Nik hadn’t actually thought anywhere in Phoenix could be pretty, at least in a non-landscaped, rock garden and cacti kind of way. He supposed it had to do with the fact that he’d been there over a month, and had never bothered to go anywhere other than the office and the Center, all in populated areas.
“You’re telling me there’s an actual lake out here?” he asked doubtfully, peering out the window at the scraggly landscape surrounding the car. The narrow road wound past low mountains, scattered with a wild thrall of barrel cactus, Saguaros, yucca and aloe plants, and something Tiernan said was a Jumping Cholla and warned him to stay far away from. Nik didn’t need telling twice, with the angry-looking balls of spikes hanging off the cactus.
Tiernan smiled and rolled down the window, hot air rushing in and clashing with the air conditioning. “Phoenix actually has several lakes, believe it or not. Bartlett is my favorite, though.”
They’d been driving for almost an hour already, and Nik wasn’t sure how he’d been talked into this. Maybe because Tiernan woke him up at six AM on a Saturday and he hadn’t been fully aware of what he was agreeing to, or maybe because the thought of getting out of the city for a day, to photograph something other than pools and city lights was too appealing to resist. Since he’d been there, the only things he’d photographed had been Tiernan — not that he was complaining. He could easily spend hours admiring Tiernan’s body, the way it caught the light when wet, but those were for work. They weren’t photos he would post on his website, photos that really said something.
Turning from the window, Nik watched Tiernan. The air conditioning ruffled his hair and Nik couldn’t see his eyes behind his sunglasses. They were out here, alone, spending a whole day together. It made a part of Nik nervous, the realization that this wasn’t just fucking. He didn’t know when that had happened.
He’d never had a real boyfriend, in the typical way everyone expected people to date. There had been a few hookups in college, but never anyone he’d wanted to call Rae and tell her about. Rae was his measuring stick. He told her everything, or he used to, so if it wasn’t important enough to tell her, it wasn’t important.
He hadn’t told her about Tiernan, he thought, turning his gaze back out the window. It would just be another nail in the coffin to Rae, that he was doing so well away from home, without her and the responsibility of Mom.
What struck him most was that he wanted to tell her about Tiernan. He wanted her thoughts on what all this meant — spending days together at a lake, that night in the pool at Trials. She would know what he was supposed to do afterwards, after sex. He’d never been good at that, but Rae always seemed to have an answer.
Every time he thought about calling or texting, just asking, he stopped himself. They’d spend five minutes on Nik, then another ten on everything else at home and Nik would hang up feeling guilty and angry. He didn’t want to feel that way, so he didn’t call. Avoidance was what Rae would have called it if he’d bothered to tell her.
The car turned down a narrowly-paved road, past a sign that read, “Rattlesnake Cove.”
“‘Rattlesnake Cove,’” Nik said, staring out at the ground around the car. He didn’t see any snakes. “That’s reassuring.”
Tiernan smiled and patted his leg as they drove downhill and a glittering blue lake came into view as they rounded a corner.
The water dazzled a bright blue, reflecting the cloudless sky, and a short sandy beach swept down to the water. On the other side, peaked mountains (hills, Nik allowed) rose up, dotted with scrub bushes and cacti. Tiernan pulled into the small parking lot, up to a little row of shaded picnic tables, and turned off the car.
Nik shielded his eyes as he got out of the car. Tiernan went around to the back and pulled out a cooler and a backpack.
“I brought sunscreen,” he said, rounding the car to Nik’s side and giving him a playful nudge. “Not sure your skin has ever seen the sun. Don’t want you to burst into flames.”
Nik had heard it all before, so he just rolled his eyes and followed Tiernan down to the beach. The sand burned his feet where it got around his shoes and the sun beat down on them, cheerfully bright.
“How do you stand it?” Nik asked as Tiernan pulled out two towels from his bag and laid them on the sand.
“Stand what?”
“No clouds.” He gestured upwards. He could swear he’d only seen clouds once or twice since coming there. “It’s weird.”
Tiernan shrugged. “It’s the desert. Come here and take off your shirt or you’ll get heatstroke.”
Nik sat down on the towel, fiddling with his camera as Tiernan pulled out the sunscreen and began lathering it on. Nik had been prudent and worn a t-shirt today, had left his jacket in the apartment. He wasn’t sold on this lake swimming thing, since his swimming abilities amounted to doggy paddling and one very short backstroke lesson. He’d rather wander around in the desert and take some photos. His camera bag sat on the sand next to him, baking under the sun.
