seashells woven in your hair

Harrison knew the shoreline of Sowell Bay better than he knew the back of his hand, which, after just a few months on land, wasn’t saying much. The waxing crescent moon taunted him through the ashen-grey clouds for the sixth time since he lost his precious sealskin. In Hawaii, he had counted his days by the phases of the moon and the changes in the ocean currents. Now, he knew it by the sound of Mrs Davies’s voice as she ranted about the 49ers’ secondary during her weekly cigarette shop, or when Tanner dragged his sorry self through the front door, lamenting the existence of ‘Mondays’ and its somehow even crueller cousin, the Saturday-morning hangover. He wasn’t sure if he longed for the simplicity of the lunar cycle or not, but what he did know was that, if - no, when he saw his family again, he would see about keeping the Friday night tradition of ‘just one’.

Harrison supposed it was some weird human custom that even his normally reliable Google hadn’t yet figured out - where humans would signal their favourite activities by pretending to be embarrassed by them. As peculiar as it was, Harrison was pleased to find he had cottoned on quickly. All he had to do was round his eyes, give them enough attention and (in Cam’s case) kisses, to meet the undefined quota and for them to begrudgingly concede with a congratulatory ‘fine then’. 

Of course, he always enjoyed it when he won their game, but it reached its zenith on the legendary Friday date night. Whether it was dancing at the bar, singing along the beach or downing those neon green shots that tasted of those incredibly disappointing gummy fish. On a Friday, the fabled line lengthened into its grandest form: ‘Fine then, but just one’. Harrison had been so proud of himself when he deduced the code - that ‘one’ meant ‘as many as possible’. Their dates would then go on into the night, until their feet hurt, their throats were sore, or they stumbled each other home. He wasn’t sure how he was going to do any of those things as a seal, but he loved it too much to let it go now.

Harrison was going to do a lot of things when he got back. Old, incredible things he missed, and the new, ridiculous stuff he had learnt. Hell, maybe he would keep up paddle boarding or try that surfing that was so popular back home. His sister would probably enjoy it, or at least enjoy laughing at him fail. He knew it was childish, but increasingly, those childish hopes were the ones that stuck with him the most. He held onto them as he caught Tova’s eyes following his line of sight towards the moon. She smiled sweetly at him, her customary knowing glint made his heart race and soothed his mind all at once.

However, the silence between the two men was uneasy. The pain of Harrison trying to leave without an explanation was still fresh for Cameron. Over and over again, he reminded himself that he had done the same thing to Tova and Ethan, with only a bottle of lemon and vinegar being enough to break him out of his furious stupor. But that didn’t make looking at Harrison easy, nor did it suppress his natural urge to shut down and give up whenever things got too close or difficult. 

Trying to distract himself, Cameron immersed himself in the nature that surrounded them as they walked further and further away from town, something he never thought to do before Sowell Bay. Gulls followed them overhead like their own personal procession, while the sea lions kept a dutiful watch like bumbling spies whose shiny coats stopped them from blending into the shadows of the overarching cliffs. For one uneasy moment, they reminded Cameron of the bewitched, enamoured fish at the aquarium, or hell, even the suddenly friendly barflies at their local dive or the besotted old ladies of Tova’s knitting group who all turned their heads whenever Harrison entered a room. Even though he preferred to keep a low profile, Cameron wasn’t sure if he had been jealous of Harrison’s innate magnetism or not. It was endearing (if sometimes exhausting) when they were together, but apart, it made him feel untethered. As though he existed outside of gravity, desperately trying to remain in his orbit for as long as he could glance over at him unseen. Their eyes met over his grandmother’s head every time before hastily retreating.

Keeping his arm around Tova, Cameron quickened his pace so that at least he could avoid the indignity of Harrison catching the petulant pout on his face. However, the cleaning lady absorbed the tension like a sponge with her gentle confidence and resting smile. If Cameron didn’t know better, he would have thought she was excited. 

The ground rose under their feet as they diverged off the sandy beach and onto tiny jagged scales of ancient black basalt. Cameron gravely muttered that they weren’t in Kansas anymore. Harrison simply confirmed that no, this was still Washington. 

The selkie kept them away from the edge and the crashing waves as best he could. But the rocks proved trickier for Tova’s space boot than she let on. Eventually, the two silently found their shared stride once again and walked together, with Tova wedged between them. A fragile, unspoken truce formed to keep her safe.

“Nearly there now,” Harrison announced. “Need a break, Ms Sullivan?” 

They both knew the answer, and more importantly, not to argue. She shook her head, so they continued until the rocks overhung the outstretched crooked finger of headland to create a small, covered grove like the patio canopies of the rich houses Cameron would dream of living in as a child.

Cameron had no idea what to expect - not even meeting Simon Brinks had made his palms sweat like this. Yet, as they got closer, he couldn’t ignore the feeling of déjà vu any longer. He knew this place. His mom had so perfectly described these very spits and bays in her bedtime stories about selkies, entwined with sparse recollections of her childhood. Upon every retelling, she had transformed from the cold, distant woman who haunted his home to someone he thought only existed in his friend Elizabeth’s Disney movies. 

He knew if he just closed his eyes, he would once again hear the hard edge of her voice slowly erode with each lovingly told description of the gentle evening tide. It looked, felt, and even smelled exactly like the picture she had painted in the corner of his mind, which still refused to let her go, even all these years later. Something about it made his blood boil. But the breeze carried her voice anyway, leading him by her tales across the entire width of the coast and out to the edge of the water, where she would always stop dead in her tracks and quietly wish him goodnight. Now, he stopped too, standing at the end of the headland. He saw it, just under the web of shadows and stone was the mouth of a small cavern, blocked haphazardly by driftwood and clumps of dragged-up moss that looked like sleeping guards from an Arthurian tale.

“This is it”, Harrison sighed, pulling some of the debris away. He hovered by the entrance and beckoned them in with a small shrug of his hand. So ominous and all-compassing was the darkness that Cameron was half-expecting to find a satanic sacrifice in progress, but that wasn’t enough to stop Tova. She all but pushed him inside like he was the next victim up, while offering a gentle, motherly brush of her fingers against the nervous selkie. With the sun now barely touching the horizon, Cameron tapped ‌his phone, and the torch turned on. Feeling underwater, Harrison held his breath.

What looked like the opening to a giant system of caves and tunnels was quickly dispelled when the light touched every corner of the grotto with just a quick sweep of his phone. At ‌half the length of the camper, yet twice the depth, there was barely enough room to fit the dishevelled sleeping bag and cassette player that lay at its centre. Encircling them was a garish, chaotic assortment of what Cameron could only call, trash. Piles and piles of it.

“The hell is this, Harri?” Cameron whipped around to face him, but Harrison stubbornly refused to look up from the floor. 

Resting his head against the side of the entrance, Harrison hugged his arms as tightly to his chest as he did his childish hope that Cameron would intuitively understand the impossible and save him like one of those comics he’d browse on his lunch break. Cameron used to joke that the Bay didn’t need a lighthouse; all they needed to do was dangle Harrison from the edge of the cliffs, tell him a dumb joke, and his goofy-ass grin would do the rest. But now, against the backdrop of the encroaching night sky, he looked lost amongst the darkness that melted into his skin and swallowed his smile with it.

Against the backdrop of the roaring waves, Cameron strained to hear him. “This is where I used to live… Now I just come here when I need to be alone or drop off some stuff from time to time.”

“Couldn’t have left it at my place?” he retorted.

In his surprise, it sounded harsher than Cameron intended, but Harrison didn’t wince like at the aquarium. “Didn’t want to intrude”, he said simply.

Of course, his ‘explanation’ didn’t answer any of Cam’s questions, least of all why he had dragged them out to the middle of nowhere just to show them some rocks and a landfill. However, seeing this hidden side of Harrison, the one that actually showed he wasn’t some Buddhist monk, sparked a reluctant curiosity in Cameron, and a much less reluctant one in Tova, who was already rummaging through his treasure trove of knick-knacks.

It reminded him of his Aunt Jeanie’s trailer that burst at the seams after decades of hoarding. But where she collected everything, he slowly but surely began to parse out the patterns in the brightly coloured layers of both natural and man-made sediment. The recycling provided the cave with its oldest foundations until it climbed up the walls like an intrusive mould. Eventually, the trash grew generic trinkets whose cheap paint peeled off like a sunburn amongst the cobwebs. Then those cheap toys bloomed into vines, with bunches of handmade, precious goods nestling in the natural grooves like shelves on a feature wall.

 So, Cameron thought, Harri made a cave his home rather than mine.

Harrison had smiled through Cameron’s not-so-subtle probing and Ethan’s outright interrogation. Offering only vague hints about where he used to live right up until the day he found a brand-new pillow and toothbrush in the camper just for him. After that, barely a night went by without the pair sharing reheated mac n’ cheese for supper before crashing on the very mattress where they’d eaten. Neither of them had much in the way of luxuries. Yet it still hurt deeply that for all the room he took up in Cameron’s life, it had taken Harrison only a few seconds to clear up his things and leave. And hours longer for Cameron to realise they were gone at all. At least when his last ex kicked him to the curb, Cam had contributed just enough to the relationship not to have all his stuff tossed out the window. With Harrison, all he could find to throw in revenge was an empty gum wrapper. He hastily scrunched it up and angrily hurled it out of the camper with all the velocity of a fastballer, only for a gentle breeze to blow it straight back in. And now here it was- all of Harrison’s stuff. It was such a mess, he didn’t think throwing anything would make a difference. 

Cameron tapped his foot as he waited for the punchline. 

Tova either didn’t sense the growing disquiet or, more likely, chose to simply ignore it as she bent awkwardly in the far-left corner, appraising a worn-down crab pot and taking out each item one at a time with the reverence normally granted for long-lost treasures. A slice of luscious coral, an antique harpoon rusted to a dull, mottled copper, and a display of shells, flora and rocks to rival the finest museum jangled in her hands- All of them belonging to the bottom of the ocean.

She turned, holding up a fossilised sea urchin to the torchlight. “Oh, Harrison. So they were all from you?”

Cameron was trying his best to give Harrison the benefit of the doubt, but his patience was growing thin with whatever secret they were keeping from him. However, before he could call them out, he caught a small, reluctant tug gracing Harrison’s lips for the first time since they left the aquarium. 

“Without fail, Ms Sullivan,” Harrison said with a speck of pride before shyness overtook him again. “Although I should have gotten you all something better. I thought they were worth more than they actually were.”

“They were worth a lot to us.”

With just one solemnly spoken sentence, Cameron saw a full smile creep up on the other man and push out a tiny laugh. “Good. That’s… That’s good. Guess I don’t have to buy you that coffee machine instead, then.”

Tova chuckled, “Oh, I don’t know about that.”

While his grandmother worked her magic and helped Harrison relax, Cameron searched for a small handhold to rest his phone on, letting it illuminate the entire cavern. Fuck it. If this could be the last thing he could do for Harrison, he would give it a shot.

The cave was altogether alien, yet too familiar to be comforting. If owners looked like their homes, this was the uncanny valley made manifest. Where Harrison’s personality was bubbly, the cave popped with colour. For the times he could keep still, a small nook provided a puddle of tranquillity in an ocean of chaos. And for all the multitudes Harrison sublimated under the guise of Sowell’s friendly, neighbourhood grocer, Cameron suspected this cave mirrored them all. To know Harrison’s great shameful secret was merely himself made him want to scoop him up in his arms and snark those silly thoughts away. But not even his most childish, long-lost fantasies allowed him to believe that. 

Near his feet lay a small heap of refuse thrown into the bin that Ethan had thrown out a few weeks earlier. At first, he assumed Harrison was secretly just as messy as he himself used to be, but on closer inspection, he saw the seaweed and sand clinging to the bottles, cans, and plastic bags like a parasitic growth. Cameron knew of his and Avery’s two-person clean-up crew along the beach; it was the closest thing to ranting that Harrison ever got. But he always assumed they threw the trash away afterwards. Now he beheld a sea lion, glued together from the same materials they found, a chewed-up piece of gum lolling out of its cut-out mouth like a tongue. 

Tova spotted him lingering, “Oh, is that the sea lion who follows you around, Harrison?”

“You can tell?”

“He always sticks his tongue out when you're there, like an excitable little puppy. Not to mention that god-awful racket he makes when Ethan dares to take up your time!” she mused.

Cameron jumped in, “Wait, that’s the seal-”

“Sea lion”, they corrected in unison.

“Whatever - that's the one who jumped me?”

Harrison’s eyes went wider than the ones he had drawn on the model. “What? No! No! Kev- He just wanted some of my food, and you were just… in the way.”

Cam side-eyed the model like a man scorned. “So I nearly got crushed to death, and you immortalised my would-be murderer in some Coke cans and plastic?” 

“He snuggled you,” Harrison corrected. “He likes you really. It’s just that he likes tuna more.”

“That does not make me feel better.”

“I like you better than tuna, if that helps”, he promised with an earnestness that from anyone else would have sounded sarcastic. Cameron’s heart thumped hollowly in his chest, skipping a beat as he skipped over the other models and onto the next wall.

To the side of the recycling lay stacks of secondhand books. He scanned the spines: ‘Astonishing Art with Recycled Rubbish’, ‘A Bear Called Paddington’, ‘101 Quick and Easy Seafood Recipes’, ‘10,000 Leagues Under the Sea’ and ‘Jurassic Park’, coupled next to an illustrative encyclopedia of dinosaurs for reference. A not insignificant amount of cheesy rom-com books made their own section of the makeshift library, every other page dog-eared and shining from highlighter pens like a devoted student’s textbook. So was that where Harrison got some of his corny lines from? A cosy smile thinned out Cameron’s lips. He couldn’t judge. He’d gotten his from everything from Shakespeare to Tom Cruise. 

To Cameron’s relief, the book entitled ‘So You Want to Be a Doctor?’ appeared pristine and, most importantly, unread. Instead, a collection of mixtapes sat upon the weighty tome like a pedestal. They were all ones they had made together, Harrison taking the A side, and Cameron the B, embellished with their track list and a homemade cover. Others he didn’t recognise, blank tapes with just dates and places scrawled on them, but he knew those names. How could he not? They were the bars he sang ‌at. 

Turning to Harrison, his voice caught on an octave too high, “Wait. Y-you recorded my gigs?”

He looked shocked. “Course I did. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because they sucked”, he said indignantly, like it was self-evident. Like, there was no way Harrison could think differently. 

