Bright Thunder - 1. Bright Thunder

Seth DaCosta put his head back and opened his mouth to taste the rain. To him, one of the best things about living in south Florida was the region’s propensity to dispense thunder, lightning, and copious quantities of rain with delicious predictability. All afternoon the rising wind had been chopping up the sea, making the waves fun, dangerous and challenging. Visitors and tourists stayed well out of the water, but Seth was not alone out there in the breakers with his favourite red and white surfboard and his cropped wetsuit. Locals and morons were the only ones who liked to surf in storms, and as the next big wave began rolling in, Seth jumped up onto his board to a crack of thunder like the smashing of marble headstones. He cheered in delight, and rode the wave all the way to the beach.

Out of the sea, the rain started coming down in buckets, and Seth unzipped his suit and rolled it down to his hips before planting his surfboard in the sand and simply standing there being bathed by the warm rain. The water washed down his smooth tanned skin, better than a shower with the wind picking up and swirling around him and Seth remained there as long as he could before his erection threatened to escape from the speedos he had on underneath his wet suit. By the time lightning began to stalk its way across the sky, Seth was back at his car, loading his board into the back of the hatchback which had lasted him well through his student days, before climbing into the front seat. He wriggled out of his wet suit and found a pair of flip flops and a clean but well-worn t-shirt in the passenger foot well and put them on. Seth’s friends had always joked at college that he could live quite happily in his car, and for a while during the summer between first and second year he actually had. Six years later, it was still true.

Seth drove home with his thunder storm and surfing initialised hard-on pressing against his hip bone in a manner that was not totally uncomfortable, and pulled on some shorts to stop at the mini market for milk and orange juice, bread, peanut butter and the kind of grape jelly his boyfriend preferred, before going next door into the liquor store for a six pack of fancy fruit ciders which had become a popular staple in their house of late. By the time Seth got home, his blond hair was dry enough to make getting out of the car and getting wet again a whole new experience.

Jonas’s beat-up, shaken-down Chevy was parked across the driveway at a funny angle, like it had been abandoned, and as Seth hurried past he saw that Jonas’s favourite denim jacket was still lying on the front passenger seat. The doors weren’t locked, and Seth grabbed the jacket and slammed the door before wrestling with his keys to get inside the house.

“Hey babe!” he called out to the house as more thunder went off overhead, wandering into the kitchen as the room was lit up by lightning through the window, “I got stuff for PB and J like you wanted!”

Seth stowed the groceries in the fridge and left the sandwich fixings on the surface before walking back to the doorway. The house was eerily quiet, and dark, which considering Jonas always had music on somewhere and there wasn’t a power cut seemed weird. Seth had gotten to know the tunes, lyrics and faces of much more country music than he had ever hoped or wanted to, but it was Jonas’s thing, and Seth loved to make him happy. If that meant only getting to listen to jazz in his car, he could live with it.

“Babe?” Seth’s call was drowned out by another clanging peal of thunder as he walked into the bathroom to dump his towel and shorts in the laundry basket and wash his wetsuit out in the bath, “where are you hiding?”

The next lightning strike lit up Seth’s face as well as his brain, and he dropped everything he was carrying, and in nothing but bare feet, damp speedos and a rain splattered t-shirt ran to the bedroom in a panic. He’d been so enthralled by the dangerous joy of the thunderstorm he’d clean forgotten the effect thunder had on his boyfriend.

South Sarasota houses didn’t have basements, but the design of the house meant the built-in wardrobe in their bedroom was pretty much slap-bang in the centre of the single storey building and wasn’t near any exterior walls. Seth shut all the doors behind him to keep the noise as far away as possible, then cracked open the wardrobe door in the dark.

“Jonas?” There was a sniff, then the sounds of someone moving against the wooden panelling in the dark. “Babe? You want to come out?”

“No…” Jonas’s voice was thick with a combination of fear and his delicious southern accent. It always showed through strongest when he was either very happy or very upset.

“OK…” Seth straightened up, not sure what the best course of action to take was, but as he put his hand back on the wardrobe door, Jonas’s strong tanned hand whipped out and grabbed his ankle.

“Stay.”

Seth couldn’t help but smile gently. There was something soft and sweet about being needed by his big strong southern boyfriend who was scared of thunder storms. Seth climbed into the wardrobe, which was just big enough for two full grown men to fit into, and shut the door behind him as he felt around for a place to sit. No sooner was he settled in the absolute darkness inside the wardrobe than another flash went off outside, the light blinding through the cracks in the wardrobe door. The lightning illuminated, only for a moment, Jonas’s handsome face; marred by fear, his eyes wide and full of tears. There was more scrambling, Jonas’s calloused hands on Seth’s knees, thigh, abdomen, and then Jonas was curled up in the space between his parted thighs, pressed tight against his chest. Seth grunted, shifted his weight off his tailbone and wrapped his arms around the man he loved.

“Thank god you’re a skinny fucker or we’d never both fit in here.” Jonas made a sound that might have been a laugh or might have been more crying, but Seth couldn’t really tell. “Where were you?”

“Coming back from Red Bug,” Jonas’s voice was whisper quiet. If he’d been driving when the storm hit, it would explain why Seth had come home to find Jonas’s truck half-abandoned in the driveway. As he finished speaking there was another ungodly loud thunder strike, followed only a split second after by bright electricity searing the sky, and Jonas’s clung to him tight enough that Seth was certain he would have dodgy fingerprint shaped bruises decorating bicep and ribs.

