Swim At Your Own Risk
Four Tides to Forever
SWIM AT YOUR OWN RISK. The letters are chipped, the metal bent at one corner like someone took a swing at it and missed. It’s bolted to a wooden post that’s been bleached gray by too many summers, and it stands at the top of the path where the boardwalk gives way to sand. I’ve read it a hundred times. Maybe more. It says the same thing every time, which is the only honest thing about it.
The heat today is stupid. It’s the kind of heat that sits on your shoulders like a wet blanket, that makes your shirt stick to your back before you’ve even walked a block. I’ve been in this beach town for three days, and every afternoon hits the same: the sun gets mean around two, the air gets thick and still, and the ocean starts looking less like water and more like a dare.
I’m sun-drunk and restless. Too hot to think straight. My skin feels tight, my head feels fuzzy, and the only thing that makes sense is getting wet.
So I read the sign. I smirk. And I keep walking.
The sand is hot enough to burn through the soles of my flip-flops. I kick them off at the edge of the wet zone and let my toes sink into the cooler stuff underneath. There aren’t many people out. A family with a screaming toddler. Two old women under an umbrella, reading paperbacks and not talking. A guy throwing a tennis ball for a golden retriever that never seems to get tired.
And then there’s him.
He’s standing at the sign. Not reading it, exactly. More like he’s stopped there, one hand on the post, looking out at the water like he’s trying to decide something. He’s got dark hair, cut short, and a jaw that could cut glass. Broad shoulders. A white t-shirt that’s already clinging to his chest. He’s not looking at me.
But I’m looking at him.
I slow down. Not on purpose. It just happens, the way your foot eases off the gas when you see something worth paying attention to. He’s got that thing. That quality that makes you stop, makes you look, makes you wonder what his voice sounds like and whether he’d laugh at your jokes.
He turns his head. Sees me.
And we share this look. It lasts a beat too long. The kind of look that feels like a dare.
I don’t know what he sees. A guy my age, maybe a little younger. Messy brown hair that needs a cut. A lean frame that’s been called wiry and lanky and, once, by a girl in college, “built like a question mark.” I’m wearing board shorts and nothing else. My sunglasses are pushed up on my head. I probably look like every other tourist who wandered down here without a plan.
But his eyes stay on mine. And mine stay on his.
He smirks first. Just a little. Just enough.
I smirk back.
And then I keep walking toward the water, because what else am I supposed to do? Stand there and stare at him until we both turn to salt? The waves are breaking about twenty yards out. The water looks gray-green and cold, which is exactly what I need.
I hear his footsteps behind me before I see him. The soft crunch of sand, then the splash as he hits the wet zone. He’s walking the same direction. Toward the water. Toward the same patch of ocean I’m heading for.
I don’t look back. But I know he’s there.
The first wave hits my ankles and I suck in a breath. It’s cold. Colder than I expected. The kind of cold that makes your bones ache for a second before you get used to it. I keep walking. The water climbs up my calves, my knees, my thighs. I’m already shivering, but it feels good. It feels like the heat is being peeled off my skin.
I hear him hit the water behind me. A splash, a sharp exhale. He’s not wasting time either.
I dive under.
The cold hits my face, my chest, my whole body. It’s a shock. A good one. The kind that clears your head and makes you remember you’re alive. I stay under for a few seconds, let the salt water sting my eyes, let the silence press against my ears. When I surface, I’m twenty feet out, treading water, blinking the salt out of my vision.
He’s right there.
Not close enough to touch. But close. Maybe ten feet away. He’s floating on his back, arms spread, eyes closed. The water lifts him up and down with the swell. He looks completely at ease, like he was born in the ocean.
I watch him for a second. I can’t help it.
He opens his eyes. Looks at me. That smirk again.
“Cold,” he says.
His voice is lower than I expected. Rough. Like he just woke up or just got done yelling.
“Yeah,” I say. “Feels good though.”
He nods. Pushes himself upright, starts treading water. We’re both moving, both keeping ourselves afloat, but neither of us is swimming away. The space between us feels charged. Like static electricity before a storm.
He dips under. Comes up closer.
“Tourist?” he asks.
“Guilty.”
“Where from?”
“City. About four hours north.”
He nods like that makes sense. “Here for the week?”
“Few more days. You?”
“Live here.”
“Lucky.”
He shrugs. “It’s a town. Same shit, different view.”
I laugh. It comes out easier than I expected. He’s got this way about him. Relaxed. Unbothered. Like nothing in the world could make him hurry.
