It was a hot summer day in LA in July. The temperatures were in the upper 80s, occasionally 90s. And it was always so humid, the moisture in the atmosphere sticking to our skin. It was a Thursday night, Sam and I were trying to figure out a video idea for Sunday. We sat at the kitchen table enjoying the air conditioning, my computer was laid out in front of us.
"We could do another explore video?" Sam sighs. We've been going back and forth with ideas for the past hour. None had seem to caught our interest.
"But it's so hot out," I complained. I gazed out in our backyard, the pool was sparking in the daylight.
"How about we do something with water," I suggest. Sam follows my gaze.
"There has been those 24 hour challenges going around. Maybe we could do like 24 hours in the pool," Sam says, excited about this idea.
It was a good idea. The water would cool us down and the fans always loved to see us shirtless. We could even go to Target and buy some cool floaties and water guns.
"Yea lets do it, tomorrow?" I ask. I pull up Targets website and search for pool floats. A bunch pop up and I scroll through them. Sam leans into me to gaze at my screen.
"Yea, wanna do like noon so it's hot?" Sam says.
"Sounds good. Wanna go grab some floats from Target?" I question. They had plenty in stock. Sam nods and goes upstairs to put his shoes on. I wait for him in my car, trying to cool it down from the heat. He eventually jogs out and we make our way to Target.
Upon entering the store, Sam instantly grabs my hand. We haven't told anyone yet but we've been secretly dating. None of the roommates know and we haven't told any of the fans.
"Babe, the fans," I say. He squeezes my hand before releasing it, sighing. It's been hard, keeping it hidden. We constantly have to check around every corner before we do something.
We reach the pool part of the store and look around. "Colby look at this one," Sam says excitedly. I follow his tiny finger to a box that has a rhino on it. It looks like once you blow it up, it was big enough to sit on. It would be funny to try to balance on it on the water.
"You want that one babe?" I say reaching for the box. The nickname rolls off my tongue like honey. He hums for a response. I look at the other shelves and see a hot pink flamingo inter-tube. I grab that box too. Sam finds the water guns and grabs two blue ones.
"Ok do we need anything else?" I question him as we're about to check out. His eyes scan the store and then shakes his head, no.
We return home, floats and water guns in tow. It was getting close to sundown. We decided to blow up the floats now so we didn't have to worry about it tomorrow morning. It took about two hours because we had to do it all with our mouths.
"I know what we should've bought at the store," Sam said breathlessly.
I look up at him but don't stop blowing into my flamingo inter-tube. His cheeks were tinted red from working so hard. But his rhino was almost blown up.
"A compressor to blow these things up," he laughs lightly. I want to reach up and kiss him because he's so cute. But I know Corey and Jake are in the living room, right in eyesight of us.
We finally finish blowing up our floats and set them in the water until morning. "I'm taking a shower," Sam announces. He walks upstairs and minutes later I hear the water turning on. I crash on the couch next to Jake.
"What are y'all doing?" He asks, looking up from his phone.
"We're gonna do 24 hours in the pool for our video," I say tiredly. I wanted to go to sleep.
"Ohh that'll be fun," Jake says. He goes back to his phone and I hear the water shut off. Sam was done showering. I venture upstairs and walk into my room.
Sam was already laying in my bed, covers pulled up to his chin. I strip to my boxers and climb into bed next to him. He latches onto me quickly, throwing a leg over my body. For the last two months, Sam has been sleeping in my room with me. No one knows, yet. I kiss his lips gently, knowing he was tired. But he licks my bottom lip and I allow his tongue to enter my mouth.
A low rumble escapes my mouth as he sucks on my neck. I know there will be love-bites there in the morning but it feels so good so I didn't stop him. Once satisfied with my neck, his kisses my lips again. I run my fingers through his damp blonde hair and press our foreheads together.
"Baby, I'm tired," I whisper. He hums into my neck and it makes me shiver. He kisses me slowly and then opens his eyes to look at me.
"Goodnight my love," he says. I fall asleep to the feeling of him tracing circles onto my chest.
——
I had unfortunately left the blinds open last night and light poured into my room. Sam was snoring softly beside me, curled into a ball. I kiss the back of his neck lightly to wake him up. He stretches and lets out a sigh before turning to look at me. His eyes widen and a smirk forms on his face.
"Oops," he giggles. A finger emerges from under the covers and he touches my neck and up my jawline. I thought back to last night when he was sucking at my neck. They must be noticeable.