But the storm passed, as all storms did, and after there had been nothing for ten minutes but the soft sounds of rain, Seth felt his boyfriend uncurl ever-so-slightly and his grip became less intense. Seth combed his fingers through Jonas’s soft buzz of corn-gold hair, pressing his cheek against his boyfriend’s scalp. As Jonas calmed down, his hands began to explore Seth’s chest and back, skimming down to his hips and thighs.

“You’re wearin’ speedos.”

“I was at the beach. Surf day,” Seth smiled and placed a kiss on Jonas’s temple. Jonas slid his palms further up Seth’s legs until his fingertips reached the Lycra swimsuit.

“Just speedos? What will the neighbours say?” Jonas twisted in the tiny space and ended up facing Seth enough to kiss him.

“Do we really worry about what the neighbours think?” Seth purred. Even in the dark, he could feel the awful fear leaving his boyfriend’s eyes. And there was nothing as good at distracting Jonas as a good tussle on the mattress.

They never got quite that far, and by the time Seth had Jonas out of his sweat-damp clothes, the bedroom floor had apparently become as good a place as any to have fun. They would often have a little fight for the top position, but after a thunderstorm Seth could always get his own way, and he had Jonas on his back with his legs spread, panting and moaning inside five minutes.

“Feeling better now babe?” Seth bit Jonas’s lip gently, grinding his hips just-so: Jonas half growled in response. “Oh god… I swear I’d give up surfing if I could do this all day.”

Jonas barked with dry laughter when their next kiss broke, then moaned as Seth rammed into him hard.

“Don’t laugh at me.”

“You’re damn good a’ that babe, but don’ give up the day job, eh?” Jonas smiled at him in the half-dark of their bedroom, and Seth redoubled his efforts to make the young man scream in pleasure.

Afterwards they dragged themselves up onto the mattress, and Seth lay on his back with his feet dropping off the edge of the bed while Jonas went on wobbly knees to go and clean himself up. Seth watched him go, because the sight of Jonas’s fine ass was not something he ever got tired of. The rain had cooled off to a gentle but steady shower which would last all night by the looks of things, and Seth was more than happy when the doorway next darkened. Jonas was standing, leaning against the jamb looking satisfied and confident again, eating something.

“What’s that?”

“PB and J, you got the good jelly.”

“Especially for you,” Seth ran his hand up Jonas’s thigh as the young man stepped closer to the bed, “hey, gimmie some of that.”

“Ask nicely.” Jonas took another large bite of the sandwich then yelped as Seth grabbed him. “Oh Jesus!” The young man nearly lost his balance against the edge of the bed, “you were hungry for something else!” Seth’s persuasive techniques worked wonders when he wanted them too, and Jonas was forced to abandon the rest of his favourite snack in order to deal with his second orgasm.

Seth grinned, smugly satisfied with himself and took the rest of the sandwich from the nightstand.

“Now, you owe me,” he kissed Jonas’s heaving abdomen, leaving bread crumbs, “no underwear for a week.”

“Mean…” Jonas couldn’t make it all the way to the end of the sentence, too tired and blissed out after their favourite brand of bedroom-based exercise.

“Yeah, sure I am,” Seth rolled his shoulders and sat up, “I’m gonna go make dinner OK?”

“Uh-huh, I’mma jus’ pass out here…” Jonas’s soft country accent also got thick when he was sleepy, “wake me in’a hour…”

It wasn’t necessarily cold, but Seth wasn’t a big fan of cooking naked. It made everything that much more dangerous. He pulled a pair of hibiscus print board shorts and a t-shirt from a local surf shop from the drawer and went to go and finish dealing with the laundry. He re-rinsed his wet suit, having not completed the process before becoming distracted, and put the clothes into the machine. The low rumbling sounded like distant thunder to him, and it was sort of comforting as he started to move around the kitchen throwing together a honey and mustard chicken salad.

Seth was shaking the chicken in the frying pan with its sticky delicious glaze when Jonas arrived fresh from a two minute shower, his short hair already dry, and dressed in nothing but a pair of Seth’s old high school sweatpants. Seth didn’t really wear them anymore, because he’d gotten a couple of inches taller in the last ten years, but Jonas was that bit shorter, and his narrow athletic build meant he could wear the only high-school t-shirt Seth owned without it looking ridiculously tight on him. Jonas smiled when he saw what Seth was making.

“I knew I was hungry,” he rubbed his ridged abdomen with a smile, “you’re the best babe.”

“I know,” Seth couldn’t help but be smug, “you’d better not be wearing underwear under those pants.”

“Hey, you won…” Jonas shrugged. Seth stopped concentrating on what he was doing as his boyfriend yanked down the waist band low enough to show that there really was nothing else covering his crotch. For some reason, seeing Jonas nearly but not quite naked was incredibly arousing. “Though I reckon if I can get ya to jump me in the next five minutes then ya might have lost braggin’ rights.”

“Cocky bastard…”

Jonas mimed shooting from the hip, but not from the actual hip, and went to grab a pair of ciders from the fridge. Seth plated up their dinner, scraped all the good not-quite-burnt sticky bits from the bottom of the pan, poured ranch dressing onto Jonas’s plate and a splash of Italian vinaigrette onto his own and followed Jonas with a pair of forks to go along with their alcohol over to the sofa. As soon as they were settled, Seth took the remote to find something to watch, and Jonas began to wolf down his food.

“Whoa, slow down babe.”

“Sorry,” Jonas gulped audibly, “old habits die hard. I blame you. Your food is too nice.”