“Because…” that would mean you really cared, he wanted to say. Instead, he just pleaded with wide eyes that shimmered like the stars outside. It wasn’t fair. None of his partners had ever even been to a Moth Sausage show, let alone enjoyed any of their stuff. They all presumed it was something he would grow out of, while they grew out of him. In the end, his life’s passion was reduced to just another bullet point in a long list of reasons they were breaking up with him- not that he could argue with any of them. But for Harrison, he had tried to face his past mistakes and become a better person. And yet here he was, embracing his dumb music anyway. Real, fuckin’ fair.

“I loved them,” came the only response Harrison had, rescuing Cameron from spiralling further. He willed a grin into existence. “Even if you tried to ruin Japanese Breakfast for a generation of impressionably drunk hipsters.”

He huffed, “They don’t need me to do that.”

“So mean and so wrong,” Harrison tutted in his well-practised invitation to join in their jokey back and forth.

Cam fell for it every time. “And yet so incredibly brave and sexy of me”. 

His ‘dude bro’ voice never failed to steal a giggle from Harrison (and only Harrison) with a whip back of his hair. Shit, it was too easy, too comfortable, to fall into their natural rhythm, but he had already committed to his old bit and reclined back against the wall. A soft whoosh turned into a cacophony of bangs as he knocked over a painted paper plate from on top of its rocky shelf, and in his attempt to rescue it, knocked over four more and nearly himself. The fact that even his own flesh and blood sat there pitying him (and when later interrogated, definitely not sniggering) hurt more than the jewellery box that fell on his foot.

Accompanied by a series of hastily muttered apologies, Cam put them back into their exact place, ignoring Harrison’s assurances to leave them be. Tova piped up from the other side of the room, barely containing her sadistic glee at Cameron’s pain. “Japanese Dinner or whatever you call that noise-”

“Breakfast”, they corrected.

She rolled her eyes with a weary exasperation that belied her few short hours as a grandmother. “Them. I thought that was the band you said you didn’t like, Harrison? The one on the shirt Ethan gave you?”

“Wait-”, Cameron’s brow shot up, slowly taking the rest of his face with it as the realisation sank in. “Don’t tell me- You don’t like Japanese Breakfast after all? I fuckin-”

“Ah!” Tova scolded.

“I freakin’ knew it!”

“Didn’t like,” Harrison smirked to hide the blush. “Very, very much past tense.” 

“Oh, no way. Here, I thought you were hiding Kennedy’s body. This is way more serious, Harrison.”

“It’s a long story.” One Harrison very much didn’t want to tell, although why, he wasn’t sure. There was something in it that always drew him back, circling the memories like water down the drain until all he could do to drag himself out again was make stupid paper plates. But the pair were patiently waiting, with Cameron still securely holding the jewellery box. He shifted its weight between his hands as though he hadn’t quite realised it was still there- until he ran his finger over the lid. A faint, angelic glow escaped the thin slit.

It came out of him like a shot and just as abrupt: “It was the last time I saw my sister”. The box snapped shut, suddenly stilled, but Harrison’s hands didn’t as he raked them through his hair. As Avery was fond of telling him, he’d really put his foot in it now. However, to his surprise, he looked at the plates over Cameron’s shoulder and found his mouth moving by itself as though it knew better.

“C-Chloe loved- loves‌ music, ya know? The whole family does, but my folks prefer the classics. Like, real classics - choral music, Gregorian chant kind of stuff. But my sister always had to be different. It was obvious from the first moment I saw her.”

Tova secretly glanced at her grandson, mirroring Harrison’s dreamy, gratified smile. “We didn’t really have the means to buy records or listen to new music, so she’d drag me to the beach under the guise of babysitting, and we’d hang out near this local record store that would just blast out all this obscure stuff at full volume. Swear the owner must have been half-deaf to put up with it, but it was everything to us…” A fond laugh caught in his mouth, ballooning his round cheeks, “God, I remember the restaurant next door used to bring us leftovers when they closed up shop- it was incredible. And if they didn’t have any, the cook would whip something up just for us.”

As he talked, Cameron could hear the knot in his voice begin to unfurl. He spoke as though he were experiencing it all for the first time, even though it had haunted him for years. Putting it into words made it feel lighter. Seeing the looks on their faces made it feel monumental. Somehow, he had forgotten all about the kind apprentice with their lomi-lomi salmon and the off-cuts of ahi tuna, but the cosy, affectionate warmth that returned to his chest had not. 

“Just before I had to leave, their debut single came out. She loved it, so obviously I had to mess with her and hate it, but there was never any beating her.” Harrison glowed with awe, a tender wonder reserved only for older brothers when their siblings weren’t there to hear it. “I only called them overrated once, but boy, she was angrier than when I called Ethan, English.”

Cameron innocently shrugged away Harrison’s pointed rendition of a grumpy pufferfish, otherwise known as his hard stare. 

He shook his head and continued. “The next day, she harassed the owner to play it on a constant loop over and over until I couldn’t take it anymore, and honestly, neither could the poor coastguard. Fair to say Chloe won that one. I didn't hear it again for ages, but a few months back, just before you came into town… There was this girl-”

“That's normally how it goes,” Cam countered, a note too high to pass for nonchalance. 

A hand waved him off. “Not like that. Sure, she was pretty and talented- Tsk, stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“That thing you do. That look,” Harrison kidded. “The one I’m not allowed to talk about.”

Cameron’s eyes twitched towards the gossip in wolf’s clothing. Tactfully, Tova browsed the cave like it was an art gallery, and just as quietly, lest she miss a word.

With a heavy sigh, Cameron confidently announced. “M’not jealous.”

It had taken him a dozen ‌slighted drinks alone at the bar to accept that this was who Harrison was. Jealousy wasn’t a concept Harrison had dealt with much before, although with Cameron’s refusal to address it, he couldn’t say he’d made any progress on the subject other than it made his nose shrivel like discounted dried prunes. 

“Nor should you be! She’s not from around here, just an artist who stopped by for gas and ended up sticking around to paint the ocean. I was just hanging out on the beach watching her work, nothing else, and then, just like that-” He clicked his fingers. “I heard Chloe’s song come on her playlist… And I got it.” He laughed. “God, my sis won again, huh?” 

The mixtape Cameron made for him yesterday weighed heavily in his pocket. It was the same song he put centre stage on the A-side. Had Cameron deduced that this song meant so much to him, despite how rarely he could bring himself to play it?

A lone seagull waddled by his feet, interrupting his reverie as it searched for the seeds he always left out for them. It side-eyed the competition but ignored them in favour of the delectable feast of trail mix that Harrison fished out of his pockets. “Think she must have seen me enjoying it, as she played their entire album on max. It was… nice. Even though it was raining, it felt like I was right back in Hawaii, eating shrimp and listening to Cooper’s records again, while a bunch of far less demanding gulls hung out with us.”

An enigmatic expression crossed Harrison’s face, the one Cameron recognised when he peered out into the water, or glanced at their friends when he thought they weren’t looking. “I never learnt her name or even spoke to her, but man, you guys should have seen it. She was incredible.”

Cameron teasingly quirked a single eyebrow that worked him over better than any medieval torture technique. Even Tova replicated it.

“Her painting was incredible. Like, actually incredible, not just me incredible,” he humphed with a giggle. “She just… got the ocean in the way other people never did. All these tiny details she got in one day, like how the sun always hit Mr Cox’s fishing boat in the morning or how the lagoon had its own current.” 

He mustered a gesture towards a set of paints and discarded paper plates he used as canvases in the corner. “I gave it a go, or rather twenty, but I couldn’t ever capture this place as she did in just one day. Even when I sit out here to paint, I’m still missing something - mine feel so lifeless and just… empty, compared to hers.”

They drew him in until his voice sounded as distant as the scenes. But not fully. No, his never had the power to do that. All Harrison wanted to do was tell them the truth. That to her, he had been nothing more than an overly curious seal, nuzzling at her phone’s screen until a random indie song played on loop. That he had not spoken to her, not because he was shy, but because it was simply a physical impossibility. As impossible as it felt now.

If only he could just tell them. They knew how truly agonising it was to lose everything. The ocean had been Harrison’s first love, his sister the second. Now he could only visit both of them through a single song. These precious humans had always been his best interpreters; they would know what his paintings lacked and precisely how to fix them. He opened his mouth for what felt like the millionth time to confess and closed it again with a brusque kick against the moss.

It took a few beats of raindrops for Cameron to realise Harrison’s story had come to its abrupt end. He’d never heard him speak for so long and so unsure of himself, let alone about anything from before they’d met. When he had first mentioned his sister months ago, Cameron had been sure it was a slip of the tongue. Surer still when he scrambled for the name Chloe after listing five others. 

Now, it was like watching a 2D cartoon character come to life before his eyes. His Harrison, who only existed in the moment, suddenly filled out the page. He grew wrinkles and a dusting of grey with each word he spoke and each utterance of home. Cameron knew there was something still missing, but catching a solid glimpse of the grief that lay behind his radiant smile made it all the more remarkable. It made Harrison more remarkable. 

Fuck everything else that happened today. Hell, fuck this stupid spelunking trip. He had to see it again.

“Wooow,” Cam lowly drawled, feigning sarcasm. “Feel like a real asshole for making fun of that song now. ‘Appreciate that.”

“I may not be able to beat my sis, but I can get one over on you, Cam.”

“Yeah, yeah, lap it up. It was a cheap trick getting all soft like that,” he teased, turning back to the wall with casually dramatic flair. “Here, let’s see what else gets me story time with Harrison.”

Cameron finally put down the jewellery box, but Harrison barely had time to relax as he replaced it in his hands with some paintings that he’d insulted from a heap in the corner. He knew most of them from various spots around the bay, little vignettes stubbornly put to a cheap canvas he recognised from Ethan’s twentieth anniversary party of the shop. That was Harrison, alright, never wasting a thing - Frankly, Cameron couldn’t believe there’d been any plates left. Harrison had been the best mascot a boss could ask for, as he donned a giant lobster costume in the height of summer and brought the crowds in by the dozens with his incessant dancing and unscripted factoids for the kids. The humid air felt like sucking in molasses as Cam struggled to clear his throat. Come on, don’t make this harder than it already is.

Despite its clearly amateurish effort, Cam couldn’t say he noticed anything particularly wrong with the paintings. Then again, once upon a time, he thought the doodles of the resident high-school stoner were good enough to tattoo all down his arms. However, Tova barrelled into his side like it was Black Friday, picking up the plates that had taken pride and place on the wall before Cameron had knocked them over.

In her hands lay five paintings: the bowling alley where they spent Harrison’s ‘birthday’, the aquarium, Ethan’s and Avery’s shop, and the lookout point where Harrison had left his goodbye note. But instead of the incredible view, he had painted the dilapidated picnic tables where they hung out, the empty boxes of chow mein, and the local dogs who would have chased Harrison’s endlessly intriguing scent into the Sahara. The others followed its pattern. Sowell’s aquarium filled with an excited gaggle of children around a proud octopus and a certain staff member who caught his eye, even though he didn’t yet know his name. The shops with their small quirky mementoes that only Harrison ever loved, and their owners, poorly proportioned but with their exact character shining through with just a few minor details that only someone who had truly studied them would notice. Cameron chuckled; they both stood in the same way they did when they told Harrison off, but with giant drawn-on grins that far exceeded their outlines. He always assumed Harrison was oblivious to notice when he annoyed them, but maybe he saw something he didn’t.

“Harrison, these are beautiful. I especially like this one of the bowling alley,” Tova admired. “Although…”

She studied the painting further, specifically the drunken, retching figure by the fire exit, until she saw the necklace dangle from the figure - the very one Harrison had gifted on his own birthday.

If her metaphorical daggers were real, Cameron wouldn't have recoiled so quickly. He pushed his pendant into his shirt as she slapped his bicep. “What? I’m completely innocent. Harrison, tell her-”

But Harrison wasn’t paying attention. A haze had fallen over his eyes as they fell upon one of his most prized collections. Unable to hide it any longer, his face stripped itself of all pretence, down to its most honest canvas. 

“Oh, sweetheart”, Tova cooed, a sound too soft from the normally stoical woman.

The small alcove in the wall housed an almost fanatical shrine to Sowell Bay's aquarium… or just its gift shop. Against the phone’s torch, the scales of cuddly fish reflected sequins of rainbows while a whole ledge draped with a garland of fishing line hung down like an untrimmed trailing plant, flowering with polaroids. Every staff member and resident, across all species, was attached with a clothes peg, offering their cheesy grins, a thumbs-up, and more than a few blank, fishy stares. But what caught their attention most were the ever-softening pictures of Marcellus inserted between them. From blurry cryptid sightings under his rock to a selfie of them together - Cameron didn’t think he’d ever seen the octopus without his scathing, condensing expression before. 

Still, not even in the cosiest photo did Marcellus look as deliriously happy as the box of memorabilia that sat underneath it. 

Cameron bellowed, so shocked and sudden that even his own echo made him jump. “So you’re the one who stole all the magnets of Marcellus!?” Of course, it had to be him. 

Harrison tried to smile, but the residual guilt made him blush. “Oh, uh, yeah. Sorry about that one.”

“Why? You paid for it, didn’t you?” “Kinda. It was…” Harrison went quiet, sucking in his teeth, deliberating before he practically chewed the words out. “... Marcellus’s idea”. 

Cameron waited patiently for the joke, but Tova stood at attention as he continued. “He, um, hated those magnets. Said they made him look like-”. He deepened his voice into a wise, regal tenor, “a feeble-minded ignoramus whose existence even a simple human larva would pity.” 

A soft, dry huff whistled through his nose. Marcellus always insisted it sounded nothing like him. “He didn’t mind the ones where he looked like a terrifying kraken, just these. So he wanted them gone. I didn’t realise it was stealing, so I took them from the shop and brought them back here.” He should have known he’d messed up when Marcellus complimented him for once. “It was only when Terry lost his marbles over it and said he was going to call the cops that I panicked and wrote out a cheque.”

Tova couldn’t help herself. Wait until the knit-wits hear about this. “An apology card with ‘please accept this cheque for however many dollars you need’ didn’t count, I’m afraid. But the fish crackers were very thoughtful of you!”

“Wait,” Cameron interrupted. “Course it was stealing, how could you think it wasn’t?”

Harrison went deathly still. When he worked up the courage to speak, it was to the seagull pecking at his shoe. “Because you were right, I am gullible. Marcellus said if his face was on it, it belonged to him.”

“An octopus… Told you to steal some shitty magnets? Because what? He had the rights to it?”

Voice stripped of all emotion, Harrison meekly rasped, “... You humans have a lot of rules. It gets hard to keep up.” 

