The sun would always shine too bright off the hood of his car. It felt like everytime I sat in it, I was being blinded, being driven slowly insane. Constant migraines thumped along with the tires on the road, on the imperfect surfaces we drove.  He loved that car more than anything man and I gotta admit it was at least beautiful, a low red machine purring in park.

The leather was always sticky hot, my palms stained red beside my legs. I couldn’t get my skin to glide along it like he did. How he slid in and slammed the door behind him. I would pick my way in carefully, my hands still lingering on the handle after the door had closed.

Everything about that car made me frustrated and claustrophobic, even with the top down I was still gasping for air. It was something about that red that the heat in, something about his blonde tousled hair that reflected the light that kept him cool while I sweated.

After sitting in that car for any period of time I’d get out and my entire skin would be puckered and tight. Sweat sticking my shirt to the back of my neck where I’d laid my head against the leather.

 You see everyone thinks I went with him for the car but I hated that piece of . After I got out of it, I’d run to the shower or if Niel was picking up, the beach. If Niel was answering the phone, I’d be down there faster than he could run, already halfway out of my shirt and pants when I heard him squealing down the wrong end of the ocean.

 His voice would break he was running so hard and I’d be in, the salt and sand scrubbing me clean, my skin loosening in the cold. If he wasn’t too angry, I’d turn back and laugh at him struggling into the waves fully dressed, trying to tell me something, always trying to talk to me somehow.

“You know” he’d say his chin still half underwater “Ricky saw some kinda guy down by the state side” I floated on my back making noises to keep him happy “He says he saw him moving some stuff in” Niel’s hair was always stuck to his forehead, those light strands almost brunette in the water.

“Yeah” I’d say making eyes at the clouds overhead “he’s probably just an out-of-towner coming for the weekend” Niel laughed at me then, chucking a handful of salt water in my eyes. “Like that means anything, you were an out-of-towner too” he laughed again and swam closer while I tried to clear my vision “but now your here and your pretty much stuck”

“Yeah” I countered, my toes just barely touching sand “but at least I don’t have to be stuck here listening to your bull” I dropped down under the water, Niel nothing but a blurry shadow above me.

 I coulda stayed under there for days, I didn’t like anything about this town but being surrounded by the sea when I’d be landlocked my whole life, yeah I gotta admit I loved it. If I had all the time in the world I would’ve spent it in that ocean, spent my time with sand in my hair and the cold surrounding me.

I liked to lie on the beach after swimming, it was a ritual, you didn’t go home until you were 100% dry, sometimes I wondered if that's why Niel swam in all his clothes because it took him hours to dry. He’d keep me there in the dim light, talking while the dark blue of his jeans faded.

 Not that I minded, home wasn’t nothing much but low middle class poverty and depression and I guess it was the same for all of us, though I never asked, though I never once visited them at home, for us it was always the beach.

It was a bit of a clique there I guess in that nothing town surrounded by ocean, though I never did see many other groups apart from us. I watched the four of them beating a path down the sun baked pathway away from the tourist trap known as a beach and I wondered why four boys in shorts would be avoiding the only sanctuary on yet another inhumanely hot day.

So I followed them, it was dumb I guess but I had nothing to do that summer, nothing but time to kill till we went back to Maine. About halfway through my mission I had given up, they’d disappeared in the some scrub behind the park and I got lost in the dense parts, praying to god that they weren’t tweakers and that this wasn’t some gay meet up spot.

 And then I fell off the edge of the cliff. About 15 feet onto wet sand and god it hurt so much and what was worse was it wasn’t some gay thing and that those boys had surfboards and they were looking at me like I was the tweaker.

Apparently it was a local thing, all this hidden coastline, this best kept secret and everywhere pathways lead to it, nice leaning slopes that lead onto white sand, everywhere except where I was walking of course.

 Someone started laughing while I brushed myself off and attempted to stand without a limp, the short one with dark hair was almost doubled over while the other three pretended I didn’t exist. It was a local thing I guess, ignore the out-of-towners and maybe they’ll go away.

I picked my way gracefully back through the scrub making mental notes of the path and later that night I came back and I swam alone in the darkness and I slept till 5 am in the sand and I think that was the first time I remember being happy.

