The Coast

Morgan had been having one of the shittiest weeks in a while. Money had been good for the past month. But he couldn’t help the constant nagging that occurred within him whenever he got back to the apartment for the night and was met with the disarray that came with sharing a place with two guys Morgan was pretty sure he had never seen sober.

Usually Morgan didn’t bother to do anything about it when there was an impromptu group of people crowded around his coffee table at random points in the week. His roommates were smart enough to invite people over well after dark, at a time when the rest of their neighbors were too tired from their own issues to even try to care. So Morgan let it be.

The guys must have been desperate, though, because at two o’clock that afternoon when Morgan got home from work, the normal group of five was huddled in the living room. One of the girls looked up when he walked in, offering the rolled twenty dollar bill and pointing at the lines on the table, a wild look in her eyes. Morgan managed to shake his head frantically before he bolted to his room.

Once Morgan caught his breath, he changed out of his grease-stained clothes from the shop, and into something more suited for the plans he suddenly had to get the hell out of the apartment until everyone else stumbled their way back home. He pulled on the one pair of vans he owned that were falling apart at that point, then grabbed his skateboard from where he dropped it near the door before clearing out of the apartment.

-

With his board tucked under his arm, Morgan made his way into the little skate shop that was a half hour’s ride from the apartment. The farther the better.

There was one guy behind the counter that Morgan had seen before in the few times he had been to the shop since he found it a couple months ago. The guy offered a quick wave in greeting before dropping his hand to scratch at the stubble on his jaw. He seemed to be in his late twenties, barely older than Morgan, but the beard threw his judgement off. Attempts at blond beards were normally the saddest things Morgan had ever seen in his life, but goddamn did this guy pull it off. Morgan threw a weak smile in response then moved toward the back to look at a new pair of shoes.

“Finally looking to replace those?” Morgan heard behind him. He turned and glanced down at his shoes, embarrassed.

“Yeah, I figure it’s time,” he responded awkwardly as he looked up, fiddling with the frayed brim of his baseball cap with his free hand. The guy from before was hovering a few feet behind him, probably bored out of his mind in the empty shop and desperate for something to do.

In the time it took for Morgan to move into the store, the guy had pulled the top layers of his chin length hair into a bun closer to the dark color of Morgan’s own hair compared to the blond near his roots. There was a beat of silence, then he stuck his hand out, “Name’s Finn. I’ve seen you in here a couple of times, right?”

Morgan nodded. “Yeah. I’m Morgan,” he said, shaking Finn’s hand with his right. Finn’s eyes lingered on the three circular burn marks on the inside of his wrist placed neatly in a triangle, though he didn’t say anything about them.

“Cool, let me know if you need anything?” he replied, already backing away and jutting his thumb in the direction of the counter at the front of the store. Morgan hummed a response then turned back to the wall of shoes.

Ten minutes later, Morgan decided on a pair and brought the box in his size up to the front of the store. Finn smiled as he rang up the shoes and Morgan debated trying to start a conversation.

“So, how long have you been skateboarding?” Finn asked before Morgan could even make a decision.

Morgan took a second to think. “Since I was ten, probably. I think I got my first board for my birthday that year,” he answered. That was one of the last birthdays he had fond memories of. “What about you? I would assume since you work here you would, but...” Morgan trailed off, stopping himself from rambling.

Finn laughed, “Yeah, though not as long as you. I picked it up a few years after I moved out of my parents’ place once I graduated, so like six years.” He handed Morgan back his credit card and moved further down the counter.

Morgan fidgeted with his board, switching it to his other hand. “Hey, so, I was planning on going down to the park down the road and skating for a bit? If you wanted to after your shift, I mean.”

Finn looked up from where he was studying the floor of the shop. “Yeah? I’m down,” he agreed, disappearing behind a doorway at the other end of the counter. He reappeared with a snapback on his head and a flannel over his t-shirt, locking the door behind him. When he came out from behind the counter, Morgan saw he was carrying his board. He watched as Finn moved to the front of the store and flicked the lights off. “You coming?”

