The look of pure despair that flashed across Greg's face and radiated in his brown eyes tore at Nick's heart and forced him to close his eyes to try to rid himself of the awful feeling he was experiencing from head to toe. It was his own fault, which he of course knew, but that didn't stop him for trying to get rid of it. He braced himself for the onslaught that was sure to come and was all the more deserved. He was waiting for Greg to yell, scream, punch him, bury him in the sand or drag him by the hair and drown him in the ocean. He was waiting for the violence to come, but it never did. Nick stayed perfectly still and was more than aware of the fact that Greg was still on top of him. Other than the weight of the younger man, there was nothing to tell Nick that he was still there. He was silent and unmoving for what seemed like hours. Nick kept his eyes closed for fear that opening them would trigger what could be the end of his life.
If his eyes had been open, Nick would have seen Greg hang his head as tears silently fell from his broken eyes. "Of course you did," he muttered, more to himself than to Nick. And with that, he pushed himself off of Nick by placing his hands in the sand.
Nick's eyes snapped open at the very unexpected response to his admission. He looked up, but saw only the blue sky above him. No Greg. He sat up and watched as the younger man walked away from him, not pausing or turning around at all, and finally he reached the ocean. He pressed forward, wading into the warm water until the waves washed over his head, removing him from Nick's sight. The Texan sprang to his feet with the idea that he was going to have to save Greg, but then he saw the California native rise to the surface, extend his arms and legs, and float effortlessly on his back in the clear ocean under the bright sun. Nick stood there on the spot, watching Greg, ignoring the sand and salt water falling from his back and sifting through his hair.
He stood there with his eyes fixated on Greg for close to an hour before he could no longer take it. Nick all but sprinted into the water, but didn't have to go in too far. The strong waves had pulled Greg closer and closer to the shore to the point where he was floating in waist-high water. When Nick reached him, Greg's eyes were closed, and if Nick hadn't know better he would think he was asleep.
"What does that mean?" Nick asked as if their conversation hadn't been interrupted by Greg's embarking into the ocean.
Again to Nick's surprise, Greg opened his eyes and moved himself upright so he was standing on the ocean floor, facing Nick. He wiped the water from his face and looked at the other man blankly. "It means I'm not surprised. Of course you slept with Jenna, why wouldn't you have?"
Nick shook his head slowly. "You knew that I did?"
"No, of course not. I wouldn't have fucked you if I knew that you had."
Greg's words were harsher than his tone. He was speaking calmly and evenly, which only added to Nick's apprehension to the situation. Greg wasn't reacting the way that any other person would, which confused Nick and worried him at the same time.
"Then why weren't you surprised?" Nick asked even though he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.
Greg hoped Nick couldn't decipher his tears from the salt water running down his face. "Jenna's gorgeous. She always gets whatever guy she wants. I knew as soon as she saw you that she would try to hook up with you, but for some odd reason I didn't think you would. I gave you the benefit of the doubt, even though I shouldn't have. Everything I know about the two of you told me that it would happen, but I ignored it, because I wouldn't let myself believe it would happen. But of course it did. It makes perfect sense."
"I didn't do it to hurt you," Nick said, trying his best to fix the situation. "I honestly didn't even think about it until she knocked on our door that night. I was about to go to sleep, I swear, and then she knocked and said she lost her purse so I was looking for it with her and-"
"And then she remembered that it might be in her room, so she took you there to check, and sure enough it was. Then she offered you a drink, you said yes, then two then three then four, then you slept with her." Nick stared at Greg, dumbfounded. "Yeah, she's pulled it on my friends before. All the time, actually. Does it make you feel cheap? Used?" He laughed humorlessly. "Now you know how I feel."
Greg moved to wade past Nick, but the other man remained in his way. "I didn't use you Greg," he protested. "I didn't do any of this to hurt you," he repeated.
