I’d lost sleep over Connor many times throughout my life, some nights due to anger. But never anger like I experienced after Mabel’s. Nothing new had happened, so maybe it was ridiculous. Or maybe that was it—nothing new happened. Same old story. Same old shit.

Or maybe it was the fallout from the heightened emotions after Russell Clark showed up at the family home. A reminder of what was almost lost so long ago. A reminder of what might never have even begun. Of how fragile it all was.

How much time Connor and I were wasting.

I was only twenty-seven. I was still young. Still had my whole life ahead of me. But I felt old. Like I’d been fighting the same battle for too long.

If anybody should appreciate that life is precious, that we get a limited amount of good days, it should be Connor. Why couldn’t he understand we were wasting time? All this back and forth, all this “I love you so I can’t be with you” bullshit over and over and over.

I wished to God I didn’t love Connor. I wished I felt the exact same way about him as I did Gilbert. I wished the bright lights of New York City, the gorgeous men, the fancy clothes, the applause… I wished it all had been as wonderful as everyone said it would be. And it was, sort of.

The lights of New York? Countless and nearly as beautiful as the stars over the sea…. Nearly.

The fancy clothes? I knew I looked good in New York. Shiny, classic, expensive. I looked even better in Lavender Shores.

The applause? I loved it. Hearing my violin on recordings of the symphony, in the background of albums everyone heard, my name in the credits. Yeah, I loved it. It was the antithesis of working the land, but somehow just a different side of the same coin. I needed both. In New York City I was only halfway satisfied. But now, with Adrian’s farm, the Green Violin, and frequent recording trips across the country, I had both. I was balanced and myself.

And those gorgeous men? That’s what they were. They were gorgeous. And abundant. In any style and size you could dream up. And I’d had them all. They were delicious. But fast food. Every single one of them. When you had a particular meal you craved, you could go to countless buffets and never be satiated.

At times I felt guilty for how much I wanted Connor, how I ached for him. I had a perfect life. I wasn’t blind to that fact. If New York taught me anything, it was that the life I led was one hardly anyone got. A family who adored me. Money was no issue. I was good-looking enough to have a step-up if I needed to use it. I could choose any kind of life I wanted.

And I did. I chose it.

The only thing I didn’t have was the man I loved.

Perhaps that was it. Maybe it wasn’t Connor’s fault or my fault. Maybe one person simply couldn’t be allowed to have it all. There had to be one thing that was out of my reach.

The following morning I called Adrian at the crack of dawn and told him we were switching roles for the day. He must’ve heard the iron in my voice as he didn’t argue. He tended the shop, and I worked the farm.

I let my brain go to white noise and got lost in the earth. Taking out my anger at Connor on the hard lumps of ground, on ripping out unwanted roots that had snuck in here and there. I lost track of time, lost track of… everything. Just like I had as a teen when I’d visit my grandparents in Texas and helped Grandpa on the farm. I was the only one of my siblings who enjoyed it. But working the earth had seeped into my blood, and I let it heal me, at least as much as it could.

By the time I was done, the sun was setting and I had new blisters on my hands that were cracked and bleeding. I hadn’t worn work gloves to protect my fingers like I normally did. I was glad; the slight pain was somewhat comforting.

I stopped at the grocery store in Olema and picked up a few sandwiches to eat on the way home. I was starving. I would give anything for McDonald’s or a Taco Bell at the moment, but there were none of those around.

As I drove into Lavender Shores, through the downtown, I spared a glance at Lavender Ink. I swore the tattoo over my heart burned. I wanted to stop my car, go in, and give him a piece of my mind. Scream at him, pound my fists on his chest, fuck his brains out.

I drove on by.

There’d been no communication. Connor hadn’t texted. I hadn’t expected him to.

I kept going through town, and then turned down the dirt road leading to my house. I could honestly say I chose Lavender Shores, chose the farm and the shop because of me. Because of things I wanted and needed. Even if no one else in town believed me, there was no doubt in my mind I would’ve chosen the exact same thing if Connor had never entered my life. My house, on the other hand, was a different story.

I chose that because of Connor and me. Actually, because of the property. The house had belonged to Alex Rivera and his husband. Alex had been Adrian’s great-uncle. He’d been the outcast of the family, possibly a little insane. I hadn’t realized how heartbreaking his story actually was until I moved into the house and went through some of the things that had been left behind. The land was just a little ways out of town, one of the few portions not exactly in the bubble of Lavender Shores when Point Reyes National Seashore was formed around it. As land went in Lavender Shores, it wasn’t special. It was almost plain, really. The lot was unremarkable, and the house was large and in disrepair.

I was still in New York when my mother called and told me Alex had died. I’d told her ages before that I wanted to buy that property when it came on the market. None of the Riveras wanted it. Even so, the house had been built when Lavender Shores was founded. In that sense it was coveted. Mom pulled some strings with the real estate business, Debbra Kelly pulled some strings with the town council, and I paid the Rivera family a small fortune for plain land and an ugly house.