It was the closest thing to the truth Harrison could bear to utter, and just as expected, it dropped between them with a heavy, resounding thud. His boss had always insisted that it was better to get things off your chest, but this didn’t feel like the relief he’d promised. No, now the weight of his secret crushed his chest like a vice.

Cameron did all he could to stay in control, but his voice cracked wide open. “Humans? Fuck, Harrison, this isn’t funny, man. If you’re going to leave, then go, but don’t fucking do this to me.”

Tova didn’t shout at him this time. She hovered between them on unsteady legs, but primed with a firm admonishment ready to go at a moment's notice. However, Harrison remained hugging the cave’s mouth, hoping the harsh rock would swallow him whole. What else could he say?

“Sorry.”

He tried again.

There was nothing else to offer.

Cameron was seething. How dare he?

How fucking dare he?

Foolishly, Cam had forgiven him at the aquarium, genuinely believing that Harrison… Well, Cameron just believed in Harrison. But no, here they were, dragging his elderly grandmother out to the middle of nowhere, and for what? To gawk at a trash heap and listen to some bullshit story about a talking octopus. 

Maybe that smile of Harrison’s had only ever been his way of making fun of him. Cameron had been prepared to let Harrison go if that's what he needed to be happy again. After years of arrested development, Cameron had tried. God help him, he had really tried to be someone he could be proud of. Someone who turned up on time, whose boyfriend actually showed up for his gigs, and who was worth more than eighteen years of child support. Turns out, that Cameron was worth a shrug, and another measly apology. At least when his mother left, he meant enough to her not to make a joke about it.

His fist clenched in his pocket. “Fuck. You,” he spat.

He swiped his phone off the ledge and propped it up in his pocket. A hard blow to his shoulder as he stormed past hurt him more than it did Harrison, yet he’d do it again in a heartbeat if he could. 

“Tova,” he bit. “Come on. Let’s get out of this shithole.”

The howling winds picked up speed, swallowing the calls of his name as Cameron bounded towards the edge of the headland to catch some air. When no footsteps followed, he reluctantly spun around with a spiteful, practised grimace prepped and loaded. However, to his surprise, Tova was too busy arguing with Harrison to notice. 

Boy, did he love it when his grandmother got pissed. Harrison barely seemed to fight back, looking just as defeated as Cameron felt. Good… That… This was supposed to feel good, wasn’t it?

What Ms Sullivan lacked in youth, she more than made up for with her oft-cited ‘spunk’. As small as she held herself, Harrison deflated before her flailing arms. Suddenly, even a bit reluctantly, he pointed. Her demeanour flipped on a dime. She vanished into the cave and emerged clutching the jewellery box Cam had knocked over, her face alight with a pride so intense he half expected her to bundle it under her arm and, space boot be damned, steal it away into the night. Instead, she embraced it in both hands and offered it up to Harrison with a warm, reassuring smile. Cameron wondered if his father had ever managed to refuse it.

“Tova,” he called. “Leave him. He’s made his choice.”

But the duo either didn’t hear or ignored him. Sensing his lingering anguish, Tova held Harrison within her loving gaze. Looking at him. Really looking. She must have found what she was searching for, as she graced him with a simple touch. Lightly, she smoothed down the mop of sandy brown hair and then caressed her fingers over his clammy skin. Past the rise of his plump cheek. Then, further still, until she gently scratched under his ear in the shape of a crescent moon. Even all these months later, that one tender action made him want to slap his tummy and curve his back to greet it. It was the same way she had petted him on the long evenings by the pier when she was a lost widow, and he was just another lost seal. No… He was never ‘just’ anything, not with her.

So she really remembered him.

Wiping an errant tear away, she whispered, Cam didn’t know what. But Harrison nodded along, hard and fast. Pressing a kiss to her cheek, he accepted the box and raced towards Cameron.

Neither of them said anything, not until Cameron realised Harrison was holding the box out for him. He felt so tired. He didn’t want to play this game anymore; he just wanted to go home with his grandma and wallow in self-pity until he forgot the last five months ever happened, but Harrison nudged the box forward again. For once, insistent.

The selkie’s face was pale as he spoke, his mouth almost limp, as though his muscles had given up their control of it. Yet his voice sounded more confident than it had done since they arrived. “I know you don’t owe me anything, Cameron, not after what I’ve done. But you don’t deserve to be left angry.”

Wearily, Cam sized him up. Eyes larger and wetter than even his kinfolk before he snatched the box from him, lingering for a moment to see if Harrison’s demeanour changed. The splintered wood creaked under his hard grip, then, with a defeated sigh, he turned away and pulled open the lid to get this over with.

What the hell?

Within the box lay a single discarded spice jar from the shop, surrounded by a selection of emerald green, wine-soaked red, and tawny orange coral that twisted around each other like a bouquet of exotic wildflowers. But they weren’t what caught Cameron’s attention. Within the spice jar, there were only flakes of coral and seawater. And yet it lit up brighter than the night sky on the Fourth of July. The water swirled to its own impossible current, a million stars of iridescent blue and precious silver schooled together like racing neon tetras until it hummed a soft, pulsating glow.

Every shimmering light reflected on Cameron’s face like a disco ball. “What… the fuck.”

“It’s an old family recipe,” Harrison said calmly, hearing Cameron’s bubbling unease.

“T-This is a trick, right?”

“Promise, no trick. Here, let me show you.” Harrison held out his hand.

Automatically, Cam passed the jar over before he could think better of it. He felt like a hapless audience member dragged onto the stage for the improv actors to embarrass in front of a crowd of restless seagulls. But his body still worked on its old order to give Harrison anything he wanted. Of course, it was just some cheap curiosity Harrison had bought online. Cameron didn’t believe in childish fantasies anymore. Didn’t believe much in anything since his mother left. Come morning, he would find the box in Ethan’s trash, and that would be that. And yet.. that didn’t explain why his hands still glowed.

The jar pulsed faster under Harrison’s firm grasp. The humans had promised him back at the aquarium that they would do whatever it took to help. He could do this; he knew he could do this. Long ago, his parents had admonished him for being so trusting of their kind, but neither they nor thousands of years of selkie wisdom had known Tova Sullivan or Cameron Cassmore. But he and his childish hopes did.

Before he could doubt himself again, he held onto that promise and marched straight over to Tova.

“No- Hey, what are you doin’?” Cameron protested.

She didn’t seem surprised when Harrison returned with Cameron in tow, although she was curious. The last few hours took their toll on her leg as she sought the support of the driftwood Harrison had used to barricade the cavern. Kneeling at her feet, he tilted his head to the side like a curious puppy, waiting for her to give the all clear. 

“Your family will be so proud of you, dear,” she said before nodding.

He put his head down and squeezed her calf. “If I ever see them again.”

“Oh, I think you will,” she hummed. “Stranger things happen these days.”

Her grandson sat next to Tova on the driftwood, silently putting his jacket over the shivering woman so she couldn’t protest. 

“C-Can I take this off?” Harrison motioned to her boot. He didn’t need to look at Cameron to feel his watchful glare burning into him. “Promise, I’ll be gentle.”

She offered it to him without hesitation. A quickening pulse echoed in the tips of his fingers, trembling as he touched her as though it were something sacred. Yet, Harrison got to work with deft hands, undoing the straps as he had studied her doing time and time again in the hope she would one day allow him to help. 

Harrison removed the boot and delicately rolled up her pant leg. Neither of them could honestly say they’d seen her ankle since the accident - she had made sure of that. While the worst had passed, sand washed yellow and decayed goldenrod mottled her ankle like faded leopard spots, accented by ink blots of purple and blue, a testament to her inability to follow a single physio plan. Her sock bulged around the swelling from all the walking, yet she brushed off Harrison’s apologies and told him she trusted him.

It was all a blur after that. He unscrewed the lid. Swirled the luminescent water around in his mouth, and before Cam could really lose his shit, he spat straight onto his hands. He rubbed them together like a cartoon villain before massaging the mixture into every swollen inch of Tova’s leg. Hissing through the tender pain, she clung to ‌Cameron, who shouted at Harrison to stop, despite Tova’s constant stream of shushes. Yet the selkie held firm for a few more vital seconds until he heard the hitch in her voice flatten out into something approaching a soft sigh. With her, the men breathed again. 

When he removed his hands, it was gone. All of it, just… gone. Only a glimmering glow swaddled her unblemished leg. 

They all watched in awe and amazement as Harrison smoothed her clothes back into place, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Jubilant, Tova rolled her foot back and forth - even her father, who knew the legends of selkies inside and out, never told her of this.

For once, not by choice, she was speechless.

So too was Cameron, although not for the same reason. As the aluminium sheen faded into her skin, it caught on Harrison’s features at precisely the same moment the moon came out of retirement from behind the clouds and bathed him in its spotlight. 

Everything shifted. Cameron could have sworn the whole earth did.

He looked around. It wasn’t just from his mother’s stories that he knew this place. 

He had seen it from atop the lookout point when he first entered ‌town and became entranced by a naked, lone figure, swaying to a cassette player, as resplendent under the moonlight as he was tragic. The mysterious stranger had moved, not with the music, but with the waves of the ocean. Back and forth with each crash, the sea foam showering him like confetti, and yet with the restraint of someone used to dancing pressed against a crowd. As though if he extended his arms, he’d accidentally hit someone, while his legs barely moved at all. Cam had always assumed he was just some weirdo off his tits or vibing… But what if it was because he was just naturally unsteady on his feet? His Harrison danced so much freer than the stranger had done. But Cameron still remembered their first time at the bar, when Harrison had stumbled over his feet and held on for dear life. 

Staring into those sea-glass blue eyes, Cameron knew it was him. He didn’t need to check the cassette player in the cave to know that. 

But the realisation didn’t slow down his racing thoughts. In fact, they only sped up like a runaway train. His mother’s voice encouraged them on. Old tales of mystical sea creatures, their untarnished, free spirit, their majestic movements, and their supernatural, ethereal beauty found their proof within the man before him. Every story played in his ears as he saw Harrison as though for the very first time.     

And yet those stories weren’t him, not fully. Harrison felt unmoored from that history. Now his beauty was buttoned up under plaid shirts, his body too gangly, too packed with unnecessary limbs to relearn elegance, and too out of place to be free. But he had tried his best anyway.

A quiet understanding descended upon Cameron. More monumental than before, but the earth didn’t move with it this time. Instead, he moved to meet the earth. Returning to the reality he’d once believed in only as a young kid, back when magic was real and happy endings were inevitable.

Everything slotted into place. First, the trinkets from the bottom of the ocean that Tova found when they first entered the cave. On his way into town, Cameron had overheard the local gossips chatting about the mystery of the shells left outside the aquarium every month. He’d cleaned them up himself, putting them in the trash only to rescue them hours later at Terry’s insistence. But surely, that would mean Harrison had started the tradition before ever setting foot in the place?

It didn’t make any sense, but everything else did. The way the fish responded to him and only him. The gaps in basic knowledge, but the breadth of wisdom about the ocean. His barely contained excitement as he learnt to walk straighter, the shrill bark he made when surprised, or the low bubbly purr when he beached himself upon Cameron’s bed. Every morning walk spent searching for something, the afternoons soaking in the rain, and the long nights quietly watching the shifting moon… It was all there, even down to his reluctance to buy the first beer in case he got ID’d.

Marcellus must have known, too. 

Shit. What an insane thought, that an octopus could know anything at all. But that was nothing compared to the realisation that Harrison really had been conversing with him the whole time. How else could he explain the magnets? The foreign name left in the tank that had shaken Harrison so badly? Or the abandoned ring that led Cameron back to his family?

How else could he explain the love of his life?

Cameron knew then what those paintings of the ocean were missing. The question that was haunting Harrison. They were the side of himself he had slowly lost touch with until they became nothing but a distant fantasy that their creator wouldn’t allow himself to believe in. Half-remembered snapshots, devoid of everything that made him the being he was before Harrison Knott took over. While the paintings of his time in Sowell had burst at the seams with life and love, the ocean was too close to home to comfort. The family and friends who made it, too far away. 

But where Harrison had desperately clung to a fading, childish hope to keep himself going, Cameron’s childhood fantasies had been right all along. 

“You’re….”

Harrison nodded slowly, a crooked, almost puppy-like upturn of his lips.

“You’re a selkie?”

Cameron’s stomach flipped. There it is. 

There was Harrison’s radiant smile again. It really did shine brighter than he could have ever imagined. 

Dividers by @saradika-graphics

Caleb Major didn’t know what to expect. It must have been Divine Intervention, he thinks, even if he didn’t believe in a god. All he wanted was to be left alone. He didn’t want anyone to bother him in his office. He got what he wanted. He didn’t understand why there was a hole nearby his office. He didn’t understand why he felt a strong pull to jump inside. Maybe to get rid off all his responsibilities, perhaps it was to stop people from stopping by his office or even to get rid of a label that felt like a mockery. Whatever the reason may be, he deserved to land here. It’s all he desired anyway.

A place where no one knew him and no one bothered him. A place where there was no war, no tasks to do on his part. He could do anything he wanted. Almost like a reward for a battle he didn’t fight.

He feels a cold bottle press against his shoulder. He flinches and hears a laugh beside him. “Relax, Caleb. Just messin’ with you. Want a drink?”

He shakes his head in reply. The voice belonged to Rhett Abbott. His family felt partially responsible for how Caleb ended up here. Well, less so of the family and more of their dad, Royal Abbott. Caleb promised that he wouldn’t rat out the secret of the hole. He was good at following orders. It’s what he was trained to do. Besides, the hole disappeared before he could even say anything.

The Abbott family was welcoming. Their eldest son, Perry, didn’t trust him as much. Neither did Rhett at first. Caleb didn’t mind. He’s used to the distrust. The only person who did was Yossarian and that was because he had no other choice. But upon spending time with both boys, he managed to wear them down and gain their trust.

It was odd. He wasn’t used to this.

Rhett Abbott was a mystery to him by himself. He always laments about how much he wants to leave Wabang and start a new life outside the dull town. Caleb couldn’t understand it. People like Yossarian did everything they could to go home. All Caleb remembers were about people begging to go back. Even before the war started, he was constantly surrounded by people who craved the familiarity of what they thought was home. They fought for home even when there was nothing to fight for.

Rhett wanted to fight to leave yet nothing would let him.

A laugh escapes Caleb. Rhett furrows his brow. “What’s so funny?” 

Caleb smiles. “You’re a funny man, Rhett.”

