8. BRUNCH ON THE BATTERY

When the door clicked shut behind her, I half expected Maddox. For one foolish second, my chest lifted like a man about to breathe. But it wasn’t him.

It was Julia.

She crossed the threshold like she owned the place, silk blouse snapping with her movements, lips pressed into a knife of a smile. “I saw you and Maddox at the bar,” she said, voice sweet as arsenic. “I don’t know what you two were whispering about, but let me be very clear—if you ever try to stick your nose into my marriage—”

That was as far as she got.

“You really shouldn’t start sentences you don’t know how to finish,” I cut in, sharper than I meant to. My pulse was pounding, but my words were ice.

Her smile faltered. Just for a beat.

“You think you’re the first manipulative woman I’ve dealt with?” I pressed, taking a step closer. “I’ve spent two decades swimming with sharks that make you look like a guppy. And I’m still here. Thriving. While you—” I let my eyes sweep her up and down like a verdict, “—are a third-rate social climber still cosplaying as a queen.”

Her lips parted, ready to retort, but I didn’t give her air.

“You want people to believe this thing between you and Maddox is real? That you’re power couple material? Please. You can barely keep your claws sheathed long enough to sit through dinner. Everyone sees it. Everyone. You’re not fooling anyone. And the funniest part?” I leaned in, lowering my voice just enough to twist the knife. “You’re terrified that one honest word from him, one look, and the whole house of cards you built topples. You don’t control Maddox, Julia—you’re just holding him hostage until it’s politically convenient to let go.”

Her nostrils flared. “You don’t—”

“Don’t what?” I snapped, the heat in me rising. “Don’t know? Don’t understand? I heard you. Every insult. Every threat. Every time you cut him down just to keep your ego standing. You don’t love him. You don’t even like him. He’s a résumé line to you, nothing more. And the second you think you can trade up, you’ll toss him aside and write it off on your taxes. Your words. Not mine.”

Her mask cracked, just a hairline fracture, but enough to taste victory.

“You walked into my room to scare me. To threaten me. But let me tell you something, Julia Keating.” I straightened, my voice carrying like it could slice through walls. “I’ve been underestimated my entire life. Bullied, mocked, written off. And every single time, I’ve climbed higher than the people trying to drag me down. You are not the exception. You’re just another name on the list.”

Her mouth snapped shut, her face tight with fury.

“And here’s the kicker,” I added, almost softly, almost kind. “You should be careful who you call a loser. Because one day you’re going to wake up and realize the only thing you ever won was Maddox—and even that, you never deserved.”

The silence after was so sharp I swore I could hear the echo of my own heartbeat.

Julia stood there, shaking in her heels, eyes full of venom but with nowhere left to spit it.

For the first time all weekend, I didn’t feel small. I felt seen. By myself.

Julia’s jaw clenched, like she was searching for a comeback, some venom she could spit to reclaim the room. But I didn’t give her the satisfaction.

“You can go now,” I said flatly, moving past her toward the door. “We’re done here.”

Her head snapped toward me, scandalized, as though she were the one being insulted. But I was already pulling the door open, holding it wide, every ounce of my body language saying she was no longer worth my air.

For a second, she lingered—eyes flashing, chest rising like she might hurl one last dagger. But I only arched a brow, calm, collected, daring her to try.

She didn’t.

Instead, she gathered the scraps of her composure, lifted her chin, and stalked past me into the hallway. Her perfume trailed behind like smoke from a fire already burned out.

I closed the door slowly, deliberately. Not a slam—just the quiet sound of dismissal, final and absolute.

And then I leaned against it, exhaling. My pulse was still hammering, but it wasn’t from fear. For once, it was from power.

The silence pressed in, and I thought of the way an artist shades a canvas—the image never complete without the emptiness around it. Negative space. What’s missing tells you just as much as what’s there.

She’d stormed out with her threats unfinished, her claws withdrawn. The absence of her voice, her presence, was louder than any insult she could have screamed. That empty space—the gap where her power should’ve been—was where I found mine.

And for the first time in a long while, I didn’t feel small. I didn’t feel like the boy hiding in shadows. I felt like a man who could claim the silence, shape it, own it.

But as I pushed away from the door, that same lesson cut in deeper. Negative space wasn’t just what Julia left behind—it was what Maddox had carved into me.

All those years of not speaking. All those missed chances. The cropped edges of a photograph hiding the truth we’d almost lived. He was the outline around everything I became, and even in this crowded weekend, even with his wife by his side, I felt it—his absence shaping me more than his presence ever had.

That was the thing about negative space: it demanded you see what wasn’t there. And with Maddox, I couldn’t unsee it.

Annoyance clung to me like static after Julia’s storm-out. The hotel room was quiet, too quiet, the kind that left me pacing the edges of my own thoughts. I tossed my phone onto the nightstand, then snatched it back up before it even had time to dim.

Grindr. The little yellow mask winked up at me, promise and poison in the same breath.

I thumbed open the app, already expecting the usual scroll: torsos lit by bathroom bulbs, sheets rumpled like cheap invitations, profile names blending together in a blur of “Top4U” and “HungHost.” I barely glanced at them anymore, trained by habit to sort by face. If there wasn’t a face, there wasn’t a point.