"No, you just did it to get laid. That's all you've ever cared about, and I knew that. But I didn't want it to be true, so I pretended it wasn't. Maybe now I'll learn my lesson and know enough to stay away from you."
"Do you believe everything I've said to you, here and in Vegas and everywhere else we've ever been? Do you believe me? Because I've never lied to you, not once. I care about you. I want to be with you. I love you. Do you believe me?"
"Yes," Greg replied without hesitation. "And that's what makes this hurt so much. That you could sleep with my cousin, whom you know all the shit I've been through with and because of, even though you love me. You love me, but apparently that isn't enough. I'm not enough, and I knew that, I just didn't think you'd prove it to me so blatantly."
Nick shook his head. "You're wrong. You are enough. I didn't realize I loved you until we were here, and I won't apologize for that. I'm sorry I slept with Jenna, I wish I hadn't. I made a mistake, and I'll regret it for the rest of my life because you put your faith in me and I let you down. But you can't give up on me, not yet. You can't."
"Why not?"
"Because I-I, I just need you," Nick stammered.
Greg sighed. "Well, you should have thought of that before you slept with my cousin."
Nick held up his hands in protest. "We weren't together when I slept with her. If I had known-"
"Know what?" Greg interjected. "If you had known we would end up stranded on this island and hooking up, you wouldn't have slept with her? That's bullshit Nick. You wanted both, and you got both. Forget about our relationship or whatever you want to call this fucked up situation; what about our friendship? Did you really think it wouldn't be affected by the fact that you slept with my cousin after I told you everything about my relationship with her? I told you all of that because you're my friend and I trusted you, not because I wanted you to be added to the list of my friends that she's fucked just to piss me off."
"I was never going to tell you," Nick admitted. "If we had landed back in Vegas safely, I never would have told you what happened. I would have forgotten all about it and just let it go. But that didn't happen. We ended up here, and we ended up together, and I knew I had to do the right thing and tell you. I didn't want to keep it from you because I want this to work. I want this to be real and open and honest, so I told you."
Greg shook his head slowly. "You shouldn't have."
"Why not?" Nick wanted to know.
"Because if he had gotten of this island, and made it back to Vegas safely, and somehow regained control over our old lives and everything returned to normal and we were miraculously still together, I would have never wanted to know about your past sexual exploits. I know enough of them just from working with you and don't care to learn any more. I would have never asked and you would have never told me, but for some reason you were too stupid and decided to tell me about Jenna. I would have never known, and I would have been happy."
"You're telling me that you wanted me to lie to you?"
Greg nodded. "Not knowing all the details makes it easier for me not to think about your past, which makes it easier to love you."
"So the more I lie to you the more you're going to love me?"
"I didn't say it makes me love you more, I said it makes it easier to love you. There's a difference. Part of me never wanted to get off of this island because I didn't want to go back to civilization where I would be faced with endless competition for you. I wouldn't be able to handle it, and I know that sooner or later I would lose out to some hot young blonde chick."
"Greg, I told you already that-"
"How many people have you slept with Nick?" Greg asked, cutting the older man off. When he failed to reply, Greg prodded again. "Come on. Pretend for a minute that we're just friends. That we didn't have sex with each other. Exclude me from your list, which I'm sure you'll be more than happy to do. How many?"
Nick suddenly decided that he no longer wanted to have this conversation, much less have it in the ocean, so he turned and walked away from Greg. Surprisingly, the younger man followed him and caught up to him halfway up the beach. He grabbed his arm and spun him around.
"I don't know," Nick replied honestly. "I don't keep track. I don't do the whole notch in my belt or little black book thing. I don't know for sure."
"Ballpark it," Greg said. He clearly wasn't going to let this go.
But Nick remained just as stubborn. "I don't know."
"I've had sex with eight people," Greg retorted. "Ellen, obviously, that was your idea. Two girls from college. A guy in college, two I met after I moved to Vegas, a guy from college I hooked up with whenever I went back to California for a while, and you. See, I include you in my list because even though my cousin is on your list, it still meant something to me. I wish it didn't, but it did. You meant the most to me out of everyone. And now you're the only one on that list that I regret."
