Cole pulled Rhett out the sliding glass door and onto their private strip of beach. The sand and sun were warm, the breeze off the water was thick with humidity.

“We should bring the fruit,” Rhett said as his feet hit the beach.

Cole doubled back and grabbed the complimentary fruit plate off a small table on the deck and chased after Rhett.

“Here,” he gasped, catching his breath and holding a strawberry up to Rhett’s pink lips. The way he shaped them into an O and puckered his mouth before sinking his teeth into the skin of the strawberry bordered on obscene, and Cole had to close his eyes, lest he shoot off in his swim trunks.

“That’s so ripe,” Rhett enthused, lifting a finger to his chin and swiping at some dripping strawberry juice.

“They grow pineapple here,” Cole shared, picking a spear from the plate and taking a bite. He wasn’t even really a fan of pineapple, but Tahitian pineapple was delicious—far sweeter and juicier than whatever they could get at the store back home. And besides, there was that rumor it made your…well, it didn’t much matter if it made anything taste better because no one was going to be tasting anything.

No matter how much he wanted to taste or to be tasted.

“Fuck, the water is so warm!” Rhett called to him, already yards beyond Cole and up to his waist in the water.

Cole set the plate in the sand and splashed into the water behind Rhett, tackling him from behind and slamming them both face first into the waves.

“Oh, my God!” Rhett sputtered, struggling to stand and wiping his hair out of his face. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

“That’s what makes it fun,” Cole reminded him. He returned to the shore, dropping into the sand and using his finger to slide the fruit around the plate. He popped a couple grapes into his mouth and leaned back, watching Rhett frolic in the water, wading deeper into the calm sea.

Hours later, after the sun had dipped lower in the sky and they’d both showered and dressed again, Cole sat across from Rhett at a small seafood restaurant tucked into the tropical forest about a mile off the hotel property.

“How did you know this place was here?” Rhett asked, eyes wide in awe.

Cole looked around the restaurant. It was a humble place, owned by a local and it looked like the restaurant used to be, or maybe still was, their primary residence. The dining room opened into a garden decorated with half a dozen wooden tables and plastic patio chairs. It served the best seafood he ever had.

“I’ve been here before,” Cole said, reaching for his beer and taking a small drink.

“Oh, of course,” Rhett said, his eyes squinting together before he quickly shifted his attention to the plastic checkered tablecloth.

“Why do you say it like that?” Cole asked. “You’re upset.”

“What makes you think I’m upset?” Rhett answered back quickly, eyes still narrowed.

“You squint. Like, not just a normal squint. I don’t know how to explain it.” Cole was pretty sure he was blushing. His cheeks seemed warm and he didn’t think it was just the humid air.

Rhett’s face softened then, noticeably, and Cole couldn’t help but smile.

“Two steamers,” the hostess slash waitress slash owner said, setting two large, wicker steamer baskets down in front of them before disappearing back into the house.

“You didn’t answer me,” Cole said, pulling the lid from his basket.

“It’s just easy to forget that we’re so different,” Rhett whispered, toying with the lid of his basket.

“I didn’t think we were,” Cole said, a little upset by the implication of Rhett’s words. “How do you mean?”

“Well, come on, Cole.” Rhett gestured around them. “We’re on an island in the middle of the ocean at a restaurant that looks like a house and I’ve never even been out of California, but you’ve somehow already been to this house-restaurant ?”

“Just on a vacation before.”

Rhett exhaled and pulled the lid off his basket. “I’ve never been farther than San Diego.”

“Well, now you have. And we’re here together, and I want you to eat this dinner with me, okay?” Cole slid his hand across the table, palm up. Rhett looked down at his upturned palm but didn’t move.

“Rhett,” Cole whispered, bending his fingers. “You’re my boyfriend. Hold my hand. Drink this beer. Eat this dinner. With me.”

Rhett’s throat turned pink and he slowly placed his palm against Cole’s. Their fingers slid against each other, skin hot and damp from the tropical air, or something else entirely.

“It’s pretend,” Rhett rasped, jawline and cheeks turning red to match his throat.

“Alright,” Cole agreed, twining their fingers together. His breath caught in his mouth and he made a best effort to commit the angles of Rhett’s muscles to memory—from the thin lines of his fingers to the slight bulge of his forearm up to his trembling bicep.

“But it still needs to be believable,” Rhett murmured, squeezing his hand.

Cole’s heart stopped—he was sure of it. Rhett licked his lips and Cole’s cock was thick against his thigh. This was too much. This was dangerous. He took his hand away.

“We should eat before it gets cold.”

And just like that, the moment passed.

Cole and Rhett ate greedily, their fingers and hands dripping with juice and butter before they’d even gotten halfway through their meals. The woven baskets, upon being opened, overflowed with shrimp, fresh blue crab, oysters, clams, whitefish, fruit, and vegetables. Everything tasted a little bit like everything else while still maintaining its unique texture and flavor. The shrimp was Cole’s favorite; it always had been.

“I’m so glad you’re not vegan,” he said again, pulling a genuine smile from Rhett’s butter-slick mouth.

“God, me too,” he agreed, sucking a finger between his lips with a wet pop.

Cole reached for his beer and drank what he estimated to be half the bottle in one swallow, slamming it back onto the table a little louder than he’d intended. The waitress appeared on cue and set two fresh bottles beside his empty.

“They drink booze like water here,” Rhett remarked, finishing his beer and popping the top on the new one.

“It’s true. Bottled water is the only water you should drink on the island and it’s actually more expensive than beer depending on where you go.”

