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The air is full of the scent of salt and sand, the old-spinach smell of seaweed baking in the sun. Charley, fresh from the surf and dripping water, flings himself onto his towel; it’s already covered with tiny grains that cling and scratch at his skin. But that’s a small matter. The breeze off the water is brisk and the sun, high in the sky now, lulls him into a doze.
The next time he blinks, the sun has slipped behind the horizon, he can feel the beginnings of a burn on his back - despite the liberal use of sun screen - and Peter is standing over him.
They’ve been meeting like this for months, with Peter showing up, seemingly at random, wherever Charley happens to be. A coffee shop in New Orleans, a bookstore in San Antonio, the middle of a shopping center in Bum Fuck, Oregon. Charley’d stopped asking how Peter tracked him, didn’t want to see the eerie, almost manic smile that lit up the magician’s face.
“Ah. Been toasting yourself, I see?”
“Soaking up the sun while I can.”
Peter tilts his head. “D’you plan on going somewhere without access to natural light?”
“You tell me.”
Peter smiles, and his eyes are just a little wilder than Charley remembers and that may be a hint of fang peeking beneath Peter’s lip. Then he drops down onto the towel, nudging Charley over and Charley knows that’s all the answer he’s going to get tonight.
They stare out over the water, watch the moon rise; Peter’s fingers occasionally find the upper planes of Charley’s hip, the ridges of his spine; the cool caress makes Charley shiver. Makes him question his sense, his sanity.
Then without warning, the fingers will be gone. And sometime later, Peter will be gone, without a word or a whisper of feet on sand, leaving Charley to wonder when he’ll see his “friend” again. And whether or not he’ll have to kill him.
Whether or not he’ll be able to.