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Ian Gallagher didn’t grow up on the west coast, but these days California is his home.
He left Chicago at sixteen, jumped on a greyhound in the middle of the night and took off without saying a single goodbye. He was with his mom at the time, who assured him it was a good idea, that they would make it to the ocean in three days and send for the rest of Ian’s siblings once they got settled.
Monica never made it past Kansas City.
Ian did, though. He grabbed his ratty backpack and the wad of cash he stole from Lip’s secret stash in their bedroom back home and kept on moving west. It was either that or go back to Chicago, and Ian wasn’t ready to turn back with his tail between his legs just yet.
It took him two weeks to reach Los Angeles and another month to figure out what to do next.
He spent every night in a different guy’s bed, club hopping around the city and doing all kinds of drugs with starlets and heiresses until someone eventually scooped him up. He’d wake up hungover and disoriented, usually in some unfamiliar studio apartment, or the occasional four-star hotel if he was really desperate. But every morning he’d grab his ratty backpack with only one functioning strap at this point and do the exact same thing.
He'd go to the beach.
Watching the waves calmed him in a way he couldn’t explain. Feeling the sand between his toes, going for a swim to wash the previous night off of him. Ian loved the ocean the way he loved his old home in Chicago—always at least a little chaotic but grounding when he needed it to be.
He was all alone out there. He had no one and nothing—nothing but the beach.
He needed a job.
So, he did what any teenager living on a coast town does, and he started looking down the strip.
He parked cars at a concert venue for a while, then washed dishes at a seaside diner. He moved up the coast and rented gear out of a surf shop, which was maybe his favorite job from that time in his life. When he was a teenage high school dropout with no money, no family, and no future.
Things aren’t much different now, but they’re better. He’s nineteen with a tiny little apartment three blocks from the beach, and a job he honestly loves doing. He gets paid to sit in a chair and watch the ocean all day, trying desperately not to burn, all while wearing those little red shorts that read Lifeguard.
(He got some old fuck with a Baywatch fantasy to pay for his lifeguard certification a year ago and he never looked back.)
He never sent for his siblings—couldn’t afford it—but he does call, once a week on Sundays, and Fiona asks him a million questions and Lip tells him all the shit that’s going on in the old neighborhood. Ian hasn’t been back to the southside in three years, but he keeps threatening to come home for Christmas one of these times. And maybe he will, eventually, when he gets over the fear that being back there will trap him in his old bedroom with the water stains on the ceiling and hold him there forever.
One day he will go back.
But for now, he stays in sunny Santa Barbara and spends his days saving lives. Well, occasionally saving lives. Most of the time the crises he deals with range from helping a crying child find their lost parent, to patching up a bleeding leg after some thirteen-year-old wipes out on his skim board. But there’s always the occasional drowning victim needing to be rescued that changes the pace of things, or the even more rare shark sighting that closes down the beach entirely and sends the soccer moms into a state.
Point is—Ian likes being a lifeguard. And maybe it isn’t a permanent solution, maybe it’s not his dream job, but if he can spend at least one more summer pretending to be a kid instead of growing up too soon, he’ll take it.
The days start to blur together.
His shifts have never been consistent, and even if they were there’s always someone looking to switch or get coverage last minute. Ian doesn’t mind. He picks up as many shifts as he can, always looking to make a little extra money. Rent isn’t cheap, and neither is anything else on the west coast.
But this week especially has felt weird. It’s the first week of July, the holiday weekend behind them and the beaches overly crowded with families on vacation. Schools have been out for two weeks now, which always leads to an influx of beach patrons, and Ian’s had to deal with more bitching parents than he can handle. He’s not convinced most people actually understand what a lifeguard does. No, they cannot do anything about refunds at the snack shack if your child’s ice cream falls in the sand. Yes, he’s sure.
Ian’s just coming off of break, climbing the ladder of the lifeguard tower to take over for Tyler at the shift change on the hour. He can feel his forehead burning from this morning. He’s here until four, so he really needs to stay on top of reapplying his sunscreen today if he doesn’t want to look like a tomato tomorrow. Usually he brings a hat for high UV afternoons—a yellowing-white baseball cap with a frayed corner on the brim and the old-school beach lifeguard logo on the front he found at the thrift store ten days after he got to Santa Barbara—but he forgot it today and he doesn’t want to cough up twenty bucks for a new one at the rip off souvenir shops on the strip.
“’Sup Ian?” Tyler greets as Ian reaches the top of the ladder.
“Hey, Tyler,” Ian says with an easy smile.
Tyler’s a nice enough guy, and he’s always one of the first people offering to switch shifts with Ian when he needs it. He’s honestly one of Ian’s only friends out here still, even if he is technically just a work friend. Ian’s never understood why a lot of the staff doesn’t like Tyler—if he wants to sleep his way through all the female lifeguards every summer, that really isn’t any of Ian’s business.
“Uh oh,” says another voice. “Someone’s looking burnt already.”
Nicole is another friendly face on his staff, and Ian is grateful they’re working together today. Even if she gives him shit like no one else. She reminds him a little of Fiona, if Fiona were gay and rocked a septum piercing.
“No,” Ian says a little too quickly. “Fuck off.”
Nicole traces her hairline with her pointer fingers and bites back a grin. “You got three minutes ‘til shift change. Better lather up.”
Ian rolls his eyes and drops his backpack behind the chairs. He grabs his sunscreen—SPF 50—and moves to the other side of the tower so he won’t spray the other guards.
And that’s when he sees him.
Ian hesitates with the can of sunscreen spray held out over his arm. His eyes are locked on a man standing maybe fifty feet from the lifeguard tower, alone, frozen in place and staring at the ocean.
He has dark hair that the wind keeps blowing in his face, and he’s not dressed for the beach at all. He’s wearing dark jeans and work boots on the sand, and his hands are shoved into the pockets of a goddamn zip up hoodie. It’s ninety-six degrees outside and this guy isn’t even fazed.
(Later, when Ian looks back on this moment when he’s rubbing aloe all over his chest to help with the sunburn, he’ll reason that the sweatshirt in the middle of the summer is why he was staring at the man for so long, and not the fact that Ian thought, despite his poor wardrobe choices, that the man was cute.)
Ian watched him for a minute longer, the sunscreen forgotten entirely.
Kids run around him on the beach, but the mystery man doesn’t flinch. He stares at the waves like he can’t bring himself to look at anything else. Honestly it reminds Ian a little bit of himself when he first got to LA all those years ago. A whole life behind him and nothing but the open ocean in front of him.
Ian shakes his head to snap himself out of it. He’s projecting again, he knows he is. The guy’s probably a native Californian who works in an air-conditioned cubicle and hates the beach for all Ian knows.
Probably.
Maybe.
But there’s something about him that Ian can’t shake, a feeling that he isn’t from around here, not even close really, but Ian’s still trying to put the puzzle pieces together on that one when Nicole calls him over.
“Ian, let’s go!”
She waves him over as Tyler starts his descent from the lifeguard tower, his shift done for the day.
“Sorry,” Ian says, quickly spraying just his shoulders as an afterthought.
By the time he looks back out over the beach, the man is gone.
It’s a week later when Ian sees him again.
He catches him mid-shift, when Ian’s scanning the beach for any signs of trouble. One minute there’s a patch of open sand just off to the left of the lifeguard tower, about fifty feet away, and the next minute—there’s the guy.
He’s wearing jeans, again, and his boots are still on, but at least he’s ditched the sweatshirt this time. He’s got on a grey tank top, with some kind of shirt balled up and draped over his shoulder. He looks tired, Ian thinks, in a way that west coasters never really get.
Ian’s mesmerized by the way the man stands, hands in his jean pockets and completely unwavering. He stares at the sea—scowls at it, really—like he doesn’t understand it yet. Like he’d rather fist fight the ocean than try to get used to it.
Ian huffs out a breath through his nose that could be a laugh.
“Oh shit!” Tyler says, leaning forward in his chair.
Ian turns back to face the other lifeguard before he follows Tyler’s gaze out to the shallow water.
“Yeah,” Tyler sighs, “that was a nasty spill.”
Ian grabs the first-aid kid and hurries down the ladder, jogging over to where some pre-pubescent boy is clutching his knee as his friends chase a rogue boogie board in the water.
“You guys need help?”
By the time Ian and Tyler get the kids all sorted, and they’re back in the tower, the mystery man is long gone.
He starts coming to the beach every day.
At least, that’s what Ian is guessing. Because Ian has seen this guy at one point or another during every shift he’s had for the last two weeks. Always around the same time—early afternoon—always in the same spot—fifty feet to the left of the lifeguard tower—and always wearing the same thing.
Jeans, boots, and a tank top. Occasionally a sleeveless button up left completely unbuttoned.