But tonight—tonight was different.

The message was already waiting when the grid resolved: “Could use a distraction.” Simple. No picture. Just a black square and a distance marker that placed him a few floors away.

I almost swiped past, but something in me twitched. Curiosity, maybe. Or just the dull ache of wanting someone to say the right words at the right time.

I typed back before I could talk myself out of it: “What kind of distraction?”

The reply came instantly. “The kind that makes you forget everything else.”

I smirked, but it wasn’t my usual smirk. Not the one sharpened by calculation, not the one that knew how this game played out. There was a weight behind his words—quiet, almost heavy—and against my better judgment, I stayed.

One hour later, I was still there.

It unnerved me, realizing how easily the time had slipped. Normally, twenty minutes was my limit. By then, I’d locked in the plan, swapped a handful of explicit details, sent an address. I didn’t linger, didn’t entertain more than the bare minimum. Grindr wasn’t for conversation; it was for release.

But with him… it felt like conversation was the release.

We’d moved past the usual metrics—height, weight, “what are you into?”—into strange territory. Music. Books. He asked what I was reading, and I almost laughed, because no one on this app had ever asked me that. I told him anyway. The journal, I said, though I didn’t explain. He didn’t pry. Instead he told me about the last thing he read—something about architecture, how spaces are defined as much by emptiness as by structure. Negative space.

The words jolted me, eerie in their alignment with what I’d been telling myself only an hour earlier.

For the first time in years, I felt chemistry in the absence of bodies. No face, no name, no cock shot lighting up my phone screen. Just words, stacking quietly between us until they felt like a wall I could lean against.

I realized then how rare it was for me to actually want to keep the app open. And yet here I was, staring at the glow, fingers hovering, reluctant to let the conversation end.

I caught myself smiling at the screen. Actually smiling. That alone should’ve been the warning sign.

Because Grindr wasn’t supposed to feel like this. It was supposed to be quick, blunt, transactional. My thumbs usually typed on autopilot—swap stats, trade a few dirty lines, settle on a location, fuck, forget. Simple. Efficient. A release valve for whatever tension had wound itself too tight.

But here I was, an hour later, still curled up on the hotel bed like a teenager on the phone past curfew. My eyes kept flicking to the little blinking dots that meant he was typing, each pause dragging me deeper in.

“So what are you doing here?” he asked.

The obvious answer was reunion. But I typed: “Trying to forget.”

He replied: “Aren’t we all?”

Something in my chest shifted, heavy and hot. I set the phone down for a second, rubbed my hand over my jaw. What the fuck am I doing? This wasn’t me. This wasn’t how I used the app.

And yet—I picked the phone back up.

The tone tilted after that. Flirtation wove its way into the quiet spaces between words, small sparks catching flame. He asked what I liked, and I surprised myself by not deflecting with a joke. I told him. Raw. Direct. No filters. The kind of things I usually said only when bodies were already pressed together, not typed out in the glow of a screen.

He answered in kind. Descriptions, little confessions. Nothing vulgar for vulgarity’s sake—no cheap copy-paste sexting. It was detail. Precision. As if he wanted me to imagine, really imagine, exactly what he’d do to me.

And I did. My body stirred with every message, the lines between imagination and memory blurring until my cock was hard against the front of my sweats, pressing for attention.

The final message came like a dare: “If you’re serious, you know where I am.”

Three dots. A room number.

I stared at it until the screen dimmed. My pulse throbbed in my ears, loud enough to drown out the muted hum of the AC. I rolled onto my back, the mattress creaking under me, my cock aching like it wanted the decision made for me.

This was insane. Meeting some faceless stranger at a hotel, in the middle of everything else? I should’ve locked the phone, shoved it in the drawer, gone to sleep.

But all I could think about was how, for the first time in years, a man on Grindr had made me feel something before he even touched me.

I swung my legs off the bed, staring at the carpet as though the pattern might give me an answer.

Stay. Or go.

My thumb hovered over the screen longer than it should have. The room number glared back at me like it had teeth, waiting to bite down.

I typed slowly: “It’s late. Maybe next time.”

The dots danced for a second, then the reply came: “Fair enough. Sleep well.”

Polite. No pressure. Just… understanding. That was somehow worse, like it left a space open I wasn’t sure I wanted to step into. I set the phone face-down on the nightstand and sat there, staring at the ceiling until the silence pressed too hard. Eventually, exhaustion dragged me under.

When I woke, the sun was already climbing, burning through the hotel curtains with that sharp Charleston brightness I remembered from summers long gone. My head was clear in a way it hadn’t been all weekend, though the memory of those messages lingered like heat behind my ribs.

I showered, dressed in something crisp but casual—linen shirt, dark slacks, sunglasses tucked in the collar—and by the time I stepped out, the city was already alive with cicadas, traffic, and the salt smell of the harbor.