I could never understand people like you, Rhett Abbott…

———

His interests

Caleb ended up investing in a journal in his time here. Not that he ever enjoyed doing so, he’d much rather be assembling boats or… well, anything else. It never grabbed his interest back in his time. However, now that he had absolutely no one to talk to who could even grasp what he was experiencing right now. 

So he tried to write, to tie him back to what he missed about his past life. He found himself at a blank page. He couldn’t really think of anything that he missed from the time.

His rank? Not really. Too much trouble than it was worth. He wasn’t a great major anyway. Didn’t even want to be one. 

The people? No, he didn’t have friends. Why would he? He never wanted to see anyone anyway. The people above him in status treated him as inconvenient and those who he used to be able to get along with ended up resenting him. It made sense as why they’d both act like that but it didn’t make him miss them more.

Yossarian? He writes that down. He did miss him a lot. Even if the two weren’t necessarily friends, there was something Caleb couldn’t help but appreciate how someone actually placed their trust in him. 

He wonders if Yossarian thinks he’s dead. That’d be impossible though. He never goes on missions. Either way, would he be mourned? Caleb hopes so. Though, they’d probably mourn Major Major Major and not Caleb Major. 

Imagine mourning someone named Major Major. Caleb would laugh too if it wasn’t him in the casket.

He hears a knock on the door. He turns his head to see Perry open it, waving to him. “Hey, Caleb. You finished yet?”

“Should be,” he sheepishly replied, staring at the page that only had one person’s name. Did he really only miss one thing? One person? He flips the page and looks at a new one.

A list of things he didn’t understand. If anything, that simple list is what’s keeping him sane and what’s tying him back to the life he was once a part of.

All of them centered Rhett. Not all that surprising. 

“Good. We gotta leave now so can watch Rhett ride.”

“Huh?” 

Perry lets out a laugh. “You’ve been livin’ with us for how long and you still don’t know he rides bulls?”

Caleb shook his head. “No, that’s not what I mean. I meant… he wants me to come?” He presses his pointer finger to his chest. Why would Rhett want him to come? He was no one important to him. 

“No shit. You’re probably his closest friend in a while. I’m sure he’d love to have you there.” Perry waves his hand dismissively. “Besides, only reason why Rhett hasn’t been invitin’ you is cause you always busy yourself with work around the land.”

“Oh.” Truth be told, he was only doing that to make sure he talks to the Abbotts as little as possible. They were sweet but Caleb still preferred it when he could do tasks on his own. This was probably the longest conversation he had with an Abbott that wasn’t Rhett in a while. 

“You comin’ then? Rhett’s gonna be pretty bummed if you aren’t.” 

He bit his tongue, trying to think about his options. He’s heard of bull riding back in the past but he’s never gotten the time to actually watch any contests up close. 

Perry raised an eyebrow, almost expecting what his answer would be.

“I’m coming.”

———

Caleb has never been to a rodeo and a part of him wanted to leave. It was a small part of him, don’t get him wrong, he was staying no matter what because if Rhett showed him kindness, who was he to leave him in a moment where he wanted his support.

That being said, he must like Rhett a lot because he’d never be caught dead around this many people. 

“It sure is crowded here…” He mumbled, following Perry as they made their way through the rows of people on the bleachers.

“Course it’d be. It’s Rhett’s birthday, after all.” He spots Cecelia and Amy already sitting down, talking amongst themselves. “People wanna see if the birthday boy got what it takes or somethin’.”

Shit. I completely forgot. Caleb sits next to Amy, his face pale. Shit. It’s been weeks, months, since he’s lived with the Abbotts and he didn’t know any of their birthdays. 

“There you are! I was worried you were going to not come!” Cecelia exclaims. “You’re lucky Rhett’s not ridin’ right now.”

While the oldest Abbott talks to her eldest, the youngest looks up at Caleb with a grin. “Did you forget Uncle Rhett’s birthday?”

He chokes on air, he tries to cover it with a cough. “No. Just didn’t get a chance to greet him.” 

God, was he seriously this selfish? He didn’t know the birthday of someone close to him? Did he even ask? 

He sighs to himself. Perry stands up and sits in between him and Amy. “Waitin’ for Rhett to show up? Not a fan?”

Caleb shrugs his shoulders. “Not really.” 

“They don’t got these where you come from?” He shakes his head. He already knew Perry was slightly suspicious of his origins. Despite his agreement with Royal, he felt the urge to just confess everything to Perry already. 

“No. I’ve heard of them but never actually watched one.”

“What’s your verdict?”

He awkwardly laughs. “I’ll tell you when Rhett comes on.” He pauses. “Actually, why does he do this? Is it just for fun?” 

Perry shrugs again. “Beats me. It’s something him and my dad share in common. I never cared much about it. Guess the mantle of the bull ridin’ Abbott had to go to someone and it went to Rhett. Guess it’s a good thing he loves it so much.” 

Caleb looks down. He spots Rhett with his usual Stetson and the red flannel that he last saw him in. He presses his cheek against his palm. “Don’t you get hurt from this? What’s the point? What if he falls off? Isn’t it painful?”

Perry chuckles. “Yup. Rhett got a pretty bad broken arm last time. His injuries range from bein’ mild to pretty concerning.”

“Then why do it at all?” Everyone he knew wanted to steer clear of danger. To avoid getting hurt, to avoid dying. Things are different now, clearly, yet he still had a hard time separating the two. Rhett, unlike those he’s met, charges into danger as if he was like  the bulls he was riding.

“Cause he likes it.” Perry’s answer was simple. Caleb couldn’t understand it anyway.

“I don’t get it.”

Perry pats him on the back, just as Rhett’s name was called. “You don’t have to, Caleb.”

——

His Desires

“Didn’t think you’d be into something like me ridin’.” Rhett points out, cracking open a beer. Caleb wasn’t much of a drinker so to follow him, he open the bottle of water he had. “Wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to dip.”

“No, I think you wanted me there. Perry said so. Said you’d be upset if I didn’t show.” He throws a stone that sinks in the lake. He didn’t know there was spot in Wabang that was this beautiful. “Does that mean you think I’ll help you win?”

“Gettin’ cocky are we?” Rhett elbowed him. “It’s nice seein’ you come out of your shell. You were a nervous wreck when my dad first introduced you to us.”

“Thanks,” Caleb blushed, rubbing the back of his neck. He sits down on a nearby rock. “You have a way of bringing it out of me.”

Rhett sits next to him and smiles. “Cause it’s my birthday?” He nods with a strained smile. “Lemme guess, you didn’t know about my birthday til’ Per told you, am I right?”

He gulps. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. Didn’t expect you to remember. Hell, I forget Per’s birthday too sometimes. It happens.” Rhett lies down on the grass, looking up at the stars with arms behind his head. Caleb follows. “Actually, I forget a lot of my family’s birthdays. They’ve forgotten mine too sometimes so it doesn’t even matter.”

“Is there one you haven’t forgotten?”

His smile becomes softer. “Yeah, Amy’s. And I try my best not to forget Per’s too even if it does slip the mind.”

Caleb hums in response. He thought it was sweet that he cares for his family. He wonders if his birthdays are always spent with him riding and never taking any breaks.

Which reminds him… “Do you want to do it all the time?”

“What?” Rhett turns to face him. “Memorizing birthdays?”

“No, I mean… you know,” he makes a vague hand gesture that only serves to confuse the other man. “Bull-riding. Your rodeo stuff.”

“Oh. I mean, if I can.” Rhett looks back up at the sky. “I do it cause I like it. The adrenaline rush of people cheerin’ you on, the adrenaline of actually ridin’ the damn bull, it’s somethin’ you can never forget. It makes your heart soar. Like you’re the center of attention for once. You’re recognized, you’re loved.” 

Huh, Caleb couldn’t help but think. Sounds like a nightmare for me.

He never wanted to be in the spotlight. Being in the spotlight meant performing a role they wanted you to play. For Caleb, it was being the major and everyone wanted to speak to him when he didn’t want that. He didn’t like being put in a box where everyone was staring at him. Solitude and being on his own was what he always preferred. 

Being stuck as major makes it feel like a sick sense of fate. 

For Rhett, he liked being put in that box. It made him feel something that made him feel important. Being important for Caleb was agonizing. 

But if it made Rhett happy, Caleb could see himself going to more of these rodeos. He’d do anything for the man who would do anything for him. That’s how a friendship is supposed to be. He was just being a good friend.

“But more than anything, I wanna get out of this place.” He sits up. Caleb couldn’t help but stare. “Get out of Wabang. Find myself outside of this shitty town.” He looks back. “You can come with me and we can both get out of here.” He places his hand on top of Caleb’s. His face flushes. “Maybe visit your place too. Where are you from again-?”

He knew of Rhett’s dreams all too well. He confided with him about his desire to leave numerous of times. All those instances he had kept his mouth shut.

Yet for some reason, he couldn’t.

“Why’d you want to leave?” He starts to sit up too. 

Rhett’s smile dropped slightly, inching his hand away. “Huh?”Caleb almost didn’t want to say anything anymore. He missed seeing Rhett carefree and happy. “What do you mean, Major?”

He flinches. He doesn’t know if Rhett notices. Sure, it was still his last name and technically, his official first name but he was so used to being called as Caleb. Being called Major just reminded him of what happened back then. 

Yossarian. The slightly frustrated but still understanding look that Rhett had reminded Caleb of him. What’d he do now?

He thinks back. That man always wanted to go home. How could you want to leave home? Isn’t it better than the unknown? Where anything can happen?

“You have your family,” he starts, choosing his word carefully. “You have a life built here. Spent your entire life here. Wouldn’t you want to stay as much as possible?” 

Rhett scoffs. He doesn’t look at him. “Then why’d you leave?” 

“I- I don’t know,” Caleb answers truthfully. “But it was for a selfish reason anyway. You’re not selfish. You’re the most selfless person I know. You’re not like me. It’s why I like you so much.”

The tips of Rhett’s ears turn red. Caleb didn’t know what to think of that. 

“Guess we’re more alike than we thought.” He stands up and walks to his truck. Caleb looks up at the stars before he moves to follow Rhett.

Never in his life has he felt more pathetic in his life. He sees the way Rhett looked so blissful, so full of happiness. He opened his mouth and his mood fell down.

He ruined his birthday all cause he couldn’t understand.

How was he so selfish?

He looks back at the beer that Rhett hadn’t even touched then makes his way inside the vehicle. 

“I’m sorry, Rhett. It wasn’t my place to say anything. I hope you get out of Wabang.” 

The ride was silent afterwards.

———

His love life.

Caleb doesn’t remember the last time he’s been to a bar. The Handsome Gambler was where Rhett liked taking him sometimes to get him to have fun and not get cooped up in his work. 

Only the issue is tensions between him and Rhett are extremely tense and Perry was the only saving grace from making this evening awkward. 

Everyone flocked to Rhett, congratulating him and wishing him a happy birthday. While his attitude was off, he was still smiling and laughing with the people who came up to him. Then a woman came up to him and his expression softens. 

Caleb for once ordered a drink. One not too strong but he needed something to make him forget about his horrible choices. Perry tilted his head. “Thought you didn’t drink, Caleb.”

“…not til’ now,” he mumbled in reply.

“Jesus, what happened between you and Rhett?” 

“I said something I shouldn’t have. Asked why he wanted to leave his home.” He takes a sip from his drink. 

“Isn’t that what you did?”

“But he’s not like me,” he weakly says, knowing it’s not much of a solid defense. “I left home… cause I know there was no way for me to go back to my actual home.” 

Perry squints at him. “Hell does that mean?”

“It’s a long story.” And one he can’t get to or Royal will kill him. 

“Well, you two need to talk. You’ll be sharin’ a bed later and I’m not lettin’ you sleep on either my bed or the shitty couch.” Perry calls out to his brother but it seems that he was too interested in his conversation with the woman he was talking to. “Huh, knew she looked familiar. Rhett never pays attention when it’s either you or Maria.”

The mention of the new name made Caleb’s eyes widen. “Maria? Rhett’s never told me about her.”

“Cause you never asked. He was in love with that girl for a good chunk of his life. He was moping around when she had to move for college. Came back recently.”

He felt a a weird feeling in his chest. One he didn’t get a lot. “Does he still like her?”

“He’s surely talked about her less with you around.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” he groans. He stays silent for a bit, staring at the pair. They seem to be familiar with each other. She was touching his arm, he had that look on his face that could make anyone, even Caleb, swoon. “Why doesn’t he just ask her out? Doesn’t he like her? It’s not like Rhett’s dating anyone.”

The thought of the two dating doesn’t help sooth the bitter taste on his tongue. Maybe that was just the alcohol though. It’s been a while since he drank any. He must have not gotten used to the taste.

Perry, on the other, hand finishes his drink. “I think he’s got his sights on someone else.” 

“Who?” Caleb sits up straight, almost knocking over his glass.

The question remains unanswered for the rest of the night. 

———

His Family

“Woah, you’re the new one.” A blonde woman approaches Caleb just as they get out of Rhett’s truck. Her hair was messy, she was wearing clothes that don’t blend in with the Abbotts. She looked just as out of place as he was before Rhett begrudgingly lent him his clothes. “I’m Autumn. Nice to finally meet you.” She extends a hand to shake.

“I’m Caleb Major.” Rhett steps in front of him. 

“Didn’t my dad say you shouldn’t be here?” He crosses his arms, glaring at Autumn. 

“I wanted to greet you, Rhett. Heard it was your birthday today.”

He grit his teeth. “Yeah, well, thanks.”

“You came from the house,” Perry steps in. “What’re you doing in there?” 

Autumn smiles, too innocent to actually be believable. “Just had a talk with Royal.” Her hands were behind her back. “He wasn’t to talk to his sons next. Him and Cecelia.” She walks off into the night, giving Caleb a two finger salute. “Nice meeting you, Major Major!”

Caleb stiffens. How did she know? I’ve never seen her before.

When he looks back, Rhett and Perry had already gone inside. 

His body starts to shake. 

Maybe his sins caught up to him.

Would she tell anyone?

———

“Amy? What are you doing up?” Caleb was met with the girl placing a finger near his mouth, shushing him. 

“I’m trying to listen to what they’re saying,” she sits down on one of the steps. He crouches next to her. 

“Shouldn’t you… be asleep?” Caleb questions. She doesn’t look at him, continuing her attempt to listen to what her family had to say. 

He could barely hear what they were saying. Distant murmurs and even yells that were still too quiet to be heard. He could recognize only Rhett’s voice but that’s not a testament to how good his hearing is. He could barely understand what the man was saying and he could recognize that sound regardless of if it was hushed or not.

Shows how much time he’s spent with him.

“Hear anything?” 

“No.” 