Ian has never once seen the man’s legs or watched him put his toes in the sand. For all Ian knows, the guy doesn’t even know what sand actually feels like. He never goes in the water, he doesn’t bring a towel to sit on, and he never talks to anyone.
Every day it’s the same thing. He stands there, squinting in the sun and frowning at the ocean, and when some indeterminable amount of time is up, he wordlessly turns around and walks back up the beach.
Ian tried to watch him leave one time, just to see where he would go, but he lost the man in the crowd of people by the edge of the boardwalk almost immediately.
Nicole caught him staring. It was not a fun afternoon.
But despite never knowing where the man comes from or where he goes off to, Ian is just as enamored with him now, if not more than ever before. He doesn’t really know why. Yeah, he thinks the guy is attractive—not in that fake tan southern Californian bullshit way, but in a real way, imperfections and all—but this feels like more than that to Ian.
He still can’t pinpoint why.
He leans back in his chair and scans the beach for signs of trouble, checking the spot to his left five or six more times than he usually does. And sure enough, almost ten minutes later, the guy is there again, standing and staring and being the most interesting man Ian has never met.
Ian doesn’t smoke.
At least, that’s what he tells his friends. Sometimes he adds anymore to the end of that sentence, but that theory gets tested every time Tyler gets him drunk and suddenly all Ian craves more than anything in this world is a cigarette. He smokes socially these days, which is still way less than he ever used to smoke back home, even when he and Lip were young, and they would share the occasional stolen cigarettes in their bedroom and smoke them with the door closed and the window cracked.
But if he had to guess—and why he’s guessing, even in his own delusions, he doesn’t know—he’d bet all the money in his grossly underfunded savings account that the mysterious beach man smokes.
He finds out he’s right about a month later.
He’s lacking his usual stoic edge when he shows up on the beach that day, biting the skin around his nails and running his hands through his hair way more than he ever does. He looks stressed, worried even, and Ian’s brow furrows as he watches the man struggle with something internally.
And then he pulls out a pack of cigarettes.
The beach has a no smoking policy, and as a lifeguard, it’s Ian’s job to reinforce all beach rules to keep the area safe and fun for everyone. He should say something, maybe wander over to the edge of the tower and yell down, or even walk over across the sand and actually have a conversation with the guy.
But Ian doesn’t do either of those things.
No, Ian is transfixed on the way the cigarette dangles from the guy’s mouth. He watches the man scratch at his brow, taking a long drag, then blow the smoke out slowly through his nostrils as his eyes roll back and his shoulders start to loosen.
Ian knows that feeling, wants to bottle it up and drown in that feeling. He gets it. Really, he does.
And maybe that’s why Ian jumps when Nicole blows her plastic fucking whistle right next to his ear, because he’s reminiscing on a solid nicotine high and definitely not drooling over the way the guy’s lips curl around a cigarette.
“No smoking on the beach!” Nicole yells, and the guy actually looks somewhat chastised for a split second. “That’s what the parking lot is for!”
She points to the pavement and stares him down, not letting up.
The guy rolls his eyes—dramatically—but he listens. He trudges back up the beach with his lit cigarette dangling between his fingers, sneaking another drag just before his boots leave the sand.
And Ian—well, Ian feels a pang of sadness ring out from just under his breastbone when his daily staring time gets cut short.
He needs to get a fucking grip.
Ian might actually be going insane.
Because he keeps seeing the mystery guy from the beach everywhere. Except, he’s not really seeing him at all, he only thinks he does, and he’s stood in a grocery store scrubbing at his eyes so hard he sees stars more times than he cares to count.
Ian still sees him on the beach, not every day, but most days. It never feels like enough, those fifteen minutes where Ian gets to straight up ogle the man with the slicked back hair and the grease-stained tank tops and the goddamn knuckle tats—something Ian only just discovered, and even though he can’t read them from the safe distance of the lifeguard stand, he thinks they’re hot all the same.
So when a day goes by where Ian doesn’t see him, his brain starts playing tricks on him. On his last day off, Ian had to do a double take on his run because he thought he saw the mystery man. He almost ate shit when he tripped over his own feet, but by the time he caught his balance, the man was gone. Or he never was there in the first place.
Honestly, Ian’s not sure anymore.
Even now, as he sits in his perch in the lifeguard tower, only about thirty minutes into his shift, he rubs at his eyes and cleans the lenses of his sunglasses because he’s pretty sure he’s hallucinating. He hasn’t done hard drugs in over a year, and yet he’s never felt more like he’s on an acid trip than he does right now.
Because there’s a girl, a little ways down the beach, and she’s standing in the sand the same way the mystery man does—the same way Ian did—staring at the ocean with a heavy amount of reverence, and maybe a little bit of fear.
She has the same dark hair and blue eyes that Ian looks at every single day, and after a good three minutes of unabashed staring, Ian thinks she might even have the same nose.
“Who is that?”
Tyler must have caught Ian staring, because he’s looking at the same girl like a dog with a bone and Ian has to try really hard not to roll his eyes. He hopes he doesn’t look that stupid when he’s checking out his usual suspect.
(He doesn’t. He looks twice as bad.)
“Don’t know,” Ian says, because he doesn’t, and Tyler gives him a funny look.
“Thought you were gay?”
Ian rolls his eyes. “I am. She just…” he trails off. He doesn’t know how to explain it. “She looks familiar. That’s all.”
Tyler hums noncommittally.
There are similarities there for sure, Ian muses, but she’s different in her own way too. She wears flip flops and no pants, only an oversized t-shirt with the sleeves cut off that falls just past the edge of her bathing suit bottoms. She has sunglasses perched on her head, and a towel laid out in the sand beside her, and she actually smiles—this big, unguarded grin that lights up the beach—when some LA douchebag runs up from behind her and grabs her around the waist, lifting her up and spinning her around.
“Damn,” Tyler mutters, almost under his breath.
The girl ditches her shirt then, leaving it behind with her towel as she runs towards the water with her maybe-boyfriend, the two of them splashing in the shallow waves and never going deeper than their waists.
Ian doesn’t see his mystery man that day.
And he doesn’t see the girl again after that either.
He wonders, for the hundredth time, if he made it all up.
Ian finally gets the chance to talk to him about six weeks after the guy’s first appearance on the beach.
He has about thirty minutes left on his half day shift, and noon can’t come fast enough. The sun is hot today, and honestly all Ian wants to do is stumble into his tiny one bedroom and crank the air conditioning as high as it can go. He has plans to flop down on his couch with a leftover breakfast burrito and a beer, and video call his family while they celebrate Liam’s birthday back home. He’s four now, and Ian misses him terribly.
He's not even really thinking about the beach guy that day, knowing that odds are they’ll probably just miss each other—mystery guy prefers to stare down the ocean in the afternoon, Ian has learned—when the man in question shows up out of nowhere.
He sits in the sand with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, and Ian can’t help but think that this is the first time he’s ever seen the man not standing.
He looks exhausted. Defeated.
Ian knows a bad day when he sees one—not in the missed his bus, forgot his math homework kind of way, but in the DCFS showed up unprompted and mom took off with all the cash left in the squirrel fund kind of way—and the mystery man is definitely having a bad day.
He scrubs his eyes with the heels of his hands, and Ian’s heart breaks for him a little bit.
Ian wants to help, but he doesn’t know how. He doesn’t even know the guy, not really, and the guy definitely doesn’t know Ian. So, he sits in his chair in the lifeguard tower for the next thirty minutes and watches, just keeps an eye on the guy to make sure he’s still upright, still breathing.
The man eventually picks his head up again. His eyes are slightly puffy, but his usual scowl is back in place. He stares at the waves like they’re the answer to all his problems—or the reason, maybe, Ian isn’t sure—while the sun beats down on his shoulders and the back of his neck. Ian thinks he’s got to be sweating like crazy in jeans and boots in this heat, but the man doesn’t move.
Ian can almost hear the gears turning in his head, can see the way he’s thinking while his eyes dart across the water. Ian is desperate to know what’s going on in there.
But he gets no insight into the man’s deeper thoughts before the timer on Ian’s watch is beeping, and the next guard comes strolling over for the shift change. Ian packs up his things quickly, checking his phone and already seeing two texts from Fiona about what time he’s going to call, before shoving it in his bag with the rest of his stuff.
He digs around for his keys when his hand knocks into his tube of sunblock, and Ian gets an idea.
He glances over to where the man is still sitting in the sand, his shoulders just starting to turn pink.
“You gonna go talk to him?”
Ian’s head whips around to face Nicole, her sunglasses perched on her nose and a knowing look peering just over the top of them.
“No,” Ian says, followed by, “shut up.”
Nicole just laughs, greeting her new shift partner as the girl climbs up the ladder.
“Just remember to invite me to the wedding,” Nicole teases as Ian starts his descent from the tower.
He flips her off.
