Chapter 7

SEVEN

T he rest of the food is just as good as the blueberries and Bruce talks about Maine with a quiet reverence that makes Simon's stomach hurt with its sincerity. He tells Simon about Caerlloyd: the Welsh settlers who built the town from nothing, the people who live here now, and that he moved here nearly eleven years ago.

He finds out that Bruce is thirty-two, which meshes with Simon's internal concept of who the mysterious man is, and he also learns that Bruce has a sister who lives down in Atlanta.

"Why'd you come up here, when your whole family is down south?" Simon asks quietly, full and content. They're laying under the shade of the tree now, Bruce's jacket discarded despite the chilly breeze. Simon can smell him—not in a bad way, just a warm essence of man and smoke resting beside him.If anything, it's a comfort.

"My papa died when I was twenty, and my mom moved in with Blaire and her husband," Bruce answers and stares up at the sky. "He was stationed at Pease, over in New Hampshire, when I was a kid, and I always loved New England. I was already in Vermont for college, but I couldn't do it after he died, so I dropped out and moved to the smallest, most remote coastal town I could find on a map."

"You didn't know anyone beforehand?"

"No," Bruce murmurs. "I met Cricket on day one. I stayed in the Inn, and she got me settled. I started out working in the general store for a woman named Ingrid—she's gone now, but it allowed me to save up and buy the shack by the sea I'm in now."

"Have you always wanted to be a fisherman?" Simon asks.

"Nah," Bruce says and stretches his hand across his wide chest to scratch at his other elbow. "When I was younger, I wanted to be a writer. I even went to college for it. Naive."

"Why?"

Bruce rolls onto his side. They're inches from each other now, the blanket barely big enough for them both to sit, and Simon glances at Bruce's mouth surrounded in thick, dark hair for just a split second.

"Going to college, I mean. Not the degree," Bruce explains. "I'm happy with the life I have now, and I haven't used the half a degree I did finish since my papa died. All that big state school really did was teach me what transgender meant."

Simon snorts and places his hand flat on the blanket, feeling the curve and warmth of the earth below them. "Did you start your transition after moving to Caerlloyd?"

Bruce nods. "Drove to Boston, actually, for my top surgery," he says. "Could've seen you there."

"Could've," Simon echoes. They're so close, now, and Bruce seems to be feeling it too, as he reaches up and rests his hand over Simon's own.

"Simon," he breathes, and Simon stops holding back. This kiss is gentle, not at all the fraught, stormy kisses from the night before. It echoes the breeze tugging at Simon's curls, the wispy clouds above their heads, and the crushed berries that still linger in their mouths, and when Simon pulls back, Bruce reaches up and cups his jaw. "Simon," he repeats.

"Bruce," Simon answers breathlessly.

"Lay back."

Despite the chilly weather, Simon is burning up as Bruce unzips his jeans and gently pulls down his briefs just far enough to reveal his half-hard dick.

"You don't have to—"

"I don't do anything I don't want to do, Simon," Bruce murmurs. "Not anymore." He reaches in and takes Simon in hand, moving his lips to mouth gently at Simon's stubbled jaw. "I want to make you feel good."

Simon swears and reaches up to card his hands through Bruce's curly hair, scrambling to grip some of the longer strands on the very top of his head. Bruce's teeth brush against the point of his jawline and he whimpers despite himself, his hips bucking up into Bruce's calloused grip.

"My big city boy," Bruce mumbles into the skin in front of Simon's ear, "so pretty for me. So willing."

"Bruce," Simon repeats and yanks on the hair in his fist, drawing a low grunt from Bruce's throat. "I want to— I want to—"

"What do you want?"

"I—"

"Do you want to fuck me, Simon?"

" Yes ."

Bruce chuckles against Simon's throat and strokes him in long, slow movements. "I'd let you, I think," he murmurs and drags his rough thumb over the tip. "I haven't let anyone fuck me in years. I haven't told anyone about my dad either, Simon. What is it you're doing to me?"

"Do you—ahh—do you mind?" Simon breathes and pulls Bruce up to look into his sea blue eyes. Bruce looks back, infinitely deep and quietly mournful behind the haze of lust present in his gaze, and slowly shakes his head.

"I wanted to resent you," he whispers, and then they're kissing again. Simon is dizzy with it, desperate with the way Bruce yearns for him, the way he yearns right back. They've barely known each other a few days, but Simon knows he would burn for Bruce.

The lighthouse comes into his mind unbidden, a stark reminder of what they're doing here. The thought flits by: Bruce is surely offering him these honesties— if they are even true at all— in hopes that he'll give in and the lighthouse will be returned to the people of Caerlloyd.