“How about we go back-“

“I don’t want to,” she mumbles, frowning. “I’m tired of my family keeping stuff from me.” He moves his position so that he sits down with her. His face against his palm as he listens. “That girl came by today and grandma just told me to go upstairs. It’s like they’re hiding. Just like how they’re hiding where my mom is.”

He didn’t know what to say. He was never good with kids but he knew he couldn’t stand by and let this girl cry as her family yells downstairs. 

“My name isn’t Caleb Major.” She looks at him dumbfounded. 

“It’s not?”

“No. My name’s Major Major. Technically, Major Major Major officially. It’s my first, middle and last name.” Amy giggles. He laughs along too. “Yeah, my dad thought it’d be funny to make it my first and second name. He went behind my mother’s back. It’s on my birth certificate.”

“That’s such a weird name.”

“Yeah, it is.” He chuckles some more. “I know I’m not exactly part of your family but there’s a truth.”

“I think you should count as family.” She grins, standing up as if forgetting why she was even on the steps. “Everyone here likes you.” 

Caleb sure hopes so.

“Especially Uncle Rhett.”

He somehow hopes for that more.

———

Caleb Major

When Rhett arrived in his room, he was pissed. His dad thought it would be funny to joke about some hole in the ground and how it was a time traveling void or whatever. Apparently, that damn hole was the reason why he didn’t show up to the rodeo. 

On his birthday.

His birthday ended with his parents fighting in front of him and his brother.

Some things never change, he supposes.

He looks down to see Caleb already sleeping. It was a sight he was used to. They’ve been sharing a bed ever since he stepped foot on his land. At first, Rhett hated it, sharing his space with a guy he barely knew.

But later, he grew to love it. He grew to love Caleb. 

Even in moments when he frustrated him. Like today. 

Rhett wonders if he shouldn’t have been so straightforward, asking Caleb to leave with him. Caleb’s always been so hardworking, almost like he belonged in Wabang. Like he liked being here.

Rhett couldn’t understand it. The selfish part of him resented Caleb for it. He didn’t know what it was like growing up in this town, being an Abbott and living with his family. 

Caleb couldn’t understand him. Neither could Rhett with him. 

Yet why couldn’t he stop caring about someone he didn’t understand? Even if Caleb’s true calling was to stay in Wabang, Rhett wouldn’t stay for him even if he wanted to stand with him.

He notices a piece of paper on the edge of the bed. It’s a note reading: ‘happy birthday!’ with a low budget drawing that he assumes was him and Caleb.

The bottom right of the note catches his eye. ‘Amy said you’d like it. Sorry about before. I don’t understand why you want to run away from Wabang. But I think I only liked Wabang because of you.’

‘thank you for being my friend, Rhett. happy birthday.’

Tears fall from his eyes before he could even realize it. He quickly wipes them with the back of his hand. “Goddammit, Caleb,” he whispers to no one.

He walks up to the bed, combing Caleb’s hair to the other side of his face.

“Thanks for being my friend, Caleb Major.”

He laughs softly, tearfully. I can’t understand you at all.

He thought the only mark or remembrance of your presence at the hotel would be your name inscribed in messy handwriting on the ledger kept in the back office of that raggedy hotel. Just another two names added to a list that would soon be forgotten and stored away once it got too filled. Miles never expected you to be any more than that. But he should’ve known, from the first time you met, that you and Ben would forever change his life.

You seemed like a nice couple. Listening to Miles give his whole speech about the great hotel and all its amenities, kindly asking him questions about room service and if the lobby was free to access. It wasn’t until you wrote your names down that Miles had realized he actually did know you. Well, your husband at least.

“O-oh, you’re Ben Mears? The author?”

Ben cocked a brow, surprised, “You know my books?”

Miles nodded, “Y-yeah, uhm I really liked your last one. Didn’t really think all those reviews about it were too fair.”

Shyly keeping his eyes glued to the wood counter, Miles missed the amused look of curiosity you and Ben shared, Ben’s raised brow or the playful wink you threw at your husband before he looked back up at you, none the wiser.

Ben chuckled, “Well, thank you Miles. You think you can call my publisher and let him know that?”

You lightly slapped his shoulder; Ben acted like he’d been wounded in combat. Miles smiled at you two. He didn’t usually get to see this type of relationship with his customers. Maybe back in the hotel's hay day when the El Royale was known as the place to be, but since the loss of the gambling license, most “couples” that crossed his paths were more correctly described as clients and their entertainment for the night. You two were a breath of fresh air from that.

Miles handed you the key to your room, ignoring the static he felt as your fingers brushed against his, “What brings you to the El Royale?”

Ben hummed, looking a little pained as he uttered the word, “Inspiration.”

Miles’s brows furrowed, eyes squinting as he tilted his head to the side, “Come again?”

Ben sighed, exhausted already at the mere memory of his publisher admonishing him for his last poorly reviewed book, “Well, my publisher has been up my ass about getting a new book out before the end of the year, and uh…”

You cut in, leaning against Ben's arm, “Let’s just say, staying in New York hasn’t been all that… inspiring.”

Miles nearly snorted at your comment. The idea of New York, the state of self-discovery and endless possibilities being so uninspiring that you and Ben had to come here, to this sad, old excuse for a hotel in the middle of the Nevada and California mountains, was comical. 

And just like that, you two were off. Miles sighed in relief the moment you two disappeared into your room. He waited for the call that never came, the call from management to record the comings and dealings of the famed author staying with them for the foreseeable future, but when it never came, Miles actually felt a tad disappointed. Not that he wanted to blackmail you. Christ no, never. You were both so nice to him. He hated doing that to any guest, especially those as kind as you both, but it would’ve given him an excuse to sneak into those back rooms and take a peek. Just out of… curiosity. Yeah, that’s right. Curiosity. That was all. Nothing more.

Miles knew he shouldn’t have. He should have turned back and gone back to his room. But he couldn’t help the curiosity of it. Were you two the type to throw your bags wherever they landed and flop into bed to sleep off the exhaustion of your journey or did you get straight to… business after a long trip? Guess he’d find out soon enough.

The hallway illuminated with light as the two-way mirrors showed the inside of the various empty hotel rooms, all lonely in this great palace, just like Miles felt. Finally, he made it to your room.

The hallways were deathly quiet as he watched you two unpack. You said something that made the author chuckle and throw a shirt across the room toward you. You grinned and threw a pillow from the bed at your husband, who quickly dodged it. In a flash you were being led to the bathroom, presumably to share a shower with your husband. And just like that Miles was alone again.

It was quite a wholesome sight compared to the next time he went back to see you. He knew he shouldn’t have violated your privacy again; he just couldn’t help himself. Yesterday, you had been his only form of genuine human interaction that he’d had in months. Maybe it had been a small, fleeting moment for you, but to him it was everything.

The sun had barely risen when Miles started his rounds around the hotel. He started preparing the coffee for when you two’d inevitably come down for your morning cup of joe when he felt the pull to check those back rooms. He promised himself he’d just take a peek then march back into the lobby and stay there for further notice.

The sight before Miles boosted him with enough adrenaline for him to forgo caffeine for the rest of the day.

Your breasts bounced as you rode your husband, your arms wrapped around his shoulders as Ben had his hands on your hips, not to guide, but support you. The author looked at you like you were an angel cast down from heaven, love behind his eyes as he reached up and cupped one of your breasts in his hand, tugging at your nipple. Miles knew he shouldn’t have, but his finger flicked the switch to his side, and your moans echoed through the wall the moment he did.

“Oh! Ben, yes, yes!” Then as the author brought your nipple to his mouth, you whined, “Just like that – fuck!”

Unable to contain his own moans, Miles had to cover his mouth to drown out the sound as he palmed himself. The expression on his face could only be described as half scared, half aroused as Ben easily flipped you over.

“Shhh, darling,” Ben whispered with a smirk. “Don’t want to wake the neighbors now do we?”

“We’re the only ones in this fucking hotel. Shut up and fuck me harder, Ben.”

The author simply chuckled at your words, “As you wish.”

Your whine of Ben's name as he thrusted into you at a quicker pace nearly made Miles fall over. A wet, squelching sound of his dick slamming into your cunt followed behind every one of Ben's grunts, letting Miles and Ben know just how aroused you were.

You grabbed at his back, nails digging into his skin as you felt the pressure in your belly build, “Ben, m'close!"

Ben growled, picking up pace, “I got you, come on baby, come on my cock.”

Sweat dripped down the hotel clerk’s neck as he watched you moan. Seeing you come undone was the most beautiful thing. The way your eyes fluttered as you felt your orgasm reaching closer and closer, how you threw your head back and let out a strangled whine as you came on your husband’s cock was a work of art. A masterpiece.

Miles could barely hold back his whimper as he watched you cum. Ben handled you with a gentle touch, caressing your face as your back arched off the bed when you landed with an ‘oof’. Instead of Ben continuing on and chasing his own orgasm, he stopped, checking in on you. He pulled you into a deep, languid kiss, muttering the softest ‘you okay?’ 

You nodded, chuckling lightly as Ben pressed another kiss to your sweaty forehead. Miles was astounded at how attuned you and Ben were to each other, like you knew your partner’s next move before they did. When you moved, he moved; it was instinctive, but Miles guessed that must be what it’s like when you’ve found your person. The love of your life. Something Miles never had the pleasure of knowing.

Not with his high school sweetheart who he swapped kisses with under the school bleachers and who he swore he was going to marry when he returned from the war, or the various men he’d slept with on these very hotel beds. No, no they didn’t count. Miles was nothing more than a faded memory or another notch on their belts.

Miles couldn’t look any longer. He ignored the ache between his legs, covered the bulge in his pants with one hand and hobbled toward the exit. Once he got to his room, he’d be able to relive the ache he felt. And if the image of your breast in his mouth and Ben's hand wrapped around his cock was the only image that could make the lonely Catholic boy cum, he wouldn’t admit that to anyone. Not even God himself.

---

Time seemed to fly with you and Ben at the El Royale. Usually, the days were dull and mundane, dragging on where 24 hours felt like 48. Miles didn’t think he’d see much of you besides the occasional room service or cocktail at the bar, but you and Ben rarely ever kept to yourselves.

He didn’t remember how it started, but you started sharing meals together almost immediately. Maybe it was when you offered him some pizza after ordering too much or because you ate together at the bar as you swapped stories about life in the Big Apple compared to Miles’s country life back in Indiana.

And then it turned into cooking lessons where you and Ben tried to recreate your mother’s famous chocolate pie. Miles tried to stifle a laugh as he watched you two work. Ben's hair was nearly all white with how much flour you'd thrown at him when ‘he accidentally’ got some chocolate on your face. Miles, in return, baked you both his Nana’s award-winning peach cobbler. 

Ben was almost always in the lobby or patio, pen and notebook in hand as he jotted down idea after idea. The first time Miles saw those glasses perched up on the author’s nose, he nearly stumbled back to the room he came out from. Now Miles wasn’t an idiot; Ben Mears was attractive. He thought so the moment he turned to the back cover of one of his books and read the ‘About the Author’ section and there was Ben posed with his squinted eyes and finger on his chin as if in deep thought. But with those glasses, that collared shirt and the sun illuminating behind him, Miles nearly thought he was in some romance novel.

“You alright there, Miles?”

“Huh? Oh!” Miles jumped when he realized he’d been caught staring. He was grateful Ben didn’t comment on it. The author simply smirked to himself as the hotel clerk’s ears burned red, “Ye-yeah, m’fine.”

That exact interaction happened on more than one occasion. And Ben wore that shit-eating grin each and every time.

But they only really started bonding one night when Miles had woken up in a cold sweat, breathing heavily as the memories of gun fire, blood and screams of his fallen comrades shook him awake. He knew he couldn’t stay in bed, so he made his way down to the lobby, sliding on his slippers as he grabbed his robe off the side of the bed.

A few dim lanterns lit up the El Royale at this time of night, but the lobby for the most part was dark and deserted. Well, usually it was deserted.

“Hi.”

“Christ!”

Miles nearly jumped out of his skin as he turned to face Ben, who was sitting by himself on the lobby couch in the dark, looking quite amused at the sound Miles let out. Ben was lying across one of the couches, dressed in a t-shirt and pajama pants, and his eyes were red from lack of sleep.

“Can’t sleep?”

“Definitely won’t be able to anymore…” Miles muttered under his breath before walking behind the bar, “Tea?”

The other man shrugged, “If you don’t mind.”

While the kettle was warming up, Miles eyed Ben. He had gotten up and was messing with the fireplace, face scrunched up in frustration that it wasn't doing what he wanted.

“Here,” Miles walked over, taking over so Ben wouldn't break it. If it broke, who knew when management would ever get around to fixing the damn thing, “Let me help.”

Ben smiled at him sheepishly, heat crawling up his neck in embarrassment, “Thanks, sorry.”

Miles just threw him a tired smile, and in a flash, viola! Orange, red, and yellow flames bounced off the walls of the room, “What brings you out here so late?”

“Can’t sleep, and I didn’t want to wake her up with my tossing and turning so….” Ben trailed off, gesturing to himself.

Once the kettle whistled and Miles made himself comfortable on the couch across from the author, it didn’t take long for the two men to start talking. First, it was just about their day, asking what errands the other ran, what plans they had for tomorrow, before turning into what led to them both seeking each other’s company.

“What’s keeping you up?”

“Oh, um,” An explosion. Smoke. Fire. Dead eyes, “Nothing just, I get nightmares from time to time. Bad… memories.”

It didn’t take a genius to figure out what Miles meant by that. Ben had a feeling Miles served the moment he met the skittish man before him. Miles didn’t look like the stereotypical military, with his slouched shoulders and meek demeanor, but that look in his eyes screamed of someone who’d seen and survived things most couldn’t even fathom. Ben was lucky enough to have not been caught up in the draft, but he knew many who weren’t.

Ben bit the inside of his cheek, his voice much more serious than it had been all night long, “The war?”

Miles didn’t need to say anything, just a nod was enough, “W-what about you? What’s keeping you up?”

“Also, a nightmare, well, sort of. My parents died in a fire when I was very young, so I don’t really remember much about it. But when I’m sleeping, I can sometimes still feel things from that night, but it’s all fuzzy.” Ben let out a dry chuckle, shaking the thoughts out of his head, “Guess sometimes things are so bad your brain won’t let you remember them.”

“Well, my brain seems to do the opposite, won’t let me forget. I can still see them. The bodies, the dead eyes. The smell…” Miles flinched, like the memory was physically attacking him, “Can never forget the smell.”

