Colt and Ash's Spring Break 5

“We’ll distract him,” Colt said. “I’ve got an idea.”

Pops had said not to. But Pops hadn’t known things were going to go sideways. Which was why a few minutes later, Colt and Ash were stumbling up the path, hands all over each other, laughing and trying to sound drunk. They’d both seen plenty of people get wasted at parties. And they’d both had too much to drink themselves. Ash had gotten really clingy and then spent the rest of the night throwing up. When it had been Colt, Ash said he liked to start things. Start what, Colt had asked. Trouble.

They were starting trouble now.

Ash’s mouth was stiff under Colt’s lips. He forced his laughs. His hands clutched Colt’s arms instead of caressing, and he plucked at the tank like he was trying to rip it off, not like he was getting a little too handsy. If it rips, how will I explain it to Pops? He never misses anything.

Colt’s own touches landed a little too hard as he backed up the path. His body didn’t respond the way it normally did. Ash’s face got fuzzy, even though they were close enough that they bonked foreheads more than once. And beyond Ash, the beach and the water shrank down to impressions. Abstract. Like all the art they had to memorize in class at the end of the semester. He leaned in for a kiss, mashed his mouth against Ash’s, and moaned.

And Ash, the dumbass, started to giggle. A real giggle. Not the this-is-for-show stuff. Not trying to fool this guy, whoever he was, that they were just a couple of drunk, horny teenagers messing around. This was the real stuff, the dorky side Ash never showed anybody else, unless you counted Levi. He was giggling so hard that his knees folded, and Colt had to catch him. Momentum kept them staggering backward up the path, sand sliding out from under their flip-flops.

A wave of lightheadedness washed over Colt. Ash stumbled and flung his arms around Colt’s neck, and Colt lurched and barely caught himself to keep them both from going down. Now a laugh was working its way through Colt, and his knees softened, and he sagged against Ash so that they were holding each other up.

“Oh my God,” Colt whispered—tried to whisper—through the giggles. “Dumbass! Stand up!”

Not that he was doing much better on his own. Ash didn’t seem to notice, though. He was laughing so hard that he was crying, and somehow he managed to get out the words, “This is just like the dance.”

The dance where neither of them had known how to dance. The two of them not quite brave enough, not yet, to touch either. And trying to spend every second in each other’s space anyway, like nobody would notice. One time, they’d bumped butts without even meaning too, and they’d both started laughing so hard they’d ended up in the folding chairs next to the refreshments.

Another wave of laughter made Colt melt, but somehow, even with Ash hanging on him, he managed to keep moving.

“Dumbass,” he tried to whisper again, and he got his fingers into the waistband of Ash’s shorts and tried to drag him upright. But that only made him laugh harder, and Colt had to fight to get the word out again as he gave Ash a shake: “Dumbass!”

The crunching sound of sand being compressed broke through what, a part of Colt recognized, was actually a minor freak-out. Something like electricity ran through Colt—his shoulders down to his fingertips, his chest down to his balls. He stood up straighter, but not too straight. The world came back together out of that fuzzy, abstract removal: the tumble-crash of the waves, a gull low over the sand and throwing a moon shadow, and that unmistakable awareness that behind him was another living being. Looking at them. Watching. Colt couldn’t see the man, but he knew the way he could tell if a teacher was looking sometimes—this guy was focused on them now.

Ash must have felt it too. His laughter dried up, and with his arms around Colt, he turned his attention to kissing him again. Light, dry kisses like paper. Or like paper cuts, maybe, because they scraped Colt’s lips and left him feeling raw. Ash was sweating, and the sweat had activated his deodorant. It was the smell of football camp in the summer, and baseball camp over spring break. It was the smell when they were under Ash’s comforter, and they were getting a little too worked up with each other, even though the door was open. It was like someone set Colt upright, and his feet connected to the ground, and a line ran straight from the crown of his head all the way to his soles, like he was balanced again.

Bringing his mouth to Colt’s ear, Ash nibbled on his ear lobe, which still made Colt’s dick pop in spite of everything. But then Ash breathed, “Your left. Now.”

Colt stepped left. He made the move appear accidental—like he brought his foot down wrong. Then he let himself rock backward.

A man shouted, “Hey!”

Ash tried to slow his fall, but Colt’s stumble was a little too real. Ash’s grip slipped, and Colt slammed backward into the man. They hit the ground together, the sand cushioning their fall except where Colt banged his shin on a rock and something jabbed him from behind.

Something on the man.

Something hard. Unyielding. Tucked into his waistband.

A gun.

In the distance, faint, hurried footsteps pattered against the sand.

Or was that Colt’s imagination?

“Mister,” Ash was saying in the voice he used with adults, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, Mister.”

“Get the fuck off me!” the man was shouting, shoving Colt.

Colt tried to make it take as long as he could, turning against the man’s shoves like he was confused, shaking his head, trying to get himself upright first one way and then another.

With a frustrated grunt, the man rolled Colt off him and got to his feet.

“Please don’t tell my dad,” Ash was babbling. “Oh my God, he’d kill me if he knew—please, mister!”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” He was a big guy with a beard and a belly, and the gun in his waistband winked: chrome and moonlight. “Get the fuck out of here! Watch where you’re fucking going!”

“I’m so sorry, sir,” Ash said, catching Colt’s arm and drawing him up the path. “We’re really sorry!”

“Fuck off! Fuck off! Stupid fucking kids!”

They put five feet between them and the man.