"Simon," Bruce says and it cuts through the nerves, cuts through the thoughts. "Don't think. Just… be, for now. We can talk after."

"How—"

"You think louder than anyone I've ever met," Bruce replies and mouths at his throat. "Let it go, for just a moment. Be here with me."

"Okay," Simon whispers. "Okay."

They fuck slowly. Bruce lays on his back and hooks his ankles around Simon's waist. The mingled scents of blueberries and sex are thick in the air. It's everything Simon could've dreamed—he and Bruce fit together like they were tailor-made, like they're pieces of a puzzle that were separated long ago. They fuck until Bruce is trembling with it, until he can't hold Simon up anymore, and the taller man collapses down onto Bruce's sweaty chest.

The blanket is mussed beneath them and Simon's knee is digging into a stone in the ground but he can't find it in him to care, just as he can't find it in him to care about the lighthouse and their agreement when Bruce is cupping his cheek and kissing him, long and slow, the rasp of his beard against Simon's prickled cheeks intoxicating .

"Cricket knows," Simon whispers after a while, when they're both still breathing a little heavy but the heat has died down to a gentle simmer.

"Hmm?"

"She knows we're fucking. You cut her off, back at the inn," Simon says and presses his ear to Bruce's chest just to hear his heartbeat. "She knew why I didn't come back."

"And?" Buh-dum . Buh-dum . Bruce's pulse is steady, like the tide.

"Why? How?" Simon asks, and he hears an almost imperceptible shift in the larger man's heart rate.

"Cricket has known me for a long time," Bruce says. His voice sits on the breeze like honey spooned and stirred into coffee, gruff and gentle all at the same time. "Over a decade. She knows my tells."

"How?" Simon repeats. He can feel every word Bruce says reverberated through his broad, hairy chest, ported directly into his ear like the best speaker at the loudest concert. His music goes silent for a moment and all he can hear is the air billowing in and out of Bruce's lungs. "If you're comfortable sharing."

"Why did you buy the lighthouse, Simon?"

Simon stills. "What?"

"I'll tell you," Bruce murmurs and drags his fingers down Simon's bare shoulder. "If you tell me something too. Why did you buy Old Grey?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"Humor me, love." Simon flushes down to his roots. His skin feels hot from the endearment, hotter even than he was as he thrust into Bruce minutes before, and he feels his resolve crumble. Somewhere, distantly, he wonders if he's been waiting for Bruce to ask the whole time.

"My best friend," Simon starts, his cheek still pressed to Bruce's strong pectoral, "Moriah. I've known her for years—not as long as you've known Cricket, but a while. I'm not the type to keep friends for decades, I guess. She came to me a few months ago, and she said that I needed to get my shit together."

Bruce snorts and it makes Simon smile despite himself.

"I have bipolar disorder," Simon says quietly, "and ADHD. Not the cute kind, the ‘hot and cold' kind, or the romanticized hyperfixations and quirks, but the truly life ruining, non-functioning kind." It feels like a bigger bomb than it needs to be, but he hasn't admitted how severe his neurodivergency is to anyone but himself without it exploding, just like it did with Mo, in years . "I start projects, I get depressed when they don't turn out how I pictured within a day… I started retiling my apartment bathroom over a year ago, and there's still no floor in there at all."

A warm hand strokes over his shoulders and Simon feels the chill in the air again, as goosebumps rising on his flesh. Bruce wordlessly pulls his flannel off the blanket beside himself and drapes it over Simon's uncovered shoulders.

"My executive dysfunction is so severe that some days taking a shower is fucking medal-worthy," Simon whispers and hides his face. "My apartment is a wreck. I get hyperfocused on something and quit my job to pursue it before getting any good at it at all—I don't keep friends. I don't keep jobs. I don't even keep hobbies."

"Simon," Bruce breathes.

"I've ruined dozens of prospects for myself with time-blindness, with ‘out of sight out of mind', with depressive episodes, with–" Simon swallows and clenches his jaw tight for a moment to regulate the swirl of emotions in his head. "I bought it to prove that I could finish something. I had to show her that I could do the things I said I could do."

"Can you?"

"Of course I can," Simon snaps and rolls off Bruce. He snatches his shirt off the ground and tugs it over his head as a breeze blows. "I'm a fully fucking functioning human adult."

Bruce props himself up on his elbows and raises one thick eyebrow at Simon. "I didn't say you weren't. I just mean, why jump to something this big? Why not… finish your bathroom?"

"Because that doesn't—that project isn't giving me the fucking buzz anymore," Simon says and gestures vaguely around his skull. "The stupid adrenaline, the high of a new fascination—"

"Dopamine," Bruce offers.