We roll out of bed an hour later. I walk into the bathroom to brush my teeth. When glancing at myself in the mirror, I saw the damage Sam had done to my neck. Reddish purplish bruises had formed on the right side of my neck and jawline. I touch them and smile to myself. I go back into my room once I'm done to see Sam already in his swim trunks.
"How am I gonna hide these?" I ask, pointing to my neck. He walks up to me and kisses my lips then ducks his head down to once again suck on my neck.
"Babe stop, you're making more," I whine. I push him away gently and he pouts. I kiss his cheek before finding my bathing suit trunks.
After eating cereal for breakfast and getting our camera and tripod set up we get ready to start the video. I was wearing a T-shirt to hide some of my love-bites. Though it was almost noon, none of the roommates were awake yet.
"What's up guys it's Sam and Colby," I start off with my signature saying. We're standing outside with the pool in the background, our rhino and flamingo floating behind us. The sun was shining brightly and it's already steaming hot.
Sam explains our video and then we hit the pause button on the camera to change angles. We position it under the small awning by the window, pointing it towards the pool. I hit record again.
"3...2...1," We shout at the same time. Then we both run and jump into the pool.
We splash around for a bit, jumping in more and using our water guns. I have never laughed so much in my life. I'm sitting on the steps in the shallow end, checking my phone when I feel Sams hand snake around my waist. My eyes dart to the camera that's still recording. He tugs on my shirt that's clinging to my body.
"Take this off baby," he whispers. He's close enough to my ear that I can feel his breath. I bite my lower lip and hope the camera won't pick up my bruises. I struggle to take the shirt off and Sam ends up having to help me. We're both laughing as my arms are stuck above my head. I finally get it off and sling it over to the patio area. I dive in the pool from the steps and swim over to the deep end. Sam follows me and then waves his hands at the camera.
"Yay Colby took his shirt off," he yells.
Sam hops out of the warm water to turn the camera off. I watch his body glisten in the sunlight as I sit on the step in the deep end. He comes running back in the pool right next to me. When his head emerges from the water he's looking right at me, a sense of hunger in his eyes. I pull him onto my lap and hold his waist.
"Now that the camera is off," Sam whispers against my lips. A finger on my chest, my hands gripping his hips, our lips molded together.
"Hey what are y'all doing?"
The sudden sound of our roommate opening the back door and shouting at us caused us both to pull away. Sam slips under water and swims a good foot away from me. While I try to hold myself together hoping that Corey didn't see us.
"Spending 24 hours in the pool," Sam comments smoothly like he wasn't at all just kissing me. Corey laughs and hits record on our camera.
"These brothers are gonna be so sunburnt," Corey tells the camera. He was right, it was about three hours since starting the video and we haven't put on any sunscreen. We were gonna be fried.
"Well then go get us some sunscreen brother," I shout at him. Sam treads the water in front of me and I watch his muscles move. Corey runs back in the house and comes back a minute later with sunscreen. He walks up to me and drops the bottle in my hand.
"Bro dude, what happened to your neck?" Corey exclaims. Once again I glance at the camera and then at Sam. A small smirk forms on his lips as he sinks underwater.
"I... um bug bites" I say while rubbing sunscreen on my shoulders. I prayed he believed my lie.
"Dang a monster must've bitten you. Those things are huge," he bends down to take a closer look. But I move away and back into the water, swimming towards Sam. Corey watches us intensely while we swim next to each other. Then he lets out a big sigh and says, "I'm going inside. It's too hot out here."
We spent the next few hours swimming in circles around each other. Corey and Jake joined us and brought out pizza for us to eat. We were glad because we were starving, the cereal from this morning already burned off. We talked to the camera and give it updates.
Then the sun set and it was dark. Upon our request Jake turned the porch lights on so we weren't left in the dark. Sam was laying on my flamingo floaty while I was sitting on the step, head resting on the pavement. The water was getting cooler as the night wore on.
"Guys, you can't feel it but the pool is freezing," I said towards the camera. The red light was flashing meaning it was recording.
"And to think this afternoon it was so warm," Sam said from the floaty. I laugh. His head pops up from the flamingo causing me to laugh more. He slides off the float and swims to me, half his face underwater. It looked hot and my breath caught in my throat. I sink down so my lips are in the water. He comes up close to me and our lips connect under the water. I shiver but not because the water is cold.
"Should we turn the camera off?" I mumble against his lips as I feel his hand on my thigh.
