“You know what it means to be hurt,” Jax says finally. “I don’t know what hurt you, not really. Same’s I talked around it and didn’t tell you all of it, not the whole truth or the real part of it. But you know. You saw it right away and so did I. Henry and Calhoun don’t know what that means. That’s why they can try to put us back together and maybe it’ll work and maybe it won’t.”

“I’m afraid of sharks,” Audie says suddenly. He can’t hold it suddenly, can’t stop it. “But I’m really just afraid of the ocean and I swore I’d never get in it again.”

Jax cocks his head at him. “Someone did something to you.”

Audie tells him about his father and the pontoon boat in the Charleston harbor, about being eleven years and told to swim, just swim to his daddy and they could go home, about the four hours of sheer terror, the thirst and his father’s laughter. ‘

“You’d get in, if you made that go away,” Jax says.

“I can’t.”

“You can. And you need to tell Calhoun this story.”

“I’m not telling Calhoun this. I never should have told you.” Audie casts again. He tosses an empty back up above the high tide line.

“Henry taught me I owe him the truth.”

“I told him the truth. I have a shark phobia.”

“You didn’t tell him shit and we both know it, Currell. Same’s I told Henry I slept around. I told him something. I never told him why. Never told anyone why.”

“Why’d you do it?”

Jax looks over the horizon and squints into the sun. “I was fucking lonely, Audie, the hell do you think?” He straightens up. “How deep will you go?”

“My knees.”

“Go out to your thighs. I’ll go with you.”

“No.”

“I’m not your father and you’re not eleven. Do you trust me enough to tell me that fucking story?”

Audie hesitates. “Yes.”

“Did I trust you enough to tell you why I slept around?”

Audie stares at the vast expanse of water and wonders at its secrets. “Yes.”

“Then trust me enough not to get your ass eaten. I’ll go ahead of you so you know there’s nothing there.”

Audie begins shaking. But he looks at Jax and realizes that he’s right, for some goddamn reason he does trust him. Jax takes his hand. It’s not sexual; it’s not the way you hold the hand of a lover. More the way you’d lead a blind man, or the way Audie imagines a preacher leading someone down into a river. But Jax holds Audie’s hard firmly and takes him into the water, one step at a time. Audie looks down anxiously, watches his feet. Jax suddenly laughs and points. “See the teensy ray?” he asks, the water at their knees. “Like a little pancake.” And it is, small and gray. They keep going until they stand up to their waists when the waves come in. “You’re safe,” Jax says. “Look how clear the water is.”

Audie stops. Turns. He can see in every direction. He looks. There are no sharks. None that he can see. He knows there are sharks, knows it in his bones: this is Nag’s Head, the Carolina coast, sharks up and down it, black-tips and makos, duskies and sand tigers. But the sharks are far away, and the chances of them hurting him so small. He stands and dives. Stands. Dives again. Suddenly he’s swimming, swimming strong, the way he learned as a boy in the Low Country, in the creeks and estuaries of the Cooper River. Jax swims next to him. Audie flips, backflips. He rides the waves and swims under them, a part of this vast, mysterious thing, just one more creature in this strange universe governed by the pull of the moon. A world of undrinkable water, of whalesong, of menace and beauty, crashing whitecaps and glass-calm. Jax doesn’t leave him alone. They finally swim back to shore.

“You aren’t eleven anymore,” he says quietly.

“I’m not,” Audie says.

“And you never have to be again.” 

They share a towel.

“Your trunks are wet,” Calhoun says, when Audie comes into the living room.

“Do you want to go swimming?” Audie asks.

“But —”

“I’ll be fine, if you go with me.”

Calhoun scrambles to his feet. “I’ll put my suit on.”

They hold hands as they walk into the waves. When the waves roll at their chests, when the water is clear, after Audie looks around them, he wraps around Calhoun, tips his chin to the side, and kisses him hard. They hold each other as the saltwater crashes in front of them, as they bob in the waves. Audie feels Calhoun harden in his suit, tent it out. “That was the best kiss ever,” Calhoun says, when Audie sucks his lower lip and pulls back.

Audie does a backflip. “Why?” he asks, when he comes up.

“Because you weren’t afraid anymore.”

Calhoun touches the bottom and leads him out of the water. They walk right to the bedroom and take off their suits. Audie sheds his rashguard.

“Now we can,” Calhoun breathes.

“Yeah,” Audie says.

“You’ll taste like saltwater.”

“So will you.”

They fall into the bed, side by side, hair still soaked. Audie wraps around Calhoun and kisses him. And he tastes like seawater, oh god he does, like the ocean, like all the secrets of undiscovered whales and unknowable depths, of dolphin names and even the distance tang of shark menace. But Audie knows now you can’t have one without the other: the fear makes the beauty bloom, magnifies it from the everyday to something wild and perfect. He sucks Calhoun’s lower lip the way he likes. Audie doesn’t close his eyes to Calhoun’s beautiful sun-browned skin, blond beginning to streak his wet mermaid tangles. They press against one another, both hard, Audie almost overcome by the sudden depth of his need.