“That is one fine ass man right there.” Brian overheard as he sat in the sand drinking water. He was soaked and tired and ready to head back to the ship. He sat near people he hadn’t seen on the bus from the zip line park. He was sure they were from the ship, most everyone here seemed to be American, and tourists. Theirs was the only cruise ship in port so he could only assume. “I like a little meat on a man. He’s damn near perfect. Pretty smile too.”

Brian eavesdropped on the women sitting two towels over. They were wearing bikinis, but hadn’t gone into the water. He tried not to react to their conversation. The only man he saw was his man. And god, yes, Zack was damn near perfect. Brian had left him behind in the water to get something to drink. After yesterday he was still feeling the booze, and the Mimosas hadn’t helped. Zack called him a wuss and stayed in the water.

Zack, oblivious to being ogled, swam out some and then back emerging from the water and pushed his wet hair back from his face. His body was pale, but getting less pale by the minute. His shoulders were so very wide they made Brian’s mouth water. His waist was narrow. He didn’t have a six-pack, but he wasn’t flabby. Maybe he had a little bit of a paunch, but it was nothing to worry about yet. The white print swim trunks clung to muscular thighs like… wet swim trunks. Brian’s brain short circuited. His dick really, really liked what he was seeing. His own trunks were too tight to go about sporting wood for the only other man on their section of beach.

“I hear he’s a doctor.” Oh yeah, they were discussing Zack. Maybe they didn’t see Brian sitting right here. Maybe they didn’t know they were together.

“Hot, damn. I don’t see a ring,” the other one replied. They clinked glasses and laughed.

“They say he’s married to the gorgeous redhead.” The first one sighed and took a long drink of her frozen concoction.

“Le sigh,” the other one agreed. “I don’t see a redhead. He looks the type who likes big racks.”

“More like big dicks.”

“Hallelujah,” the second one squealed with laughter. Brian waited for her to say what a waste of a good man. He’d heard it a million times, aimed at him from some disappointed girl when he let her down politely. “Wonder if they’d let us watch? That would be something wouldn’t it?”

Brian choked on his water. The women heard him and turned to stare at him. They were gorgeous, wearing floppy hats and big sunglasses, and even bigger grins. They waved. “Oh, yeah, that is one gorgeous ginger. You’re right. They’d be beautiful together.”

Oh God! Brian spewed water trying not to choke and laugh at the same time. Zack picked that moment to come out of the water onto shore. His dripping wet shorts leaving nothing to the imagination. Absolutely nothing. The two women cooed and waved at him as he passed them. Brian tossed him up a towel and spread another one out for Zack to drop onto. The waving and cooing didn’t stop.

Brian waved back. Zack plopped down onto the towel next to him and bumped his knee against Brian’s thigh. “Got another water? I’ve had too much booze and sun for one day. Need water and a nap.” Brian gave him their last water bottle and tried to ignore the women. He couldn’t. He turned to Zack and whispered. “They think you’re hot. And they want to watch us… you know… fuck.”

Zack swallowed as if he hadn’t heard a word Brian said. He laughed a minute later and rested his hand on Brian’s thigh, letting his fingers slide along his inner thigh to toy with the leg of his trunks. Brian had to stifle a moan. He closed his eyes and willed his body not to react. “Stop teasing me,” he whispered through clenched teeth.

“Just trying to help. Hate to disappoint anyone.” Zack laughed again and fell back onto the towel. Sand clung to the wet parts of his body. Since he was all wet, he was all sandy. He laughed loudly. He sounded happy. Maybe a little drunk. Brian reached to brush the sand off his thigh, his hand grazed the back of Zack’s hand and Zack grabbed it and pulled him back onto the towel to lay beside him.

“You’re a dick.” Brian finally laughed along. “I didn’t know you had it in you. God, you look so good in the water. And they’re right. You are a beautiful man.” He squeezed Zack’s hand wishing this was real. He wanted this to be real.

“I’m still fat.” Zack lost the laughter. He was always insecure about his size.