Rinse and repeat and suddenly summer was going way to fast and Maine was looming like a bullet train. I still saw those boys occasionally and I ignored them like they ignored me. If I saw them at night id backtrack a mile over the rocks to a separate alcove, I don’t know why but they just freaked me.

Then something bad happened and someone got sick and suddenly we had to stay in the town by the ocean and the very next day those boys talked to me as if they knew or something.

“Hey” it was the long thin blonde one making shade over my eyes. You see I was so surprised all I could do was check behind him to see two others climbing out of the brush. “Hey” he said again waving his hand in my face “you got any smokes” all I could do was look dumbly at the crushed packet beside me and ask if he was kidding.

He laughed and threw himself down, a long arm reaching over to pull one out, he flicked the sand off his fingers before putting it in his mouth and asking “you ain't from around here huh” I tried not to look at the other boys milling by edge of the shade “nah from Maine” I grabbed a cigarette out and pushed it to my lips “when you going back?” he asked his head cocked to the side a flame lighting the end of his cigarette “I dunno” and then he was leaning over me holding the lit flame to mine “cool” he said and smiled at me before returning to his side “that's Niel and Ricky” he beckoned them over with the hand that wasn’t smoking and I mumbled “hey” as they came closer.

It turns out those boys werent much surfers and the surfboards id seen them with were more of a prop than anything, Cap who I met a few days later was the only one that really surfed, Chanhee the blonde boy who I first met surfed too but mainly to stretch his legs out and lose his pants in the surf.

The older two would head out with their dinged up pieces of to ride waves that aren’t even good enough for bodysurfing while I stayed back on the beach with Niel and Ricky, catcalling when Chanhee got and drinking if anyone got lucky enough.

 It was an unsaid rule that we met up every day on the north side, no particular time although Niel was always early; sometimes it would be just me and him sitting under the shade of the old pier till midday when the others decided to roll their way out of bed.

Niel would never shut up for the life of me, his bare ankles snapping against my shin when he was making a point. Chanhee was the only one that could make him shut up for any period of time but Chanhee always did have a special way with people. Chanhee would put one knee between Niel's open legs and smile real low and boy that would shut everyone up.

Yeah Chanhee was something else but I liked him, I didn’t mind that sometimes when he drank too much he put his hands up my shirt in front of everyone. Later in the summer Niel started wearing shorts again and consequently cap found himself another girlfriend, the three of us spent more time alone. Splayed against someone’s rusting trampoline passing the bottle between us Chanhee got talkative when we were alone together.

 “you know” he said making a hole between his fingers and holding it up over the moon “cap should just get it over and done with and Niel” he closed the circle making a fist and I took another sip from the bottle “he’s such a about these things” Chanhee laughed into the sky and prised the bottle from my fingertips curling his nails into my knuckles “its not like we all haven’t done it” I kept my mouth shut and wondered if this wasn’t a gay thing after all.

Caps girlfriend got pregnant and moved back home so it was the five of us again; tension crackling Everytime Niel dragged himself in out of the water and smiled at me. Ricky and Chanhee got more sharp tongued by the day burning Niel’s hat on the bonfire and laughing when he tried to fish it out and that meant Niel spent alot more time calling me in the middle of the night asking if I wanted to swim.

For a boy that swam in his clothes he really liked the ocean so it was comfortable for a while before Chanhee started kissing Cap in the daylight and Ricky got distracted  by some motorcycle his older brother was doing up.

 “He’s not gonna get pregnant and move away” I reminded Cap outside the convenience store, he said he knew and that he gotten out of it before so why not now but I dunno if I believed him.

 I was spending more time alone when I started seeing this car around town; it was a mustang convertible, cherry red. I never really paid much attention to cars before this but I guess Ricky and his talk of engines and getting the out of dodge got to me.

It seemed like that car was everywhere, always parked with no one in it. The top down, just begging me to get in and drive straight the out of here. For some reason I knew better than to mention it to the guys. It seemed like some kinda ed up nightmare, the kind you pretend you don’t have.

I first saw the owner late at night, Niel had crawled between my legs in front of the bonfire and kissed me and I pushed him off hard into the sand, Chanhee's laughter followed me as I picked my way out of the scrub and bamn there it was, cruising down main street with the lights off.

