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_ "I...think we need a break."_

_ "Just a break...or is this gonna be permanent?"_

_ "...we'll have to wait and see. Just a break, okay?"_

_ "If...If this is what you wanna do...I'll do it."_

"You're still my brother, Jack. You're still my twin and I'll protect me no matter what."

"Y-You too, Jas. No matter what, we'll still be brothers."

"You're right. You're absolutely right! You're still my annoying twin. There's nothing I could ever do to get rid of you, even if I tried, hehe..."

"Hehe...heh."

"...okay, I...think I'll go to bed right now."

"I think I'll do the same. It's been a long night for us..."

_ "Yeah, it has..."_

"..."

"...Oh, and Jack?"

_ "Yeah?"_

_ "Congrats on the new job...I mean it too."_

_ "Thanks, bro."_

_ "No problem..."_

Waking up as a shivering mess, I stared mindlessly up at the darkened ceiling as my dreams blended into a harsh reality. My eyes felt crusted shut from the amount of tears shed while at the same time, the bed I was sleeping in felt empty. Without him. Even hours after our long, long conversation, my rattled brain tried telling me I was still stuck in a nightmare. It tried telling me that Jasper and I hadn't decided to ultimately take a temporary (or permanent?) break from our relationship as boyfriends.

The weight of our decision didn't really hit us until we stood in front of the bedroom doors. Jackson opted for the one closest to the bathroom, and I went for the second bedroom door, not even bothering to grab my phone charger before going to bed. After trying and failing to hear Jasper's snoring through the walls, I cried myself back to sleep.

***

Life inside the apartment became awkward as fuck afterward.

As far as we and the rest of the world was concerned, the bedroom where we used to have sex became my bedroom from then on. Big mistake if I had to be honest with myself. Every fabric in the sheets, pillows, and blanket smelt of Jasper. It made me feel like a widow. In fact, the first night spent sleeping all on my own resulted in a restless night tossing and turning until my phone's alarm went off an hour after dawn.

The mornings after became even more awkward. Actions and past affections we used to exchange now seemed out of place. Jasper and I remained casual, of course, but our corny jokes we exchanged and attempts to pretend everything was alright only made the tension thicker between us. No more sharing showers together, despite my brother trying to argue it'd save water. No more scrubbing or drying each other's fur. No more romantic gestures either. We weren't boyfriends anymore, but back to brothers. Normal, nonromantic twin brothers.

Yeah, just platonic brothers. If our father only knew he'd won, even if it was a pyrrhic victory. I sometimes cringed at imagining the look on his smug face.

This didn't change how much I loved Jasper still, but only as my twin. No matter how much I tried though, I couldn't stop myself from feeling crestfallen each time Jasper walked out the apartment's front door without saying he'd see me later or even offering a 'good luck at work' like he used to. After everything we'd done together and with each other, in showers, in rooms, in our beds, how did a pair of incestuous twins like us honestly return to a regular dynamic? How could they deny an aspect of themselves central to their identities, even if that part of themselves was something to be hidden?

Life carried on though. We had to carry on with our work lives.

I went to visit Nicole in the afternoon the next day. We exchanged pleasantries while she filed all the proper paperwork I gave, then welcomed me as a remote member of the Horizon Communications family. Using the help of another taxicab, I returned to a quiet apartment with textbooks and binders filled to the brim with corporate information. By the time the packages arrived in the mail a day or two later, I set up the shiny new desktop and wireless router in my bedroom on the corner desk. I left a note on the refrigerator showing the Wi-Fi's complicated password. A part of me hoped it'd help as an olive branch, but Jasper didn't say anything else.

Horizon Communications paid well. Of course, I needed to wait a couple of weeks before the first direct deposit, but knowing I was making good money again made the waiting all worthwhile. It allowed me to endure some crabby customers on the phone. Again, when I happily showed Jasper my first check deposit on the banking app of my phone, he did stare impressed at the numbers onscreen, but only gave a half-hearted congratulations before going to make himself some dinner. I really missed our dinners together.

One Sunday morning in mid-to-late August, something changed. No matter how many times I thought back to it, I didn't know the triggering moment. I'd gotten up extremely early at around the same time the black sky turned a shade of dark indigo, wanting to brew some coffee in the kitchen. Costing around eighty dollars but smoothly operating like a Starducks barista's wet dream, the machine had appeared in our apartment days earlier without warning. When it did happen, I'd chalked it up to Jasper acting petty about how the credit card was his, so he had the right to spend however much he wanted too.