Ian hits the sand with both feet, and for a second he’s frozen in place. He could just walk straight to the parking lot, forget this whole thing ever happened and go wait for his bus like he always does at the end of a shift. But there’s something that’s pulling him down the beach, something that’s guiding him fifty feet to the left of the lifeguard tower, and before he knows it, he’s standing within earshot of the mystery man.
The guy looks up at Ian with a furrowed brow, one hand blocking the sun from his eyes.
Jesus Christ this was a bad idea.
Because he’s twice as attractive up close as he is from a distance, and Ian’s mouth dries up instantly. All thoughts fly out of his head the second he sees those blue eyes blink up at him, shining in the sun like the ocean in summer.
Ian just stands there in his red shorts and white tank top, his hair starting to fall over his forehead, his backpack slung over one shoulder and a five-dollar bottle of SPF 50 in his hand.
“The fuck do you want?”
Ian’s first thought is that yeah, he was right, this guy definitely isn’t from California, and his second thought is how much he wants to laugh at the bluntness of his question.
Most people out here aren’t that direct, and Ian didn’t realize until now just how much he missed the straight forwardness that reminds him so much of home.
Ian grins, just a small curl of one corner of his mouth, as he tosses the bottle of sunscreen to the man, who catches it with an even more confused look on his face.
“You sit out here any longer without that and you’re gonna be fried to a crisp,” Ian tells him.
The man reads the label on the bottle, realizes what it is, and blinks up at Ian again with a painfully neutral expression. Like he can’t figure out what to do in this situation.
And to be fair, Ian doesn’t really know what to do either, so he readjusts the strap of his backpack and starts to walk away, past the man he still doesn’t know the name of and up the beach towards the parking lot.
He only gets a few steps away when he hears him.
“Bet you burn like a motherfucker.”
Ian laughs, dipping his head a bit as he does. He turns around and walks backwards for a second, shrugging at the man with a teasing grin, before heading up the beach once again.
Every fiber of his being wants to go back and introduce himself, to say more than just some dumb line about sun protection, but Fiona calls him before he even hit the pavement of the parking lot, and his internal debate is tabled for another day.
Ian doesn’t see him the next day, or the day after that.
He definitely does not spend hours (multiple) wondering if he’s scared the man off for good.
It’s three days after the sunscreen incident when Ian finally sees him again.
It’s a cold day for July in Santa Barbara, with heavy rain clouds rolling in all morning and a storm just past the horizon. Ian isn’t working today, but he finds himself at the beach early in the morning anyways. The swell is just too good to resist.
Amongst Ian’s few Californian possessions is a battered old surfboard he got from the surf shop he used to work at before he became a lifeguard. His boss was about to throw it out, a used board with too many dings and scratches from a brand that didn’t even exist anymore, but Ian swiped it instead. He taught himself how to surf that summer, with the help of one of his coworkers who was out ripping waves every morning before shift, and though it took a lot of trial and error, Ian eventually got the hang of it.
He doesn’t bring the board out much during the busy season, but on days like today where no one is scrambling for a slice of the sand before 9am it’s perfect for surfing. The storm off the coast makes the waves huge, and the cloudy sky keeps all amateur surfers and swimmers at bay.
Ian spends about an hour in the water that morning, riding the waves and letting the water crash over him. It’s relaxing, and he gets a good workout in at the same time.
It’s still morning when he decides he’s had enough, grabbing his board out of the water and heading back to shore. He starts his trek back to the lifeguard tower—old habits die hard—because he dumped his bag with the guards on duty, two seventeen-year-olds wrapped up in hoodies who Ian can’t remember the names of for the life of him.
He’s halfway there when he spots him.
The mystery man is standing in his usual spot, wearing that same dark gray hoodie Ian saw him in the first day he saw him on the beach. He’s looking right at Ian, his gaze locked.
Ian nearly stops in his tracks.
He changes course and walks over to the man, his wetsuit dripping, and his surfboard still tucked under one arm. His heartbeat is skyrocketing, but he can’t help but smile a little despite himself.
“You again,” Ian muses, setting his board down in the sand. He undoes his ankle strap and tosses it away.
The man doesn’t say anything at first, just watches Ian carefully.
Finally, he takes his hands out of his sweatshirt pockets and tosses something to Ian, who fumbles it spectacularly, but manages to hold onto it in the end.
It’s the same tube of sunblock from the other day.
“Thanks,” he says, shoving his hands back in his pockets.
Ian blinks down at the bottle. “Oh,” he says with a nervous laugh. “Yeah. No problem.” He runs one hand through his wet hair and gestures to the storm clouds overhead. “Probably won’t need any of that today,” he muses.
The man just nods, shrugging with his brows.
Not much of a talker, Ian muses.
“I’m Ian, by the way,” he says, wanting to hold out a hand to shake but thinking better of it when he realizes he’s still dripping wet. “Ian Gallagher.”
The man looks him over slowly before replying with, “Mickey.”
“Mickey,” Ian repeats, a small smile playing on his face. “That’s a good name.”
“Yeah.”
The two of them stare at each other for a long minute after that. Neither of them really knows what to say, but Ian doesn’t want to look away.
Apparently neither does Mickey.
It’s not until thunder claps loudly in the distance that they’re both snapped out of this weird trance they have going on.
Mickey’s eyes dart around the beach, like he’s trying to find someone watching them, and Ian laughs softly.
Mickey wets his lips with one more glance at Ian. “I gotta…” he trails off, hooking a thumb over his shoulder.
“Oh,” Ian says, trying not to sound disappointed. “Yeah. Sure.”
When Mickey looks like he’s about to turn and leave, Ian offers a small wave before he reaches back and drags the zipper down his wetsuit. He frees his arms and lets the top half of the suit hang around his waist, his skin littered with goosebumps as it hits the cool beach breeze.
Ian is about to reach down and grab his board when he notices Mickey’s still standing there, his brows raised and his eyes roaming over Ian’s exposed chest.
Ian tries not to blush under the scrutinization.
When Mickey’s eyes meet Ian’s again, there’s a small smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth, and Ian’s heart lurches.
Mickey takes a few steps backwards, looking Ian up and down again.
“See you around, Gallagher,” he says, turning on his heel and heading back up the beach.
Ian watches him all the way to the parking lot, his eyes trained on Mickey—mostly his ass, if he’s being honest—until he disappears between cars.
“See you around,” Ian mutters to himself, feeling the first few raindrops hit his bare shoulders.
He walks around in a daze after that, getting his things and getting off the beach on autopilot, just making it to the bus before the heavy rain really starts to fall.
It’s not until an hour later, when he’s home and washing the salt off his skin in the shower, that he wonders what the hell Mickey was doing at the beach on a rainy day anyways.
Ian doesn’t see him for another week after that.
He tries not to think too much into it. It’s the busy season, and honestly this week the beach has seemed more packed than usual. Maybe Mickey’s avoiding the crowds, or maybe Ian’s just missing him entirely, too busy with his lifeguard duties to catch him at the right time.
Or maybe Mickey’s found a new spot on the beach, one not right next to Ian’s lifeguard tower, and this thing Ian’s been building in his head for weeks has reached a sudden crashing end.
But like he said—he tries not to think too much into it.
It’s Monday, and the day is dragging on exceedingly slow. When Tyler comes to relieve Ian of his station for his lunch break, Ian is seriously considering just packing up and going home. He’s sure Tyler would cover the rest of his shift for him if he asked.
But rent is due next week, and Ian doesn’t want to have to dip into his savings—all $117.94 that’s actually in his savings account—so he tells himself the afternoon will go by faster after he takes a break and eats some food.
Ian grabs his backpack and heads up the beach, hoping to find some shade. There are picnic tables by the snack shack covered in shade from the trees, and while the tables are probably all taken, maybe Ian can find an open patch of grass to sit on for a while. All he wants is to cool off and eat the turkey wrap that’s slowly melting in his bag.
But when he gets up to the dividers separating the strip from the sand, he spots Mickey, sitting on a dilapidated wooden fence and smoking a cigarette.
Ian’s plans instantly change.
“Hey stranger,” he says, making his way over to him.
Mickey looks over at Ian with a raised brow, but his face relaxes a bit when he recognizes him.
“Hey,” Mickey says back, taking another drag. “What are you doin’ up here?”
“On my lunch break,” Ian says with a shrug, taking a seat next to Mickey. “Wanted to find some shade.”
Mickey squints against the sun and makes a face at Ian. “You know this isn’t the shade, right?”
“I know,” Ian says easily, letting his bag fall off his shoulders and sit between his legs.
Mickey just shrugs him off and goes back to smoking his cigarette.
“You got another one of those?” Ian asks before he even knows what he’s saying.
He doesn’t even really want a cigarette. He just wants a reason to keep talking to Mickey.
But when Mickey hands him the cigarette straight out of his mouth, Ian doesn’t even hesitate to take it.
