The ship was quiet, the night wide open. Most guests had gone to bed hours ago. Two men found themselves alone on the upper deck, the ocean moving slowly beneath them. One leaned against the railing, shirt open to the salt air. The other stepped close — not to speak, not to ask — just to be there.

What started as silence became something else: breath against skin, steady warmth pressed between them, the kind of closeness that doesn’t need words. For a few minutes, the world shrank to the sound of waves and the rhythm of two hearts trying to remember what softness feels like.

He Held Me By The Ocean is a Stories Between Us short about stillness, touch, and the quiet ways Black men let themselves be seen when the world isn’t looking.

https://linktr.ee/stories.between.us.anthology