Page 3 of Heatstroke

Daniel paused. "Daniel Voss. Good luck with tetanus."

That amused Thierry. He approached again, this time walking a slow arc around Daniel until they were once again face-to-face. The sun was behind him now, throwing his silhouette long and golden across the sand. His eyes, honey-brown and maddeningly bright, dipped to the exposed skin on Daniel's arm.

"That's new."

Daniel followed his gaze and saw, too late, that his sleeve had ridden up, and the black ink of the tattoo stark against his arm: a coiled lotus encircling a caduceus, thin and delicate lines intersecting, curving along his arm.

"It hasn’t healed properly yet," Thierry went on, not touching but close enough that Daniel could smell the salt and citrus clinging to his skin. "Hurt?"

Daniel tugged his sleeve down with deliberate calm.

"You're observant."

"I like stories," Thierry said simply. His expression was unreadable now. "Especially the ones people don't want to tell."

There was no accusation. Still, the words dug under Daniel's skin.

He gave a final, withering look, then walked off.

The sand was coarser near the guesthouse path, flecked with fragments of coral and broken shell. A cicada whined somewhere in the palms overhead. His feet, even in shoes now, felt the grind of each step. He passed a young couple sipping coconut water from a chipped ceramic bowl, their legs intertwined like vines. The woman laughed—too loud, too free.

At the porch of The Breakline, the reggae returned. It was deeper now, the bass line thick as syrup, bleeding through the walls of the guesthouse. Daniel pressed past the beaded curtain and up the narrow stairwell, the scent of rum and old varnish riding the humid air.

His door was ajar. He closed it with a heavy hand, the clap of wood and brass echoing through the small room.

Inside, nothing had changed. The fan turned overhead, indifferent to the press of heat. The air held the faint tang of mildew. His linen shirt stuck to his back. He peeled the fabric from his chest and dropped it on the bed. Through the open shutters, the sea sprawled into evening, a smear of violet and steel.

And below, barely visible through the balcony slats, Thierry walked away—still shirtless, still barefoot, his step unhurried, head turning briefly to glance up at the windows above.

Even from that distance, Daniel saw the smirk.

He shut the window with more force than required. The glass trembled in its frame. The tattoo throbbed faintly under his skin, as if it, too, resented the attention.

He sat at the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, and stared at nothing.

What unnerved him wasn't the rescue, nor the crowd. It was Thierry. The way he spoke directly, like someone who wasn't afraid of being wrong. The way he looked, not at, but into.

Daniel had built his life around silence, around not being read. And yet here, on an island he'd hoped would forget him, someone had seen far too much in a single afternoon.

And he had a feeling this Thierry guy wasn't finished.

TWO

BODY HEAT

That instinct proved right by morning.

Daniel found him again—though truthfully, it felt the other way around—lounging barefoot atop the cracked tile of The Breakline's open-air bar, shirtless as ever, with an iced drink sweating beside his elbow and an unread book in his lap. The reggae from the battered speaker warbled low, mingling with the chatter of late risers and the rattle of cutlery from the tiny kitchen out back.

Daniel had come down only for breakfast, still groggy, still irritable, hoping the sea air and strong coffee might dull the throb behind his eyes.

Instead, he found Thierry already grinning at him like they'd planned this.

"You look like you lost a bet," Thierry called. "Or got bit by a dream."

Daniel slid into the farthest corner booth and made no reply. He ordered coffee and fried plantains from the girl behind the counter—barely glancing up from the menu board, though he knew full well what it said.

Thierry arrived before the coffee did.

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