“Do you not—?”

“The store closes in a few hours anyway, and my boss pissed off for the day. I’m not about to sit around with nothing to do when you’re here offering a good time. Are you coming?” he called, already halfway out the door.

Morgan grabbed the box with his shoes before hurrying after Finn.



Finn was the only person to ever call him Morgs. Morgan had never really been close enough with someone that they’d absently started referring to him with a nickname and something felt weird about it but something also just felt right.

Considering Finn was really the only person Morgan ever properly had a normal conversation with anymore, it made sense, but the first time Finn tried to get his attention weeks ago by calling him that threw him for a loop.

“Morgs!” Finn yelled from the other side of the park, snapping Morgan out of his thoughts. He got a dirty look from a mother with her small child as he whizzed past them on his board, riding up to him. Morgan flicked his gaze up and smiled at his friend as Finn snapped the back of his board up into his hand. Finn flung his arm out and pulled him into his side by his shoulders, on his toes because of their height difference. He resisted the urge to burrow further into Finn’s usual flannel, exhausted from work and the shit show of his household. Instead, he put his own arm around Finn’s waist and sat for a moment in the comfortable midday quiet of the deserted park. “Alright, get off me before you get grease all over me too,” Finn joked, nudging Morgan out from under his arm. “Jesus, how the hell did you manage to get it in your hair?” he continued, pulling at one of the brown locks that had been turned jet black.

Morgan had come to the park almost straight after work. He had fully intended going back to the apartment to change and maybe shower before he met up with Finn for the day, eager to see him after a few days where they were both too busy with work to hang out. But before he could even get to his apartment, he had stopped to get the mail from the row of boxes at the front of the building. He had sorted through the envelopes as he climbed the stairs before his eyes settled on a letter addressed Morgan Spencer in his dad’s handwriting when he reached his front door.

He hadn’t taken a second thought, dropping the pile by the door and sprinting back down the stairs without opening it. He knew it was some half assed attempt at getting him to come back home—promises of changes and a better future. Morgan knew better than to believe him. He had once before.

“Morgs? Hello?” Finn asked, waving his hand in front of his face.

“Yeah, I’m here, asshole,” Morgan asserted as he held back a grin, swatting his hand away. Finn smiled and something in Morgan faltered. “I’m not feeling well, though, so I’m gonna sit this one out.”

“You okay?” Finn asked, concern edging into his tone. Morgan nodded absently, waving away Finn, telling him to go on, that he would be waiting when Finn was done. “You’re going to tell me eventually!” he called, already halfway to the other side of the park.



Finn had told Morgan to wait at the coffee shop, that he would be back in ten minutes. That was half an hour ago. He was getting antsy; Finn had left in a hurry—so much so that his phone was left on the table beside his to go cup that held his now lukewarm coffee.

Morgan shook his head, gathering his and Finn’s stuff before pushing his way out of the shop. As soon as he was on the street in front of the building he could hear the commotion in the alley that the shop shared with the bookstore beside it. Morgan turned the corner and was met with Finn slouched against the brick wall, three guys towering over him. They were talking casually.

None of the other guys caught Morgan’s movement at the opening of the alley, but Finn’s gaze fell on Morgan before he could even understand that Finn had ditched him. He gave Morgan a pointed look, and he knew Finn was telling him to get the hell out of there before the others caught on, but he was frozen in place. The guys caught on. Their harsh stares whipped to where Morgan stood and one of them bared his teeth in a sneer. “Who’s this, Finn? A new plaything for you to fuck around with again?” He bellowed out a laugh and shoved at Finn, “Come on man, I’m messin’ with you.”

Finn flinched, his gaze still fixed on Morgan. He didn’t look away either and no one answered. That made the guy angry and he turned to slam Finn against the brick. “Fuck off, Ben, he has nothing to do with this,” Finn spat at the guy. The two others moved to grab at Morgan, pulling him in from the street.

-

“Who the hell were those guys?” Morgan asked as he boosted Finn onto the counter of the skate shop that was closed for the day.

