Chapter Twenty
They spent the next few days enjoying the tourist sights and sounds of Oahu, including a visit to the USS Arizona Memorial. Trevor was moved to tears at the marble wall in the shrine room inscribed with the names of the dead.
“So many lost. When will it end?”
Jesse put his hand on Trevor’s shoulder. “Freedom isn’t free,” he said quietly.
They went snorkeling at Hanauma Bay, and climbed the Diamond Head State Monument, where Trevor shook his head at the old bunkers they encountered throughout their hike.
“More war,” he said sadly.
They ate at restaurants that were famous landmarks, like Duke’s Waikiki, and quieter, more out-of-the-way ones recommended by friendly locals, like Goma Tei.
“Riley was a more adventurous eater than me,” Jesse informed him. “He actually tried—and liked, mind you—Spam musubi.” He shuddered.
“Spam? Really? Like... Spam?”
“Yep, the meat in a can stuff. It’s everywhere here.”
Trevor asked their server what musubi was, and she eventually brought him a small plate, placing it in front of him with a small flourish.
“Spam musubi. Spam grilled in teriyaki sauce, placed on top of a block of rice and wrapped in nori. Very ono.”
Trevor took a cautious bite and pronounced it indeed ono, or delicious, highly amused by Jesse’s disgust.
Each night they collapsed into bed exhausted, and Trevor was surprised when he woke up the first time after a few hours and found Jesse already sitting on the balcony.
“Can’t sleep?” Trevor asked, pulling the sliding glass door open and joining him at the small bistro table. “I don’t sleep much anymore, a little bit here and there.”
“Same.” Jesse gazed out at the ocean, a vast silvery expanse.
They talked until the chill drove them back inside to sit on their beds, and when it happened again the next night, they didn’t even bother going outside. Instead, Jesse made some coffee with the room’s little coffeemaker and handed a cup to Trevor before perching cross-legged on the end of Trevor’s bed.
“How long were you with Carl?” Jesse asked. The room was dark and intimate, illuminated only by the moonlight streaming in through the open curtains. Trevor plumped some pillows up behind him and glanced at the clock: three a.m.
“A little over two years,” he answered, sipping the weak coffee and grimacing. He peeped at Jesse through his eyelashes. “How about you? Any boyfriends in your past? Girlfriends?”
Jesse gave a half-shrug. “Not really. No one to speak of, anyway.”
“I messed around a lot in high school.” Trevor gave Jesse an abbreviated story of Riley’s conception. “And after he was born, there wasn’t anyone for years.”
“Why? Just too busy?”
“That, and he was born in ’87. The height of the AIDS epidemic,” he went on when Jesse looked mystified.
“Oh. Shit.”
“Back then we didn’t know how it was transmitted, thought maybe it could even be by kissing or shaking someone’s hand. No way was I gonna put myself or my baby at risk, so I didn’t date or go out.”
“That must’ve been lonely.”
“It was. Almost everyone I knew in the gay community, which wasn’t very big in the Springs to begin with, had lost someone somewhere. I was lonely, but I couldn’t take the chance of something happening to me.” He took a sip of his coffee and chuckled drily. “Of course when things settled down and we understood more about it, I made up for lost time, believe me.”
“You did?” Jesse put his cup on the nightstand, his eyes wide. “How?”
Trevor shrugged. “Clubs, cruising. Armed with a box of condoms, I felt bulletproof. Riley was a preteen by then, could be left home alone for a couple of hours, and I’d take advantage of it. Never brought anyone home, never spent the night anywhere else, but—”
He could see Jesse swallow hard. “Wow.”
“Eventually I got that out of my system and started dating, introduced a few of them to Riley, brought him around my circle of friends. He was mature enough by that point that I didn’t think he’d be hurt if things didn’t work out between me and whomever.” Trevor put his own cup down. “Carl was the only one I ever lived with, though.”