Honestly though, I had little complaints after using it to wake myself up in the morning.

Anyway, my sleepy paws finished replacing the coffee filter and I'd started having it brew some of the sweet liquid oil into the glass pot when a noise caught my attention. It came all the way down the corridor, where Jasper slept.

"Jas?" I spoke up in a hushed tone, then opted to knock on the door. "Jasper?"

Another cry out prompted me to immediately open the door. I half-expected to see my brother still asleep in what had been our bed, but instead, he lay there wide awake, staring up at the ceiling while clutching at the sheets for support. He wore only his pajama bottoms, the blanket kicked at the foot of the bed as his bare stomach convulsed with each hard breath.

"Jasper!" I rushed inside the room and tried nudging him. "Jasper?"

I whined as he made no response. He continued looking up at the ceiling with hitched wheezes of breath, whining as if the nightmare he'd awakened from refused to go away. He still blindly grabbed at the bed sheets, likely trying to find an anchor to hold onto as I whimpered at not knowing what to do...until Jasper suddenly grabbed my paw, and I realized the solution. As I slowly sat down on the edge of the bed, I held on tighter to Jasper's paw, squeezing it to match his grip until his hard breathing began to slow. It grew more tethered and calmer as he uneasily sat up in the bed.

"T-Thank you, bro..." His dilated eyes focused on me as they blinked, "Just had this horrible nightmare...D-Dad was there...and you weren't..."

I simply held him in my arms as he regained control of himself. Jasper's nightmares had been an issue long before we moved out East, but after moving out of Utah, they'd all but disappeared in the intervening weeks since. It often involved himself being trapped in a small space as our father berated him, scolded him, or transformed into something monstrous in order to scare him. Like all previous times, I comforted him without question until he became his jovial self again.

A soft ding in the kitchen caught my attention. I sniffed the air and asked, "You uh, want some coffee, Jas?"

Wiping his eyes from my shoulder, the dalmatian cleared his throat and smiled.

"I'd love some, Jack," he said with a sniffle. As he pulled away to stretch an arm and yawn, my twin brother uneasily jumped off the bed. "Can't go to sleep at this point. Ugh, so anyway...what the hell time is it...three, four?"

"Half past four, I think," I let him go into the hallway first.

A waft of coffee hit our nostrils, as we sniffed the air together at once.

"Ahhhh," we sighed in brotherly unison. "That smells good..."

Before either of us noticed we were giggling like sheepish teenagers. I offered to make him breakfast, which Jasper didn't object to, and we ended up enjoying each other's company as we watched the Sun rise from the Atlantic Ocean outside the window.

***

Little by little, our old dynamic of being just twin brothers returned like trickling rain. We still slept in separate bedrooms, trying to rebuild a camaraderie without sex or romance, but the barrier between us earlier might as well have disintegrated into dust. We exchanged jokes at home, awkwardly wishing the other a nice day at work, among other minimal things that felt like things were healing. It felt like our bond was becoming salvageable. I even convinced Jasper to let us go out for dinner together as a way to celebrate not just my new job, but the fact we actually managed to lower his credit card debt down to only a hundred or so dollars. We even saved up to more than about eighth-hundred dollars each to our savings at the bank.

"You sure you wanna do this?" I asked him before we left the doorway. "I can cook us something off the fly. Like you said, we can't spend money all the time--"

"Forget about it," he waved it off with a smirk. "Are you planning to take me to a Gordon Ramsay restaurant tonight? Or a country club like back home?"

"No?" I stated.

"Then let's go then," he eagerly waltzed out the door, tail wiggling behind him. "It'll be nice to have something served to us for a change, plus," the smug dog snickered, "I think we deserve a break from your crappy cooking for once."

"Fuck you, bro!" I gasped. "I could clearly beat Ramsay in a cooking contest, and you damn well know it! Remember that meatloaf I made?"

"The one with too much paprika?" He asked, to which I flipped him a middle finger and he stuck his tongue out at me. "I'm kidding, jeez. It was delicious, I admit it. I just don't understand why you've been suddenly obsessed with spices."

"Like I told you once, bro," I recalled our very first shopping trip way back as we waited for the elevator, "Being poor doesn't mean we don't have taste buds."

"Well, your taste buds are shitty, bro."

I then joked, "You've never complained about my tongue before."