As I parked in the drive, I stared at the large monstrosity. I’d started having repairs done when I moved in. The house would turn out fine in the end, but it would continue to take a fortune. While I didn’t doubt my choice to move back to Lavender Shores or the farm, maybe the house had been a mistake.

If Connor and I were going to go back and forth our whole lives, why hold on to this shitshow?

Even as I thought it, I knew where I’d end up. Knew as soon as I was there, I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to really consider selling the place.

I went into the house and took a steaming-hot shower to wash away the grime of the farm. Then I threw on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt and tennis shoes and went back outside.

Alex Rivera, and his husband while he’d been alive, had been the couple who scared the kids in town. Not because they were cruel, just because they were different, and a little mean. Not truly mean, just cranky. And their house was the one the kids said was haunted. The one we dared each other to run up and touch and then hurry away before some dark magic stole our souls.

I was the one who found the cavern. I was a little shit at times and got everything I wanted, so I didn’t think twice about sneaking onto other people’s property. I never broke into their house, but I’d take the dare, touch it, and brag to my friends at school about being brave enough to come close to the old Rivera place. It was one of those nights that I discovered the cave. If I’d been moving any faster, I might’ve fallen in.

Surely someone had known about it, had to at some point. But either the people who knew had grown old and passed away, or it had simply been forgotten. If I’d stumbled across that cavernous hole in the ground as an adult, I wouldn’t have given it a thought. A big hole in the ground, so what if light was illuminating the floor? No thanks! But as a kid? I couldn’t imagine anything more enticing.

It became my secret hideaway. Twelve years old and a cavern to myself. A boy couldn’t ask for anything better.

Of course, it was only a matter of time before I showed Connor. I’d barely been aware that my feelings for him were more than I should feel for a brother. Even so, I asked him to keep the secret even from our siblings. He did. And though I kept coming back, he only returned with me a few times. It wasn’t until much later that he came nearly as often as I did.

With the full moon lighting the way, I walked the short distance from my house to the cavern. I uncovered the hidden rope ladder and tossed it down. Though the bottom could be seen during the day, it wasn’t visible after the sun went down. I didn’t need to see it. By the time I reached the bottom, there was just enough light from the larger room that lead out to the sea that I could find the stash of things Connor and I kept there. I only required one item. There would be no need for blankets, candles, or lube. I grabbed the violin case and headed toward the main room. I changed my mind before I’d gotten far and walked back to retrieve a couple of candles and some matches. The warm glow sounded nice, comforting.

I barely noticed the view as I entered the main part of the cavern. The moon was bright, the sky clear enough that the light pouring through the archways nearly made me reconsider the candles, but having them would make it feel… friendly, less lonely somehow.

The cavern itself was beautiful with the arches. While there were plenty of those along the shores, this one, I discovered, was nearly impossible to get to by boat. It was surrounded by cliffs that went far out into the sea, and the massive rocks spread out like a fan between them. A person could get there with canoe or kayak, but little else. And with a multitude of other choices, better choices, this place was left alone by everyone else. For a while I thought it truly had been undiscovered, but that didn’t make sense. It just didn’t entice anyone else, it seemed.

After lighting the candles, which illuminated the burgundy, yellow, and brown striations of the stone walls and ceiling, I retrieved my violin. While the instrument wasn’t anything special, the case was. It had cost more than the violin and provided enough protection from the moisture and salt, even after all these years.

Lifting my violin, I walked toward the edge of the water that lapped inside the cavern. Then standing as if in a concert hall, I drew the bow across the strings in a long fluid motion. The mournful sound was clear and rich, and I let out a soft groan that was nearly sexual in nature.

That one long note was all the clarity I needed. I hadn’t found anywhere in the world that held acoustics that could compare. Maybe I’d bought the house because this had become Connor’s and my place. One of the few locations we could come together and not have to worry about anyone discovering us. Where we were not brothers. Where we were nothing more than two men in love and lust.

But before that? This place had just been mine. My secret away from the world. Where I would come and sit, daydream and hurt, and where I would play. It was the one part of my childhood I couldn’t figure out. I would play so often and for so long that surely the sounds had drifted to old Alex’s ears in his home. Although maybe he’d been crazy enough he thought it was a ghost or his own imagination. Or maybe he simply liked it. I took comfort in that fantasy, sometimes thinking maybe my playing had offered him some respite even if he didn’t know where it came from or who created it.

I played the first few lines of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” and then shook my head in disgust. I knew I wasn’t going to fall out of love with Connor, no matter how angry I was. I wasn’t going to turn my back on him forever. But this moment wasn’t for him. It was for me. My fingers began to move without me even considering what piece I wanted to play. The first few notes were already filling the cavern before I registered I was playing Vaughn Williams’s “The Lark Ascending.” The song wasn’t as highbrow or celebrated as most of the classics, or as technically challenging. But it was bright and airy and made the space feel like birds were flying and singing all around.

Like I had earlier in the day at the farm, I let myself get lost. I was Micah Bryant. No more, no less. In this way, I could fly. So I closed my eyes, breathed in the salt, and gave my heart wings, letting it escape for a little while.