Seth arched an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything as he settled on a re-run episode of a New York crime drama they were both rather fond of. The first time he’d ever made Jonas dinner, the Southerner had held up a slice of cucumber in the manner one would hold a deadly weapon and asked if it was edible. Jonas had evolved a lot since he’d moved to Florida. They ate quickly and stashed their plates on the floor, and Seth found himself cuddled onto Jonas’s firm naked chest, his arm around his boyfriend’s back. They clinked their bottles together and snuggled happily until the end of the episode. Jonas scooped up the remote and switched channels for a sports update.

“Jo?”

“Hmm?” Jonas was watching the screen as two football players got into a rather spectacular argument.

“Why were you in the wardrobe?”

Jonas turned to him, and Seth saw something unreadable in his normally soft hazel eyes.

“You know I hate thunderstorms.”

“Yeah, I know…” Seth grit his teeth. The last time he had broached this conversation and kept pushing, it had turned into an all-out shouting match after which they’d both been in tears. He could already feel the muscles of Jonas’s muscular abdomen begin to tense up. “But… never mind.” Seth let the subject drop. It wasn’t worth it, they were too happy and comfy cuddled up on the couch together, and the discussion could wait for another day. When Seth felt Jonas’s fingers sneaking under the thin layer on his t-shirt to stroke his chest in a less than innocent manner, he knew he’d made the right decision. Jonas was grinning at him.

“Round three?”

“You’re not getting out of your forfeit.”

“Maybe I’ll git ya a forfeit too babe,” Jonas smirked between kisses, “How does speedos instead of boxers sound?”

Seth shivered with delight. Sometimes losing was so much fun.

*

He woke to the sound of rain. It had been raining when they’d called it a night and finally gone to sleep, cuddled up together and totally naked under the thin cotton sheet, but now the rain was louder, beating down on the tiled roof, the wind making the branches of the mango tree slap against the window. Seth rolled over with a still sleepy yawn and looked through his eyelashes at the figure of his boyfriend. Jonas was curled into a question mark on his side, hands tucked up in the cavity of his chest. Seth always thought he looked younger when he was asleep, he seemed softer, smaller somehow, and Seth liked to imagine him with his hair a bit longer, grinning like a teenager, just like he was in the one and only picture Jonas seemed to own from his childhood. He’d said he kept it because it was the last one of him and his mother, but he hadn’t wanted to put it up anywhere, and as far as Seth knew, it lived in the drawer of his night stand.

When the first peal of thunder cracked across the sky, Seth was ready, and the moment Jonas made to throw himself off the bed, Seth grabbed his arm and then pulled the young man against his chest.

“Don’t, stay here with me.”

“Seth…” Jonas wriggled like a distressed puppy, but Seth clamped his arm around his boyfriend and held him tight. Jonas’s heart was hammering so fast that it was almost impossible to tell each beat from the next, and his smooth tan skin was already clammy with sweat. “Please!”

“No,” Seth decided that this time, he was not going enable his boyfriend’s one and only bizarre behaviour, “you do know that lightning can’t hurt you when you’re inside the house, don’t you?”

“Yes! Seth, please-”

But Seth wasn’t done.

“No. The storm is outside and we’re in here where it’s safe and dry. Stay in the bed with me.”

“I can’t!” Jonas struggled harder, and then kicked his heels back into Seth’s shin hard enough to make the other man yelp. “Don’t you see? I just can’t!” He leapt from the bed and scrambled for the door.

Seth rolled over onto his back and seethed for ten seconds before thumping the mattress. They lived in Florida, and they got a lot of storms. Jonas had been this bad with every single storm that had ever blown through from the moment Seth had met him three years ago. Before they’d moved in together, a storm coming in was enough to cancel a date and abandon dinner reservations. Once upon leaving the cinema to find that there was lightning outside, Seth had been forced to buy tickets for a film neither of them had ended up seeing because Jonas had simply fled and hidden himself away somewhere in a dark corner where Seth hadn’t been able to find him. Every storm since they’d bought the house in South Sarasota, Jonas had hidden in the wardrobe.

Seth thumped the mattress and jumped out of bed, pulling on his board shorts as he did so. He walked into the living room, tying the little cord into a knot at his hips to stop the shorts sliding down around his ankles. He glanced up to see a flash of lightning bounce off the amber filled glass of a whiskey bottle.

“You have got to be kidding me!” Seth snatched the bottle, now a third empty, from Jonas’s hand. His boyfriend was crying almost uncontrollably. “Getting blind drunk is not a solution to this!”

“It’s easier to forget!” Jonas made a grab for the bottle, but Seth was faster and more in control of his wits.

“Forget what?” he snapped, “what is so bad about a little thunder?”

Jonas didn’t get a chance to answer. There was another sharp flash of lightning and a thunderous blast, and in the blinking-blue after effects of the light, Jonas was gone. Seth found him pressed to the floor in front of the couch, shaking like a leaf in the wind, and as soon as Seth touched his skin, the young man clung onto him so tight it was as though he was trying to be absorbed.

“Jonas, please, what’s the matter? It’s only thunder.”

“It was like this when I killed him!” Jonas shook when he spoke and his teeth clattered, but Seth knew he hadn’t misheard what his boyfriend had said.

“Jo, babe please… calm down. You didn’t kill anybody.”

“You don’t know that!” Jonas’s fingers left marks in Seth’s back as he clung on. Technically, he was right, but Seth knew Jonas wasn’t capable of murder.

“Babe, look at me,” Seth cupped Jonas’s face in his hands, “you didn’t kill anyone.”