Miles muttered the last part, but then, like a flip had been switched, he blinked, realizing what he’d revealed, not expecting himself to say something so real and personal. Ben looked like he was going to say something, but Miles didn’t want to dive deeper into it, “Sorry, forget I said anything.”

“No, don't apologize-”

“How’s the tea?” Miles said that sharper than he intended. He’s glad his Nana isn't here to slap him over the head for being so rude.

Ben stumbled over his words. “The – oh the tea? Y-yeah it’s good. Nice. Warm. Honey?”

Miles nodded, hiding away from Ben’s pity filled eyes, “Honey.”

A silence fell over them, and Ben looked like he wanted to say more. He knew Miles didn’t want to dive back into the past conversation, but he thought about complimenting Miles on how hospitable he’d been to them since they got here. Or maybe he’d compliment his eyes. They were so blue and so pretty; Ben could get lost in them if he stared for too long. But the blare of Miles’s alarm in his room interrupted him before he could say anything else.

“Oh! Is it nearly 6 already?”

“Huh? Oh... shit it is.” Ben messed with his hair, groaning as he stood up and looked at his watch, “Thanks for keeping me company this morning, or night or whatever.”

Miles smiled, ignoring the fluttering in his chest at how adorable Ben looked with his messy hair and tired eyes, before heading back toward his room, “See you for breakfast.”

Ben watched as he left, unable to deny the fact he wished he could’ve stayed talking to Miles, even for just a little longer, “See you.”

Those nightcaps between the two men continued on nearly every night, a routine of sorts. Sometimes they talked about nothing and everything. Almost every time, without fail, you came up. Ben could tell the other man was fond of you. Miles probably thought the shadows kept the blush across his cheeks concealed, but Ben could tell from a mile away. It made Ben all the more confident that the one-sided attraction you and he had for Miles wasn’t so one-sided after all.

At first Ben thought Miles was only attracted to you. The hotel clerk wasn’t exactly the best at hiding it. The way his gaze lingered on you for just a little too long whenever you came down for your morning coffee, and how he blushed as red as a cherry tomato whenever you teased him. 

The one that always made Ben laugh every time he thought about it when he was watching you look over the engine of your guys’ car. You had taken it upon yourself to give it a once over when it wouldn’t start that morning before calling a mechanic that was going to charge way too much for a simple tow.

Blue eyes watched from behind the room blinds as your head was tucked under the hood of the car. Ben couldn’t help himself from ogling your ass from that angle, and it seemed he wasn’t the only one.

Ben’s eyes flickered over to Miles, who looked like he was just getting ready to do his afternoon stroll around the property when he saw you outside. Although you were facing away from him, he could tell you were frustrated from the cursing under your breath and how you threw the rag in your hand down on the engine followed by more expletives.

Averting his eyes from your ass and staring at the ground instead, he called out to you, “Car trouble?”

You turned to face him, sending him a strained smile before turning back to the car, “I was going to go into town and pick up a few things and it just… wouldn’t start, piece of shit,” you muttered those last words to yourself. You knew if Ben heard you say that about his beloved MG MGB, he would not stand for it. It was his pride and joy, even though he knew nothing about cars. “Miles… Do you happen to know of any mechanic in town? Maybe someone friendly enough that they won’t charge an arm and a leg just to look at the damn thing.”

Miles chuckled, “Afraid not, ma’am, but I’m sure we can find someone in the phone book.” He heard you mutter a ‘fuck’ before perking up again, “D-do you want me to take a look?”

You nearly jumped for joy at the offer. While you knew some things about cars, you were nowhere near an expert, “Would you? Do you know cars like that?”

Miles shakes his head, “N-not really, but I learned a little bit about them in LBJ.”

You tilted your head to the side, confused, “In what now?”

“Long Binh Junction.” When you still looked confused, he muttered, “In Vietnam.”

“Oh!” You straightened up at that, smile dimming slightly, “You served?”

“Y-yes, but that’s another life now.”

Noting how he seemed to skirt around the subject, you just nodded, “You’re too kind, Miles.”

He took the tool from your open hand, again feeling that static energy, but he didn't acknowledge it and kept his head down “Just helping where I can.”

Looking to make small talk while under the hood of your car, Miles asked, “Does Mr. Mears not –” Miles motioned to the engine of the car, and you couldn’t help but chortle at the mere idea of Ben knowing anything about cars.

“Ben may be gifted when it comes to writing, but cars? Anything to do with any type of machinery besides a pen and paper? He’s hopeless.” You proudly grinned when you heard Miles laugh.

“Oh, I think I see the issue.” Miles took the rag you handed him, wiping his hands clean as he explained, “Needs a new battery, and some spark plugs. Nothing too hard to change if you got the right tools, which I’m sure I got…”

The hotel clerk seemed to forget his words as his eyes moved from your face to the hand on his arm. Your hand was on his arm, rubbing it up and down before giving it a gentle squeeze as you smiled. Miles nearly combusted when you pressed an appreciative kiss on his cheek, “Thanks Miles. We’d be calling every mechanic in the phone book if it wasn’t for you.”

Heat bloomed under the hotel clerk's skin, his entire face turning a light shade of pink that reached all the way down to his neck, “O-of course. Um, d-do you need, um, me to help you to order the parts? Or, or I can help -”

You waved him off, “It’s quite alright Miles, you’ve done more than enough. I’ll get Ben to handle it. If he can’t look at a car, the least he can do is order the parts, no?”

“Right, right.” He stepped back, watching as you closed the hood of the car. His eyes couldn't help but wonder at your dress, butterflies fluttering in his stomach at how it hugged your figure in all the right places. 

Ben hummed in interest as he watched you two bid each other goodbye, not at all missing how the hotel clerk’s gaze lingered on you, completely unbothered by it. You and he had always been different from other couples, more understanding than most.

You shared your bed with a third person only twice before. Both left you and your husband reeling in the aftermath when you learned the other wanted nothing more than to experiment or live to tell the tale of a wild night sleeping with a married couple. Although you didn’t care what others thought, you couldn’t be too upset when your past partners left when they realized you both wanted more.

Pretty soon after your talk under the hood of Ben’s car, you and Miles got really close over your shared hobbies. Miles liked to knit while you crocheted. They were different yet similar art forms. Sometimes you’d read aloud while Miles knit or cleaned around the lobby, stopping every so often to laugh at the dialog the author used or speculate about what you thought was going to happen next.

One time you surprised him. The weather started to get colder, the sun set earlier and the clouds started creeping in closer and closer every day. You noticed that Miles’ clothes seemed too sparse. He mainly wore his work uniform but on more than one chilly night, you found the hotel clerk wondering about the grounds shivering from the cold, his cheeks red as he tried and failed to protect his face from the icy winds.

Miles knew you were making something, but he thought it was for Ben. Imagine his surprise when you gave him a scarf, wrapping it around his neck and sides of his head as you explained why you were giving it to him. Miles thought it was beautiful. It was brown and soft, and so, so warm.

“I don’t know what to say, just, thank you. Thank you so much.”

You laughed as Miles hugged you, “I’m glad you like it.” Before placing a delicate kiss on the man’s cheek. It was the second one you’d given him, and Miles couldn’t believe it. Were you always so affectionate with people you didn’t know? Was this just something reserved for him, because you were friends? Was it… Could it…?

When you pulled back, Miles looked like he wanted to say something, his mouth hanging open and eyebrows raised as his throat went dry. Instead, he just mumbled another ‘thank you’ before holding the scarf close to him. The very next day Miles was dressed in his usual work attire but with one other addition, your scarf.

A couple days later, Miles had a gift of his own for you. Originally, he was knitting the blanket for himself. As the El Royale aged, the insulation in the building worsened and as the colder time of the year drew near and with management giving no indication into upgrading the bedding of the hotel, Miles decided to make a blanket of his own. But when he heard from Ben that you'd been shivering more at night, he immediately knew the blanket was no longer his to keep.

“For you.”

Your eyes widened, a surprised smile on your face as Miles revealed the secret he’d been hiding behind his back. A gasp escaped you as you touched the fabric. It was wool, but not the itchy kind. It was thick and soft, the best thing to wrap around yourself as you sat beside the fire with a book in your lap as it rained outside.

Clutching it to your chest, you beamed at him, “Miles! You shouldn't have. Oh! I love it!”

He rubbed the back of his head, a sheepish smile on his face as you complimented the fabric and his technique, “I know, but… you mentioned being cold at night now that winter's coming, and I, uh, well, I also wanted to thank you for the scarf you gave me.”

Lightly, you flicked his shoulder, ignoring his little ‘hey!’ “You don't need to give me things in return, Miles. That was a gift.”

“I know! I know, but I just…wanted to do something nice for you.”

Miles shrunk away at his confession, eyes glued to the floor. Your heart nearly soared out of your chest at his words. You thanked him again with a hug this time, and Miles couldn't help but bury his head in your neck. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, not wanting the hug to end.

The night Miles knew he was absolutely and unequivocally gone for both of you was a couple of days later. You were going about your usual routine, reading a book in the lobby as Miles sat beside you, this time with his blanket over your lap. 

At first Miles always sat far away enough as to not make you uncomfortable, but in your time together, he went from sitting on the other side of the couch to you being tucked under his arm, a blanket you made thrown over both your laps with your mugs of Chamomile resting on the table.

Your head lulled to the side as you started speaking slower and yawning between your sentences. Then, silence. The thump of the book in your hands falling shut when your hands went limp echoed as Miles felt the added weight of your head in the crook of his neck.

Oh. My. God.

Miles froze. He carefully moved to peek at you before looking straight ahead again. Okay, okay it’s fine, it’s fine. Besides the fact you’re going to be upset at losing your spot in the book when you wake up later, this was all going to be fine. He just needed his heart to stop beating out of his chest as he caught a whiff of your shampoo.

Miles bit his bottom lip as he stared down at you. He just didn’t have it in his heart to wake you, but he knew you’d do much better sleeping in your own bed than the hotel lobby, so he hooked one arm under your legs and picked you up bridal style. He stopped breathing for a moment when you stirred, looking like a deer in headlights until you settled down, mumbling something in your sleep as you snuggled his chest. Breathing a sigh of relief, Miles made sure you were secure in his arms, and carried you to your room.

The timing couldn’t have been more perfect, just as Miles reached your room, a groggy Ben opened the door, saving him from having to figure out how to knock and make sure you don’t wake up at the same time.

“Oh! Miles! Hey, wha- oh. She fell asleep?”

“Y-yeah,” Miles whispered, checking to make sure you didn't wake up at Ben’s voice, but thankfully all you did was stir before nuzzling closer to his chest. You were going to be the death of him and you didn't even know what you were doing, “I didn't have the heart to wake her up.”

The two men shared a smile before Ben stepped aside to let Miles in. Ben tried to offer his arms up to take you, but Miles shook his head. He’d hate to have you get woken up because he transferred you from his arms to Ben's.  

Miles set you down on the bed while Ben took off your shoes, a tense, yet comfortable silence falling between them. Tense for Miles because he was finally in the room he’d watched you and Ben on that first day you checked in. He avoided the backrooms since that day he saw you having sex. No matter how tempted he was, he wasn’t going to violate your privacy like that again.

The floorboards creaked as Ben got up and snatched up a pair of wool socks from your drawer before sitting down on the bed and bringing your legs into his lap, “Her feet run cold, so she always gotta sleep with her fuzzy socks on.”

Miles chuckled, “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, thank goodness too.” Ben rubbed your calves, smiling fondly down at your sleeping figure, “No more getting attacked by her icicles every night and morning as long as she got them on.”

Two sets of blue eyes met and after a beat, stifled laughter filled the room. Miles grinned even wider when Ben told him not to tell you he told him that. Ben's love for you was so obvious and raw and real. Though his heart broke because he knew he’d never experience that with either of you, he was happy for you both.  

“Did you end up finding what you were looking for?”

Ben cocked a brow at Miles, “Whatcha mean?”

While throwing another blanket over your sleeping body, Miles reminded Ben, “You said that when you checked in. That you were searching for something, that something was missing in New York. Did you find it?”

Ben paused, watching as Miles tucked you in. All the instincts in his body told him to lean forward, kiss the man next to him and tell him he was who they were looking for, but he shook his head at the thought. “Yeah, yeah I think we have.”

Finally satisfied that you were comfortable, Miles turned to Ben, “Good.” But there was something different in his eyes when he said it. Something almost… sad.

Ben noticed immediately, concerned, “You okay?”

Miles nodded, avoiding Ben's face as he stood up, “Yeah, yeah, I'm just tired. I’ll leave you be, have a good night.” And like that, Miles rushed out. He could barely hear Ben's response with how quickly he dashed out of there.

When Miles finally made it back to his own quarters, sitting there alone in the dark, desolate room, he could finally let himself break down at what Ben's words really meant. His hands shook, as he tried to unbutton his shirt, a ragged exhale leaving his lungs when he could finally get it off him. If you truly found what you were looking for, the day would soon come that you two would finally check out and he’d never see you again. That made his heart race, and not in a good way.

He’d like to imagine you’d be indefinite guests here. He had gotten so used to having someone to talk to. You two became the people who helped pass the time when he was polishing the same unused glasses for the hundredth time. There were other guests who stayed when you were there, but neither had the effect on him that you two did. It was like you were a witch and cast a spell on him, keeping him only on you.

Miles shook his head at himself. He shouldn't be thinking this. You and Ben weren't his to keep. To have and to hold. He tried to ignore the pain in his chest, inducing sleep to avoid pain, but no matter how hard he tried, his brain wouldn't shut up. All he saw when he closed his eyes was the back of Ben's car as you and Ben left him, forever. So he did something he hadn't done in a while. Miles thought he wasn't worthy of God's ear for a long time now. Someone who's hurt as many people as he had should not get that pleasure. Nor someone with the same temptations as he.

“Lord,” Miles began, dropping to his knees and intertwining his hands together as he prayed, “I know I have no reason to ask this of you right now, but I need your help. Please, rid me of these urges and wants. I know it’s not right, wanting a man and woman, a married couple, but I can't-” Miles inhaled sharply, nearly collapsing against the edge of his bed as he felt tears brimming his eyes, “Please just stop it. I don't wanna miss them when they leave. Please.”

It almost made Miles chuckle at the irony of it all. He used to pray for a lover who'd love him whole and completely, and yet here he is now, praying his feelings would disappear.

Miles wiped the stray tear from his cheek, sniffling as he got up and settled himself into bed. The cold bed squeaked under him as he pulled one of his pillows into his arm, pulling it under his chin so he had something to hold. Miles liked to think he did this because it brought him some comfort, but really, it was so that way he could sleep, imagining for once, he wasn't going to bed alone.