“I wasn’t out in high school, or right after, and then of course I went into the Army.” Jesse shrugged, and it hit Trevor that he might be a virgin. It was his turn to swallow, and he casually pulled a pillow over his lap.
Jesus, Trev! Get a fucking grip!
“Wasn’t it hard for you to join the Army, knowing you were gay?”
“Not at first. I mean, sex was fun but it wasn’t really my top priority. Not when I’d been dealing with my parents’ deaths and then trying to figure out what to do with my life. But of course after a while I started to get lonely.”
“And horny.”
Jesse’s eyes shot to his and then away. “Definitely. Also, it was hard to see guys get married, or show off pics of their girlfriends.” He snorted. “Dudes living together always wanna know who’s getting some and who’s not. If you’re not, they wanna know why. So I had to constantly make shit up, or act like a douche to cover. It was so fuckin’ exhausting, not to mention I hated myself a lot for the way I behaved, too.”
“So you haven’t been with anyone since...?” Oh, real subtle, Trevor.
“I used to sneak away and go to gay clubs when I could, but I couldn’t manage it very often.” Jesse lay down on the bed and propped himself up on his elbow. “Riley noticed that when I’d come home, I looked like you did when you’d been out, so I wasn’t being as careful as I thought I was.”
Well, that answers the virgin question. But the thought also made Trevor achingly hard, remembering those long-ago nights filled with hot anonymous sex, mostly blow jobs or grinding desperately up against someone in the back seat of their car.
He cleared his throat, trying with all his might not to picture Jesse on his knees...
“It shouldn’t surprise me he’d noticed that,” Trevor said huskily. “He was always really attuned to me.”
Desperate to change the subject before he did something stupid, Trevor went on, “So we’ve been here almost a week. What’s next? I’m getting a little tired of Waikiki.”
Jesse chuckled and rolled to his back, stacking his hands behind his head. “Well, we felt the same way, so we rented motorcycles.”
“Motorcycles? What the hell?”
Jesse blinked at him. “Yeah. We both had our motorcycle licenses.”
“Whoa. Whoa.” Trevor sat up straight, his pesky arousal forgotten. “Licenses?”
“Before we went on deployment, a bunch of us took the motorcycle safety course there at Fort Carson. It’s required if you ever wanna ride on a military installation. Then we got our licenses.” Jesse’s eyes were wary as he took in Trevor’s pained surprise at this new information.
“Wow. I, uh, I didn’t know that.”
Jesse’s eyes were steady on his. “We talked about buying motorcycles when we got back.”
Trevor heaved a ragged sigh, and after a moment Jesse rested his hand on his shin and give it a comforting squeeze.
“Well, he was an adult,” Trevor forced out, striving to keep his voice even. “He didn’t have to check in with me on the decisions he made. It’s just—Jesus Christ. A motorcycle?”
Jesse petted his leg anxiously, and all of a sudden Trevor was overwhelmed with amusement. He snorted, then laughed outright, collapsing back into the pillows. “Oh, Riles. Will you ever cease to amaze me?” He rolled his head to look at Jesse. “What else can you surprise me with tonight? Did he have a secret wife or something?”
Jesse quirked his lips. “No wife, although I’m pretty sure he was in love with the photographer embedded with us for a few months.”
“Seriously? What was she like?”
The look in Jesse’s eyes grew faraway, and Trevor gulped when he didn’t move his hand, instead moving it down to stroke the top of Trevor’s foot absently with his thumb.
“Hilarious and brave. Pretty. All the guys were a little in love with her. She was a bright spot in a really dreary place.”
“What happened to her?” Trevor cleared his throat, trying to ignore the little tingles that were racing from his foot to his groin as Jesse’s thumb traced over his ankle bone, across his instep and back again. Christ, who knew an ankle was a fucking erogenous zone?
“She went on leave when Riley and I did. To see her fiancé.”
“Her fiancé? Oh. Poor Riles.”