Nick felt like Greg had just torn his heart out with his bare hands. "I never meant to hurt you," he said for the third time, his voice weaker than it had ever been.
"I'm willing to bet you've slept with over one hundred people. And that might be a conservative guess. I mean, after all, you lived in a frat house in college. That's five girls a week, for four years, at least. I'm refraining from doing the math."
"You're the only one on my list I don't regret," Nick replied in an attempt to duck Greg's hurtful comments.
Greg scoffed. "How can you say that when you don't even remember your whole list, because it's too many people?" he asked. "Here, let's try this. Let's start at the beginning, and work our way up, and come up with a rough estimate, okay?"
"Greg," Nick said, his voice a mix of pleading and warning.
"When did you lose your virginity?"
"Don't make me do this," Nick all but begged.
"Seriously. How old were you? Sixteen? Seventeen?"
"Stop." Nick wanted to sound firm, but his voice was broken and soft.
Greg rolled his eyes in frustration. "How old were you Nick?"
"Nine!" Nick yelled, mostly to make the other man shut up.
Greg was taken aback and lost his momentum for a moment, but still wouldn't let up. "That's not funny Nick," he said with a dry laugh.
"Do you see me laughing?" Nick replied. "The first time I had sex with someone, I was nine years old. She was in her thirties, I don't know exactly. But I was nine."
Greg instantly forgot about what had been the reason for this fight in the first place. His anger and hurt from earlier was replaced by a severe pain and remorse for bringing this out of Nick when it couldn't have been farther from his intentions. Now, he had no idea what to do about it.
Nick looked down at the sand and wished Greg would look somewhere other than straight at him. "Look, I didn't tell you that so you would feel sorry for me and forgive me, okay? I just, I don't know. I wanted to tell you, I always have. I knew I could trust you, and that you would be a good person to talk to about it because I've never actually talked to anyone about it more than telling Catherine that it had happened. After I got to know you I realized you're a really good listener because you don't try to fix people's problems, you just listen when they want you to and talk if they want you to. I don't know. I'm sorry I told you. I know this doesn't change what I did, that's not why I told you. I told you because I really do love you, and you deserve to know. I know I should have told you before you decided to sleep with me, but there was never a good time to bring it up, ya know?" Nick sighed heavily and kept his eyes on the sand. "Anyway, I'm sorry. For Jenna, for everything."
Without looking up, Nick turned and walked into the forest. He was headed for the water fall, but didn't make it that far. A lump had formed in his chest and grew tighter and heavier with each step he took. It finally weighed him down and made him collapse onto the ground with the water fall in sight. He could hear the water crashing down; the sound was calming and irritating at the same time. He leaned up against the nearest tree and tried to catch his breath. He was unable to do so before Greg appeared before him, kneeling on the damp ground so they could look one another in the eyes.
"What do you mean?" Greg asked.
Nick shook his head slightly. "What do I mean about what?"
"You said you should have told me, about that woman, before I decided to have sex with you. Why did you say that? What does that mean?"
Nick frowned and looked at Greg as if that were the stupidest question that had ever been asked. It was apparently so stupid that Nick thought it wasn't even worthy of a response, so Greg had to fill in the blanks for himself.
"Does it mean that you think that if you had told me what had happened, that I wouldn't have wanted to have sex with you?" he asked hesitantly.
Nick's silence and the pain in his eyes radiated an affirmative response without words. He wanted to get up and run away, but was unable to move even the slightest muscle. He was locked in place by Greg's eyes. They should have been filled with hate, contempt and rage, but instead conveyed something that Nick had never seen before and had no idea of how to go about beginning to define it. All he knew was that it was definitely new, and it definitely scared him because it did not understand it, nor did he understand the man that it was coming from.
At this point, he didn't even understand himself.