We fell silent for what felt like several seconds, eyes wide and looking away uncomfortably from each other until the door opened. "I certainly never did," Jasper laughed a little too forcefully. "Now c'mon, I'm fucking hungry and wanna have a real burger!"

Another smile on my face grew as I joined him in the elevator box.

The restaurant we settled on only stood a couple blocks south of Atlantica Apts. It was a Hispanic-themed bar and grill packed between two downtown buildings, one of them a karate school and the other a popular bike shop. Catalonia Grill didn't seem packed at first until we weaseled our way into the narrow door and tried searching for anyone in the mild sea of perked ears and wide shoulders. Scents of spice, tequila, grease, etc. permeated the air like delicious perfume, while I drooled at the smell of a really mean steak passing by on a waitress' large serving platter.

We were seated at a corner booth at the back of the restaurant, not too far from the alcove of bathrooms as well as the kitchen's side door near the packed bar. Our waiter was a chipper and easygoing beagle in his early teens named Benji.

"I've never seen you two here before!" He readied a notepad. "Welcome to Catalonia Grill, may I take your orders? Mind you, I can't serve alcohol, even if you're both twenty-one."

"I'll just have a water," my reply came immediate.

"Me too," Jasper added, "but I might go for a soda later."

"Alrighty, here's your menus. I'll be back shortly."

"Thanks."

"Thank you."

We perused through our choices like cubs in a candy store, with me searching for something as equally exclusive and unhealthy as Jasper was going for. I felt pretty sure the last time we ate out had been back on our first day in Peninsula City more than a month back, so if we wanted to have some appetizers, then by God we were going to have appetizers. We eventually settled on sharing a whole plate of queso chips and salsa sauce as a side, as well as a plate of onion rings for Jasper.

"I think I'll ask for a spicy chicken wrap with a side of coleslaw and cheesy-bites," I said.

"Sounds delicious," Jasper licked his chops. "And I'm going for the double-stacked jalapeno burger with extra mushrooms."

"You expecting to get high, dude?" I jested, which seemed to leave him pondering in deep thought. "Oh, let me guess? You're trying to imagine what it'd be like to cook a burger with actual shrooms."

"If I ever get the chance to try shrooms," Jasper nodded like a mad genius, "remind me to save some and buy us some frozen patties at the grocery store. Imagine the trip!"

"Imagine the awful smell too," I wrinkled my nose. "If you're gonna get yourself high on some shroom-burned burgers, I'd at least consider opening a window first."

"I'll run the air conditioner," he added. "But imagine how much money a business like mine is gonna produce. Imagine it: Jasper & Bro's Shroom-Burger Emporium! Haha, all our customers would be lining up all along the block just to get high on it, dude."

I rolled my eyes at his overactive imagination, then quirked a confused brow at seeing the dalmatian grow silent, then form a shit-eating grin. "You high right now, bro?" I playfully asked him.

"Well, fuck me," he laughed then waved to someone past my shoulders. "Hey Frank!"

I craned my neck around to search for a 'Frank' out in the settling crowd of people within and surrounding the front of the bar, not by much luck. Only for this 'Frank' to cut cleanly through the wild lines thanks to the wolf's immense size.

"Hey, Jasper!" He lumbered to us and shook my brother's paw. He almost reminded me of Mr. Lutman, making me wonder if New Jersey had something in the tap water. "Never expected to see you here, kiddo. What's up?"

"Not much, Frank," he laughed shortly, "How about you? I thought you didn't like to go out drinking on weekdays?"

"Well, the wife needed me outta her hair for a bit, so I thought 'fuck it', haha," he swiveled his head to me, then back to Jasper. "Holy shit, you weren't kidding about having a twin brother. Here, I thought the drinks got to me a little early." The hulking wolf reached over our table to fist bump me. "I'm Frank. Frank Magnani. I work with your brother here."

"Jackson," I return the fist bump with a perked grin, "I think Jas has told me about you."

"Hopefully, it's all good, right?" The wolf joked, and I shook my muzzle.

"Nah, nothing like that," I answered, "but he did tell me how you backed him up with that fiasco involving that ex-coworker. Thanks for that. I mean it too."

I felt Jasper tense up, then immediately relax.

"Hey, no problem," Frank beamed as if he'd been given a raised salary, his tail swishing around his hips. "The retarded bastard had it coming for a while now, but I'm just glad you stopped taking any more of his creepy-ass pedo shit, Jasper."

"I'm glad I stopped it too, dude," he agreed.