Jesse squeezed Trevor’s foot and let his hand fall away, much to Trevor’s regret. “Yeah. He didn’t have much of a chance, although I think Kimi may have had more feelings for him than she’d admit. After he died, she emailed me that she couldn’t go through with the story, that it was too painful to think about editing the pictures.”
Trevor turned on his side to face him. “Pictures?” he asked wistfully. “What I wouldn’t give to see those.”
Jesse’s eyes were warm with understanding. “I know. That’s why I called her before we left, and asked her to mail me a thumb drive.”
Trevor caught his breath, and before he knew it, he was reaching out to grip Jesse’s bare shoulder. “Really, Jess?”
“Yep. It should be there by the time we get home.” Jesse bit his lip. “When you said before that I can’t take you back to Afghanistan, well, in a way I can. He’s in most of the pictures.”
Trevor closed his eyes against the sudden sting of tears.
“When you’re ready, Trev. Only when you’re ready.”
Emotion rose up and clogged Trevor’s throat. “I want to know what happened to him. But I—I’m not—”
“Hey. I’m not going anywhere,” Jesse said gently. “So when you are ready, I promise you I won’t be far away.”
Trevor nodded, keeping his eyes closed, and he felt the bed shift as Jesse moved up to settle on the pillow next to him. They lay quietly, Trevor drifting off to sleep to the sound of Jesse’s quiet breaths.
* * *
Jesse downshifted into the slight curve, Trevor’s arms tightening around his waist as they leaned into it. A few seconds later they roared into the Tetsuo Harano tunnel on the H-3, and Jesse’s anticipation built as he waited for Trevor’s reaction to the view that awaited them on the other side.
Pure exhilaration was making Jesse’s body sing—a combination of the powerful machine he was piloting and the feeling of Trevor perched behind him, his knees splayed about Jesse’s hips.
Shit, I have it bad.
They burst out of the tunnel, and just like Jesse’d hoped, he heard Trevor’s gasp of awe through his helmet mic as the incredible vista opened below them.
“Oh my God, that’s gorgeous,” Trevor breathed.
“Kaneohe Bay. That whole peninsula there is the Marine Corps base, which is where our beach cottage is.”
They wended their way out of the Ko‘olau Range down toward the Ha’iku Valley, the deep blue-green ocean spread out below them as far as the eye could see.
“Welcome to the windward side of Oahu, Trevor.”
The traffic thickened as they approached the sentry at the entrance to the base, and Jesse reached into the zippered pocket of his leather jacket for his ID. It wasn’t long before they were hanging a left on Mokapu Road toward the airstrip.
“The cottages are just past the flightline, Trev, and wait till you see them. Riley and I wished we’d stayed here the whole time.”
When Jesse pulled the motorcycle to a stop next to their assigned cottage, Trevor yanked his helmet off and dismounted. “Wow,” he exclaimed. “This is beautiful! Almost like a private beach.”
The handful of two-bedroom cottages were spaced far enough apart that the little slice of beach in front of each one did have an air of privacy about it.
“We saw seals sunbathing one morning, too. Really cool.” Jesse killed the bike’s engine and put the kickstand down. “So what’d you think of your first motorcycle ride?”
Trevor’s cheeks were flushed and his eyes were glowing. “A little scary, but fun,” he pronounced. “I’m sorry if I held on to you so tightly you couldn’t breathe.”
Oh, but I loved it. Jesse didn’t voice the thought aloud, only shrugged. “No worries. Maybe tomorrow we’ll ride around the entire length of the island, and I’m not sure there’s anything else that’ll make you feel quite as alive as that.” He dug the front door key out of his jeans pocket and headed up the steps.
“You left the rental car at the motorcycle place?”
“Yep. For the next three days, anywhere we want to go, we go by bike. Hope you’re up to it,” Jesse teased.
He showed Trevor where the master bedroom was, making his way to his own room to throw on a pair of board shorts. Leaving the cabin, Jesse jogged down to the water’s edge, diving beneath the waves and reveling in the shock of cold he so desperately needed, both for his sweaty body and for his libido.
