Page 68 of Hurricane Love

It was only a tiny fraction of what he really wanted, but he needed some assurance that Wylie wouldn’t forget about him completely the moment he left their area code.

“Yeah, I’ll send you pics of my new place. Come here, you stubborn asshole.” Wylie drew him into his arms and hugged him fiercely and kissed him as if their entire relationship existed only in that one perfect moment where Wylie’s hands and mouth belonged to him, and everything made sense.

Wylie pulled away and said with his eyes shining, “I love you.”

Diego nodded in silent defeat. “Yeah, I love you too.”

Shaking his head at him one last time, Wylie turned away and headed toward his car. Diego watched him cross the parking lot with his long, confident strides, trying to memorize the shape of him against the blinding summer sun.

Memories always started as ordinary moments. Diego hoped this wouldn’t be their last.

CHAPTER 15

WYLIE

The rideto Gainesville sucked balls. Between the gaping hole in his chest and the stupid tears that kept blurring his vision, Wylie felt wrecked by the time he arrived at his new apartment complex. He hated leaving Diego like that, hated leaving him at all. There was so much uncertainty between them and too many things left unsaid. Diego loved him and Wylie loved him back. It should be that simple.

But it wasn’t.

With his ball cap pulled low to hide his blotchy face, he managed to collect his keys from the property manager, despite being barely able to talk. The place was… fine. A compact two-bedroom apartment that he rented solo, not wanting to deal with the bullshit of roommates. Designed to accommodate the student churn, the 20x20 concrete box was bigger than his trailer but lacked any sort of warmth or personality. Gray walls, gray carpeted floors, and gray industrial furniture meant to endure beer spills and any number of biological mishaps. Empty and lifeless, which was how Wylie had felt since leaving home.

Still, he would strive to make it his own.

The first couple of days he focused on unpacking, getting groceries, settling in, and meeting his neighbors (or trying to.)They all stared at him like he had a third eye, gave weak handshakes, and mumbled their majors before retreating back into the confines of their gray boxes. Not very neighborly.

He’d visited campus before, so he knew the general layout, but the day before classes began, he spent a few hours mapping out his schedule and determining how long it would take to get from here to there so he wouldn’t be late, since time management wasn’t one of his strengths. He’d need to learn how to cook some basic stuff too, since he’d mostly relied on the pit and his neighbors’ leftovers to feed him over the years. He didn’t have the budget to eat out all the time, which meant there were going to be a lot of ramen noodles and Hot Pockets in his future.

As for his academics, he found out on his first day that in no way was law school going to be a cakewalk. The syllabus alone for some of these classes was 30 pages long, and he was pretty sure his torts professor hated him. It was on sight with the man after Wylie showed up to the first day of class twenty minutes late, due to the classroom number looking like a “0” instead of an “8” in the classic etched stone.

The torts professor was also fond of calling on people whether they’d raised their hand or not, and he’d caught Wylie in a weak moment, distracted by a daydream about Diego. His guess had been so wildly off base that it seemed to personally offend the professor, who suggested he check his schedule again to make sure he was in the right classroom (ha, ha) while also making him look stupid in front of his classmates, which was guaranteed to come back to bite him in the ass once group projects began.

And speaking of his classmates. Not the most conversational bunch. Wylie was trying to make friends, but all of his intros were landing wrong, not to mention that their slick hairstyles and luxury brand clothing made him feel like a broke-ass country bumpkin. He suspected they weren’t surviving on leftover pizza and canned soup, which was later proven true when he met up with them at a swanky bar downtown where the draft beers alonecost $10. They drank like they all had trust funds. Wylie couldn’t afford to party like that.

He missed Nancy and Hannah too, namely the day-to-day stuff that didn’t translate well over text. He didn’t call them because he didn’t want to seem desperate or give them a glimpse of his true state of mind, which honestly wasn’t great. And what if it turned out that he couldn’t hack it? They had invested so much in him over the years and had hyped him up to a ridiculous extent. The last thing he wanted was to disappoint them.

During a particularly low moment, feeling dejected and pretty pitiful, he trudged over to the gas station near his apartment and bought a vape. He felt bad about doing it, and he was obviously betraying the pact he and Nancy had made to quit smoking, but that first hit transported him right back to his deck at Sunset Village when he used to sit up there on his rooftop and watch the sun set over the water.

He thought of his many closing shifts at the pit with Diego and the quiet moments after sex when they’d both lie in bed with the sweat still drying on their skin and chat about nothing at all, the scent of clove mixing with that of Diego’s skin. Wylie inhaled deeply, trying to recapture that perfect feeling.

God, he missed the man–the taste of him, the way his afternoon stubble scratched against his cheek, the slip of his hair through his fingers when he held on tight and fucked him hard and fast from behind. The way Diego fell apart during sex and became so soft and pliant in his arms afterward.

He missed their conversations too, and the moments of silence when they didn’t need to say anything at all because they were already on the same wavelength. Vibing. Like a phantom limb, Wylie kept reaching out for some crucial part of himself and coming up empty.

As he walked back toward his apartment, sweating through his shirt in the sweltering late August heat of “the swamp,” he wondered if the female servers at the pit were still hitting on Diego. Had Emmamade another attempt? Most of them knew Diego was gay and that he was Wylie’s… whatever he was, but what if there were new people at the pit? And who was working the takeout counter? What if it was some other thirsty, queer man? What if that man hit onhisDiego?

His thoughts devolved into a snarl of jealousy and petty anger, none of which were healthy or productive and certainly weren’t going to help him analyze this case briefing, which was due by midnight that night. Wylie had not written a word of it yet. Another thing he’d never experienced before: writer’s block. He pocketed his vape and trudged up the stairs to the small concrete box that was his new dwelling.

His homesickness would fade, everyone said so, and as far as Diego was concerned, well, you could lead a horse to water but in no way could Wylie force that stubborn-ass man to drink.

Wylie waiteda week before calling Diego. He’d sent a couple selfies with him posing in front of UF landmarks where he’d pretended to be happy and thriving, and they’d texted, sure, but it was mostly just pit gossip and nothing of substance. No dick pics either, Wylie thought ruefully.

But he had something he needed to get off his chest, and only a phone call would do.

It was a Tuesday night and, if the pattern held, Diego would be just returning from dinner at his mom’s house. He’d be at his apartment, maybe watching TV or possibly jacking off–the thought of it aroused Wylie immensely but also made him sad with longing. He should be the one there getting Diego off (or denying him.) For a hot minute, Wylie panicked that Diego had moved on and might already have another man in his bed, but judging from how long it had taken him to crack that nut, he doubted it.

Before the quicksand of longing and regret had a chance tosuck him under completely, Wylie punched Diego’s name on his phone.

“Heyyy,” a familiar voice said in a low, intimate rumble. Diego sounded relaxed, probably lying in bed. Damn but Wylie missed that voice.