“You’re not fat. You have never been fat. That’s Ronnie’s insecurities projected onto you. You never thought that before her. And frankly, I’m tired of it. You’re a big man. You’re never going to be thin. Stop worrying about your weight. And what people think. And…”

“I’m not the one worrying about a couple of hot women wanting to watch us fuck. That’s you. Not sure I could with them watching, but… it’s flattering. And that one woman. Stop letting her shit get to you. There are far more people on the right side of history than her side. People are changing. Times are changing. Two years ago, we couldn’t have even had a honeymoon. Not that we’re having one now. But think about it. Two years ago, even if we’d been together we couldn’t have gotten married. I asked Ronnie to marry me two years ago. Just before she graduated college. Now that I think about it, you didn’t come to her graduation and you never told me why.”

Brian let Zack’s hand go and covered his eyes with his arm. The sun was really getting to him. Or maybe it was the constant reminder of things he didn’t want to talk about. “Ronnie didn’t want me there, Zack. We don’t get along, in case you’ve never noticed. I’ll bet you everything I own that she tried to talk you out of asking me to be your best man.” He didn’t need to ask. Ronnie had told him as much when he’d arrived. She didn’t want him there and their parents, as usual, had nothing to say. Zack didn’t deny it. “My family… it’s not as great as you seem to think it is. We have… issues.” Brian was tired and ready to go. He’d had enough of dealing with his feelings for one lifetime.

He sat up and grabbed his gear, picking up the empty water bottles and the discarded towels from the cabana. He was halfway to the boardwalk before Zack caught up, his own towels in tow. He took their trash from Brian and found a receptacle and they found the bin for their towels and went to the showers to change back into street clothes.

They changed in silence and tied their wet clothes up in a plastic bag to go back into the backpack. Brian checked their valuables and handed Zack his wallet before he slung the pack over his shoulder. They were alone in the men’s shower and Zack reached out and caught him before he could walk away. He pulled Brian to him and stood there looking over his head, as if he didn’t know why he’d stopped Brian and was looking for an excuse. He finally squeezed his eyes closed and sighed a long-pained sigh. “I wanted you. I… needed you here. At the wedding and… now. I needed you to get me down the aisle. Because I knew I was making a mistake and I didn’t know how to get out of it. I… you don’t know how relieved I was when she didn’t come walking down that aisle. You have no idea. Because I can’t fathom… because… I didn’t know I needed you to be with me until I opened the door and you were there. Wedding or no wedding. I’m happy you’re here. I can’t think of a better person to go on a honeymoon with.”

“Even if it isn’t really a honeymoon?” They had to stop using that word. Each time he heard it, it felt as if he’d been stabbed through the heart.

“Isn’t it?” Zack snagged a finger in the waistband of his shorts and pulled him close. He tilted Brian’s chin up with another finger. The look in his eyes as he leaned over, turned Brian’s knees to jelly. Their lips grazed softly. Brian’s eyes fluttered closed. He may have moaned as Zack licked his lips with the tip of his tongue. He did moan when he opened his mouth to meet Zack’s kiss.

His heart beat twenty erratic fluttering beats before Zack stepped away. The door to the men’s room opened and a father with a couple of small boys came in. Zack was out the door before it closed, leaving Brian standing in a pit of his own despair.

* * * * *

Zack dressed in a pair of linen pants and a silk tropical print shirt that he picked up in one of the nicer shops on the island. He sat at a table in a different bar and watched Brian maneuver his way through the crowd. He didn’t dance with the men who tried to catch his attention. And so many men tried. Brian brushed them all off and picked his way through to the table with their drinks. He wore the dress pants he’d worn the first night, with a purple tank and yet another tropical camp shirt. This one with surf boards and palm trees. He hadn’t brought them with him on board. Or if he had, he’d hidden them. He had to be picking the shirts up when Zack wasn’t watching.

He looked good. Even in a camp shirt. He looked in his element. But he looked in his element everywhere Zack had ever seen him. Except for in a classroom, now that he thought about it.

“It’s packed in here tonight,” Zack shouted over the music when Brian edged close enough to set their drinks down.

“It’s a smaller bar than last night. Just seems packed. Or this ship is crawling with queers.” He slid into the booth with Zack and grabbed the beer he’d gotten himself. “Last one. I’m still feeling last night.” He watched the crowd gyrate on the floor, the look on his face almost wistful.

“You like to dance?” He meant it as a question, but it was more of a realization. He was seeing a side of his friend that Brian had kept hidden from him.