I stood on the pavement in wet shorts and hair tussled from fighting with a boy and I could see his blonde hair beneath the visor as he cruised past. I think I saw him looking in the rear mirror but he kept going and I picked my way home. Curling the sheets under my chin, I still felt cold from where Niel touched me but damn I couldn’t stop thinking about that car.

 And the next day it was there and he was in it parked beside the shrubs with the engine idling. “hey” he said as I tried to walk around it “where you gotta go to get a drink in this town” I smiled slowly “Murrays off fourth, they’ll sell it to you if you don’t look under 13” “you think I ing know where that is” he brushed the hair off his forehead and lowered his sunglasses till I could see his eyes. I shrugged and smiled at him. He laughed with his head tilted back “get in”. I don’t think I’d ever moved faster than I had then.

 And we were off, past Murrays and past fourth, we parked on the edge of town where the breakers hit the rocks and drank tequila he miraculously found in the backseat. It was the first time I drank it and when he dropped me home late at night I had to crawl through my window.

Ricky was the first to call me “where you been? We missed you at the beach all day” I was trying to call off the hangover gods but I laughed “ah man I was drinking at the Point, you , when did you ever miss me”  “Chanhee and Niel are fighting” my stomach sank but I shrugged it off “so what, when don’t those two fight?” “Yeah I guess, you coming down today?” “Yeah ill make it later right now I'm gasping” he laughed and I hung up but I never did make it that day or the next. There was always that stinking hot convertible and that boy that drove me to pointless places just to talk.

 Niel called me up and apologised and I pretended nothing happened and we swam at night and Ricky assumed id got a girlfriend. One day the boy didn’t show up in front of my house, instead Chanhee was perched against the power pole rolling a cigarette between two fingers.

“What’s up?” I asked tension thumping along my throat. “Nothing” he smiled brilliantly “expecting someone?” “No” and we walked down to the beach pretending nothing happened. But the boy was two steps ahead of Chanhee and parked up beside Murrays when I rolled in two days later. “What’s up?” he asked sunglasses free and smiling with teeth “nothing” I grinned back. Once of his shirtsleeves was rolled up and he said “get in” and I did.

The boy was thin and I didn’t mind it when he reached an arm around me and tucked his fingertips into the edge of my shirt. Of course Chanhee found out and stopped being subtle.

The next time I showed up at the beach he er punched me making me keel over into the sand. “So your too goddamn good for us now” he was leaning over with his hands on his knees “gonna spend your time with that prick instead”.

 I swung a leg out and tripped him over. Niel tried to move forward but Cap grabbed his wrist. Chanhee crawled over to pin me beneath his arms. “What is it huh?” he twisted his head to the side “Niel too much of a ? Scared you off? Cause you know Caps just dying to try you instead” Cap was telling Chanhee to shut the up in the distance and I pushed the little er off me and sat up.

He stood upright and looked down at me “hell ill even let you have a go on me” he smirked but it fell “but you gotta go run off with that PIECE OF ” I stood up and scrambled back “ you Chanhee, you don’t know ” I was half way back to the road with him screaming “YOU THINK I DONT KNOW YOU LITTLE ”.

The boy with the convertible didn’t show up for a couple of days while I hid. And then suddenly he was there as if everything was normal and he said “get in” and I did.

I was sleeping in the back of his car half drunk listening to the waves crash at the point, watching him opposite me, legs across the front two seats, sunglasses on. They slid down his nose and I could feel the itch in my skin burning up, the heat from the day all stuck in my palms so I jammed them down the front of my pants to keep them still and he blinked beneath the glasses.

 Everytime I moved my hands under the fabric I could see his eyelashes twitch. And so I laid there with salt on my skin, grabbing at myself with his eyes on me. I came so hard it was impossible for either of us to be asleep. I came all over my hands groaning and watching his mouth open.

He drove me home at 6 in the morning silent and bleary eyed. I was sick to stomach but at the end he reached over and put a hand on my thigh and did a slow smile and said “see you later” and I just knew I had to go for a swim.

 Niel showed up with a black eye and split lip and refused to talk about it until I grabbed at him, apparently Cap got the balls to try it on with Niel after all. I pulled his clothes off and dragged him into the water with me. I kept him held in front of me and floated and his chest jerking was the only way I knew he was crying. I didn’t see the boy with the convertible later.