The smoke burns down Ian’s throat, and it’s never felt so good.
“Didn’t know a boy scout like you smoked.”
Ian shrugs, taking another drag. “Used to,” he says, then blows out the smoke. “Quit last year.”
“Uh huh,” Mickey says around a laugh, pointedly looking at the cigarette between Ian’s lips.
“Shut up,” Ian says, knocking his shoulder into Mickey’s.
Mickey laughs again, but he doesn’t look away. He studies Ian, reads the fine print on his uniform regulation lifeguard tank top and shorts. “So, you work here, huh?”
“Yup,” Ian says, handing the cigarette back to Mickey.
“You like it?”
“A lot, yeah.”
Mickey hums.
“What about you?” Ian asks, reaching into his bag and grabbing his lunch.
“Yeah, I work here too.”
Ian freezes. “Are you… a lifeguard?”
“Fuck no,” Mickey spits out around a stream of smoke. “Don’t you gotta go through training and shit for that?”
“Yeah.”
Mickey shakes his head. “I got nothing like that. No skills.” He tosses his cigarette on the pavement, stomps it out with his boot. He nods his head vaguely somewhere behind him. “I work at the fucking snack shack, man.”
And suddenly so much more of this makes sense.
The reason why Mickey’s here all the time, why he spends twenty minutes in the sand and then leaves. Why he’s never wearing a bathing suit at the beach.
He works here. Just like Ian.
“That’s cool,” Ian says, and he means it.
“No, it’s really not.”
Ian laughs at that, and so does Mickey.
They sit on the fence together in a comfortable silence for the rest of their breaks. Mickey smokes another cigarette, and Ian eats his turkey wrap. The sun beats down heavy on them, but they don’t care.
It’s nice.
“Where are you from?”
Mickey raises a brow at him from where he sits on the other half of Ian’s towel.
They have lunch together now, sometimes. Mickey has started timing his breaks with Ian, and more often than not he meets the lifeguard in the sand just as he’s coming down the ladder. They’ll find a quiet place to sit somewhere, sometimes on the beach, sometimes over on the grass in the shade, and Ian will lay his towel out and they’ll sit.
Mickey doesn’t really eat during lunch, but sometimes he’ll steal some of Ian’s chips. In turn, occasionally he’ll bring goodies from the snack shack and pretend he didn’t do it on purpose. Today, for example, he showed up with two ice cold sodas and told Ian they were made for the wrong order. Both of them.
So, Ian lets Mickey pretend he would’ve thrown them out anyways, and they drink Mountain Dew on the beach.
“What makes you think I’m not from here?” Mickey asks.
Ian shoots him a pointed look, unable to verbally express how literally everything about Mickey gives him away.
Mickey rolls his eyes. He fiddles with the straw in his drink. “Chicago.”
“No way,” Ian says perking up. “Me too!”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah!”
Mickey looks him up and down, furrowing his brow. “Glencoe?”
“Are you fucking high?” Ian asks incredulously. “I’m from the southside.”
“No fucking way are you from the southside.”
“Born and raised.”
“What part?”
“Back of the yards,” Ian answers without missing a beat, as if he hasn’t been tied to the west coast for three years now.
Mickey stares at him for a long second, his lips slightly parted. “Huh.”
Ian puffs out his chest a little, feeling like he just won some argument that only existed in his head.
Mickey doesn’t look away from him, his eyes scanning Ian’s face and lingering on his mouth for just a second too long.
Ian sees it.
“Canaryville,” Mickey says, finally looking away, back towards the ocean.
Ian hums. “We’re practically neighbors.”
Mickey laughs softly.
“Something like that.”
“You’re burning.”
“Am not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“How can you tell?”
“Your shoulders are bright red.”
“Why are you looking at my shoulders?”
“Because you don’t own any shirts with sleeves.”
“Fuck off.”
“Whatever. It’s your funeral.”
“You can’t die from a sunburn.”
“I think technically you can, but you probably won’t.”
“Exactly.”
“You’ll just wish you had.”
“You’re the most annoying person I’ve ever met.”
“Do you want me to put it on for you?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m—give me that.”
“…You missed a spot.”
“I’m gonna fucking murder you.”
“So you keep saying.”
“You should bring a bathing suit one of these days.”
Mickey is used to Ian’s non-sequiturs by now, but this one throws him.
“Why?”
Ian shrugs. “It’s fucking hot. You don’t ever want to cool off in the ocean during your breaks?”
“No.”
Ian lets the comment roll off his back. There’s some stuff that Mickey just doesn’t elaborate on. He doesn’t take it personally—anymore—he knows Mickey’s just like that sometimes.
But with each passing day of their weird sort of friendship, Ian thinks he’s opening up a little more, bit by bit.
Mickey runs a hand over his mouth. “I don’t know how to swim.”
Ian looks over at him. “Seriously?”
“Never needed to learn,” Mickey says, shrugging easily.
Ian leans back on his hands, studying Mickey’s profile for a long minute. He’s sitting cross-legged on Ian’s towel in the shade, fiddling with the remnants of a blue freeze-pop wrapper in his hands. His tongue is still blue, and Ian’s is red.
“I could teach you,” Ian offers, his voice gentle.
Mickey scoffs. “No thanks.”
Ian narrows his eyes. “Have you even ever felt the ocean?”
Mickey shoots him a look over his shoulder, staring daggers that usually mean shut the fuck up.
Ian raises his hands in apology.
Mickey lets out a small sigh. He turns back towards the ocean, watching the waves crash along the shore, lost in the movement of the water once again.
Ian doesn’t bring it up again.
(Not that day, at least.)
“Two hot dogs, and a large diet coke,” Ian says, saddling up to the snack shack counter with a shit eating grin.
Mickey rolls his eyes as he punches the order into the register. “You want anything on them?”
“Mustard,” Ian answers. “Nothing else.”
Mickey hums. “Man after my own heart.”
Ian blatantly ignores the fluttering in his stomach and the blush creeping up his neck.
Mickey looks up at him, only kind of trying to bite back his grin at the pink flush of Ian’s cheeks. “Anything else?” he asks.
“Hm,” Ian muses. “I know there was something else… What was it…”
Mickey stares at him completely unamused. Some soccer mom in line behind Ian huffs.
“Oh, yeah,” Ian says with a grin. “One snack shack employee on his lunch break, please and thank you.”
Mickey punches a button on the register and the drawer slides open. Ian pays the man and leaves his change in the tip jar.
“Hot dogs will be right up,” Mickey says, nodding to the side to have Ian step out of the way. “Lunch break will take another five.”
Ian scoops up his soda from the counter and takes a sip.
“I can wait.”
Ian: you working today?
Mickey: No
Ian: what.
Ian: who am I supposed to eat lunch with??
Mickey: Tyler
Ian: he’s not as fun
Mickey: And I am?
Ian: sometimes
Mickey: Fuck off
Ian: :)
Ian: no but seriously who am I supposed to eat lunch with
Ian: I don’t remember how to do this alone
Mickey: I’m sure you’ll figure it out
Ian: doubtful
Mickey: Go sit in the shade and eat you’re fucking sandwich
Ian: it’s a wrap actually
Mickey: Annoying motherfucker
Ian: if I close my eyes it’s almost like you’re here
Ian: but also, not really
Mickey: Anyone ever tell you how fucking strange you are?
Mickey: I’m working tomorrow
Ian: oh thank god
“What brought you out here?”
Ian turns his head towards Mickey. They don’t talk about deep stuff, not really. They rarely ever talk about their pasts. Whether that’s because Mickey didn’t ask, or Ian didn’t offer never really occurred to him until now.
“Sort of a long story,” Ian answers without answering at all.
Mickey holds his gaze. He doesn’t push, but he doesn’t change the subject either.
Ian sighs. “I ran away with my mom,” Ian says, finding it easier to stare off at the horizon than to look Mickey in the eye. They’re perched under one of the big trees up by the snack shack, sitting in the shade. “I’d just turned sixteen and she wanted to go on this big adventure to celebrate. Asked me if I could go anywhere in the world, where would I go?” Ian picks an imaginary piece of lint off his swim trunks. “First place that came to mind was California. Don’t know why.”
Mickey nods, studying Ian. “Where’s your mom now?”
“Fuck if I know,” Ian says with a laugh that comes out hollow. “She made it to Kansas City before changing her mind. Said she knew some guy there, and we could stay with him for a while.”
“Did you?”
“No,” Ian answers. “I went to LA.”
“By yourself?”
“Yeah.”
Mickey doesn’t say anything. He pulls a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and lights one up before wordlessly handing it over to Ian.
“Why didn’t you go home?”
Ian takes a long drag. “Hm?”
“In Kansas City,” Mickey says. “How come you didn’t go home?”