“Yeah, I do. I mean, back in college, I didn’t try. I didn’t think I’d like it. Most of the parties we went to were frat parties or mixers. People got shit faced and I didn’t want to dance with girls.” He shrugged as if it didn’t matter.

Zack wondered where he’d been during those parties. He didn’t remember doing much partying. But then, Brian had other friends who dragged him out while Zack had stayed in their room doing homework like a good little soldier. He swigged his beer as he watched the two women from the beach stroll past them. They danced with each other. Zack had to laugh. “Oh god.”

“What?” Brian didn’t see what he saw. But he never did.

“The women from the beach,” Zack said, tilting his bottle toward the two in their skintight dresses as they slithered all over each other.

“Lipstick lesbians.” Brian shrugged again and winked at Zack when Zack raised an eyebrow at him. “Probably bi. Most likely in an open relationship. If we swung their way…” He stopped talking and looked away hastily, his smile fading.

Zack didn’t need him to finish what he’d been about to say. “How long have you known?”

He was sure he’d asked this same question at some point since he walked up on Brian and that guy, Gary the first night.

“What? That I’m gay?” Brian looked at him with surprise in his eyes. They weren’t drunk and they weren’t fighting. Not that Zack was aware. “I thought we’d covered this.”

“Humor me,” Zack said. He wanted to understand what was going on between them. He wanted… he didn’t know what he wanted. He looked at the people on the dance floor and wondered if he’d be there if he’d married and this had been real. He wondered if he and… if… he stopped thinking. He was with Brian and this was the first night they weren’t impaired in some way. He just wanted to know everything.

Brian picked the label on his bottle and glanced up at Zack as if he would rather eat glass. He looked on the verge of panic. After a moment, he dragged in a deep breath and looked down at the strip of label he’d pulled off. “Always, I guess. I can’t say when it hit me, you know. It’s not like I had this big epiphany moment when Cher or Madonna came to town and I was like yes, yes that’s what I am. I am queer.” He winced as if he regretted the words. “I just never looked at girls like the other guys did. I didn’t see the attraction. I had man crushes. On football players or rock stars. There was the unfortunate Toby McGuire thing. I jacked off to Spider-man… and then there was you.”

Zack nodded. He didn’t know why. He didn’t know what he thought of being part of Brian’s sexual awakening when he had no frame of reference for his own sexuality. He couldn’t remember ever thinking about tits and pussy. He didn’t have crushes on anyone, real or famous. He never thought about sex. Not even now. Unless he was standing naked in a shower with Brian’s hands on his body. Then he couldn’t think about anything else.

“I’m… maybe not straight,” he said, watching the two women grind against each other. Their ample breasts rubbing together. One of them noticed him watching and crooked her finger at him in a come-hither gesture. “Wouldn’t a straight man get all hot and bothered by that?” He inclined his head toward the women and Brian followed his gaze. “Because I got nothing.”

Brian blinked at him, his eyes going almost owlish. “I don’t want to talk about Ronnie if that’s where this is going. I’m tired of her ghost being between us.”

“I wasn’t going to mention her. And you’re the one who keeps bringing her up. I’m trying to forget that she humiliated me in front of two hundred of your closest friends and family.”

“My friends and family?” Brian repeated, his eyes going wider. “What do you mean two hundred of my friends and family?”

“I mean, I didn’t know a soul in that church, Bri. You’re the only person I invited. She invited everyone else. She had to have this huge church wedding with all the people she went to school with and your family. And she didn’t show up. What was I supposed to say to your grandparents, your aunts and uncles and ninth cousins twice removed? I just left. I don’t have a family. You’re my family. And my friend. You’re the only person that matters to me.” It was his turn to shrug. None of that meant anything. None of this meant anything either. He looked around at the people and didn’t see sex and gender. He didn’t see anything but people he didn’t know and he wasn’t a part of their world. “I’m an outsider in my own life, it seems.”

Brian peeled the last of the label off and played with the bits of curled up paper on the table as he drained the last of his beer. Zack had made him uncomfortable. He was good at making people uncomfortable. He was tired of noise and drinking and wearing shoes, he needed quiet and… “Listen, I’m going back to the room. I’m starting to get a headache. I’ll see you later.”

He got up and started to leave. Brian didn’t say a word. He didn’t move. He looked at the people on the dance floor with a trace of longing in his gaze and Zack couldn’t stand it anymore. He walked away.

