Chapter Ten
Brent woke to the sound of birds outside, opening his eyes to find Riley’s side of the bed empty. He reached out to touch the spot Riley had been sleeping in when he’d woken during the night and found it almost completely cold.
Riley had been up for a while, then.
There was no clock in the room, and Brent didn’t have the energy to remember where he’d left his phone. He didn’t really want to be reminded of the outside world right now. He wanted a break from all that.
Instead, he rolled out of bed and grabbed the sweatpants he’d brought with him out of his overnight bag, pulling them on. He’d packed light, since he figured Riley wouldn’t really care what he looked like or if he wore the same jeans for three days without washing them.
Brent was glad now that he’d packed underwear that didn’t have any holes in it. He wanted Riley to see him in his underwear again.
After inspecting the house and throwing on a t-shirt to stave off the cold, Brent finally spotted Riley sitting out on the sand outside.
Naked.
In fifty-degree weather.
He wasn’t as surprised as he felt he should have been. He might have been more surprised if Riley was fully clothed and indoors.
The urge to be close to him, though, that was surprising. Brent wanted to go to him.
Even though it was cold and Riley was going to get himself arrested for indecent exposure if anyone came along.
At least if Brent went out there he’d have someone to hide behind.
Before he’d entirely decided on what he was going to do, Brent opened the front door of the cabin and headed over to where Riley was sitting, pausing to look up and down the beach.
Thankfully, he couldn’t see anyone else.
Most people probably didn’t do beaches in the fall.
Brent liked fall, though. Winter, too. He liked the bone-deep satisfaction of walking in from the cold and warming up by a heater—or ideally, a fireplace.
He didn’t so much like being outside naked, but he didn’t like being outside naked in summer, either. Riley was a lot braver than he was. If there was even a chance someone Brent didn’t know might see him naked, Brent would have been mortified.
If it actually happened, there was a non-zero chance that he’d drop dead from embarrassment.
Riley, on the other hand, had never been overly concerned. He didn’t intentionally run through town without any clothes on or anything, but he took risks Brent never would have.
He took a lot of risks Brent never would have, not just in terms of casual nudity.
“What’re you doing out here?” Brent asked as he approached Riley, who was sitting with his legs crossed and his eyes closed.
Brent let his eyes trail down as far as the line of dark hair leading to Riley’s crotch, but no further. Riley wasn’t actually out here to be leered at, that much Brent was certain of.
“Meditating,” Riley responded without opening his eyes.
“Oh.”
Brent paused to look out at the ocean, watching waves crest and crash far out at sea. The sky was a mottled grey, not quite dark enough for a storm, but he wouldn’t have been surprised if it started raining.
It was colder out here than he’d expected, goosebumps springing up on his arms.
And yet there was Riley, perfectly comfortable sitting on wet sand without anything to protect him from the weather.
Maybe he needed to be more like Riley.
“Can I join you?” he asked. Might as well start now.
“Of course,” Riley said, still keeping his eyes closed.
Brent sat down next to him, copying his pose, his hands resting upturned on his knees. He hadn’t sat cross-legged on the ground since he was a kid, which made the whole position feel strange, but Riley was probably doing it for a reason.
Riley was a much deeper thinker than he made himself out to be.
Brent took a deep breath, closing his eyes. He paused for a few seconds, his heartbeat pounding in his ears, before realizing that he had no idea what he was doing.
“Uh. How do I, um…?”
Riley laughed softly, but it wasn’t cruel at all. “Close your eyes.”
“Already closed,” Brent said.
“Okay, so you want to breathe in through your nose, all the way down to your stomach. Completely fill your lungs.”
Brent followed the instruction, hoping the next one would come before he passed out from lack of oxygen.
“When you need to breathe out, you should completely empty your lungs. All in one fluid motion.”
Brent waited until he couldn’t hold his breath any longer and let it out, feeling himself deflate as the air left him. He wasn’t sure what this was supposed to accomplish, but he was willing to try anything once.
“Your breathing should sound like waves crashing on the shore,” Riley said.
Brent took a few more deep breaths, slowly getting what Riley meant. When he got it right, it did sound exactly like waves crashing.
“Now what?”
“Free your mind,” Riley said.
“Free my mind?” With his eyes still closed, Brent raised an eyebrow. That was vague even for Riley.
Riley laughed again, a warm chuckle that made Brent’s skin tingle. “Just let it go. Don’t dwell on anything. The aim is to achieve perfect stillness, completely free yourself from all your thoughts and feelings.”
“Can you do that?” Brent asked. It sounded impossible. His mind never wanted to shut up.
“No,” Riley admitted. “But trying helps me deal with stress and makes it easier to think clearly.”
At least Riley couldn’t do it, either.
He wanted to ask if Riley was stressed, and what over, and whether he could do anything to help, but Brent felt he’d already interrupted enough. He didn’t know a whole lot about meditation, but he figured it was hard to do while you were talking to someone.
Instead, he filed those questions away for later.
The idea of not thinking about anything sounded amazing, and if that was even a possibility, Brent wanted to try it.
He focused on his breathing, on the sound of the waves crashing in front of him, the calls of the last few seagulls who hadn’t flown south yet carrying on the breeze.
His stomach tightened as the memory of standing at the altar, knowing he’d been stood up popped into his mind. Everything he’d been afraid of had happened, and he still didn’t understand why.
Brent liked to think he was a good, caring partner. All he’d wanted was someone to share his life with, someone to come home to, someone…
Someone to be his best friend.
Someone like Riley.
Riley was a way better train of thought to get on. It wasn’t exactly clearing his mind, but it was better than dwelling on the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that hadn’t entirely gone away yet.
Brent wasn’t totally unfamiliar with having romantic feelings for a man, but last night had been the first time he’d had any kind of non-fleeting sexual feelings. Riley was his friend, and Brent loved him, but he’d never really wanted to have sex with him before.
Now, he did.
That was new.
New, and scary, but also exciting. Riley had been a whole new world for him, and once he’d gotten over his nervousness, he’d loved every second of it. He loved the way Riley’s touch was so confident, the way he wasn’t afraid to ask for what he wanted, the give-and-take between them that had resulted in one of the best, most draining orgasms of Brent’s life.
It felt so good, so right that Brent didn’t feel even the slightest twinge of regret about it. Riley was always going to be his first man, and he was glad that was how it’d gone in the end.
He remembered Riley telling him not to freak out, probably expecting that he would, but he wasn’t. Not at all.
He wanted to do it all over again.
He knew this would all be over once they left here. Riley would move on when they got home, and they wouldn’t see each other again for months, and by then it would all be forgotten.
Brent knew all that, and he knew he was putting himself at risk of getting his heart broken all over again, but he still intended to make the most of Riley while he had him.
If he couldn’t have Riley, he could at least have some good memories.