Page 24 of Weathering The Storm

The best they’ve ever been.

Nick drains the rest of his brandy, setting his glass aside, and reclining all the way. One knee bent. I finish my drink too and lie beside him, cushioning his head with my arm while the boat rises and falls with the tranquil motions of the water.

The warm clouds of our breath rise, tangling and swirling. Hanging low without any breeze to carry them away.

I catch the movement then. The faint glimmer of green that’s been bending across the sky intensifies. Bright streaks of lime and seafoam appear.

Nick points it out at the same time as I do, as if the colors aren’t impossible to miss. Dancing and jumping and consuming the night. We both grow quiet, wonderstruck as the substorm expands and strengthens.

At first, I watch it play out above us. But then I see what all those flickering hues look like reflected in the stormy gray of Nick’s eyes, and it’s hard to imagine I ever found the Aurora so beautiful in any other way.

“I don’t know why I haven’t told my parents,” he says eventually. “I’ve never felt judgment from them, but I guess I’ve always felt… pressure. A lot of it. Pressure to know the answers and to do the right thing. Pressure to be perfect.”

I’m glad he feels like he can tell me, even though that pressure isn’t the invisible force he thinks it is. I’ve seen it weighing on him all along.

“From your dad?” I ask.

“I don’t think all of it was from him. Or, maybe it started there, and then I put ten times more pressure on myself than he ever did. But I understand why he pushed me so hard. He worried about me. He wanted me to be safe.

“I know it has nothing to do with my sexuality, but my sexualityfeltlike an imperfection, for so long. For so long, I wished I could be someone else. But if I couldn’t change, then I convinced myself I needed to make up for who I am, somehow. I used to think I needed a real reason to tell them—a serious relationship, something to prove I wasn’t… defective.

“So that’s what I kept waiting for. Only, it never happened. And hooking up with people in secret only made me feel more like a failure. Like I didn’t matter. The longer I waited, the harder it got to say anything.” He sighs through his nose. “And here we are.”

“Here we are.” I scoot closer, squeezing his neck with my bicep as I drape my forearm over his chest. “I’m happy you are who you are. You are thefurthestthing from a failure. And you matter to me, Nicky.”

He smiles serenely. Acceptingly, I hope. His fingertips trace my knuckles. “Sometimes I wish my family was the type to pressure me about marriage and grandkids, just so I could finally have an excuse to say something.”

“Careful what you wish for. My mom’s still on my ass to get married anyway. Used to remind me about adoption and surrogacy too, until Audrey started asking us all to babysit and she remembered how much work those things are.”

Nick laughs softly, still watching the sky. “What ever happened to your boyfriend?”

“Leo? We were only together for a year. Didn’t really have anything in common, apart from being the only gay guys at school. When I told him I was dropping out, he asked me to move to California with him. He couldn’t wait to get out of Alaska. Never felt like he could truly be himself here.”

“And you didn’t think about going?”

“Nah.” I trace the side of Nick’s hand with my thumb. “I hope he found what he was looking for there, but this is where I feel like my true self. Guess I held out hope that I’m not the only one—that eventually, I’d meet someone who loves this place like I do. Someone who makes it feel even more like home.”

If he can tell I’m describing him, he doesn’t let on, but he does turn his head toward me.

The cold tip of his nose knocks into mine, both of us laughing at the abruptness of it. His hand slides up to the side of my neck, and I close the rest of the space. Fusing my lips to his.

The kiss goes on languidly. An exchange of body heat and comfort. A bid for long-denied closeness. Our sweats pad the press of our bodies, skin rapidly warming as our brandy-tinged breaths fan each other’s faces.

“Do you want to go back to—?”

Nick doesn’t get the chance to finish that question—the question I really,reallywant him to finish—because there’s some drunkard booming down the ramp to the dock, improvising his own sea shanty. Loudly.

A drunkard that sounds suspiciously like Konrad Jorgensen.

Nick jerks upright, shuffling to put some space between us before he shrinks under the realization that they’re nowhere near close enough to see us. “Sorry.”

“You’re fine.” I sigh as I sit up, stretching my shoulders. “Jorgensen, on the other hand, is gonna be scrubbing the live tanks tomorrow.”

Nick laughs.

“Do you think crabs can get wasted?” Jorg asks when he’s finished serenading the entire fucking harbor.

“How are they s’posed to drink when they’reun-der-wa-ter?” Zach enunciates.