"We can edit it out," Sam whispers. I tilt my neck so Sam can suck at my already bruised skin. He has a thing for necks and I think it's really hot. He's sitting on my lap now, legs wrapped around my waist.
We make out for awhile, until our lips are swollen and until my neck looks like a war zone.
"Sammm," I say drawing out his name. He gets out to turn the camera off. Then slides back in, perching back on my lap.
"Mm I love kissing your neck," Sam whispers against my already sensitive collarbone.
"People are gonna notice that when we started the video I had a few but now they're gonna notice the war zone on my neck," I say quietly. He pulls away from me and I stare into his beautiful blue eyes. God, he was so beautiful. His fingers trace over my lips and I bite his finger softly. His eyebrows raise in shock.
"Mm I guess we'll have to tell them what happened," Sam spoke.
"For real?" I ask surprised.
"Yea we'll have to tell that a giant bug attacked you while we were out here," he says laughing. I gasp and splash water on his face. He swims backwards but I continue to splash him.
"You basically just called yourself a bug," I said after we had calmed down. Sam was now on the other side of the pool.
"True, I guess I'm a mosquito," was all he said.
I didn't know what time it was but I was getting tired. The pool was so cold that I was shivering. Our towels were hanging up on the fence and I really wanted to snuggle into it. The flamingo float bumps into me. I carefully get on it and realize I could use it as a bed. But I was comfortable and didn't want to get up to get my towel.
"Sammy," I whine unsure of where he went.
"What Colby?" He said. He sounded far away and I realized he turned the camera back on.
"Can you grab me my towel please." I made sure to add the word please, because Sam loves it.
"Alright guys I think we're gonna try to sleep now. I think it's like 3am. So hold on I've got to grab Colby a towel," he talks to the camera and I watch him walk around the patio to get my towel. He tosses it to me and I'm glad it didn't get wet. I cover my body with it, this would also hide Sams love-bites.
"I think we might try to sleep on the flamingo and use the towels as blankets. Hopefully we get some sleep though cause I'm tired," Sams words are soft and quiet almost like a lullaby.
"Colby?"
I lift my head to see Sam behind the camera and he's zooming in on me. I smile weakly, exhausted.
"Doesn't he look so cute? Ok say goodnight Colby," I hear Sam say.
"Goodnight guys," I say giving a small wave.
Sam presses the record button again to stop recording. He shuts the camera down and puts it on the chair. Then he grabs his towel, holds it over his head, gets in the water, puts the towel on the flamingo next to me and then gets on the float.
"Are we gonna fit?" I ask tiredly. Sam curls up next to me, throwing a leg and arm over my body. The towels over both of us. His body heat mixed with mine made me warm up.
"Yea babe, we'll fit," Sam whispers.
Somehow we fall asleep.
——
"Wake up,"
The sudden scream jolted me awake and I forgot where I was and ended up flailing around. Then I was plunged into the cool water. I emerge gasping for air. Corey and Jake are standing on the pavement, laughing hard. Sam somehow managed to stay on the float but he still looked annoyed.
"God dang it," he mumbled.
I pull myself out of the frigid water and wrap my arms around myself. I see Sam pouting in my direction.
"Y'all were dead to the world," Jake informs us.
"Yea well we were tired," Sam grumbles, still angry at being awaken.
"What time is it?" I ask. Jake checks his phone and says, "8:23." How were they awake this early?
Sam manages to get off the raft and not get wet. He pulls me onto my feet and I lay my head on his shoulder not caring the roommates were here.
"Dang Colby, more bug bites," Corey exclaims. He walks closer to me and I sigh.
"Yeah man they were ferocious," I sigh. Corey glances at Sams neck.
"Why doesn't Sam have any?" Corey was asking all the right questions now.
"They must like his skin better," Sam says, eyeing my neck like he hasn't noticed them before. I roll my eyes.
"I'm going back to bed," I say. I was still tired and very pruned from being in the pool for so long. I walk back in the house when Sam calls my name.
"Let's make an outro first, then we can sleep."
So I stand next to him and smile and nod to what he's saying. The towel was wrapped around my head so my bruises were covered. Technically we didn't spend 24 hours in the pool, we spent the night in our pool but it was all the same to me.
Sam follows me upstairs and into my room. We lay on the soft mattress and embrace each other, feeling each other's warmth. Then slowly I watch as Sams eyelids drop and his mouth parts, he had somehow fallen asleep before me. But moments later, I'm being tugged into sleep and I tuck my face in Sam's neck and allow sleep to come.
(Hi, wow ok, this took me two days to finish, oops)