Ian lets out a slow breath. He asked himself this question a hundred times in his first few weeks in California. He had no reason to be out here, no family, no money—nothing.
“I don’t know,” Ian answers honestly. “But I’m glad I didn’t.”
Mickey watches him. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “Me too.”
Ian looks over and smiles at him, all soft and warm.
Mickey blushes and looks away.
“What about you?” Ian asks, handing the cigarette back. “Why’d you come out here?”
Mickey shrugs. “Don’t know. We got in the car and just… kept driving.”
“Yeah, but why’d you go west?”
Mickey blows smoke out his nose.
“Always wanted to see the ocean.”
It takes Ian four minutes and sixteen seconds to catch Mickey’s slip.
“We?!”
Mickey has a sister.
“Wait a minute,” Ian had said that day under the tree. “Does she look exactly like you?”
“I mean, we’re not twins, but—”
“Oh thank God.”
“What?”
“I thought I was going crazy.”
And Ian had explained how one day he saw this girl on the beach who looked just like Mickey, and Ian thought he was dehydrated or something, hallucinating the whole damn thing.
“Yeah,” Mickey had said. “That’s Mandy.”
And that was that.
Until a few days later when Ian couldn’t let it go, and he all but demanded Mickey let him meet his sister.
That’s how they ended up here, at the picnic tables by the snack shack on a Friday afternoon, waiting for Mandy to arrive.
“What if she doesn’t like me?” Ian asks, only half serious.
“Would you shut the fuck up?” Mickey complains, holding a large cup of ice water to his forehead.
“Headache?”
Mickey nods. “This is what being your friend gets me. Migraines.”
Ian beams. “We’re friends?”
Mickey glares at him. “What did I just say?”
“Fine,” Ian says, rolling his eyes. “Shutting the fuck up now.”
“Thank Christ.”
Ian knows it’s not him that gives Mickey headaches. It’s the ten-hour shift surrounded by fried food and grease smells that does him in, though Ian’s never noticed Mickey to smell like a kitchen when he gets off shift. In fact, Ian kind of likes the way Mickey smells.
He doesn’t have time to contemplate if that’s weird or not, because a second later he spots the girl with the dark hair and blue eyes walking across the parking lot.
Mickey whistles around his fingers to get her attention.
“I’m not a fucking dog, Mick,” she tells him as she makes her way over.
“Sure,” he says halfheartedly.
She hugs him anyways.
“What’s up?” she asks, sitting down at the picnic table. “Why’d you call me down here?”
Mickey shrugs, then nods to the redhead sitting beside him. “This is Ian.”
Mandy looks over at him. “Hey.”
“Hi,” Ian says, a little too excited.
Mandy makes a face, then turns back to Mickey. “So?”
“So?”
“Mick,” she sighs. “Why am I here?”
Mickey shrugs. “To meet Ian.”
Ian smiles. Mandy’s brow furrows.
“…Why?”
“Fuckin’ ask him yourself, man, I don’t know,” Mickey sighs, exasperated.
Mandy stares at Ian, trying to read him. It’s uncanny how much her expressions remind him of Mickey’s
“Well somebody didn’t even tell me he had a sister until, like, two days ago,” Ian says, trying to pass at least some of the blame onto Mickey. Ian shrugs. “And then I wanted to meet you.”
Mandy blinks. “And you are…?”
“I’m Ian,” he says plainly. “I’m Mickey’s friend.”
“Jesus Christ,” Mickey mumbles under his breath, rubbing at his brow and chewing on ice.
“You’re weird,” Mandy tells him, slowly looking him over, liking what she sees. “But you’re hot, so you get a pass.”
She smiles at him from across the table and Ian can see things going very wrong very fast if he doesn’t immediately shut this down.
“I’m also very, very gay,” he says bluntly.
He’s mentioned this before in front of Mickey, casually, like in the way he’d share a funny story about an ex, but very pointedly makes sure to mention it was a guy. Mickey has never offered up any tidbit about his own sexuality, past or present, but he hasn’t ever said anything about Ian’s either.
And sure, Ian’s still maybe sort of kind of holding out hope that Mickey is gay—what straight man spends an entire summer eating lunch on the beach with another man, like be fucking for real—but he tries not to get his hopes up about it.
Usually.
Because Mandy’s brows shoot up when Ian mentions that he’s gay, and her gaze immediately shifts to Mickey, who, per usual, says nothing.
Her brow quirks almost imperceptibly.
“You’re Mickey’s friend,” she repeats Ian’s earlier words, but she’s still staring at Mickey.
He glares back at her and kicks her under the table.
“Ow!” she yelps. She swipes Mickey’s drink cup right out of his hand and takes a sip. “Douchebag.”
Mickey flips her off and rubs at his brow again. He turns sideways on the bench and raises his brows at Ian. “We done here?”
Ian looks back at Mandy, and the two of them grin conspiratorially.
“Nope,” they say in unison.
Mickey lets out a long-suffering sigh.
“Yup. Knew I’d fucking regret this.”
Ian: Mickey.
Ian: SOS
Mickey: What?
Ian: I forgot my sunblock
Mickey: How.
Ian: I DON’T KNOW
Ian: but it’s not in my bag.
Ian: this is so so bad
Mickey: Just borrow some??
Ian: from who???
Ian: I’m working with Hallie today
Ian: she’s never used a drop of sunscreen a day in her life
Mickey: You’re fucked
Ian: MICKEY.
Ian: not. helpful.
Mickey: The fuck do you want me to do about it?
Ian: do they sell sunblock at the snack shack
Ian: please say yes
Mickey: Yes
Ian: well okay
Ian: at least I can get some at lunch
Ian: then I’ll only be halfway to roasted instead of a full day’s worth
Mickey: You’re so fucking
Mickey: Just come get it now??
Ian: I can’t
Ian: we have to stay at our posts until shift change
Ian: it’s a liability thing, I think
Mickey: You’re fucked
Ian: AGAIN
Ian: NOT. HELPFUL.
Mickey: Start buying aloe in bulk
Ian: I’m gonna die
Ian: will you still be my friend if I look like a lobster?
Mickey: No
Ian: hurtful.
Mickey: But honest
Ian: I might actually get sun poisoning from this
Ian: like for real
Mickey: No you won’t
Ian: Mickey, yes I will.
Ian: it’s happened before, I had to go to the hospital
Ian: oh god what if I pass out?? I can’t pass out while I’m working
Ian: that’s what happened last time
Ian: not during work, but I did pass out
Ian: anyways.
Ian: Mickey help what do I DO
Something hard comes crashing into Ian’s knee, and the collision makes him drop his phone in his lap.
Ian glances briefly at Hallie, who just shrugs.
It’s a brown paper bag with the top rolled over so the contents don’t go flying everywhere. Ian slowly opens it up and finds a tube of SPF 50 and an orange Gatorade inside.
He blinks down at it, then gets up and peers over the railing of the lifeguard tower.
Mickey’s standing in the sand with his hands on his hips, wearing his snack shack t-shirt and a backwards White Sox hat, his grease-stained apron still tied around his waist.
“Would you calm the fuck down?!” he yells.
Ian beams.
But before he can say so much as thank you, Mickey, for literally saving my life, Mickey is storming across the beach back towards the snack shack.
Ian watches him go, his smile never faltering.
He texts Mickey an entire row of heart emojis.
Mickey dislikes the message.
“That your boyfriend?” Hallie asks.
“No. Just a friend.”
Hallie blinks. “You sure about that?”
Mickey sends back a sun emoji, and a skull and crossbones.
Ian smiles at his phone, then pockets it when Hallie elbows him.
“Sorry,” he says, still grinning as he starts to put the sunblock on. “What was the question?”
Mickey is just rounding the corner of the lifeguard tower to meet Ian for lunch when a pair of swim trunks hits him in the face.
“What the fuck—”
“Put those on,” Ian calls out from above, swinging his backpack over his shoulders and climbing down the ladder.
Mickey holds up the shorts, light blue and plain. “Why?”
Ian lands on the sand and shoots Mickey a look. “Because it’s a hundred and two degrees today, Mickey, and I want to go in the water.”
Mickey stares at Ian like he has two heads.
Ian doesn’t flinch.
“I told you I don’t know how to swim,” Mickey says after a minute.
Ian sighs. “Thought you might say that.” He grabs Mickey by the shoulders and spins him around, marching up the beach towards the bathrooms. “I don’t care.”
“What the fuck.”
“You gotta stop being afraid of the ocean sometime, Mickey.”
“I’m not afraid of the ocean.”
“I think maybe you are.”
“I think I’m afraid of drowning.”
Ian rolls his eyes. “You’re not gonna drown.”
“You really don’t know that.”
“Mickey—” Ian sighs. “Every time you get contemplative, you stare at the water like you want to fight it.”
“Maybe I do.”