“It was just like this, and I left him there to die!” Jonas’s tears were messy and uncontrollable, “he was lying there on the couch, and I hid and hoped the tornado would kill him! And it did…”

“Jo, sweetie, who are you talking about?” Another clap of thunder breaking somewhere overhead had Jonas trying to become one with the floor again, only Seth was in the way. Not knowing what else to do, Seth reached up and kissed him as hard as he could. “I love you, whatever this thing is we’ll deal with it, OK?”

“I c-c-can’t!” in three years, Seth had never heard him stutter, “I let my father get ripped apart by a tornado. I hid in the cellar.”

“You took shelter,” Seth clarified.

“He was passed out on the couch and I wanted the tornado to destroy him. And it did,” he fixed Seth with a wild, panicked stare, “he’s dead because of me.”

“But you didn’t kill him.” Jonas started to interrupt, but Seth placed a finger on his lips. “You didn’t kill him.” Seth took a deep breath, and was relieved when Jonas copied him automatically. “Now, do you want us to go sit in the wardrobe?”

“No.” Jonas’s voice went small and quiet, like a scared little boy.

“We can stay here if you want,” Seth smiled at his boyfriend, but Jonas was too upset to smile back; he was breathing more evenly now though, and that was important, “but the floor is rather hard, and we do have a whole mattress over there with a memory foam topper on it and lots of pillows.” Seth managed to extract a hand to reach up and touch Jonas’s short velveteen hair. “Whatever makes you comfy.”

“You won’t fall asleep and leave me?” Seth bit his tongue, realising that now was not the time to point out the glaring error in Jonas’ question. He nodded instead. “Promise?”

“Cross my heart,” Seth kissed him, even though Jonas didn’t kiss him back, “I’ll be here.”

By degrees, they got back to the bedroom. Jonas didn’t like being in anything less than about eighty percent full body contact with his boyfriend, which in other circumstances would have been rather pleasant with Jonas completely nude, but it made moving around awkward. Seth managed to get out of his board shorts one handed before sinking onto the mattress, bringing Jonas down with him, and he tucked a pillow under their heads before using his free arm to place the others around Jonas’s back and legs. When he pulled the sheet all the way up and over them, it formed a little tent-like ceiling just a few inches above their bodies. The world inside the sheet was smaller, and smelt faintly of whiskey, but even with the storm raging outside, to Seth it felt calmer and safer; a quiet little bubble where only to the two of them existed. Jonas half hid behind his hands, watching Seth and breathing in time with him. For his part, Seth didn’t question why his boyfriend was still crying, silent tears simply streaming down his cheeks, and placed his forehead against Jonas’s own and focused on keeping Jonas feeling safe.

By the time the storm finally blew out, Seth was blinking in long, tired motions, hardly able to keep his eyes open. Jonas had fallen asleep half an hour before, with the rain still pattering gently on the roof, and Seth couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to the man he loved before they’d met, and how he had gained such awful scars.

*

He woke to the smell of frying bacon. Seth lay in bed, his nose dissecting the rich and complex scent which had once been enough to drive a friend of his, a former hard core vegan, all the way into bacon-loving madness. Bacon meant the weekend, and it meant Jonas was in a good enough mood to cook the only thing he ever cooked. Seth was fairly certain after living with the man for over two years, that thick buttermilk pancakes served with bacon and maple syrup, and on special occasions, sausage and a fried egg, was the only thing Jonas actually knew how to cook. Seth pulled on a pair of striped cotton pyjama trousers and went to go and investigate the sounds of breakfast. Seth didn’t like to be suspicious, but his boyfriend being happy and making pancakes did not match up to a night spent lying awake under the sheet, Jonas whimpering every time thunder shook the sky.

“Hey babe…” Jonas smiled as he appeared in the doorway. He flipped a thick pancake out of the skillet and onto a stack about a foot high before returning to the pan which held the bacon. Seth crossed to the fridge for juice. “Good morning.”

“Morning,” Seth drank straight from the carton, a habit which he knew annoyed Jonas but that was too simple and satisfying to try and stop. “Pancakes? Did I do something good?”

“Well we did have excellent sex yesterday.”

“Three times,” Seth reminded him.

“So I figured you’d be hungry.” Jonas carried the plate of pancakes to the kitchen table along with the bacon, spare plates and the jug of maple syrup. Seth followed him with the orange juice and a couple of glasses.

Seth watched Jonas eat pancakes just the way he always did. His boyfriend liked to roll them up with bacon in the middle and cut them into little discs, a habit which Seth had always thought bizarrely time consuming. Jonas seemed… normal, ordinary, as though nothing had happened at all the previous night. Seth ate his pancakes, because they were delicious, but he worried about Jonas as the young man smiled at him without a care in the world. Seth had spent half the night silently wondering how he could have missed the scars for so long, but it was clear in the light of day that Jonas had hiding them down to a fine art.

“Plans for the day?” Jonas chewed his bacon noisily.

“You wanna come to the beach with me?”

“Will you try and get me to stand on a surfboard again?” Jonas looked more than a little put off at the idea.

“I thought your first lesson went well.”

“I spent about ten seconds on the actual board,” Jonas frowned at him.

“Like I said,” Seth smiled, “good first lesson. And you’ve improved. So what do you wanna do?”

“We’ll deal,” Jonas’s bare toes tickled his ankle under the table, “We’ll drive out to that beach down by Dryman Bay for the late surf if you come to the Oscar Sherer state park with me first. I’ll make sandwiches.”

“I’ll drive,” Seth grinned, “and you’re getting on a surfboard.” It was only a twenty minute drive out to the park, but it was a pretty warm and sunny Saturday, so there would be traffic. The park was one of Jonas’s favourite places; he felt safe there. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to broach the subject of what on earth had happened to him.