"Appetizers, here!" Our waiter announced as he squeezed between Jasper and Frank's shoulders to set our plates down. Benji placed the serving platter under his arm and fished out a notebook. "May I take your orders now, or come back later?"

"I'm gonna get back doing my thing, and I'll leave you doing yours," Frank spoke up quickly, then waved us off. "See you at work tomorrow, Jasper! Nice to meet you too, Jackson!"

I thanked him again, and we switched our attention back to our waiter. Jasper and I listed off our food orders to the young beagle, then did our best to hide a chuckle when we collectively noticed his easygoingness crack. It didn't really seem noticeable until Jasper flashed him a bright smile, thanking him for the appetizers before he left. A small smile back too subtly wide, how he fought to shyly look me in the eye while turning, and a a half-restrained swish of his tail as he walked away said it all: he found us attractive.

"Do you think he's a senior?" Jasper whispered to me when our waiter was out of earshot. "You saw it too. He finds us attractive, dude! He's picturing us in his head right now."

"Yeah, I saw it too."

We gradually fell into flat silence as the smell of our queso/salsa chips and onion ring appetizers distracted our mindsets. I positively heard Jasper drool and moan as he swallowed a ring of the fried vegetable in one bite, then take a whole chip drenched in sweet queso. He looked like a food lover about to orgasm, really. In the end, I failed to stop myself from snickering at his antics, which in turn made him share in a little laughter.

By the time he almost finished his plate of onion rings though, the dalmatian became quiet. "I'm...sorry," he said, heavy regret laced in his voice, "I'm sorry for suggesting Dad fucked you, Jackson. I'm also sorry for shoving you against the wall like that. It was terrible and wrong no matter what, and I'm...I'm so sorry."

Shocked for a minute or two, I abandoned a salsa-covered chip gripped in my paw and set it on my plate. "Thank you," I replied, my own voice carrying the same regret. "I'm sorry too for trying to hit you. And I'm sorry I acted all bitchy and controlling You're right, I was a hypocrite, Jas." A groan escaped the back of my throat as I lowered my head to lightly touch the table, elbows nearly knocking at my small plate. "Fuck, I was acting like Dad there..."

"No, you weren't."

"I was!" Came a muffled response from me. "I tried controlling you, belittled your ideas, acted like your opinion didn't matter in the grand scheme of things--"

"You didn't threaten to kick me out," Jasper mentioned.

"But I was acting high and mighty--"

"You were," he interrupted again, much to my minor annoyance. "Look, Jack. I get why you bought all that equipment for Horizon Consolidations--"

"Communications," I corrected him.

"Whatever," he shrugged disinterestedly. "The point is, I'm happier that you told me right when I got home and didn't keep it a secret. And hey, look at us now! We're actually saving enough money to go out for dinner like normal people."

His comment about us being 'normal people' triggered a threat of waterworks. Not now, not in public, I told myself. For the moment, I got a grip on myself, then stared back at him.

"Jasper, can I ask you something?" I asked, to which my twin smirked in affirmation. "Even...Even if we...?" I inhaled sharply through my nostrils, finally getting my worried off my chest, "Even if this break we're on stays permanent, can you...promise me that we won't be strangers like we were these past couple of weeks? I missed you, bro."

"I missed you too, bro," Jasper opened his mouth to say something else.

"B-Bon appétit!" Benji burst into our private conversation.

He went about handing us our ordered food each as Jasper made quick to nod confidently at me. His eyes didn't show a sign of doubt. He quietly promised to never shut me out ever again, and I firmly believed him. I quietly promised him to never act like an asinine dog and keep him in the loop about spending like we'd promised. Thus, we collectively shared another look. Benji would be getting a decent tip for doing a good job being our waiter for the evening.

Hey, the kid deserved a reward for a good job. Too bad he already had a girlfriend.

"Do you think he'll ever come out of the closet?" Jasper asked me as we returned home.

I grinned back at him and said, "We might have to come back and find out some time."

***

Our relationship wouldn't be back to normal until the final weekend of Summer.

For some ungodly reason, we tried to maintain this illusion of us being anything boy boyfriends. We stayed platonic, but still occasionally traded flirtatious banter. I commented about the muscle he'd been gaining from work. He made a not-so-subtle about me wearing no clothes below the waistline while working from the computer, specifically about my nice ass not needing to be constrained. Jasper thirstily watched me dress myself from the doorway leading inside my bedroom, and vice-versa. It felt like we were already committing incest solely by unapologetic stares and appreciation for each other's bodies.