It was apparent that his prayers went unanswered when your impending departure was the only thing on Miles’s mind all day long. It was all he thought of as he washed the dishes from last night's dinner, cleaned the counters for the fifth time that day and as Miles prepared Ben a drink for their usual nightcap. You two had mostly kept to yourselves today, and Miles hated to admit how much he missed your company. He really wanted to march down to your room and ask if he could come in to just be near you. Whether it be watching TV, listening to the radio or reading a book, he didn’t care. But that would’ve been too much.

He was almost afraid Ben wouldn't come tonight because he had barely seen him, but when the author finally made an appearance, Miles let out a sigh of relief. The usual pleasantries were exchanged between them, before Miles went to get Ben's drink ready and that was when his mind wandered to you. Should he ask for you to join them? He’d really like that. Even though you were probably busy, but he just -

“You alright there, Miles?”

Miles blinked, dropping the spoon into the drink he’d most definitely over stirred as he got lost in his head. Ben sat right across from him, book in hand and glasses perched up on his nose.

The longer the hotel clerk looked at the famed author, the drier his mouth felt. 

Ben looked at him, concerned, still waiting for an answer.

Miles’s voice came out shakier than intended, “O-oh right. Yes, yes, I’m f-fine.”

Ben hummed, putting the book in his lap down and standing up, “I’m gonna miss this place ya know?”

“Oh!?” Christ Miles! Keep your voice at a normal octave.

“Yeah…” Ben trailed off, gazing at Miles with a look so intense the hotel clerk had to look away, “Like I said, finally found that thing I was looking for. Plus, we’ve been getting a bit antsy for a change of scenery. Not saying California isn’t pretty but…”

Miles laughed half-heartedly, before his face turned serious again, “W-when will you be going?” he doubts you’ll be leaving soon. You have to at least give him a two week notice. So he could mentally prepare. He’ll make sure to cherish his time with you both even more. Not that he already didn't, but he’d make sure to remember the sound of your laugh, the smell of Ben's cologne. Maybe he can take one of your pillows, so he can still have something that smelled of you both, until it inevitably disappeared with time -

“Probably in a couple days. At most a week.”

“What!? But that’s so-” Miles cleared his throat, collecting himself. Pull yourself together man! “Sorry, I mean, that’s soon.”

Ben nodded, tapping his finger on the armrest of the couch, “I know…” before he changed the subject, a look flashing across his face that Miles didn't recognize. “Do you dance?”

Miles flashed him an incredulous look, but shook his head, “Not really, no.”

Ben stood up, walking to the dusty jukebox with a sway in his step. The author tapped his foot as he searched for a record to play, before he found the perfect one.

And yet as the record started to play, instead of sitting back down and humming the tune like Ben usually did on nights like this, he walked up to Miles and outstretched his hand.

“Neither do I.”

Miles tried to wave him off, shaking his head when Ben beckoned him over, “O-oh no, I can’t”

“Come on, what’s one dance?”

Miles gave him a look. One dance was asking a lot. That meant Miles would be pressed up against Ben, nose to nose, well, chin to nose since Ben had a couple inches on him, but still, they'd be so close. And what if Miles stepped on his feet? Or what if he'd look so deeply into Miles' soul that he’d realize his feelings for the author? For you? Oh you. What if YOU walked in and thought-

Ben's hand slid over his shoulder, grabbing Miles’s attention. Ben still had that stupid smile on his face,”Comeon, just this once.” 

Miles let out an exasperated sigh, acting as if having the chance to be so close to the man that made his heart skip and head spin was such a chore, “Alright. But if I step on your feet, it’s your own fault.”

“Yesss!”

Miles laughed at his reaction, his stomach doing somersaults as an ink-stained hand wrapped around his smaller, paler hand. Ben held Miles tight at the waist, their hips swaying as the chorus of the song played.

“Is this okay?”

Goosebumps spread up and down Miles’s neck as he felt Ben's hot breath on his skin, “Y-yes, fine. It’s fine.”

“Good, good.” Wooden floorboards creaked quietly under them as they swayed. Miles kept his gaze focused on Ben’s Adam's apple, too scared to look up. And Ben couldn’t take his eyes off the other man, he barely could since he met the man all those months ago. 

Ben was immediately taken with Miles when you met him that first night. You weren't at all surprised as you heard Ben rave to you about how cute the doe-eyed hotel clerk was, gushing about how he blushed and stuttered. Ben always liked to claim he fell in love with you the moment you met, and so far, he’s yet to contradict that statement. And then not even a week later, you were doing the same. Your face hot and flustered as Ben teased you about your crush after he caught you doodling Miles’s face in that notebook of yours. That’s when you knew you had to decide quickly if you wanted to pursue something with Miles or not. And the answer was obvious to you both, and Ben was looking to take that leap for you both.

Ben couldn’t help himself as he blurted out, “You’re beautiful.”

“Ummm,” Miles swallowed, stiffening as his eyes darted from Ben to the floor.

Ben caught on, and started rubbing circles with his thumb on Miles's hip bone, “I don’t mean to offend or make you feel awkward, it’s just, you are. Very beautiful.”

The air went still, something shifting between them. It felt like time stopped as the music playing became nothing but a quiet lull as the two men stared at one another. Miles couldn't stop looking at Ben's crooked smile, memorized. Ben looked like he was in a trance as he brushed the lonely curl out of Miles eyes, cupping his cheek after.

“I-”

Ben leaned forward, placing a delicate, almost tentative kiss against Miles’ lips. Miles’s breath hitched, his brain glitching for a moment before he kissed back. Oh, this was better than Miles could have ever imagined. Ben was so gentle with him, cupping his cheek as he pulled him into a deeper kiss. 

Ben's hands tightened along Miles's waist, pulling him impossibly closer. Miles' hands got tangled up in the author's hair, the kiss going from sweet to excited.

Ben's lips were so soft; he tasted so sweet. Then, Miles thought of you. Would your lips be just as soft? Would he be able to taste the flavor of your chapstick as his tongue danced along your mouth? 

Wait…no, this was all wrong.

In an instant, Miles pushed back, “N-no.”

Ben tried, cupping his face again, “Miles-”

“You’re married.”

The sound Miles made nearly broke Ben’s heart. He sounded so broken. So betrayed at Ben for kissing him, for making him a perpetrator in a seeming attempt to commit adultery. If he only knew this was meant to happen. Not exactly of course. You and Ben were going to talk to Miles before you left. To explain your feelings to the man you’d both come to care for far more intensely than you should for only knowing him a few months, but you needed to let him know before you left.

“Yes, but Miles, she, we, we both-”

“No!” Miles snapped, his lip wobbling as he backed away even further from Ben, “I- I need to go. I’m sorry, I didn't mean to, I just, I need to go.”

“Miles!” Ben tried to get him to stop, but the sound of the maintenance door slamming shut was deafening. The author rubbed his face. With all the vocabulary and literacy experience he had, there was only one word he could use to describe this situation he’d just put himself in and what he was feeling as he thought of telling you what he’d just done.

“Shit.”

---

Miles couldn’t hide from either of you for too long.

He stayed in his room in the hour following his outburst, spending most of his time on his knees, praying with his Nana's old rosary. But he knew it was futile, for if he doubted God was listening to him before, he surely wasn't listening now. Not after that kiss. 

And he also felt so bad about how he snapped at Ben. He knew he shouldn't feel guilty about it. Ben was the outlier here, but that shattered look in Ben's eyes kept flashing to the front of his mind every time he closed his eyes.

It’d only been a couple hours since his adulterous kiss when he got a call from your room. He debated letting it ring, too scared of confrontation, but the longer that shrill ring of the phone went on, the worse his fear of you storming over and telling him off in person grew. You wouldn’t be mad at him. He knew that. Your husband was the one who kissed him after all, but Miles honestly didn’t know what to expect. 

Miles’s voice only wavered slightly as he answered the phone, trying to sound as normal as possible, “Thank you for calling the-the, um El Royale. This is M-Miles speaking.”

“Miles…” you sounded tense, like you just had an argument and were holding in all your emotions. Miles gripped the phone even harder hearing the shakiness in your voice, “Could you be a dear and come by the room when you have a chance? There’s something…” You paused, and Miles wanted the ground to open up and swallow him whole. “Something we need to discuss with you.”

Panicked, “M-ma’am, I swear I –”

“We’ll see you in a bit, Miles.”

Defeatedly, he responded, “O-okay.”

“Great, thank you.”

Miles’s hands shook even worse as he put the phone down. His eyes flickered over to where your room was; all the lines of windows from the empty rooms were pitch black besides yours. Despite the curtains being drawn closed, he could still see the light from inside. 

His fingers twitched as he stared at the door leading to the back rooms. It wasn't right, he knew that, but part of him wanted to know what he was getting into before he left. But a flicker from outside drew his attention. Your curtain opened, and he couldn't tell who was there, but it looked like someone was looking out the window, probably looking for him. 

The walk to your room felt like the most strenuous journey. Fallen leaves and gravel crunched under his shoes, the clouds circling over the El Royale in a way that made Miles sure it was a taunt.  A glimpse into the storm he was walking into. When Miles got to your door, he debated just turning around and hightailing it back to his little shack of a room until your door creaked open.

There you stood, wrapped up in the blankets Miles knit for you, with swollen eyes, like you'd been crying, and with a look on your face Miles couldn’t decipher. A mix of sadness, anger, and something he couldn’t quite understand (hope?) was etched across your face. 

“Miles.” Your voice sounded rough, smile not reaching your eyes. “Thank you for coming. Please come in.”

Miles shook his head, backing away, but you reached out, grip firm but still gentle, and tugged him inside, “Please Miles, we just want to talk.”

He let you pull him in, and the first thing the hotel clerk saw was Ben sitting on the couch, a look of guilt flooding his face. The author looked like a dog who’d just been caught doing something bad and received the reprimand of a lifetime. He tried to send Miles a reassuring smile, but Miles averted his eyes to the floor, shame flooding him all over again.

“Miles-”

“I’m sorry -” He immediately fell to his knees, ignoring the sharp pain he felt as his bone connected with the wooden floors at the wrong angle. He didn't flinch when he heard Ben’s involuntary gasp or the scrape of the chair behind him, his hand clasped together with yours as he begged for forgiveness, “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to cause you any distress!”

Your hands shot out, trying to get him off the floor, “Miles please, stand up, you don’t need to -”

“I’m terribly sorry for – I swear I would never -”

“Miles, Miles please! There isn’t anything to forgive. Ben was supposed to wait until -”

“Please don't be mad! I swear - wait, wait, wait…” Miles’s eyes flickering to you then Ben and back to you, “Supposed to wait… for what? To.. to kiss me?”

You nodded, helping the open-mouthed clerk up off the floor onto the edge of the bed, sitting beside him. Ben stayed on the other side of the room, waiting for your okay to move.

Miles looked less stressed but more confused now, “What… I don’t... I don't understand.”

You sighed, rubbing his back, “This isn't how we wanted to tell you. We had a plan in place.” You spoke very pointedly at Ben, who cringed and slumped down in his seat at your tone.

“A… a plan?”

You exhaled, squaring your shoulders up like it’d give you the confidence you needed to confess, “We were going to ask you out properly at least once before we left. Take you somewhere nice now that the car’s fixed. We knew we couldn’t just spring this on you out of nowhere. We thought we weren’t being subtle about it, but maybe we were.”

“So… so you're not mad at me? For the kiss?”

“At you? Heavens no! I was mad at Ben for not acting according to plan…” You trailed off, watching your husband lean forward and face palm himself, “Only slightly.”

Miles looked like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. You… you and Ben… you wanted him? How… Why? Did God finally answer his prayers and give him the love he so sought after? No, Miles didn’t want to dwell on it any longer. You wanted him. Him! He wasn’t going to question it.

“A-all this time - I, I’ve never felt this way before. I didn’t think it was right. Falling for two people, let alone a married couple, but -” Ben moved closer, noticing the shake in Miles’s voice, and Miles immediately leaned into him, “But I have. It’d be a lie to suggest otherwise.”

Nudging your nose against his, you asked, “Can I kiss you, Miles?”

He didn’t care that he sounded desperate and needy when he answered you, “Please.”

You closed the gap between you, hands cupping Miles’s cheeks as you finally kissed the man you’d been pinning over for so long. It may be a cliche, but you swore you felt sparks fly as your lips met. Hands gripped your sides tight, like Miles was afraid you’d disappear if he let you go. Like he was so scared that he’d open his eyes and find this was all some cruel dream. That he wasn’t actually here, kissing the woman of his dreams.

It escalated after that. You had told yourselves you wouldn’t, but sometimes instincts took over and all you could do is act. Ben’s cock ached the longer he watched you two, and he desperately needed another taste.

His cock twitched as the shy hotel clerk let out the most adorable squeak when Ben quickly pulled him away, barely letting him breathe before capturing him in another heated kiss. You didn’t let that interruption deter you. As much as you would’ve liked to spend hours kissing Miles, you found yourself littering the neck of the man sandwiched between you two with hickies, sucking and biting wherever you could.

Miles’s breath hitched as hands tugged on the hotel clerk’s belt. A choked cry left him as Ben slid his hand under Miles’s underwear and touched him. It’d been so, so long since Miles felt a touch that wasn’t his there. And Ben wasn’t rough or quick with his movements like how Miles touched himself. He was curious, languid in his movements as his hand stroked him. Miles could’ve cum from just this, you sucking on his pulse point and Ben jerking him off, but he didn’t want that. He wanted to be as close to you as possible when that time came.

“Wait, wait, wait!”

You pulled back, “What’s wrong?”

Ben’s hand moved from his cock, but Miles’s hand stopped him before he could pull away, “Are we moving too fast? Are you okay?”

“M’fine, I swear, more than fine. I just…I don’t wanna cum yet.”

You cooed at how shy he was admitting that. Miles blushed even harder when you gave his cheek another peck, “Okay, let’s go at your pace. Where do you want us, baby?”

“I don’t know, I just- I just want you both, please.”

“Wanna sit on his face, love?”

Miles’s hips jerked forward at that. His face somehow burned even hotter when you and Ben chuckled at his desperation.

“I think that’s a yes.”

You chuckled at Ben before turning back to him, “Want that honey? Want me to sit on your face?”

He nodded, but you shook your head, “Need to hear you say it baby.”

“Yes, please!”

With that, you kissed him again, both you and Ben working quickly to rid Miles of his clothes and then your own. Once the three of you were in your naked glory, you maneuvered Miles onto the bed, resting his head on the pillow. You hovered over the hotel clerk’s face, giggling as you wiped a bit of drool from his chin.