He’d walked away this afternoon after kissing Brian, too.

The thought stopped him.

He’d been the one who kissed Brian in the changing room at the beach. Not the other way around.

He kept following Brian around like he was some lovesick puppy. Of course, Brian wanted to be with him. He was convenient. Like he’d been convenient to Ronnie.

He made it to the elevator before he realized his chest ached. He’d just walked away from the only person he felt a damned thing for because… just fucking because he was pathetic.

The doors slid open and Zack stepped inside. He reached out to hold the door open for the person behind him. Brian pushed him inside and up against the wall before the doors even closed. He held him there. Anger in his eyes. “What floor are we on?” Brian growled.

Zack had never seen him like this. He felt his knees quiver and turn to jelly as he told Brian the number. “You could have stayed and danced.”

“The only person I want to dance with left.” His mouth crashed down on Zack’s and Zack reached out to grab Brian’s arms to hold himself up. His knees were going to give out. He opened his mouth and let Brian hold him against the wall and drive him crazy.

The elevator dinged and came to a jolting halt. The doors slid open and a couple of teenagers stepped on. Brian left him standing there against the wall while the boys gave them some serious side-eye. They went up instead of down and the boys complained. Zack didn’t even blink for three more floors.

When the door opened again, he darted out into the brightly lit corridor. Brian caught up with him at the door and pinned his back to it, his hands and mouth on him as if they’d never been interrupted, or could be again. Brian took the key card from him and slid it into the slot. They fell inside when he opened the door. He butt-crawled inside with Brian following him. They both kicked the door closed. That’s all Zack remembered. The silk shirt he wore would never be wearable again. Brian’s camp shirt disappeared, someone would probably find it under the bed when they left. Shoes bounced off walls. Pants… why were they wearing pants?

Brian dragged his pants down his legs while he kissed places Zack didn’t know needed kissing. Zack swung his leg out of his pants and kicked the mirrored closet doors. There wasn’t much room between the closet and the bathroom. His legs and arms were just too long. He gasped as Brian settled between his thighs and braced himself on either wall. Brian’s muffled groan sent thrills through Zack’s body and into his dick. He wanted Brian’s mouth on him. Everywhere. Brian didn’t disappoint. He opened his lips and slowly sucked Zack’s dick into his mouth and down his throat. Zack slapped the mirror to steady himself. “I’m going to come. God, Brian. I need you.”

He watched in the mirror as his dick slipped from Brian’s mouth. He needed it on him. He clawed at Brian’s shoulders, trying to push him back and pull him up at the same time. He didn’t know what he needed. Brian crawled up his body, just as he had last night and kneed Zack’s legs apart. He leaned over Zack, their noses touching. “I need you too. I’ve always needed you.”

Zack wrapped his hands around Brian’s shoulders and pulled him down. “Prove it,” he said, flicking his tongue over Brian’s lips. Brian smiled and pressed their lips and bodies together. Someone knocked on the door. Or Brian kicked it. He didn’t know. He drove his body into Brian’s and Brian pushed him along the floor. “Going to come,” Zack said into Brian’s mouth.

Brian tilted his head to the side and Zack tucked his nose into his neck. Brian’s mouth scalded his own neck in the same spot. The sharp sting of his teeth on Zack’s sensitive skin pushed him over. He clung to Brian as he came. When he could see again, he held him close because he didn’t want to let go. He kissed the spot he’d bitten. He slid his hands over Brian’s back, exploring every muscle hidden under his silken skin.

Brian didn’t seem in a hurry to move. He nibbled Zack’s neck and his ear. He made sweet gasping sounds as Zack found sensitive spots. He could feel Brian’s heart beating against his chest. He wanted that. This. He didn’t want to ever lose this. Brian laughed softly and nuzzled behind Zack’s ear. “At least we don’t have far to go to the shower.”

“Asshole,” Zack sighed and rolled him off. He just had to go and ruin it. That’s what Brian did. Every damned time. Say something that made Zack feel used. Brian laughed and kissed a path down Zack’s body until he found Zack’s nipples.

Zack never knew his nipples were so sensitive. He never knew a lot of places were sensitive, until Brian showed him. Zack didn’t know a lot about himself… until Brian showed him.