“You’re gonna document this moment, right?” Tiernan asked, handing him the sunscreen and tugging at his shirt until Nik let him pull it off. It was different than when Tiernan pulled it off before sex. This was simple, an easy gesture not meant to lead to anything else, comfortable. He liked the way Tiernan’s fingertips grazed over his stomach, up his ribcage as he skimmed the shirt off. “You not wearing all black?”
“I wear other colors,” Nik protested, flipping open the sunscreen and putting it on. Even with his Greek genes, he still burned like a red-headed kid in the sun. He obviously hadn’t gotten the good genes.
“White, grey,” Tiernan allowed, pulling out his phone. “Let’s take a selfie.”
“Selfie?” Nik asked, shooting him a disapproving look at which Tiernan laughed.
“Okay, so it’s not as distinguished as your photography, but we’re still young enough to get away with the narcissism of our generation. Come here.” Leaning over, Tiernan slid his arm around Nik and pressed a kiss to his cheek as the camera clicked. “Besides, selfies are just another art of self-expression. And cheaper than oil paintings.”
“You’re not going to post that online, are you?” Nik asked apprehensively. If Rae ever saw it, he’d never live down not telling her first.
“I’ve learned my lesson about posting shit like this online,” Tiernan assured him. “Once it’s out there, you can’t take it back. Press goes crazy for dating rumors.”
Nik wasn’t sure what to say to that. Were they dating? Is that what this was? “Yeah,” he said instead, checking his phone as Tiernan texted him the photo. “Jennifer would be really upset if someone else got a scoop before her.”
“So you haven’t told her then?” Tiernan asked, spreading out on the towel. Where Nik’s skin was naturally darker, Tiernan’s was tanned by the sun to match. He wasn’t wearing the usual skin-tight swim shorts today but looser trunks that left quite a bit more to the imagination than usual.
“What’s to tell?” Nik said, chancing a quick glance at Tiernan. He hadn’t told anyone what they were doing. He wasn’t sure what they were doing anymore. Maybe it had never been clear.
Tiernan shrugged after a minute, eyes on the lake, and Nik couldn’t see his expression behind his sunglasses.
“That you think I’m hot and can’t keep your hands off me,” he said simply then grinned, leaning over to kiss Nik soundly. “Come on. I’ll teach you another stroke.”
Nik couldn’t help smiling as Tiernan rose and held out a hand. “A swim stroke, you mean?”
“Either’s good.”
It was the first Saturday in a long time Nik hadn’t spent home alone and he let himself laugh as Tiernan splashed into the water ahead of him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had just let go. School was all about studying and making sure he could afford to pay his tuition. Any free time he had outside of school and work, he spent doing photography, but that was mostly a solo act. He had friends at school, but they were all broke like him, so a Saturday night was usually spent watching a movie or playing Mario Cart in a dorm room that smelled like socks.
“You coming?” Tiernan called back to the shore, up to his waist in the water already.
Kicking off his shoes, Nik stepped into the water and smiled at the way it lapped at his feet, a gentle invitation.
“Yeah,” he said and waded in.
It was entirely cliché, Nik thought as he straddled Tiernan’s hips, camera poised to capture Tiernan’s face and his chest against the bright towel underneath him. Like some sappy romantic movie that Rae always wanted to watch.
“You’re not going to put these on the magazine’s blog, right?” Tiernan asked, though Nik wasn’t sure Tiernan would completely mind the thought of people ogling his body.
“These are just for me,” he replied, ignoring the cheeky arch to Tiernan’s eyebrow, the smirk at the corner of his mouth.
“I bet they are,” he said but he didn’t stop Nik from taking another photo.
Leaning back, Nik adjusted the settings on the camera. The sun was too bright — it wasn’t really the right time for photos, but part of his job was to work with whatever light he had. He paused as he felt Tiernan’s hands slide to his thighs, but kept working.
Taking photographs was a lot of work, a lot of thought had to be put into every shot, much more than Nik had ever imagined when he’d gotten his first camera, an old camera phone with no service. Every new thing he learned, he filed away like treasure in a chest.