When he came up for air, Trevor had spread a couple of towels in the sand out of the way of the tide, and his sleek dark head was bobbing in the surf not far away. Jesse swam over to him. “There’re some boogie boards in a storage bin on the porch. You game? The waves on this side of the island are way more intense than in Waikiki,” he warned.
Trevor gave a whoop. “Hell, if I can trust you with my life on the back of a motorcycle, boogie boards’ll be a piece of cake. Bring it on.”
Jesse grinned, striking out for shore to grab two boards.
By the time they collapsed down on their towels a short while later, Jesse’s sides hurt from laughing. Trevor threw a dark look at him, then at his boogie board. He aimed a kick at it. “Piece of shit,” he muttered, blowing out a disgusted breath.
“What? More like operator error,” Jesse hooted, yelping as Trevor reached over to shove him.
“I’m old,” he groused. “Can’t keep up with the kids these days.” He leaned back on his elbows, water coursing over his skin, his nipples pebbled from the cold. Jesse stifled a groan, fighting a sudden urge to lean over and warm those stiff buds up with his mouth. He’d lash them with his tongue, bite down on them—
With a silent curse, Jesse rolled to his stomach to hide his burgeoning erection, resting his head on his crossed arms. “You’re not old, and you did great for your first time,” he croaked. “Riley sucked at it, too.”
“Yeah?” Trevor’s voice was relaxed, his eyes closed as he tilted his head up toward the warm sun. “That surprises me because he was good at almost everything he tried. Football, baseball, even band.”
“Band?” Jesse lifted his head to stare at him. “He played in the band?” He snorted when Trevor nodded. “Fuck, if I’d known that, I would’ve given him so much shit. Band geek!”
“Yep, he played the trumpet.”
“Huh. Think you know a guy.”
They fell silent, the warm afternoon sun and the rhythmic shushing of the waves soothing, and eventually Jesse relaxed completely, slipping into a light doze.
“I could stay here forever, Jesse.”
Jesse dragged his eyes open, seeing that Trevor was now propped on his side facing him. He blinked sleepily. “Mmm. Me, too.”
“If you run to get some groceries, I’ll cook for us tonight. I saw a halfway decent grill on the patio.”
“Sure.” Jesse rolled over and arched his back in a long, sinuous stretch. “Since I’m starving and you owe me a steak, that sounds like a fantastic idea.” He rubbed his flat stomach as if soothing it.
“Great,” Trevor said, dragging his eyes away from Jesse’s hand, his voice slightly hoarse. “Lemme go make you a list.” He snatched up his towel and hurried back to the cabin as if the hounds of hell were nipping at his heels.
Jesse ran his fingers through his still-damp hair before pushing to his feet and ambling down to the water’s edge, his body feeling liquid and hot, a quivery sort of anticipation roiling in his belly and making him antsy. The whitecaps rolled in to crash against the powdery sand, water foaming around Jesse’s feet. God, Riley’d loved this beach. He’d gotten up at dawn every morning to practice his boogie boarding while Jesse sat on the patio with his coffee, laughing his ass off at his epic wipeouts.
Oh, Riles, I wish you were here with us, man.
As soon as the thought crossed his mind, Jesse snorted at the absurdity of it. If Riley was still alive, none of this would be happening. Trevor would be in Colorado, happily married to Carl, and he would still be in the Army, closeted, sneaking off for clandestine hookups at bars or, if he was really lucky, a blow job in an alley somewhere.
Jesse gazed toward the horizon, at the endless expanse of ocean. It was amazing how one man’s life—and death—had changed the course of so many others’, leaving people as adrift as pieces of flotsam on an angry sea. So much loss, so much pain, all because a bullet had missed one target and found its mark on another...
Sudden grief surged up again, and with a sob Jesse ran to dive beneath the waves, letting the saltwater wash away his tears.