“It’s like they want you to come here, get drunk, and make mistakes or something,” Rhett laughed and stabbed at something in his basket with a fork.

There was a lot of things Cole wanted to do here, but he was less and less convinced that any of them would really be a mistake.

“What other food is good here?” Rhett asked, blissfully unaware of Cole’s illicit train of thought.

“Uhm, pretty much everything you’ll eat that’s not from the hotel,” Cole shared. He had two pieces of pineapple left in his basket and he ate them for good measure before putting the lid back on and setting the entire thing aside.

“Are all the restaurants like this?” Rhett waved his hand behind his head.

Cole slid his beer closer to his body, picking at the label with his thumbnail.

“No. Well, the good ones.” Cole smiled. “There’s a place a little way down the road that is set up like a traditional Tahitian village and they do these extravagant dinner shows where they roast a pig and everything. The food there is good, but it’s a bit more touristy, if that makes sense.”

“I mean, isn’t this whole island touristy?” Rhett questioned with a tilt of his head. “I don’t see any local people sitting down and eating dinner with us.”

Cole looked around, noticing that Rhett was correct. “You’re right,” he agreed, finally getting a nail under the edge of the label on his beer and giving it a good pull.

“It’s not bad or anything,” Rhett hastily amended. “I just noticed is all. This whole place is, what did the concierge say, a fifty kilometer loop? I can’t imagine there’s many ways to make a living here if you don’t work at the hotel or turn your house into an impromptu dining establishment.”

“I honestly never even thought about that.”

Rhett smiled and picked up an oyster, tilting his head back and sucking it straight down his throat. Cole watched the way the muscles in Rhett’s jaw and throat moved, then looked away and took another drink of his beer.

“The beer is good here, though,” Rhett changed the subject, lifting the bottle to his mouth after he’d finished the oyster.

“It’s a bit watery,” Cole noted.

Rhett smiled and took a big drink, raising his eyebrows and setting the now empty bottle on the table. “That’s how they get ya.”

The waitress was there again, like magic, leaving two more bottles before them, plus a bill, and collecting their empty steam baskets.

“Do you want to walk back to the hotel?” Cole asked, checking the total and pulling money out of his wallet to leave in payment.

“Can we take these?” Rhett asked, lifting his bottle in the air.

“No one is going to tell us no. Come on.”

Cole pushed his chair back and collected his bottle, waiting for Rhett to join him.

“Maururu!” Cole said, raising his bottle toward the waitress.

“Maeva nana,” she returned with a wave.

“What the fuck?” Rhett asked with a hearty chuckle, following Cole onto the sand and grass covered strip of land that served as a sidewalk.

“Maururu is thank you in Tahitian. Maeva nana is, like, thanks and bye.”

“Hmn.” Rhett took a quick drink of his beer and fell in line beside Cole as they began the walk back to their hotel.

“What do you think so far?” Cole asked him, chewing on the corner of his lip, thankful for the dark so Rhett wouldn’t see the nervous tic.

“About?”

Me.

“The island,” he answered.

“Oh, it’s lovely. Honestly, it’s all a bit surreal.”

Rhett’s fingers bumped his hand.

“Holy shit!” Rhett shouted, jumping backward and curling his arms around Cole’s shoulder and waist, using him as a human shield for…something.

“What?” Cole laughed, looking around and not seeing anything of note.

“There’s something in the bushes!” Rhett pointed just ahead of them and, on cue, the bush shook with movement. “We’re in a tropical forest. Oh, God, I don’t even know what kind of animals live out here.”

Cole laughed, and patted Rhett’s hand reassuringly. “Did you not study up before the trip? I’m honestly surprised.”

“I didn’t have a lot of research time before we left,” Rhett reminded him. “I was with you.”

The way Rhett’s voice dipped at the conclusion of his sentence made it sound like their spending time together mattered a lot more than it should have. But it could have also been all the beers they’d had. Cole set the thought aside.

The bush moved again and Rhett squealed, using Cole’s shoulder to hide himself from whatever lay in the leaves.

“It’s a crab, babe,” Cole said, finally putting him out of his misery and fear as a small blue crab crawled out of the bushes and side-stepped across the road.

“A what?” Rhett asked, reaching on his tiptoes and looking over Cole’s shoulder.

“A crab.” Cole unfolded Rhett from behind him and pointed at the crab. “We’re on an island. There’s crab everywhere.”

“Oh, God.” Rhett bent at the knees and took a deep breath. He looked to the side and searched out Cole’s face, a look of utter mortification across his features.

“I’ll protect you from the errant street crabs. Don’t worry,” Cole promised, extending a hand toward Rhett. He took it, their fingers twisting together in that perfect way again. Rhett bumped his shoulder into Cole’s and made an embarrassed sound.

“Can we never talk about this again?” he pleaded.

“Oh, we’re going to talk about this for a long time,” Cole countered with a laugh.

They walked the rest of the way back to the hotel, hand in hand. Cole listened to the sound of the water from the other side of the street and the steady pace of Rhett’s breathing until they reached the hotel grounds, where it hitched and stuttered.

“Are you okay?” Cole finally mustered the courage to ask as he slid the key into the door of their hotel room.

They walked into the room and the door closed behind them, automatically locking. He and Rhett stood in the doorway, hands still entwined, Rhett’s breathing even heavier than two minutes ago.

Cole followed Rhett’s gaze to the corner where it was solely focused on the single king-size bed that they were about to share.