Seth grabbed a pair of flip flops so that he could pull the hatchback out onto the road and re-parked Jonas’s truck more neatly. The surfboard he had bought for Jonas was leaning against the wall in the backyard, and Seth gave it and his own a quick wax before stowing them in the car along with a couple of new towels and some bottled water. Inside he grabbed board shorts, pulled speedos on underneath and a fresh t-shirt. It would be warm enough to go into the water without a wetsuit, but they’d be cold after, so he pulled out a hoodie for Jonas and a slightly worn but fluffy sweater for himself. By the time he was back in the kitchen, Jonas was clipping the lid onto a mid-sized cooler.

“All set?”

“Yup,” Jonas smiled, but then frowned at the sweater Seth was holding, “you really need some new clothes. That thing is practically see-through.”

“Cheeky. Go get dressed,” Seth swatted his butt as he squeezed past, “and no underwear!”

Jonas hated jazz, and Seth had implemented a ‘no country music in my car’ policy when they’d first been dating, so he turned the radio to a fairly generic chart station and pulled out of their little street and onto the main drive heading south towards the state park. Jonas popped open the glove box and hunted for the tin of sugar dusted travel sweets Seth kept in there.

“Thanks babe.”

“I love tha’ there’s always food in yer car,” Jonas spoke around the apple flavoured hard candy.

“Mom always had travel sweets in the station wagon; still does,” Seth grinned happily, rolling the sweet around his mouth, privately enjoying the click that the solid sugar made against his teeth, “every journey we ever went on that wasn’t to school or to go get groceries, we’d all get to pick a flavour. I think it was the thing I most looked forwards to after surfing when I was a kid.”

“It’s hard to imagine your sister eating sweets. Her diet is super strict.”

“It is now. But she’s an athlete, it has to be.”

“She was down on holiday!” Jonas complained. “She wouldn’t even eat a whole pancake.”

Seth had once been jealous that his little sister was a much better surfer than him, but he knew if he’d had to pick between turning pro and being able to eat pancakes and drink beer, pancakes and beer would win. She divided her time between Miami and California, going where all the best waves were and competing on the national stage.

“You make wonderful pancakes babe, don’t worry.”

“Mom taught me,” Jonas spoke about his past and his family so rarely, that Seth just made a soft sound in his throat to show he was listening, “she used to make pancakes most days, and waffles on the holidays. I used to wake up to that smell every day when I was a kid.”

“And yet you’re so skinny.”

“Hell, I had plenty of chores to do before I got to school, and the bus didn’t come out as far as our house. I had to cycle six miles.”

“Your mom didn’t drop you off?”

“We only had one car. It always smelt of beets and chicken feathers: I don’t miss it. I started saving for my truck as soon as I got my first job. I worked in a Dairy Queen.”

“No!” Seth could hardly believe what he was hearing, “please tell me they made you wear one of those frilly aprons?”

“Seth!” Jonas flicked at his thigh and shook his head, “no they didn’t. I had to tell my pop I had special tutoring for math, otherwise he’d never let me do it.”

“Your dad wouldn’t let you have a job?” Seth frowned as he turned off the road and onto the network of dirt and gravel tracks that linked the state park’s parking lots.

“And lose all that free backbreaking labour out in the fields? Not likely. It was fun there, they paid cash, and there was always someone to talk to. That was after mom died though.”

Seth didn’t want to ask the obvious question, but as he began to reverse into the space, Jonas volunteered the information for him.

“Breast cancer. She didn’t get diagnosed until too late because going to the doctor on a hunch wasn’t a luxury we could afford. The medical bills crippled us, and in six months, she was gone.”

“I’m so sorry babe.”

“It was ten years ago.” Jonas didn’t say anything else, just got out of the car and grabbed the cooler. “You wanna take this with us now or come back for it and eat at the car?”

“Let’s take it with us. Where do you wanna hike to?”

“Let’s take the green trail along South Creek. We can picnic opposite the ranger station and wave across the water at them.”

Jonas hadn’t sounded as though ten years had made a great deal of difference in how much his mother’s death had hurt. Sometimes, Seth forgot his boyfriend was an orphan, and an only child. Seth had never lost anybody, apart from an elderly maiden aunt on his father’s side; and it wasn’t like his father had much mourned her passing either. He hated to think that in actuality, he was the only person who fell into the ‘family’ category in Jonas’s world. It seemed such a shame, because he was such a good person.

Seth took the cooler for a bit, and they swapped as they got further into the scrubby wetlands. Jonas was a big fan of the outdoors and nature, though Seth was sure that nature around there looked a lot different from the sort of countryside Jonas had grown up in. Early on when they’d been dating, Jonas had told him he’d grown up on a little smallholding, just arable farmland with some chickens and so forth, and his father had made ends meet with carpentry jobs and repair work for local people. Seth had imagined it as being wholesome and delightful, but the picture Jonas was now building in his head was very different.

“So, after your mom died, it was you and your dad?” Seth expected Jonas not to answer him. His boyfriend had already shared more information the previous twenty minutes than he had done in the last three years.

“Yeah. I got a job to get out of the house and start saving up for wheels. I used to drive this tiny fuckin’ farm yard pick-up around. Damn thing ran on fumes, but I already knew how to drive.” Jonas stared for a long time at the blue, cloudless sky. “Every second I wasn’t at school or out at work, pop would find farm jobs for me do to. Hours and hours in the pouring rain planting shit and trying to corral chickens. I hated it.” Jonas dropped the cooler as they reached an open stretch of path through the marshland, and pulled out the Frisbee. “Go on then.”