“Ready, darling?”

Miles nodded, licking his lips  as he stared at your pretty pussy.

You tutted, hand coming up and pulling at his hair. You felt a slick rush through your heat at the pathetic whine Miles let out, “Words.”

“Y-yes, please. I'm ready, I'm ready.”

The moment your pussy connected with Miles’s face, he went wild. Gone was the frazzled, shy hotel clerk from before, now in his place, was a man frenzied for the taste of a pussy he had been dreaming of for oh so long. His tongue darted forward, tracing every surface and crevice of your folds. Miles couldn't get enough; you tasted so sweet and you were so wet for him already.

Your fingers found their way into Miles' unruly locks, decimating the presentable, put-together look they’d had as you curled your fingers into a fist and pulled. You moaned, feeling his tongue glide along your slick-soaked folds. A whimper escaped your gritted teeth as his nose bumped against your clit, and it took everything in you to not start grinding against his face to chase after the feeling, “Miles! Yes! Yes! Fuck, do that again!”

And do that again he did. Every bump of his nose against your sensitive little nub had you seeing stars, thighs tightening over his head, but Miles didn't care. He'd happily suffocate between your legs if it meant he got to hear you mewl and whine his name all day.

Ben watched from the side, entranced. He rubbed his clothed cock, moaning quietly as you turned back to look at him, throwing him a quick wink before going back to facing Miles. Ben couldn't ignore the strain in his pants anymore. You just looked so beautiful like this, both of you. If it was possible, he would’ve gotten this moment framed so it could be immortalized. That look in Miles’s eyes as he looked up at you, studying every part of your face, making sure he was pleasing you the way you deserved. The way your mouth opened in an ‘O’, a moan escaping you as Miles’s nose bumped your clit again.

The bed dipped as the author crawled toward you two. Swiftly, Ben grabbed a hold of those slim, pale legs and spread them apart, his mouth watering as Miles's puckered hole fluttered back at him, “So beautiful.” Ben muttered, leaning forward and pressing a kiss against him.

Miles squeaked against you, hole tightening. Ben chuckled, “God you're so cute,” before he spit on his entrance. A desperate, muffled sound escaped Miles as he heard the clasp of the lube and felt two fingers probing at his entrance. He whined, grabbing your thighs even tighter as Ben's fingers entered him. 

You couldn't help but giggle as you started grinding down on his face, “Open him up nice and good, Ben. He makes the most adorable noises.”

“So fucking adorable,” Ben muttered, “Cant wait till i feel him around me.” 

Precum spurted from Miles’s slit when he heard that, and you giggled, cooing at how blown Miles eyes were as Ben began scissoring him open. Every curl and twist of those long fingers elicited moans, each one louder than the last. And the louder Miles was, the more those fingers worked.

Ben made eyes at you, giving you a look that said ‘watch this’ and you quirked up a brow, wondering what he was going to do. And then, Miles jerked, moaning against your sex and eyes rolling to the back of his head as he felt Ben ghost his prostate, teasing him. Goosebumps littered Miles' skin when Ben bit down on the flesh of his thigh, legs jerking to the side when Ben did it again with a rougher bite.

It didn’t take long for you to climax after that. You could feel the coil in your belly twisting and turning with every whimper, grunt, and lap at your folds. Miles had a wondrous tongue, keeping you on edge for the longest time, but Miles, feeling overwhelmed with the new, exciting feeling, instinctively wrapped his lips around your swollen clit and sucked. That did you in.

The noise that came from you was high-pitched, almost animalistic as you arched your back, toes curling and thighs clenching as waves crashed through your body, the cry of Miles’s name leaving your lips as your orgasm wracked through you. Thank God the bed had a headboard for you to hold onto or else you would have collapsed entirely on the man under you. Slick gushed over Miles' face, and he didn't care. He kept lapping and sucking on your arousal. 

You whined, “Miles, m’sensitive” and slowly lifted your hips, muscles aching from being in the same position for so long, but before you could get far, you were pulled back down.

Blue eyes glimmered with want, the hands around your thighs tightening as they tried to keep you in place. You laughed, shaking your head at the hazy eyes under you, “Oh, Miles. Miles, Miles, Miles.” Another whine from him made you giggle. Brushing the hair out of his eyes, you let him stay there for a little longer before you had to physically pry his hands off you, “Come on baby, let me go. Don't worry, I ain’t going anywhere, just wanna lay down beside you.”

Finally, with sad eyes, he let you go. The moment you were off him, Ben couldn’t help but surge forward, purring against Miles’s lips, “Wanna taste you two together,” before his tongue slipped between those plush, slick-coated lips. Clammy hands wrapped around Ben's shoulders, tugging him closer. They got lost in each other, hands roaming everywhere, grabbing and pulling at whatever they could reach. You watched from beside Miles, feeling a familiar throb in between your legs as precum spurted again from the slit of Miles’s cock and onto Ben’s belly. 

Ben huffed a laugh as he felt that sticky substance on his skin, “Okay, okay, won't keep you waiting any longer.” Miles' chest heaved up and down, eyes only leaving Ben for a second when you took his hand in yours. “You ready, baby?”

Miles had never nodded his head so fast before, “Please, I need to feel you inside me.”

You kept your gaze locked on Miles as Ben's dick hovered over his entrance, not taking your eyes off him when he shut his to brace for the stretch of Ben’s girthy member. 

You studied the beauty of Miles Miller coming undone. How his mouth opened slightly to whine, and how he bit down his lower lip to hold back an embarrassingly high-pitched whimper as Ben finally pushed inside. Tears of ecstasy escaped his iridescent blue eyes, and his lips glistened in the light, coated with his drool and your slick.

Ben's eyes twisted shut as Miles clenched tightly around him, keeping him close, “You feel amazing, so tight.”

After letting Miles get used to the feeling of being stretched wide, Ben finally tried moving. Miles gripped your hand, hissing as Ben pulled out, only to slam back into him. Miles cried out, the bedframe hitting the wall with a thud as Ben found his rhythm fast. 

With a mischievous smile, you started toying with Miles’s nipple, smiling wider when he moaned, squirming and clenching against Ben as you started rubbing his nub until it hardened. 

Miles whimpered through gritted teeth when you wrapped your lips around his nipple and sucked, “Oh my god! Ugh!” 

Not a single coherent sentence left Miles’s trembling lips as Ben hit his prostate dead on, and you sucked and nipped at his chest, just your name, Ben’s, and various “Oh my god!”s, “Please!”s, and “F-fuck, s-so good!”s leaving the man.

It wasn’t long before Miles cried out, his seed shooting out and spilling all over his chest, even reaching the bottom of his chin as the most intense orgasm he’d ever experienced ran through him. Sobs wracked his body as he felt pure euphoria. 

You immediately soothed him, petting his hair and whispering words of praise and affection as the last of his cum spurted onto his tummy, “You did so good, Miles. S’good for us. Our good boy.” All Miles could do was whimper as you kissed his fallen tears over and over.

Ben was right behind him, grunting into Miles’s neck as his cum flooded the other man’s ass. He had nearly collapsed on top of Miles but caught himself before he could crush him with his body weight.

Ben pulled out and fell to the other side of Miles. Blindly, Miles reached behind him, searching. Ben intertwined his hand with his, pressing his chest against Miles’ back, "Beautiful. You felt so good, so beautiful. You were amazing, bud.”

Heavy breathing and the smell of sex filled the air as all three of you laid in bed together. You quickly cuddled into Miles chest, peppering his neck with light kisses as you watched him start to doze off.is eyes blinked rapidly, trying to stay awake, but the nerves and emotionally-charged conversation from earlier mixed with the most emotionally intense sex he’d ever had basically drained him off all energy.

You stroked his head, shifting up to give him better access to your chest. You held back a moan when Miles immediately latched onto your breast, his sleepy eyes staring up at you for a moment before they fluttered closed, open, and closed again.

Miles wanted to talk. He wanted to discuss next steps, what this meant. Was this just a fling, or something more? Was he meant to stay or get dressed and shamefully make his way back to his lonely cot in the lonely storage closet of the lonely hotel? But his mind could barely dwell on that, too fuzzy and comfortable with the feeling of your breast in his mouth and Ben’s stubble against his shoulder. Without even knowing, Miles fell asleep.

--

Miles wasn’t used to sleeping with another person. Miles had sexual partners in the past, but none that ever stayed long enough for him to wake up in their arms the next morning. Whether it be the sex worker who entertained him after she was done with her clients or his former dealer, who he used to trade drugs for sexual favors with. They all discarded him like yesterday’s trash after they’d gotten their fill.

It’s why when he woke up face-first in Ben' s solid chest, the author’s heart beating in his ears and your naked body pressed against his back, he didn’t know what to do. The comfortability of the environment was foreign to Miles. He felt so… safe. And that scared him.

Instinct made him panic. What if you weren’t expecting him to be here still? But the things you said last night, about wanting him… was it all just a ruse to get him in your bed? No, no you weren’t like that.

Before Miles could make a break for it and wiggle out of your hold, the arms wrapped around him gave him a gentle but firm squeeze. Blue eyes sleepily blinked down at him, before the author buried his nose in Miles’ hair, giving the top of his head a tiny, good morning peck before he snuggled the hotel clerk further.

Ben’s voice, rough and groggy, cut through the air, “Morning cuddles are the best part of the day.”

“Shut up,” You cut in, eyes closed as you pulled yourself impossibly closer to the wide eyed and no longer asleep hotel clerk, “Let me and Miles sleep.”

You yawned right at the end,and that’s when you finally opened your eyes.

Soft. That’s how Miles would describe you in the morning.

Your eyes were soft. Smile soft. Even the way your hand felt as you cupped his cheek was soft.

“You sleep, okay?”

Miles was going to say yes. Yes, he did sleep fine, how about you. Yes, yes, he slept better than he had in months, hell, years. But instead, he said:

“Did you mean it?”

You hummed, thumb still stroking his cheek, “Mean what?”

“L-last night. Y-you said you -”

Miles averted his gaze, the words on the tip of his tongue, but he felt like a bomb would go off in his chest if he finished the sentence. Ben tutted, cupping the other man’s cheek. Miles looked back up, vulnerable.

“Our feelings for you? Yes, without a doubt.”

“We meant every word, Miles.”

Miles sighed in relief, “Thank god.”

You moved to sit up, and Miles followed. He let out a little ‘oof’ when you suddenly straddled his lap. He opened his mouth to say something when you interrupted him with a kiss, “Do you,” You kissed him again, and Miles gasped against your lips as your exposed cunt rubbed right up against his twitching cock, “Have any guests checking in today?”

Miles shook his head, fighting the urge to pull you down and take you right in front of Ben, “N-no one’s on the books to come until Tuesday.”

“Good,” It’s Ben who spoke this time. The author leaned forward, chin resting on your shoulder as you shared a crooked smile with him, before turning to face the doe-eyed, red-faced hotel clerk, “Means we can have you all to ourselves then.”

And have him you did.

It would be hours until any of you left the bed that day. You explored each other’s bodies, learned what made Miles tick, what had him whimpering and begging for more, while Miles learned just how sensitive Ben’s nipples were and what it took to make you squirt.

Once you were near the brink of exhaustion, you finally stopped, collapsed onto one another as you basked in each other’s embrace. That’s when you asked the question. The question you and Ben had rehearsed over and over on how to ask, and the one Miles had been waiting to hear all night.

“Come with us. I know – we know – you have your own life here, but we don’t want to see you every so often, a few times a year. We want to wake up next to you every day and fall asleep with you every night. We know it might be too soon but -”

“Yes.”

You blinked, not expecting him to sound so sure. You thought Miles would need time to think, you were asking him to risk it all, leave his home and everything he knew. “R-really? Are you -”

Miles pulled you down and kissed you, his damp forehead pressing against yours as he muttered against your swollen lips, “Yes. No question about it. There's nothing for me here. I've been wanting to leave for so long, but never had any reason to, but you…” Ben reached up and wiped Miles’s teary eyes, “You’re reason enough.”

Never in his seven years, 10 months and 15 days of service here at the El Royale did Miles ever think he’d be able to escape the clutches of the wretched hotel. Escaping the rooms that brought him so much guilt as he remembered the people he helped blackmail, to break free of the lonely hallways he’d called home for so long. He chucked his orange blazer on the floor of the hotel lobby along with his name tag, not caring that the hotel would remain unmanned without him here. That was management's issue now, not his.

Now he was packed up in your car, his duffle and satchel nestled neatly between your suitcase and Ben's own duffle bag. The author was at the wheel, a boyish smile on his face as his hand squeezed the former hotel clerk’s thigh. You yawned and stretched out your arms like a cat before curling into Miles’s side, head tucked under his neck as you got ready for one of many road trip naps. The fit was a little snug in Ben's car, but it was comfortable enough.

“Here,” Ben tossed Miles the map from the glove compartment, “Mind being my navigator for the next couple of hours?”

Miles shook his head with a grin and opened it up, “Where we headed next?”

Ben smiled, “Well, while we may have found what we were missing in life in Nevada, or were we technically in California,” Miles blushed and smacked Ben’s shoulder, you sleepily mumbling for him to stop at the same time, “I still have to do some research.”

“I thought you said you found the inspiration you were looking for already?”

Ben ruffled Mile’s hair, while Miles just giggled before leaning his head against Ben’s shoulder, “We found what we were missing, but my book, that's a different story. And I figured no place better than to go home.”

Miles cocked a brow, “And where’s home exactly?”

Ben grimaced slightly, “Jerusalem’s Lot up in Maine. Haven’t been there since I was nine, and it’ll take us a couple days, but I have a feeling it’s the right place to be.”

Miles studied the map, his fingers gliding along the highway that'd take you all from here to Maine. There was so much of the country he called home he'd yet to explore, and now, despite the uncertainty, he could, and it was all thanks to you. With an emotional, but optimistic tone of voice, he put the map down and grabbed your hand with one and Ben's thigh with the other, “Well, let’s make the most of it, yeah?”

You squeezed Miles’s hand, nuzzling further into his side, “Yeah baby.”

Ben nodded, smirking as he pressed the button to turn the radio on, “You bet.”

Miles and his new partners in crime had no idea what was ahead of them. He was leaving everything he’s known for the past decade behind for a couple he’d known for less than four months, and slowly falling for ever since, but what was life without risk? It was time for him to take the leap and find out what life had in store for him, away from that little desolate hotel in the middle of nowhere. Now he could find his new home, with you both.

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