“Great. Now’s your chance.”
Mickey digs his heels in, literally and figuratively, stopping them in their tracks.
He looks at Ian with wide eyes, a flash of panic in them that Ian has never seen before.
“I really can’t swim, Ian.”
Ian stands in front of him and grabs him by the shoulders.
“I’m a really good lifeguard, Mickey.”
That seems to do the trick, because Mickey ducks his head to hide a laugh, and suddenly things feel back to normal again.
“Fuck you,” he says with no heat behind it.
“Yeah, yeah,” Ian says, leading Mickey up the beach once more. “Look, we only have to go in up to our knees okay? I wasn’t gonna just shove you in deep water and tell you to figure it out or whatever.”
“I know,” Mickey breathes out, reassuring himself. “It’s just…”
“Scary?”
“No,” Mickey says quickly. “Shut up.”
“You’ll be fine,” Ian tells him. “Now go get changed.”
Mickey looks at the bathing suit in his hands, then up at Ian.
“If I drown out there, it’s your fucking fault.”
“If you drown out there, I’m for sure getting fired.”
Mickey smacks him in the arm with the bathing suit before disappearing into the bathrooms to get changed.
In the end, they go in up to their waists.
Mickey decides that he’s completely indifferent towards the ocean, which Ian takes to mean not scared anymore, so he counts that as a win.
Ian splashes around like a goddamn fish, jumping into the waves and swimming out so far that Mickey gets nervous and yells at him to come in closer. He splashes at Mickey constantly, which is how they end up chasing each other around in the shallow waters, Ian trying to coral Mickey into going deeper and Mickey basically attempting to drown Ian when he isn’t looking.
It’s the dead heat of summer, but they’re having fun, and Ian doesn’t know if he’s ever laughed this much in his life.
Mickey: What time are you off tonight?
Ian: 5
Ian: why?
Mickey: Wanna get food after?
Ian: sure
Ian: hotdogs from the snack shack?
Mickey: Something like that
Ian: okay
He doesn’t think twice about the texts.
Yeah, they mostly do lunch because it’s easy and convenient and they both happen to be already in the same place, but it’s not like, unheard of for Ian and Mickey to get something to eat together after their shifts. There’s a taco truck that parks down the street they both like, and a sub shop two blocks over that’s pretty good.
So when Ian’s shift ends at five and he and Tyler pack up the tower for the night, he really isn’t thinking about anything other than hotdogs and a shower.
But maybe that was the point.
Because when Ian finally comes face to face with Mickey at the edge of the parking lot, he quite literally trips over his own feet.
Mickey’s wearing shorts—they’re not swim trunks, but they’re not his usual work jeans either, so they catch Ian by surprise—and a light-colored Hawaiian shirt over a clean white tank top. He has on sneakers instead of his usual boots, a backpack slung over his shoulders, and he’s holding a pizza box in both hands.
He smiles at Ian, and Ian’s heart nearly stops.
“What’s happening right now?” Ian questions.
Mickey’s smile drops. “You said you wanted to get food.”
“I—” Ian cuts himself off. He shoves Tyler, who’s still standing next to him for some reason. “Goodbye Tyler.”
Tyler grins at him over his shoulder, lightly punching Mickey in the arm as he walks away.
Mickey rolls his eyes.
Ian waist until Tyler is out of earshot, then looks back at Mickey with a soft smile on his face. His heart is racing.
“Not feeling hotdogs?” he teases, nodding to the pizza box.
Mickey grins at him with a shrug. “Not tonight.”
They wander down the beach for a while. Mickey steers them away from Ian’s usual lifeguard tower, and the two of them walk along the sand until they find a relatively secluded spot. There’s an older woman sitting in a beach chair with a book, and a man playing fetch with his dog a little ways away, but other than that—it’s just the two of them.
Mickey drops his backpack, and Ian lays out his towel like always.
They sit and eat pizza together as the sun starts to go down. The stifling heat from the day fades into a comfortable warmth as the night goes on, and Ian is made more aware that he’s still just in his lifeguard uniform. It’s not really cold enough for the sweatshirt he keeps in his bag, but he likes the way Mickey looks in his normal clothes, all relaxed and not covered in French fry oil for once, and Ian wishes he could’ve gotten all dressed up too.
He's never once felt self-conscious about himself or his appearance in front of Mickey, but tonight he would’ve killed to at least run a brush through his hair or something.
Why? He doesn’t know.
But something feels different.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get over the sunsets out here,” Ian muses, stretching out and leaning back on his elbows.
Mickey hums, munching on the last of the pizza crusts.
“They’re beautiful,” Ian continues, shaking his head at the horizon before looking over at Mickey. “Don’t you think?”
Mickey wipes his hands on his shorts, pizza crumbs falling by his sides. “You would be the kind of sap to love sunsets.”
“Can you blame me?”
“Bet you take shitty pictures of them too.”
Ian grins. “Always.”
He slides his phone out of his pocket and holds it up where Mickey can see, focusing on the sun setting just over the water and snapping a few pictures. They do come out kind of shitty with Ian’s secondhand iPhone camera, but he likes them all the same.
He flips the camera around to selfie mode.
“Come here,” Ian says softly, scooting closer to Mickey. “Get in this.”
He’s expecting to get an earful about how stupid this whole thing is, but Mickey stays silent. He leans his shoulder against Ian’s and slides in frame, smiling softly at the camera as Ian takes the picture.
“This is the gayest shit I’ve ever done.”
Ian laughs loudly at that, deep in his belly, and Mickey’s grin breaks out into a full-blown smile with teeth and everything.
Ian takes a picture of that too.
Mickey drags his backpack around in the sand, sliding open the zipper and revealing a six pack of beer crammed inside. They drink out of red plastic cups, and cheers to the goddamn sunset over another fitful of laughter.
It’s almost night by the time they run out of things to talk about. They spend hours sitting on that ratty beach towel together, neither one of them having to get back to work or rush home for whatever reason. The sun has fully set by the time Mickey kills the last of the beer, and they’re both laying on their backs looking up at the stars.
“You ever think, back in the day,” Mickey starts, “this is where we’d be?”
“Two kids from the southside run away to California and find each other on the west coast…” Ian muses. “Don’t think I could’ve predicted that.”
Mickey laughs softly and it’s the sweetest sound Ian’s ever heard.
And maybe it’s the beer, or the beach, or the goddamn starts shining overhead, but Ian thinks this is the closest thing to a date he’s ever been on in his life, and he has absolutely no idea if Mickey feels the same way. It’s romantic, all of it, or at least Ian thinks it is, and he doesn’t know what to do about it.
But he’s feeling bold tonight, apparently, so he goes with it.
He slides his arm against the towel until his forearm is pressed to Mickey’s, and the two of them stop breathing.
Ian reaches over and laces his fingers with Mickey, so very slowly.
He waits for Mickey to pull away—but he never does. He curls his fingers around Ian’s, and they lie there like that for what feels like forever, with Mickey’s heart in his throat and Ian’s beating straight out of his chest.
And then Mickey kisses him.
It’s quick—so quick that Ian doesn’t see it coming, and he barely even registers it when it’s there—with Mickey rolling onto his side, propped up on one arm, and he leans and kisses Ian for exactly one full second before immediately pulling away.
Ian’s head spins.
Mickey flops down onto his back again, his breathing fast and his hand still tangled with Ian’s. He swallows thickly.
Ian turns his head to look over at him, takes in his labored breathing and the nervous way his eyes are darting around the sky, and he wonders, briefly, if that was the first time Mickey has ever kissed a boy.
“Well,” Ian starts, squeezing Mickey’s hand. “I think that might top the list of the gayest shit you’ve ever done.”
But Mickey doesn’t laugh.
His head rolls to the side and his eyes are wide, panicked, and he’s looking for something in Ian’s gaze, some kind of reassurance that he didn’t just fuck up completely.
And that—Ian can do.
Ian rolls onto his side, props himself up on one arm like Mickey just did a minute ago, but his movements are slow, careful. He reaches up with his free hand and brushes Mickey’s hair back off his forehead, then lets his fingers trail down the side of his face until he’s cupping Mickey’s jaw in his hand.
He leans in and he kisses him, soft and slow and sweet.
Ian kisses him again and again, as many times as it takes for Mickey’s body to finally relax under Ian’s hands, for both of them to melt into it so completely they forget about everything else.
They make out under the stars and Mickey remembers how to breathe.
“Tell. Me. Everything.”
Ian is bombarded the second he gets to the top of the lifeguard tower.
Nicole is perched on the edge of her chair and her leg is bouncing a mile a minute.
“What?” Ian asks blankly, completely thrown off.
“About last night!” Nicole tells him, grabbing his arm and yanking him forward until he falls into his chair.
Ian blushes. Hard.
“Oh my God, I knew it,” Nicole squeals. “Something totally happened!”