Morgan moved around to the other side of the counter to grab the first aid kit Finn had told him about. “Just some guys I used to hang around. They’re assholes. I’m sorry you got dragged into that,” Finn replied sheepishly, swiveling his body so his legs dangled on the other side of the counter where Morgan was. Morgan had managed to get out of the scrum with a few scrapes and what he knew would be a black eye in a matter of hours; Finn had taken the brunt of the beating.

His nose was jammed to the left though it wasn’t broken, but there was already heavy bruising under both of his eyes and across the bridge of his nose, and the rest of his face was littered with scrapes from being shoved against the brick. There were tears in his muscle shirt, though it still had fared better than his flannel which was in shreds by the time they had stumbled out of the alley. Morgan wasn’t confident Finn hadn’t at least cracked a rib, but he refused the hospital, so they opted for at least tending to the superficial injuries.

Morgan pushed his hat further up on his head as he sorted through the kit looking for something to clean Finn’s cuts. His hair that had tinted itself red because of the sun fell into his eyes as the hat fell off the back of his head. “Look, I can handle this if you want to get out of—fuck.” Morgan cut him off when he pressed a gauze pad soaked with disinfectant to the cut across his eyebrow. He ignored how he noticed that there was a lighter ring of blue around the darker edges of his irises. Not helpful.

“I know you’re not going to do anything about the cuts if I leave, so shut up,” Morgan countered, pulling away the gauze.

Once Finn’s face had been cleaned up, Morgan left him to tend to anything else on his body while he went to the mirror in the staff bathroom to clean himself up. As he wiped at the scrape across his cheek, Finn appeared in the doorway. His eyes drifted across the expanse of his arms that were uncovered and as a result exposed the scar that started at Morgan’s right shoulder before vanishing under the front of his muscle shirt. “Thanks,” Finn mumbled instead of asking, tossing the gauze and band-aid wrappers in the garbage. He ran a hand through his hair then crossed his arms and met Morgan’s eyes in the mirror.

“I wasn’t about to let you deal with that yourself, you know. It’s been you and me for the past four months. That wasn’t about to change because of what happened back there.”

Finn nodded and pushed himself off of the doorway, going back out to the shop floor.



In the six months that they had known each other, Morgan had been careful to keep Finn away from his apartment. He didn’t need any pity for what he was stuck with while Finn had a decent paying job and an apartment to himself.

That didn’t matter anymore when Morgan came home from work and found the eviction notice printed on bright orange paper taped to his door.

Morgan had lived in his apartment for ten months, and as part of the agreement paid a third of the rent each month which was covered easily with his job at the garage. His roommates always somehow managed to scrape up their portions of the rent. Morgan never questioned it; he had a roof over his head so he never bothered to try to pry into the ways how the money got into their hands.

A month ago was the first time they failed to come up with the rent, apparently. Morgan had hardly been able to afford his portion of the rent that month—which may or may not have to do with the amount of time he spent at Finn’s shop—but the guys never said anything about their own. So Morgan let it be.

Which was how when Morgan got home from work for the day, he was met with the offensively bright paper on his door. He held back the scream he wanted to let loose, pissed off at his roommates’ stupidity. Where the hell was he supposed to go? He couldn’t go back to his dad. He couldn’t. But where else did he have to go? It had been a fucking miracle that he had found what he had just lost. What other option could he afford at this point other than to go home?

Morgan sat on the curb in the July heat, his hat abandoned beside him as he tugged on his hair, trying to process what was going on. After a few minutes, he yanked his phone out of his shorts and pulled up Finn’s number. He would be at the skate shop, but he was the manager now—maybe he could get out of there for an hour to help Morgan get his shit together.

“Morgs? What’s up?” Finn asked, forgoing a hello.

He bit back the tears that were threatening to fall as his voice wavered, “Do you think you can get out of work for an hour?”

“Yeah, yeah sure. Where are you?”