Brunch on The Battery was the first thing on the day’s agenda. Tables had been set beneath white canopies along the promenade, champagne glasses catching the light, platters of shrimp and grits steaming in the August air. The harbor stretched out just beyond, the water flashing silver as the tide shifted, and rows of historic houses with their long piazzas looked on like grand old sentinels.

For a moment, standing there, it almost felt like a dream I’d had once—a younger version of myself wandering these streets, wondering what kind of man he’d become.

And now here I was.

The Battery had dressed itself for the occasion. Rows of folding tables draped in crisp white linens lined the promenade, pitchers of sweet tea and sparkling water sweating in the August heat. Platters of shrimp and grits, biscuits with honey butter, and bowls of fruit that looked too perfectly arranged to be real sat like a southern still life. The air buzzed with cicadas, layered with the faint briny scent of the harbor drifting in on the breeze.

I moved slowly, deliberately, my sunglasses doing the heavy lifting of keeping my eyes unreadable. All around me, people in their late thirties played at youth—women in sundresses clutching mimosas, men with slightly receding hairlines and polos tucked too tightly into khakis. The conversations were loud enough to feel performative, a chorus of “Do you remember when…” and “Can you believe it’s been twenty years?” that washed over me in waves.

Someone from my AP History class clasped my arm too hard, the way people do when they want to be remembered. “Rhys! God, you look amazing. Do you live in New York now? I think I saw that on Facebook.”

I gave a polite smile, the kind that never touched my eyes. “Yeah. Upper West Side.”

They nodded like I’d just confirmed a rumor that made their morning brighter, then drifted toward the bar where the champagne was flowing.

I filled a plate—lightly, just enough to have something in my hands—and found myself a spot near the balustrade, where the white stone railings overlooked the slow, silver churn of the harbor. The breeze tugged at my shirt, and for a moment, the sound of the water drowned out the chatter behind me.

But the peace was always brief. Across the lawn, Maddox stood with his wife, Julia, her hand looped casually through his arm as if to remind everyone what belonged to her. She laughed too loudly at something one of the men said, head thrown back, posture perfect. Maddox’s smile didn’t reach his eyes.

I turned away, staring down at my plate as if the shrimp and grits could hold me in place. But the truth pressed in—here, surrounded by my past, the only thing that mattered was the man across the lawn who wouldn’t look at me.

“Mind if I sit?”

Candace slid into the empty chair beside me with the kind of breezy confidence only someone who’d been running this circus all weekend could manage. Her sundress was a bold coral, her lipstick matched, and her nametag was still perfectly centered over her heart like it had been laminated to her.

“You’ve made it,” she said, clinking her mimosa glass lightly against my untouched water. “Honestly, I wasn’t sure you’d last through day two, let alone brunch on the Battery.”

I let out a short laugh, more air than sound. “What gave me away?”

She tilted her head, eyes narrowing playfully. “That look. The one where you’re calculating the escape routes while everyone else is comparing mortgages and bragging about their kids’ piano recitals.”

I smirked, finally letting the corner of my mouth give her something. “Feels like you cryofroze yourself senior year and have just been thawed out, waiting for this exact moment. Twenty years of prep, all leading to you corralling us into shrimp and grits on a Sunday morning.”

Her laugh was loud, unapologetic, the kind that turned heads. She set her glass down and leaned an elbow on the table, chin resting in her hand. “Guilty. Someone had to herd the cats. Might as well be the girl voted ‘Most Likely to Keep Us Together.’ I’m just fulfilling my prophecy.”

The sunlight caught in her earrings, and for a second, she looked less like the girl who’d once lorded over pep rallies and more like a woman genuinely proud of the role she was playing now.

“Well,” I said, scanning the lawn again, though I already knew where Maddox was. “You’re doing a hell of a job.”

Candace followed my gaze, and when her eyes landed on Maddox, her brow ticked up. Just a fraction. Just enough to tell me she noticed more than I wanted her to.

Candace traced the rim of her glass, not looking at me right away. For once, her shoulders seemed to sag under the weight of something other than poise.

“Look,” she said, voice softer than I’d heard it all weekend, “about the way I came at you when you first got here… I owe you an apology.”

I raised an eyebrow, leaning back in my chair. “That’s a twist I didn’t see coming.”

Her laugh was small, genuine, like she was embarrassed to let it out. “I only came at you like that because I was desperate not to walk into this circus alone. My husband bailed last minute, my sister said she’d rather die, and the idea of sitting through a reunion solo? I panicked. So I picked the first face I saw and tried to make it look like I had a plan.”

I let her words settle, the honesty in them smoothing over the old, jagged edges. “Candace… that’s probably the most human thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

She smiled, rueful but real. “Don’t get used to it. I have a reputation to maintain.” Then she leaned in, her eyes sparkling again. “But that line you hit me with? About not getting in that car even if it was the last ride out of hell?”

I grinned despite myself.

“I’ll be using that for the rest of my natural life,” she said, raising her mimosa like a toast. “And don’t worry, I’ll give you credit… maybe.”

I tapped my water glass against hers. “Figures. Still finding a way to make me your prop twenty years later.”

She rolled her eyes, but there was no venom in it now. Just something warm. Something that almost felt like… respect.

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