“Have you ever had one?” Tiernan asked as Nik tested the shot. He wanted to capture the shadow now that the sun had moved into the west.
“One what?” He focused the lens on Tiernan’s eyes, stormy green, speckled with blue and gold at this resolution. He rose up on his knees to get the leverage, snapping a few shots of Tiernan’s open expression, relaxed with a hint of a smile.
“A boyfriend.”
Nik lowered the camera for a second but shook his head. “Not really.” That was probably why he had no idea what the fuck he was doing with Tiernan. “Have you?”
“A few, but nothing serious.”
“So what are you supposed to do with a boyfriend?” Nik asked after a second, partially curious, partially nervous at the way this was going.
Tiernan smiled, shading his eyes. “Stupid stuff. Make the other watch your favorite movie, order too much take-out, admit your stupid obsession with 00s TV shows, sleep in on the weekends, hang out downtown for no reason at all.”
“Isn’t that what you would do with any friend?” Not that Nik would know. His friends in Chicago were all art students who spent their time working on pieces or else figuring out a way to get drunk on ten dollars.
“But with a boyfriend, you get to do all those things and have sex. It’s like friendship but better.”
The way Tiernan described it, it sounded perfect. Relaxed, not demanding, a nice way to spend time. Movies always made it seem so dramatic. Nik was beginning to realize he hadn’t had much exposure to real life things.
“What about friends with benefits?”
“Never works.” Tiernan shook his head, pushing himself up when it became apparent Nik wasn’t taking any more photos. Nik scooted back to let him sit up, fiddling with the camera. “Either you fuck and you aren’t friends or you just go for it.”
Nik could feel his heart beating faster at the implication. They were definitely more than just fucking at this point or he wouldn’t be here, at this lake, with Tiernan, laughing and having fun.
“So…” he said at length, unsure what to do, tensing slightly, eyebrows furrowed. Did that mean they were more than friends?
“So,” Tiernan echoed, pushing back Nik’s hair, almost dry now. “What’s your favorite movie?”
It was that simple. To go from nothing to something. It didn’t hit him like a shock, like a panicked moment in which he scrambled to figure out what to do. Instead it was a wave of something warm and soft, drawing him into Tiernan like that was what Tiernan had meant to do all along.
His body un-tensed and he sat back on the towel. “Moonrise Kingdom,” he said at last, and at Tiernan’s confused frown, he shook his head. “It’s this weird old movie. One day when I was eight, I didn’t want to go home after school so I snuck into this theater.”
“Bad boy,” Tiernan teased, dropping down his sunglasses.
“It was one of those pretentious independent theaters, you know? And they were playing this movie. For an eight year old, it was a pretty weird movie, but it was kinda nice. It’s set in, like, the 60s and these two kids run away on an island to be together, but they’re only ten so, you know, nothing happens. I don’t know. I just liked it.”
Nik remembered sitting in the theater, enthralled with the cinematography, watching these kids his age take matters into their own hands. He’d gone home and looked up all the gifs and pictures he could find from the movie and hoarded them away, like his own little picture show of beautiful camera shots. Up to that point, he hadn’t realized movies could be so beautiful.
“We should watch it,” Tiernan said, sliding an arm around Nik’s shoulders.
“Okay,” he agreed, letting himself lean into Tiernan. It was that easy. “So what’s your favorite movie?”
“Terminator,” Tiernan said, and Nik scoffed.
“Liar.”
“Okay, fine, it’s totally She’s The Man,” Tiernan admitted, elbowing Nik when he couldn’t help laughing. “What? I told you I had a thing for 00s. My sister used to watch it all the time. Plus I was in love with Channing Tatum before I even knew what gay was.”
“We can watch that too,” Nik assured him, smiling at the happy flutter in his stomach as Tiernan pressed a kiss to his shoulder.
“You try to get through it without being jealous of Amanda Bynes.”
“I’ll try.”
Tiernan arched an eyebrow. “You’re a sarcastic little shit, you know?” Nik frowned, but Tiernan leaned into him, kissing him softly. “I like it.”
Nik rolled his eyes this time but kissed Tiernan back. It was the first time anyone had said it when it wasn’t meant as an insult.
“I’m glad you like it,” he said when Tiernan moved back.
“I like you,” Tiernan said simply, and Nik smiled. That was the first time anyone had ever said that to him before either.