“My apartment. It’s like ten minutes up the street from the new park we went to a couple weeks ago. I’ll uh, I’ll be out on the curb so you should see me pretty easily.”

“I’ll be there in half an hour, okay?”

Morgan nodded not remembering that Finn couldn’t see him and hung up.

-

Morgan heard Finn’s skateboard as it rolled down the pavement from where his face had been buried in between his knees that were pulled to his chest. As he looked up and Finn saw his tear streaked face, he didn’t even try to stop his board. Instead, he jumped off, letting it roll into the grass in front of the apartments as he crouched down in front of Morgan. “Hey,” he whispered, placing a hand on Morgan’s back.

He wanted to laugh when he saw Finn, his hair a tangled mess, sticking up in random spots from the wind. It was hot in Salt Lake City during the day and Morgan tried to avoid looking over the skin that Finn’s tank top exposed. Then, Morgan remembered what had greeted him after work and he choked back a sob. Finn dropped onto the curb beside his friend and pulled him into his side, wrapping an arm across his shoulders. “I’m getting evicted. My asshole roommates haven’t paid the rent.”

“Shit. Do you have anything planned?”

Morgan let out an empty laugh, roughly wiping the heel of his hand across his eyes. “This was all I had.”

They both went quiet for a bit. Suddenly, Finn untangled himself from Morgan and pushed himself up. “Let’s go,” he called, pulling up the waistband of his shorts as he moved toward the stairs up to Morgan’s apartment without even asking which he lived in.

Morgan looked behind him, “Where?”

“My place. You’re crashing with me,” he said, moving back to Morgan when he noticed he wasn’t already behind him. Finn grabbed Morgan by the arm and hauled him up. He was on the verge of tears again. Before Finn could say anything else, Morgan pulled him into a hug, his arms tight around Finn’s neck.

“Thank you.”



Morgan had been perched in one of the mismatched chairs in their kitchen’s breakfast nook, only half paying attention to the show playing on his laptop while he messed with a carburetor that was in pieces on the table in front of him.

Finn had a shift until three that afternoon, but as was customary, he came barreling into the apartment at two thirty. Morgan expected it when Finn came rushing through the front door, usually going for food. But this time, he went straight for Morgan, throwing his arms around his neck in a backwards hug. “What?” Morgan asked, laughing. Finn leaned forward, shoving Morgan’s chest into the edge of the table while he reached for the spacebar to pause the show on his computer.

“Let’s go,” he said when Morgan turned his head to look at his friend where he had hooked his chin on Morgan’s shoulder.

“The fuck are you talking about?” he asked incredulously when Finn’s grin only widened.

“LA. California, baby! Come on!” he practically yelled, jumping up and heading for the fridge.

“I’m still not following,” Morgan replied calmly, spinning in his chair.

“Let’s get the hell out of Salt Lake, Morgs. Go to the coast. We have enough savings to get the hell out and still be able to survive down there until we can get everything together. Neither of us is happy here, so why should we stay?” he continued between sips from the carton of orange juice.

“Because Salt Lake is home? Finn, everything we have is here.”

Finn shook his head, “Think about it—outside of the things in this apartment, what do we have? Sure, I work at a crappy skate shop, but I can open my own down there. And you don’t have to fucking be stuck bringing random pieces of cars home everyday.” Morgan turned back to the pieces in front of him but Finn followed.

“It’s not feasible.”

“Morgs.” He looked up from the table. “When you told me about the summer you spent down in Malibu last year, I can’t even tell you how happy you looked. You can’t say to me you don’t want that again, or I don’t want that kind of happiness for you, for us. At the least, you deserve it.

“My lease is up in a month and you know how much my boss hates me. I can pack pretty much everything I consider to be valuable in a couple of suitcases. I have no ties here. The only reason I didn’t piss off months ago was you.”

Morgan fights back the stupid-happy grin at his statement. It wasn’t the time for that.

Finn gave him a second to think. “You’re serious?” Morgan said finally.

“I’m in if you are,” he responded, and that removed any other doubt he had.

“Then let’s go.”