A wave rolls in, bigger than the others. It lifts us both, drops us. When I come back up, he’s closer. Five feet. Maybe less.
“Your sign’s a liar,” I say.
“What sign?”
“Back there. The swim at your own risk one.”
He looks toward the beach, then back at me. “It’s not a liar. People drown here all the time.”
“Really?”
“Rip currents. Undertow. Tourists who don’t know what they’re doing.” He says it flat, like he’s reciting a fact. “But the water’s fine today.”
“So the risk is low.”
“The risk is always there. You just decide if it’s worth it.”
The way he says it. The way his eyes hold mine. I know we’re not talking about swimming anymore.
I don’t look away. “And how do you decide?”
He moves closer. Not a big movement. Just a shift, a drift, the current doing half the work. His shoulder brushes mine. The contact is brief, but it sends a jolt through me that has nothing to do with the cold.
“I pay attention,” he says. “I figure out what I want. And then I take it.”
My heart is pounding. I can feel it in my throat, my chest, the tips of my fingers. The water is cold but I’m not cold anymore. I’m burning.
“Yeah?” My voice sounds different. Rougher. Hungrier.
“Yeah.”
He reaches out. Under the water. His hand finds my hip. His fingers curl around the waistband of my board shorts. It’s a light touch. Testing. Asking.
I answer by moving closer.
Our chests press together. The water sloshes around us, hiding everything below the surface. His hand stays on my hip. Mine finds his shoulder. His skin is warm despite the cold water. Warm and solid and real.
“We shouldn’t,” he says.
“Probably not.”
“But I want to.”
“Me too.”
That’s all it takes. That’s the whole conversation. Two strangers in the ocean, a beat too long, a hand on a hip, and a shared understanding that this is happening. Whatever this is. Whatever it becomes.
He kisses me first.
His mouth is cold and then it’s warm. The salt on his lips tastes like the ocean. Like summer. Like something I didn’t know I was missing until this second. His hand tightens on my hip, pulling me closer, and I let him. I let him because I want to. Because I’ve been hot and restless and too hot to think straight, and this is the only thing that makes sense.
We break apart. Breathe. Look at each other.
“Follow me,” he says.
He turns and starts swimming, a slow, steady stroke that cuts through the water. I follow. I don’t ask where we’re going. I don’t care. The sun is still high, the water is still cold, and there’s a man in front of me who kissed me like he meant it.
He leads me around a curve in the coastline. Past a jetty of black rocks. Toward a cove I didn’t know was here. The beach narrows, the cliffs rise up on either side, and suddenly the noise of the main beach is gone. No screaming kids. No barking dogs. Just the sound of waves hitting rock and our own breathing.
He stops where the water is shallow enough to stand. The bottom is sandy here, soft under my feet. The cliffs block out most of the sun, leaving the cove in shadow. It’s cooler. Quieter. Private.
He turns to face me. Water drips from his hair, runs down his face, his neck, his chest. He’s breathing hard from the swim. So am I.
“Better,” he says.
“What is?”
“This.” He gestures at the cove, at the cliffs, at the space between us. “No one comes here.”
“Good.”
He steps closer. His hands find my waist. Mine find his chest. His skin is slick and warm and I can feel his heartbeat under my palm. Fast. Steady. Matching mine.
We don’t talk after that.
We don’t need to.
He kisses me again, and this time there’s nothing tentative about it. His mouth is open, hungry, demanding. His tongue slides against mine and I make a sound I didn’t know I was capable of. A low, desperate sound that gets swallowed by the waves.
His hands move. Down my sides. Over my hips. Around to my ass. He grips me, hard, pulls me against him. I can feel him through the water, through the fabric of our shorts. He’s hard. I’m hard. We’re both hard and we’re both done pretending.
I push his shorts down. He kicks them off. They float away, disappear, who cares. His hands are on the waistband of mine, pushing, pulling, and then I’m naked too. Skin to skin. Chest to chest. Nothing between us but water and want.
I crush my mouth to his, a desperate, hungry thing. No more hesitation. He meets me with equal force, his lips parting, his tongue finding mine. It’s a messy, perfect kiss, all teeth and need and the taste of lake water. We’re devouring each other, hands roaming, gripping, pulling each other impossibly closer.
He breaks the kiss, panting, his eyes dark and fixed on mine. Without a word, he puts a firm hand on my shoulder and pushes down. I sink to my knees, the water swirling around my chest. His cock juts out, thick and perfect, flushed a deep rose. I lean in and take him into my mouth.