Seth jogged backwards twenty yards and caught the flying plastic disc between two fingers. The last time they’d played in the wetlands, they’d lost the Frisbee twice, the last time catastrophically beyond rescuing. Seth liked to think there was an alligator out there using it as a plate. They played easily, getting further and further apart as they flung the Frisbee in clean smooth arcs along the path. It was fun, but Seth knew why Jonas had wanted to play. He could see it in his boyfriend’s hazel eyes: the cracks were showing.

They finished playing after Jonas missed and the Frisbee ended up in the reeds, and Seth let the conversation drop and they walked along in easy and companionable silence for a while, holding hands and watching the scenery. Seth had always been a big fan of his own company, and he liked that he and Jonas could be perfectly happy together in silence, or each doing their own thing with Jonas’s favourite albums on in the background. Jonas went through second hand pulp fiction paperbacks like they were going out of print and Seth liked to fill his downtime with surf magazines and biographies, particularly those about actual noteworthy people. They settled on the creek bank and Jonas began to unpack their picnic.

“Babe?”

“I know.”

“Huh?” Seth frowned at his boyfriend as he twisted the cap off a soda bottle, “what do you know?”

“I know what you’re gonna ask,” Jonas’s eyes were distant as he stared off over the creek. It was as though he wasn’t even there. “After the tornado I didn’t even stay in town for the funeral. I got my truck, got in it, and I drove,” he took a deep, steadying breath. “I was pleased as fuck it survived. My buddy Hunter was supposed to fit a stereo that actually worked so I’d left it at his place in town. Damn twister never got that far.” He took the soda Seth offered him and swigged heavily, “I filled up when I ran out of fuel, slept in the cab on the side of the road, and I stopped when I finally hit the beach. I think I would’ve run right off the edge of the planet if I hadn’t taken a wrong turn and ended up in Sarasota rather than Miami.”

“Jo…”

“You know how lucky you are to have parents who love you?”

“Yeah, I think so.” Seth moved to wrap his arm around Jonas, but the young man shifted away. “I’m sure your dad loved you, in his own way.”

“The man who beat me when he found out I’d lied to him? Then hit me again when I wouldn’t tell him where my money was? I’m sure.” Jonas growled through gritted teeth, “took me twice as long to buy that fuckin’ truck as it shoulda ‘cause he kept on stealin’ from me. Just so he could get blind drunk night after night and forget about everythin’ that was wrong with his life.”

“Babe…”

“No Seth, it’s not OK! When that weather-man said there was a twister coming in I prayed it would knock the house down jus’ so I didn’t have to live there anymore,” Jonas jumped to his feet, “an’ every time I hear the thunder, that’s all I can think of.”

“The death of your father was a terrible thing.”

“No, the death of my father was a wonderful thing: it set me free. What he did was terrible,” Jonas stuck his thumbs into the pockets of his shorts, “I’m going for a walk, don’t follow me,” a pause, “I’ll be back.”

Seth didn’t watch him go. He knew he’d pushed too hard, and it was no wonder Jonas needed some alone time. Once he’d started, it was like he couldn’t stop, and Seth couldn’t imagine the chasm of memory his boyfriend now found himself standing on the edge of.

Jonas had been half a breath out of being a teenager when they’d first met, when Jonas had first come to Sarasota. They’d met in the city park, chatted on a bench for an hour or more and Seth had wanted to have more of the young man’s company from that second on. At the time he hadn’t realised how alone Jonas was, or how broken, because all he’d seen was the cute country boy who smiled, tipped his hat to passing strangers, even when he wasn’t wearing one, and said ‘y’all’ in a manner that made Seth go inexplicably weak at the knees. Seth had assumed, correctly as it turned out, the reason Jonas never mentioned his past, especially his father, was that the two of them hadn’t gotten on, but he’d never known the extent of it. Replaying what Jonas had said in his mind, he realised he still didn’t.

There was more anger there than a man who’d taken his money and made him work all the hours in the day deserved, more even than for a man who had hit him. Jonas’s father had done something that had scarred him, something that was brought to the forefront of his mind whenever thunder struck and lightning stalked over their house with its long tendrils. Seth wondered if he’d ever know, or even if he wanted to. After the last thought he felt guilty, and sat on the bank, finishing the sandwiches his boyfriend had made for him. Seth resolved that if Jonas didn’t want to tell him anything else, he wouldn’t ask, and made a mental note to learn how to make waffles.

Jonas didn’t say anything on his return, there was only the soft crunch of grass under his flip flops and then his weight and warmth settled against Seth’s back. He wrapped his arms under Seth’s own and held him tight, heartbeat thudding slowly against his shoulder blade.

“PB and J?” Seth offered, and Jonas took the sandwich from over his shoulder, hugging Seth tighter in thanks. “You ready for the beach?”

“You just want me to get naked again.”

“Well… mostly,” Seth admitted. “C’mon, I bet you can surf way better now you’ve had a few lessons.”

“Like I said, you want me to get naked and fall in the sea. Why do I love you again?” Jonas kissed his shoulder, pulling Seth’s t-shirt to the side in order to find his tanned skin.

“I’m the only one who’ll watch rodeo with you?”

“Yup. Probably,” Jonas ruffled Seth’s hair, “alright then surfer dude. It’s time for you to go look great on the breakers again.”

*

The surf was rolling in beautifully, good clean waves breaking into white foam against the sand. There were stronger rollers out in the deeper water, but plenty of stable little waves which Jonas would be able to practice on. Jonas wriggled his toes in the sand as soon as they got onto the beach, discarding his flip flops into the back of the car.

