Page 58 of Starfish and Coffee
Alex left his bike in the driveway and jogged the two miles it took to get from the good side of the beach back to the side where he belonged. His jeans were wet from the surf, and his shirt was sticking to him from the sea breeze and sweat.
He peeled them both off when he got into the house that was oddly empty even if it was only ten in the evening. He found Holly in Will’s bed, curled up and sleeping, but she shifted and rolled over as if sensing him.
“Will?”
“It’s Alex,” he said hollowly. “Where is Will?”
“We had a fight.” Naked from the waist up, she sat up in bed, blinking at him as she brushed the hair out of her eyes. “What’s wrong?”
Alex shook his head as the tears he fought all the way down the beach finally betrayed him. He covered his eyes and let out a sob of agony as he stood there shaking.
“Come here.” Holly leaped out of bed and grabbed him, wrapping her arms around his waist as he stood there crying in his underwear. “Tell me what happened.”
“I know he’s better off without me. Breaking up with him was the right thing to do,” Alex whispered into Holly’s long, soft curls as he leaned down and buried his face in the curve of her neck. “But this feels like too much. I didn’t thinkanythingcould hurt this bad.”
“Oh God, Alex.” Holly moaned in horror. “Why would you do that? You love each other.”
“Please don’t judge me tonight,” Alex begged her. “Do it when I feel like I can breathe again.”
“Okay.” Holly’s voice became softer, more understanding as she pulled back toward the bed.
Alex crawled under the covers with Holly, both of them near naked, while great wracking sobs of agony burst out of Alex as he mourned the loss of his innocence and his first true love and the dreams of he and Matt being golden forever. Holly simply held him and rubbed his back until he passed out from all the mental exhaustion.
He dreamed of Matt on the beach this time, but before he could say sorry and beg him to come back, Matt turned to dust and drifted away on the sea breeze, like Alex’s parent’s ashes floating out on the water. Life and love and beauty reduced to nothing but gray soot that drifted away from Alex as he was forced to stand there and watch it go.
The nightmares weren’t gone—they were just different.
* * * *
For the past two years, Matt had been convinced that the worst day of his life would always be the one where his mother called to tell him his father had been found dead in his office chair. He’d stayed late for work. No one thought to be alarmed that his father didn’t come home. Then the cleaning staff found him four hours postmortem hunched over his desk.
So Matt was blindsided when Alex Hunter swooped in and did something that hurt worse and scarred deeper than the phone call that not only robbed him of a friend and father, but also tossed the weight of the world on his shoulders at the age of twenty.
Matt spent all night packing his shit. Then he threw all evidence of Alex that lingered in every corner of the house into a brown box he’d found in the garage. He never slept, he never stopped shaking, and he never stopped crying.
By the time he pulled up to the beach shack Alex called home, he was so mentally and physically drained he could barely function. He wanted to leave the stuff on the doorstep, but the strange thing was Will stood in the driveway despite it being pitch-black outside. He was loading his jeep with a bunch of boxes and looked less than thrilled to see Matt.
“It’s four in the morning,” Will said as Matt got out of his car. “What’re you doing here?”
“Just dropping some of Alex’s stuff off.” Matt reached into the back and grabbed the box of Alex’s things that included the keys to his bike he’d abandoned. “I’m heading back to Atlanta today.”
“Oh.” Will looked at the box and then shrugged. “Just dump it on the doorstep. I already locked the door, and I don’t want them to wake up.”
“Okay.” Matt went ahead and put the box by the door. When he walked past Will he asked, “Where’re you off to?”
“New York.”
“Without Holly?”
Will reached down and grabbed the last box on the ground behind the jeep and walked around to put it in the front seat. “Didn’t work out.”
Matt glanced at the front door and frowned. “Does she know that?”
“It’s better this way. I’m making it easier for all of us.” Will turned back to Matt with narrowed eyes that were red-rimmed and bloodshot. “Now if you don’t mind…fuck off, Tarrington.”
“Fine.” Matt shrugged and then walked back to his car. “I just have one more thing.”
Will didn’t acknowledge him. It was pretty clear he was having his own bout of life-altering drama. Matt just grabbed the mounted marlin out of the front seat and walked it back to the door. He took care to lean it against the wall, because despite everything, he didn’t want it damaged.
