The Stung Hinge of August

A dropped tackle box and a shared bag of over-salted fries on the pier leads to an afternoon of unexpected confessions and the dizzying possibility of something more than friendship.

The heat was a physical weight. It pressed down on the splintered wood of the pier, shimmered over the steel railings, and baked the smell of low tide and diesel into the air. Leo leaned against the railing, his rod propped beside him, the line a filament of silver disappearing into the churning, opaque water of the bay. He’d been out here for three hours and had caught nothing but a stray piece of seaweed and a head cold from the wind that was now picking up off the Atlantic. Gulls wheeled overhead, their cries sounding like mocking laughter.

He wasn't really here for the fish. He was here for the quiet anonymity of it all, the way you could disappear among the old men with their buckets and the tourists with their rented rods. Here, he was just another kid trying his luck, not the one whose dad owned the struggling bait shop, the one who was meant to be working instead of daydreaming about cities he'd never see.

A clatter of footsteps on the planks behind him, too fast, too unsteady. He turned just in time to see a whirlwind of limbs and bright colours trip over a loose board. A tackle box—his tackle box—went flying, its contents skittering across the pier like metallic insects. Lures, hooks, and sinkers scattered in a chaotic spray.

"Oh, crap. Oh, I am so sorry," a voice said, breathless. The boy—he couldn't be older than Leo, maybe sixteen—was scrambling to his feet. He wore a ridiculously bright yellow t-shirt and shorts that were probably worth more than Leo's entire wardrobe. His hair was a mess of dark curls, and his face was flushed with embarrassment.

"It's fine," Leo mumbled, already crouching down to collect the scattered pieces of his afternoon. He tried to project an air of nonchalance, but his cheeks burned. This was exactly the kind of attention he came here to avoid.

"No, it's not fine. I'm a total klutz," the boy said, kneeling beside him. He started picking up lures, his hands surprisingly careful. "I'm Julian. I'm... not from around here, if you couldn't tell by my complete lack of coordination on a simple wooden surface."

Leo offered a small, tight smile. "Leo. And yeah, I could tell." He pointed to Julian's pristine white trainers. "No one who lives here wears shoes they're afraid to get fish guts on."

Julian laughed, a real, loud laugh that seemed to cut through the drone of the Belt Parkway in the distance. "Fair point. They were a terrible choice. Look, let me make it up to you. I was just going to grab something to eat. Fries? A hot dog? My treat, for the tackle box disaster."

Leo hesitated. His stomach rumbled in betrayal. He was supposed to say no, to retreat back into his comfortable solitude. But something in Julian's open, earnest expression made the 'no' catch in his throat. "Okay," he heard himself say. "Fries would be good."

---

They sat on a bench facing the water, a large paper cone of fries between them, glistening with grease and buried under a mountain of salt and ketchup. Julian ate with a kind of reckless abandon, while Leo picked at his, still feeling the awkwardness of the situation like an ill-fitting coat.

"So, you do this a lot?" Julian asked, gesturing with a fry towards Leo's fishing rod, which they'd left propped against the railing.

"Most days," Leo said. "It's quiet."

"Quiet is good," Julian nodded, though he didn't seem like a person who sought it out. "My aunt's place is... not quiet. There are cousins. So many cousins. All of them seem to communicate by shouting." He was staying in Brighton Beach for the summer, a world away from his quiet life in Vermont.

They talked. It started as stilted questions and one-word answers from Leo, but Julian was persistent. He asked about the different boats moored in the bay, about the best places to get pizza, about the weirdest thing Leo had ever caught. Slowly, Leo found himself opening up, describing the time he reeled in an old leather boot, and the day a seal followed his boat for nearly an hour.

"You have a boat?" Julian's eyes widened.

"My dad does. It's for the shop. A little skiff, nothing fancy," Leo said, downplaying it. To him, the 'Sea Serpent' was just another chore, another thing to be cleaned and maintained. To Julian, it sounded like an adventure.

"That's amazing," Julian said, leaning forward. "You must know all the good spots, then. The places the tourists don't go."

"I guess." Leo shrugged, a familiar defence mechanism. He wasn't used to someone finding his life interesting. It was just his life. The bay, the boats, the constant smell of brine.

The sun began its slow descent, painting the undersides of the clouds in shades of orange and pink. The lights on the piers and along Emmons Avenue began to flicker on, their reflections dancing on the dark water. The air grew cooler, and Leo felt a different kind of quiet settle between them, no longer awkward but comfortable, charged with a strange new energy.

Julian finished the last fry and crumpled the paper cone. "This has been the best part of my day," he said, his voice softer now. He wasn't looking at the water anymore. He was looking at Leo.

Leo's heart did a complicated sort of flip. He looked away, focusing on the distant lights of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. "Yeah," he managed to say. "Mine too."

A silence stretched, filled only by the cry of a distant gull and the hum of traffic. It wasn't empty. It felt full of things unsaid, questions unasked. Leo could feel Julian's gaze on him, and it was both unnerving and exhilarating.

"Hey, Leo," Julian said, his voice low. "My uncle has a bigger boat. He lets me take it out sometimes. He wouldn't mind... We should go out tonight. When the big stripers are feeding. I'll bring the gear, you just... navigate."

Leo's mind raced. It was a crazy idea. He didn't know this guy. His dad would kill him if he found out. It was reckless and irresponsible.

And he had never wanted to say yes to anything more in his entire life.