“I always forget how big it is…”

“The ocean?” Seth tucked his board under his arm and held the other one for Jonas to take it, “babe, you see it every day on the drive home.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s not huge… and kinda magical,” Jonas watched the waves in a distracted, distant manner, “until I was nineteen the ocean was just a thing on television. Sometimes I wondered if it was even real.”

“I couldn’t leave the sea,” Seth sighed, “please don’t ever tell me you wanna move somewhere where there are no beaches.”

“And miss watching you muck around in skin tight neoprene? Not likely,” Jonas took his board, “OK, let’s go get beat up by the waves.”

Jonas wasn’t a bad surfer, he just had no confidence. Seth had learnt to swim in the ocean, hell, he’d learnt to swim, surf, make out, make friends… pretty much every ‘first’ that Seth had experienced, he’d been in the waves, and there’d been a surfboard around. It hadn’t been a surprise to anyone when his little sister had taken it all to the next level, got sponsorship to be an open amateur before getting signed to a big name surf team. Jonas had learnt to swim in rivers and creeks, and that was a very different thing indeed.

Seth loved teaching his boyfriend how to surf, because it was easy to find excuses to touch him in public. Knowing that Jonas wasn’t wearing anything under the thin, wet fabric of his navy blue board shorts added to the thrill. Sitting on their boards, watching the surf, Jonas bumped gently into his shoulder with a soft smile.

“Thank you.”

“It’s alright,” Seth wanted to hug him tight, but settled simply for taking his hand. The last thing he wanted to do was upset Jonas’s balance and send him sprawling off his board.

“No, I mean it. You’ve put up with a lot from me, and I know I don’t make it easy.”

“You have your reasons,” Seth replied, “even if I don’t fully understand them. I’m here for you, I love you.”

“Love you too.” Jonas lent over to kiss him, lost his balance and ended up in the sea. Seth grabbed his board to steady it, and Jonas shook himself like a dog, spraying water everywhere, as he resurfaced. “Why do I let you do this to me?”

“The aforementioned ‘love’? C’mon, get on the board and let’s ride these waves.”

They rode little waves back into the beach for twenty minutes or so, and then Jonas kissed him hard, and told him to go and make good with his board. Seth didn’t need telling twice. He paddled out until Jonas’s tanned figure on the beach was a sun-blurred speck, dipped under a fat roller and flattened his hair out over his skull as he came up. He turned the board as the breaker behind him got closer, and leapt up, bare feet gripping the smooth surface of the board

There was a wondrous feeling when a wave picked you up. For a moment no longer than a heartbeat, Seth felt weightless, buoyant, carried by the wave. It was as though the sea was putting a hand under the board and pushing him up and away, and if he wasn’t careful, he would tumble right off it. In a moment, he would seize control, push his weight into his front foot and direct the force of the wave through his board and tell it where he wanted to go. He would twist, lean in low, transfer his centre of gravity and lift the nose of the board as he rode the wave across the sea towards the beach. He might even crest the wave, catch some air, amaze and astound himself as well as someone watching when the sun shone out from underneath him and the surfboard. But it was all in the future, and hanging there in the weightless moment of possibility and promise, Seth had a small moment of clarity.

What would it be like to live in that moment? What would it do to a person to never know if the next second was going to bring love or hatred, praise or admonition? The wave could turn on Seth, drag him under and punch him in the gut – it was always a possibility, just one Seth didn’t often think about. But Jonas had lived like that for years: the anger he’d felt when describing his father had been palpable, more than a simple beating or drinking too much justified. Seth might have loved the moment of possibility when he was lifted by the wave, but no man could live like that forever, and no boy deserved to grow up with that level of uncertainty and terror.

The wave rolled well, and Seth rode it smoothly, little twists and turns, a switchback or two, shaping the wave as he went. As the surf petered out he aimed dead on for the patch of sand marked by their towels and the cooler, and rammed the wave for all the power that was left in it. Jonas lay on the towel, propped up on his elbows, looking soft and sexy with his glistening tan skin and board shorts riding super low on his hips. Seth pulled the board up, stuck the tail in the sand, and fell onto his boyfriend with relish.

They kissed for longer than minutes, less than hours, until Seth was only just able to pull himself back from the deep and heady desire to have sex with the man he loved right there in the sand. Jonas was no less restrained, and groaned as Seth sat back onto his heels.

“Tease.”

“You want me to fuck you on a public beach?” Seth arched an eyebrow, “kinky.”

“You’re quite seriously disturbed, you know that?” Jonas kissed him lightly, then handed him a still cool-ish water bottle. “You taste of the sea. Drink something.”

“Thanks babe.”

“You looked great out there. Sorry I’m so rubbish,” Jonas shrugged in a self-depreciatory manner, “bad beach company.”

“Best beach company,” Seth countered, “I always ride better when I know you’re watching. You’re good for me.”

“I suppose we’re sorta good for each other, huh?” Jonas wriggled his toes deeper into the sand. “Beaches are nice, but I kinda miss sitting on my tailgate lookin’ out over the world.”

“Yeah?”

“Well I never had anyone to cuddle up to before. It’d be nice to share the view.”

Seth took the opportunity to sneak in under his boyfriend’s arm and began to drip sea water onto his shoulder.

“You love that damn truck.” The previous year, Seth had badgered Jonas to sell it for weeks. It was an ugly, beaten up thing that seemed to need minor repairs most weeks and major repairs too often. Seth hadn’t understood why Jonas wouldn’t sell it and buy something better. They had plenty in their savings to get something decent second-hand that would run on fuel rather than duct-tape and prayers. Jonas had gotten upset with him, and Seth had let the matter drop, now he sort of understood why.