"Sure. It doesn't stick around, though," Simon says and pulls his knees to his chest. "The bathroom—doing it would give me nothing. Finishing it might give me a spark, but the process itself is a non-starter. The focus for that project is gone, and I can't figure out how to make myself go back. The lighthouse, though…"

"It's the new headliner."

"All I want to do is research new floor tiles for the stupid fucking bathroom, and price match refrigerators, and buy bulk paint," Simon says and rests his cheek against his knee, peering over the sea of berry bushes in the direction of the lighthouse. Her roof is barely visible, peering up over the sea of green and speckled blue, and a bird takes flight from the very top. "And I need to ride that high until it goes away, but this time, I have to keep going. I have to finish something."

"You haven't mentioned the renovations once since you've been here," Bruce says and sits up, gazing out in the same direction as Simon.

"Because," Simon says and takes a deep breath. "I know that you are the new source of dopamine. The new toy my brain will latch onto and forget about in a day, a week—not that you'd want anything different. You don't want me in Caerlloyd Harbor to begin with."

"I didn't," Bruce agrees. "I might feel differently, now."

"You don't know me," Simon mutters. "I'll turn on you in a fucking heartbeat. I can't help it."

"Maybe," Bruce says and reaches out, taking one of Simon's clasped hands in his own calloused palm. Simon notices dully that he's trembling, his thin fingers vibrating against Bruce's thick, round hand in the cool air. "But maybe we can enjoy what we have, while we have it."

"You'll regret letting me in, even if it's just for these three days," Simon says quietly. His chest is full of that familiar feeling, pulled into the dark trenches of self-loathing and weighed down by the ache of past mistakes and old patterns. "I'll lose interest. You won't be the new, shiny thing, and I'll go."

"But you'll finish the lighthouse?" Bruce asks quietly. There's an unreadable expression on his face. It's too soft for the harsh words Simon is expelling and stone cold at the same time, holding something in and pushing Simon back all at once.

"I will," Simon swears. "I will." He tastes the contradiction.

"Then let me have you while you work, if you've decided still to renovate it."

"Why would you want me if you know I'll leave?"

"Maybe I have a bit of a self-sabotaging streak in me as well," Bruce offers, "or maybe I still think I can change your mind. Or maybe still…" He pulls Simon's hand to his lips, pressing a whiskery whisper of a kiss to his knuckles. "Maybe I just like you, and want to assume the best."

"Then you truly are self-sabotaging," Simon mutters back, but he doesn't withdraw his hand. He can't; Bruce's touch sparks too many receptors in his brain. "Tell me your answer then. How does Cricket know your tells?"

"I was married," Bruce says easily, and the rest of the story flows like the sea. "I wasn't a good husband—or wife, briefly. We had a daughter in a pathetic attempt to fix our failing relationship. I carried her, then I got postpartum depression pretty bad. She… she was a light. That little girl was everything to me, but at the same time I couldn't even look at her. That's when I started smoking more, started drinking even more'n that."

They're still holding hands, and Simon fits his tighter into Bruce's.

"Cassie left. That's really all it is," Bruce says and his fingers twitch. He reaches with his other hand into his jeans—still unbuttoned, despite being pulled back over his hips—and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. "Haven't seen my ex-wife in a few years, or our daughter, but Cricket knew me when I was with her. She saw me happy, I guess, and then she saw me fall apart." He withdraws his hand from Simon's to light his cigarette before tucking the lighter back into the carton and the carton back into his jeans. He breathes in, long and slow, and exhales acrid smoke.

"I'm sorry," Simon says. It's nothing. It doesn't compare to the honesty Bruce just offered him, not even close, but Bruce offers him a crooked smile under a scarred upper lip.

"It's an old wound. Scarred over to hell, by now," he says, but there's a sadness in his tone that even Simon can hear.

"You haven't seen your daughter?"

"No. Not for… eight years, now. She'll be almost nine," he says and takes another long drag. "Rosemary is her name. Little Rosie."

"Fuck. Don't you want to?"

Bruce looks at him. "Don't you want to finish a project?"

The ash from his cigarette falls into the wind.

"Christ, yeah, I do," Simon mutters and rubs his eyes. "I… I understand, I think."

"I don't think anyone does," Bruce retorts. "I don't think anyone really understands anyone, but it's what we got. Empathy. Optimism. Tryin', you know?"

Simon is silent. Smoke plumes from Bruce's lips, careful rings twirling up into the cloudless sky, and Maine's clean sea air and salt-scent takes them home.