierry's shoulders, the way his pupils dilated when Daniel stepped into his shadow.

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