“What? No,” Ian lies, poorly.
“Yes,” Nicole tells him.
“How do you even—”
“Tyler was there when you guys went off on your little date,” Nicole informs him. “He said Mickey showed up with pizza and your heart fell out of your ass.”
Ian rolls his eyes. “That is not what happened.”
Nicole squeals again. “Tell. Me. Everything.”
So he does.
And his heart beats steady between his ribs. Everything right where it’s meant to be.
Nothing really changes after the kiss.
Except everything changes after the kiss, because that’s something they do now, sometimes, mostly in private. Mickey isn’t wild about PDA, and that’s fine with Ian. He knows this is all new for him, that it’s scary to put yourself out there in the world for the first time where everybody can see.
But it doesn’t stop Ian from pressing up against the back wall of the snack shack and kissing him like his life depends on it before Mickey has to go back to work, and it really doesn’t stop Mickey from taking pictures of a shirtless Ian up in the lifeguard tower when he’s not looking.
It’s new.
It’s fun.
But a lot of it is still the same as before, and that part is really good too. They have lunch together more often than not, and Ian makes Mickey put sunscreen on his shoulders and Mickey brings them a free Dr. Pepper big enough for two. They talk about everything and nothing, because they’re still friends, even though they’re friends that make out sometimes now too
So it doesn’t catch Ian completely off guard when Mickey asks him a question on a random Thursday in August, but he does have to ask him to say it again.
“What?”
Mickey stares at the ocean, contemplative, his brow furrowed a little more than it usually is.
“Do you ever think about going back?”
“To Chicago?”
“Yeah.”
Ian doesn’t know how to answer.
Because sometimes yes—he thinks about going back and seeing all his siblings again for the first time in three years and his heart sings at the thought of hugging Fiona again, or Debbie, or Lip. He thinks about how big Carl and Liam have gotten by now, and how he barely even recognizes them over FaceTime anymore. He thinks about Christmas morning in the Gallagher house, in a winter that’s actually cold, in a winter that has snow, and he misses it all terribly.
But other times he thinks about going back and staying, seeing his family struggling to make ends meet worse than they ever have and getting caught in a guilt spiral so bad that he stays. He takes the summer off from California and the sun, and he works demolition with Lip and makes a buck for the squirrel fund, and he tells himself he’ll get back to the west coast when school starts again for the little ones, but he doesn’t.
Because the water heater needs replacing, or the fridge is on its last leg, and who’s going to walk Liam to kindergarten if Ian isn’t there? So he tells himself he’ll get back to Santa Barbara in a year, two years, ten—but he never gets out. He doesn’t get out this time, doesn’t hop on a bus with the same fearlessness he did when he was still just a kid, because he can’t, how could he?
Sometimes he has a panic attack thinking about either scenario, or the whole thing makes him want to throw up.
“Mandy was talking about it the other day,” Mickey muses when Ian doesn’t answer.
Ian blinks. “She wants to go back?”
“No,” Mickey tells him, shaking his head. “She doesn’t. Ever.”
“But you do?”
Mickey lets out a breath. “Not really.”
Something settles in Ian’s chest, and he can breathe deeper.
“I don’t got anything worth visiting back there,” Mickey tells him, drawing a line in the sand. “Neither does she.”
Ian stays quiet. Because he does, and yet…
He knows exactly what Mickey means.
“I mean, we got family and stuff there,” Mickey says, more of an afterthought than anything. “Shitty family, but still… Guess it’s something.”
“Yeah,” is all Ian is able to croak out.
“I don’t know, she was asking me if it was weird that we don’t want to go back,” Mickey continues. “I told her I didn’t know. Because Chicago… it’s home, you know? Or at least it used to be. I’m not sure anymore.” Mickey shakes his head again. “I’m not sure about a lot of things anymore.”
Ian hugs his knees to his chest and rests his chin on his arms.
“I’m afraid to go back,” he says, barely more than a whisper.
It’s the first time he’s ever said that out loud.
“I’m scared that if I—if I go back there I’ll never get back here,” Ian tells him. “That I’ll get trapped in the southside like before. That there are no second chances on making it out.”
Mickey lays his hand on Ian’s back, and Ian closes his eyes at the touch. He can feel the tears start to pool at the corners of his eyes, but he really doesn’t want to cry. Not here. Not now.
“I’m afraid that I’ll wake up in my old bedroom and be sixteen again, with no life and no future and no hopes of ever doing anything for myself,” Ian says. “And I know that sounds crazy but—”
“No,” Mickey cuts him off. “It doesn’t.”
Ian leans heavily into Mickey’s side, hoping he’ll hold him up.
He does.
Mickey wraps his arm around Ian’s shoulder and holds him close.
“I miss my family. So much. But I’m not ready,” Ian tells him. “It’s been three years, but I’m still not…”
He can’t finish the sentence around the lump forming in his throat, but it’s okay. Mickey understands.
Mickey always gets it in a way that no one ever does.
And Ian can’t help but think that’s what makes him his best friend.
“We’ll go together,” Mickey tells him, running his hand up and down Ian’s arm. He kisses his shoulder. “Someday.”
They sit like that for the rest of their breaks, the two of them watching the waves crash onto the shore over and over again.
“Someday,” Ian whispers.
And he knows, deep down, that it’s true.
Ian befriends Mandy and it drives Mickey crazy.
Mickey: what the fuck
Ian and Mandy giggle around Mandy’s phone, as they stare at the drunken selfie they texted him a few minutes ago.
“Did you not tell him we were going out tonight?” Mandy asks around a laugh.
“I don’t know, I told him I was going downtown,” Ian defends. “Asked him if he wanted to come.”
“Bet that went over well.”
“Pretty sure his exact words were fuck no,” Ian tells her, stumbling over an uneven step in the sidewalk. “Or maybe they were fuck you.”
Mandy snorts. “But you didn’t tell him you were going out with me?”
“Hm,” Ian hums, a sly grin curling up on his face. “Might’ve slipped my mind.”
Mandy links her arm through Ian’s and they both laugh loudly as they zigzag down the sidewalk, both of them tipsy and tired from a night of drinking and dancing.
Mickey: where are you???
Mandy giggles as she reads the text before shoving her phone in her back pocket and ignoring the rest of the messages that come in.
(Mickey: I’ll pick you up
Mickey: Mandy
Mickey: Why are you with Ian??)
“Guess he’s about to find out,” she muses as she pushes through the front door of their apartment building and drags Ian inside with her.
The elevator is broken (shocker) so the walk up to the third floor takes some time. Ian’s phone buzzes in his back packet, and he’s pretty sure it’s Mickey, but he lets it go to voicemail because answering would either mean letting go of the railing, or Mandy, and neither of those sound like a good option.
They finally make it to the apartment door and Mandy starts banging on it with her first, unable to locate the keys she never brought out with her in the first place.
Mickey opens the door with a furrowed brow and his cell phone still pressed to his ear, but he rolls his eyes and drops his shoulders as soon as he sees the two of them.
“Mickey!” Mandy sings, as if they don’t literally live together.
“What the fuck,” Mickey says, repeating his earlier text. He hangs up the call and Ian’s butt stops vibrating, which just makes Ian smile wider.
“You worry too much,” Ian tells him, following Mandy in through the door and pressing a quick kiss to Mickey’s cheek as he goes by.
Mandy stumbles over to the couch and sits down to take her heels off. Ian follows suit, collapsing on the corner cushion and letting his head fall back with his eyes closed.
“I could sleep for a year,” Mandy says just before she swings her legs up and on to Ian’s lap.
She wiggles a throw pillow under her head without bothering to change or take her make up off and she’s down for the count.
Ian’s honestly not that far behind her when he feels Mickey’s knees press against the insides of his own.
Ian opens one eye to see Mickey standing over him, his arms folded over his chest and his brows raised.
“Having fun?”
Ian reaches out and loosely grabs at Mickey’s hips. “Having more fun now,” he says around a hiccup.
Mickey shakes his head and slowly smiles at him. “You’re wasted.”
Ian hiccups again. “Maybe.”
Mickey laughs and leans more fully over Ian, propping himself up with his hands on the back of the couch. “You should’ve called me.”
“To come dancing with us?”
“To come and get you,” Mickey tells him. “I would’ve picked you morons up so you didn’t have to walk home.”
Ian tries to grab at Mickey’s cutoff t-shirt, weakly attempting to pull him closer. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
And Ian can’t help but smile up at Mickey, his alcohol-soaked brain not really absorbing anything other than Mickey standing above him and Mickey smiling down at him and the super soft couch underneath him that kind of also smells like Mickey.
“You want some water?” Mickey asks, and Ian nods, because it sounds like a good idea.
Mickey always has good ideas.
That’s the last thought Ian has before sleep pulls him under, and he fades off into dreamland in the minute it takes Mickey to get a glass of water from the kitchen.