Ten feet.

The darkness closed around them in the narrow passage between the transfer station and the building next to it. Colt’s shin stung. Someone—a lot of someones—had used this place, not visible from the street, to pee.

Ash’s breaths came in ragged gulps like he was about to cry.

“I’m okay,” Colt whispered. “We’re okay.”

Ash nodded, the movement floppy, too loose.

“Did she make it?”

In answer, Ash’s grip tightened. Ahead of them, Biz emerged from the end of the shadowed passageway and into the dust-colored light of the sidewalk. She sprinted toward the silver sedan.

Colt pulled Ash into a jog; time to get lost.

But it was like a bad joke. The girl driving the sedan—Josie—hadn’t noticed Biz and was still rolling forward, nerves making her go a little too quickly for Biz to catch up. And although Biz was waving her arms, trying to catch Josie’s attention, Biz didn’t shout or call out—afraid, Colt guessed, of drawing the wrong attention. As Colt and Ash reached the sidewalk, Colt slowed. He stared.

Come on. Come on!

Movement came at the corner of Colt’s vision, and a hand closed on his shoulder.

“Hey, let me get a look at you—” the man from the path said. And then: “Biz?”

Ash caught the man—and Colt—by surprise. He set his feet, dropped his body weight, fingertips brushing the concrete for balance. Under the tank, his shoulder blades drew together. And then he launched himself forward: propelling himself with power from his hips to his knees and driving his whole body into the man like he meant to put his shoulder through him.

It was a perfect tackle.

Breath exploded from the man’s lungs. He made a sick, watery noise, and Colt—out of instinct more than anything else—spun away from him. For a moment, the man’s grip held. Then the strap of Colt’s tank snapped, and Colt was free.

Ash, however, was just getting started. He drove the man backward until they collided with the side of the transfer station. The man’s head cracked against the wall, and he huffed—like the air was trying to leave him again, only there wasn’t any air left. His knees buckled, and he would have fallen if Ash hadn’t still been trying to pound him through the wall.

“Bruh,” Colt said, grappling with Ash, trying to pull him off. “Bruh, you got him. Let’s go!”

Ash’s head whipped around. His eyes were blank. And then he was Ash again, staring at Colt, confused, a little scared.

Colt pulled, and Ash came with him.

They ran down the sidewalk. Ahead of them, Biz climbed into the sedan. The car pulled a u-ey sharp enough to make the tires squeal, and then it was speeding off toward the bridge, away from the island.

Colt looked back.

The man lay on the ground. One arm was moving weakly, like he was trying to flag someone down.

Colt and Ash ran until the transfer station disappeared into the hazy light behind them. They ran until they were gasping for air. They ran until Colt finally had to stop, bending over, hands on his knees, trying not to puke.

When the stitch in his side eased, he straightened. Ash was pacing, shaking out his hands. The light caught the unshed tears in his eyes like little flashes of glass.

“You okay?” Colt asked. “Ash? Ashley?”

Ash finally shook his head. One of the tears slid down his cheek. He shook his head again when Colt touched him, but he let Colt draw him into a hug.

“You did so good, baby,” Colt whispered. “You were amazing.”

Ash kept shaking his head. Inside the circle of Colt’s arms, he was trembling.

Slowly, though, he grew still.

“Did you hurt yourself?” Colt asked.

Ash shook his head.

“Your shoulder?”

Another negative. He started to shake out his hands again, the way he did sometimes after catching too many fastballs.

“What’s going on with your hands?” Colt asked. He stepped back, inspected one, checked the knuckles, probed the palm. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” Ash said. His voice cracked. “I don’t know.”

So, Colt rubbed his hands for a while. One of those little Smart cars rolled past, speakers pounding with club music. And overhead, the streetlight buzzed, while bugs flitted around it. As the heat leached out of Colt, goose bumps crawled up his skin, and he started to shiver. The torn strap of his tank left his shoulder bare.

“I’m okay,” Ash finally whispered. But he started to cry again. This time, he blinked the tears away and gave a furious shake. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, babe. It was scary. It was fucking terrifying. I’m still scared.” Colt brought Ash’s hand to his chest, to his heart. “See?”

“You didn’t act scared,” Ash said. And there was an unfamiliar stiffness to the words that a part of Colt realized, with a flash of understanding he couldn’t quite put into words, was embarrassment.

This time, Colt pulled Ash’s arms around him, nudging and urging until Ash got the message and held him.

“That’s because I was with you,” Colt whispered. And then, “Bruh, I cannot fucking believe you started laughing.”

For the first time since they’d ran, Ash looked like Ash, trying not to be such a dork. “Bruh, it wasn’t my fault! You were grabbing my butt like—” And then Ash froze. “Oh my shits,” he whispered. “What are we going to tell your dads?”

“They’re probably asleep,” Colt said. He checked his phone, and to his amazement, he didn’t have any missed calls or messages. “We can just sneak in.”

“Bruh, if we sneak in, your pops is going to know.”

Colt wasn’t sure about that; he’d managed to sneak out plenty of times without Pops knowing. But Ash had this thing where he thought Pops was basically the Terminator.

“We should just come back like we always do,” Ash said. “We’ll make a lot of noise. They’ll get super annoyed, but they’ll think everything’s normal.”

It’s time to face the music—or, hopefully, not. How will the dynamic duo return to the hotel? Sneak into the room and hope not to be noticed? Or try to bluff by acting like everything’s normal?