“The moment I bought it, I swore I’d keep that truck alive as long as humanly possible. When it survived the tornado I knew I’d never sell it either. The day I got it, my father tried to take the keys and drive it, but I hid them,” Jonas took a deep breath, the inflation of his lungs calming his racing heart, “Took my first drive with a black eye and bruised ribs, but it was my goddamn first drive and I was gonna be dead before I let him have it.”

“I’m sorry I tried to make you get rid of it.”

“You didn’t know,” Jonas kissed his damp hair, “an’ that was my fault. I’ll keep that thing just to spite the bastard. It was the only thing I ever had that was truly mine. I used to sit in the back for hours on dirt roads over the other side of town. I’d do my homework or read library books. Pops said that reading was for girls and pansies, but I loved being able to escape.”

“I hate that you had to.”

“It’s OK, it’s over now,” Jonas smiled at him, his eyes shining. There were clouds rolling in over the sea, it was going to be another stormy sort of night. “What say we go home and wash all this sand off each other?”

“Our shower is kinda small.”

“I know.”

After a mad scramble back to the car, Seth drove home at the highest speed he thought he could safely get away with his hard-on doing its best to burn a hole in his speedos. The fact that Jonas also had an erection, and his was only guarded by one layer of thin damp cloth was most inspiring indeed. Jonas took the cooler, and Seth knew if he didn’t deal with the boards immediately he would regret it. He washed the sand off them under the outdoor shower, and stowed them safely in the breezeway, then snuck in through the door to pounce on Jonas as he stood in the kitchen.

“Gotcha!” Seth had his fingers around his boyfriend’s hard-on instantly, through the fabric of his board shorts. Jonas groaned in his ear, and then it was Seth’s turn to yelp as Jonas pushed down shorts and speedos and invaded him with fingers already slick with lube. “Oh fuck!”

“I’ll get to that,” Jonas smirked, “sometimes it’s fun to watch you squirm.” He twisted his hand just-so and Seth’s pupils dilated faster than he could draw breath.

“The sand’ll get into the rug.”

“Fuck the sand,” Jonas growled. He thrust his fingers deeper into Seth and the young man practically whimpered.

“OK.”

They had a shower together afterwards, and screwed again, lazily this time under the running water, kissing long and frequently, enjoying each other’s mouths and bodies. Seth clung onto Jonas’s shoulders as he was lovingly invaded, and took half a heartbeat to thank some dirty-minded voyeuristic deity somewhere for how lucky he was.

Once half dried and wearing towels, they were both hungry, so Seth ordered Chinese while Jonas alternated between trying to tickle him and suggesting things to eat in the sexiest version of his thick southern drawl. Listening to his boyfriend whisper ‘sweet ‘n sour’ in his ear made him want to get naked and intimate again.

They ate tucked up together on the sofa, constantly touching, fighting over satay chicken and trading food with their chopsticks. Learning to use chopsticks had been something Jonas had mastered well, having never eaten Chinese food until the first time Seth had arrived in his old apartment, late for their date but bearing delicious gifts in plastic carrier bags. He’d been a fairly instant convert. Seth stuck an old episode of Castle on the flat screen, and they giggled and smirked, tried to remember who the killer was and projected all sorts of silly supposition about the potential sexualities of characters on screen.

It started raining about the time Seth was cleaning up in the kitchen and clearing away the take-out cartons: they never seemed to have any leftovers. The pair of them brushed their teeth in easy silence, accompanied by the growing patter of the rain on the flat roof, and Jonas slapped his boyfriend’s ass as he passed on the way to the bedroom. At the first crack of low thunder, Seth dashed in, expecting to find Jonas wedged into the wardrobe again, but the young man was naked on the bed with the sheet tucked over his feet, hugging a pillow to his chest.

“Babe?”

“Hurry?” Jonas wasn’t crying, wasn’t panicking, but it sounded a bit like he might be any moment. Seth finished with his ablutions in record time and flung his towel over the rail as he nipped back into the bedroom.

Jonas quickly discarded the pillow in favour of hugging Seth against his chest, and by degrees of shuffling Seth got comfy with his head on the pillows without breaking contact with his boyfriend. They curled up together, Jonas holding him tight, and Seth pulled the sheet up over their heads to create a little tent.

“You OK? You wanna go back in the wardrobe?”

“Yes,” Jonas’s voice shook, just a little bit, but he still wasn’t crying, “but I’m not gonna.”

“I’m proud of you. Brave boy,” Seth kissed his forehead, “change can be good.”

“Before mom died, we always used to watch the storms together, the ones that weren’t tornados.”

“Maybe we can one day too,” Seth smiled, and found Jonas reflecting the gesture, “sit on the back porch with a cider and ice cream and watch the rain.”

“Only if you’re naked,” Jonas replied with the smallest of cheeky smiles.

“You always know how to talk me out of my clothes.”

Seth kissed him, and he was happy when Jonas kissed him back. He might have still been scared, his heart going a thousand miles an hour against Seth’s skin, but he wasn’t hiding from the storm, or at least not as much. Seth hated that enough bad had happened to Jonas to give him scars, fault lines running through his hazel eyes that he’d kept hidden for so long, but at least now they could work on them together. One day Seth figured he’d know them all, but they had plenty of time for that. For now, kissing Jonas in the private little tent-world under the sheet and listening to the storm outside was something they both needed.