He wakes up hungover and confused, and he has no idea where he is.
But he sees Mickey lying in the bed next to him sound asleep and he doesn’t think to question it anymore. It’s Mickey’s bed. Mickey’s room. Maybe. Probably.
He vaguely remembers making it to the apartment with Mandy and sitting down on the couch.
How he got to the bed is a mystery.
But Ian’s still wearing all his clothes—even his jeans—under the covers, and he wonders if Mickey somehow carried him from the couch to his bed. Ian doesn’t know how, he would’ve had to fucking fireman carry him with his lanky ass limbs, and that mental picture makes Ian grin into his pillow.
Because he knows Mickey would do it, is the thing.
Ian wiggles out of his jeans and drops them on the floor. He rolls over in his t-shirt and boxers and pulls the comforter over his head to block out the morning light.
He wraps one arm around Mickey’s waist and pulls him back against his chest without overthinking it, and he’s met with a soft grunt and Mickey burrowing backwards into his hold.
Ian smiles against the back of his neck and falls back to sleep.
“For the love of God, Mickey, you’re not gonna drown!”
He’s up to his chest in the water, which is progress, but he’s still terrified to go deeper.
“What if the ocean floor just fucking falls out from under me?” Mickey tries.
“It won’t.”
“But what if it fucking does?”
“Then I’ll catch you!” Ian tells him. “Certified lifeguard, remember?”
Mickey glares at him. “And yet, I’ve never actually seen this certification.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Ian says to the sky, tipping his head back in exasperation.
“Hey!” Mickey whines. “You said you weren’t gonna make fun of me!”
“I’m not—” Ian gapes. “I’m trying to help you!”
“I’m gonna fucking murder you when we get back to shore.”
“If we ever get back to shore,” Ian mutters under his breath.
“What the fuck does that mean?!”
“It means we don’t have all fucking day!” Ian tells him, then grabs his hands and pulls.
Mickey flails in the water, his fight or fight instincts kicking in—Mickey doesn’t do flight, it’s one fist or the other with him—and it sort of resembles swimming? Not really, but it’s enough to keep him afloat, and he manages to doggy paddle back to where he can stand without drowning.
“You did it!” Ian cheers with his hands in the air.
“Fuck. You.” Mickey pants.
Ian ignores him completely and swims over to where they can both stand before wrapping his hand around the back of Mickey’s neck and pulling him in for a victory kiss.
It’s total bliss, with Mickey’s lips soft against his and the taste of salt on his tongue. Ian’s smiling into the kiss, pure joy radiating off of him.
It lasts for all of ten seconds.
Before Mickey grabs Ian by the face and pushes him under the water.
“You almost drowned me!”
“I did not.”
“You so did.”
“Wasn’t even close.”
“Just so you know, if you murder me and go to prison, I won’t let my ghost visit you in there.”
“What if it’s only attempted murder?”
“Mickey.”
“You weren’t gonna fucking drown!”
Like every year, summer comes crashing to an end with the new school year just over the horizon.
Beach goers get fewer and farther between, and some of the lifeguard staff work their last shifts. The high schoolers will go back to classes in a few weeks, while the others, like Ian, will continue to watch over the emptier beaches over the cooler Santa Barbara seasons.
The snack shack stays open year-round, so it really makes no difference to Mickey.
But for the lifeguards, the end of the season brings the end of an era, with some teens moving on to college and internships and other summer gigs next year. It’s bittersweet when August rolls into September, which is why they always have to have just one last hoorah.
“You want me to go to what?”
Mickey looks at Ian with a furrowed brow and Ian wants to kiss the look of confusion right off his stupid face.
“The end of summer party,” Ian tells him. “It’s not much, just a giant bonfire on the beach with everyone on staff. There’ll be drinks, music, that kind of thing.”
Mickey leans back on his hands, his legs stretched out in front of him. They’re sitting on Ian’s towel, their toes buried in the sand, and they have three minutes left on their lunch break.
“But it’s a staff party,” Mickey says.
“Yeah.”
“I’m not a lifeguard.”
“So?” Ian says, his mouth working faster than his brain. “Hallie’s bringing her boyfriend, and no one said anything about it.”
He hears it as soon as he says it.
Boyfriend.
Fuck.
Ian keeps his eyes trained on the ocean, trying very hard not to make any sudden movements. Ian can feel his cheeks getting more and more flushed with each passing second that Mickey is quiet.
“Uh,” Ian stutters, desperate to say something. “I mean… I…”
His brain feels like soup and he’s sweating. He can’t come up with anything to say.
Because the thing is he wants Mickey to be his boyfriend. Honestly if it was up to just him, they’ve been boyfriends for four weeks now, ever since that first kiss on the beach with the pizza and the stars.
But he has no idea how Mickey feels about that, about the label that neither one of them has every really worn before.
So Ian panics, as he sits there in the sand, willing his brain to come up with literally anything to say.
“Fine.”
Ian’s head whips around to Mickey quickly. “What?”
“I’ll go to your stupid party.”
Ian swallows thickly. “Oh,” he says, his heart dropping as he looks back at the ocean. “Um. Okay. Yeah.”
Mickey is quiet for another minute before he pulls his phone out and checks the time.
“Gotta get back,” he says, and Ian just hums. “And put some more sunscreen on, will ya?”
Ian isn’t really listening, still embarrassed from the accidental slip.
Mickey twists around and kisses him quickly on the cheek.
“Can’t have my boyfriend getting sunburnt out here,” he says quietly, before pushing himself off the ground and walking quickly up the beach.
Ian watches him go with the biggest smile on his face.
Even after Mickey flips him off behind his back.
They pull up to the party fashionably late, and both of them blames the other for the reason their shared shower took twice as long as it should have.
But it doesn’t really matter in the end, because no one cares about the time when there’s booze flowing and a massive fire burning on the beach. The lifeguard staff still cheers when Ian and Mickey show up, and Ian beams.
Ian’s wearing shorts and a long-sleeved gray t-shirt that hugs his arms and chest nicely. Mickey’s wearing light wash jeans and a deep blue hoodie that falls a little long on his arms because technically it belongs to Ian.
“Ian! You made it!” Nicole says around a smile as she jogs over and throws her arms around Ian’s neck.
“Jesus,” Ian laughs, hugging her back before getting a good look at her bloodshot eyes. “Did you start without me?”
“Just a little,” Nicole says, squinting and holding her pointer finger and her thumb close together. She grins and looks at Mickey, who’s standing with his hands shoved in his jean pockets. “I see you brough the boy toy.”
“Boyfriend,” Mickey corrects her before Ian can get a word out.
Ian smiles at him harder than he ever has in his life.
Nicole holds her hands up in apology. “My mistake,” she says to Mickey before turning and mouthing we’re talking about this later to Ian, as if Mickey isn’t standing right there.
She wanders off to go terrorize another group just as Tyler saddles up to them, two plastic red cups in his end.
“Another rockin’ end to the summer,” Tyler says, handing the beers over to Ian and Mickey. “Glad you boys could make it,” he teases, clapping both of them on the shoulder.
Ian and Mickey tap their cups together before taking a long sip each.
Someone throws another log on the fire, and someone else turns on some music. Ian and Mickey socialize with the reset of the lifeguards for a while, with Mickey saying hi to the ones he recognizes from Ian’s shifts, and Ian introducing him to the few he doesn’t know.
It’s nice, he thinks. Easy. Ian loves the way he can just be with Mickey, how he doesn’t have to try to be anyone or anything else when he’s around him.
He’s never met anyone like Mickey.
He’s not sure he ever will.
“What?” Mickey asks when he catches Ian staring.
Ian shakes his head with a smile on his face and a sparkle in his eye.
“Nothing,” he says easily. “I’m just… I’m really glad I met you.”
Mickey smiles at him, all big and wide, and Ian leans forward and kisses him soundly.
Someone cranks the music up on the other side of the bonfire and the whole party cheers as some old school hip-hop song fills the beach. Ian laughs as he recognizes it from one of Fiona’s old mixtapes, and he makes a note to call her later. Tomorrow. She’ll want to hear all about the party and get the latest updates on Mickey.
And Ian will want to share.
He slides closer to Mickey and wraps one arm around his shoulders, pulling him in to his side. Mickey’s arm slings around Ian’s waist, his hand landing on Ian’s hip, and they both sing along to the song playing through the shitty Bluetooth speaker.
Ian looks at all his friends gathered around him, and he smiles, fully relaxed and settled into this new phase of his life. And maybe this isn’t forever, maybe it’s just one more night together before some of them part ways for the last time, but he thinks about this job that he loves, and the boyfriend he thinks he maybe loves too, and he thinks, for the first time, that maybe growing up isn’t so bad.
Maybe he just didn’t know what it could look like.
Until now.