For once, the both of us had a Saturday night off, which we planned to utilize to the fullest. We mostly spent the day lounging about, watching TV, giving Jasper permission to use my computer ("Give it any viruses, and you're paying for it, Jas." "Tch, whatever, bro.") and watch some funny videos, joined him in watching/laughing with him, as well as catch some glances of our bodies. Imagining them doing...something. Thankfully, I got a distraction in the form of a text from Rodney, who mentioned a beach party happening outside of the Atlantica.

"Me and my friends will be here. Beer and babes too! U and Jasper should come."

"Count me in!" Jasper practically jumped towards the apartment entrance, credit card in paw. When I asked what the Hell he was doing, more from confusion than alarm, he shouted, "It's a beach, bro! We'll need swimming trunks!"

It honestly didn't occur to me how much we'd not appreciated the beach literally outside our apartment until he said just that. We'd been so busy lately. In the weeks and months since we moved all the way to New Jersey, our lives had been consumed by work and too much drama. Between moving in, getting a budget together, finding jobs, dealing with the fallout from my firing, the harassment from some self-righteous prudes, and how tiring the summer had been for us overall, we didn't even consider going swimming. Not since graduation led to us saying farewell to the Swim Club's members back in Crossroads.

I'd already made us some leftovers by the time that Jasper returned a couple of hours later. The Sun was barely touching the horizon, its intensity forcing me to close the blinds shut as I patiently ate my cooling lasagna until a familiar-looking Dalmatian barged back in.

"Where have you been, dude?" I set my fork down at the grinning dog. "Your food's getting cold."

"It's leftovers," he chuckled while setting down his shopping bag.

"So?" I asked.

"Leftovers are usually supposed to be cold, right?" He asked. When I said nothing, Jasper had the audacity to say next, "Think the party's gonna have any good food?"

"You fucker," I rolled my eyes and stood up as he went about heating his in the microwave. The moment I looked inside, I pulled the contents out with a raised eyebrow directed straight at Jasper. "Seriously? You got us matching red?"

"Thought I'd get us a matching set," he chuckled, wagging his tail.

"Jas..."

"I had to!" He raised both paws in the air as the microwave's interior light silhouetted him. "It was a sign from God when I saw these being sold together, bro. God Himself told me that I needed to get us these swimsuits!"

Rolling my eyes again did little to dissuade him. Staring down though at the two swimsuits in my paw, I couldn't help but think back to our days in the Swim Club. It'd been an impulse join at first, back when we were in middle school and Dad demanded that we find an extracurricular activity--to make him proud, of course. He didn't object to it, not when Jasper and I did win a couple of competitions. Mostly though, we did it for the play. Holding a pair of swimming briefs after so long made me giddy to reclaim that fun again.

We changed into our swimwear, tried our best not to watch during the process, then I let Jasper convince me to wear matching black t-shirts with him together. We exited the Atlantica minutes later, hearing cheers and loud music coming from the beach just a few dozen yards from the building. We walked out, discovering in the process that apparently, New Jersey knew how to throw beach parties.

The end of summer was upon us, so everybody in Peninsula City decided to drop everything they needed to do and just have fun. As soon as we stepped out of the apartment complex lobby and made our way to the boardwalk overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, we saw various crowds of people gathering and mingling at different groups along the beach. Many had large bonfires aplenty. Aside from the scent of sea salt, our noses could also catch whiffs of cigarette smoke, some puke, and a piece of rubber burning somewhere, as well as several grills we couldn't see until we turned a sharp corner around a large sand dune.

"Holy shit," Jasper commented with the same widened eyes I had. "If I'd known they partied harder on the East Coast, I would've run away here sooner..."

I whistled, "No kidding. It's nuts."

"And I love it!" He snarked.

"Same," I said, my tail wiggling as we observed everything.

Locals and tourists alike of Jersey Shore were having a good time. At least one dune buggy could be seen plowing along the distant sands as red solo cups and emptied beer cans drowned public trash cans. Environmental activists everywhere would weep at the sight, but then again, it could've been a regular sight. Me and Jasper were more focused on mingling with others, be they teenagers our own age or the college students no doubt taking advantage of the dying sunlight to shake their beers and cheer for a song playing on a nearby portable speaker.

After I'd helped myself to a soda cooler almost emptied out and filled with nothing but melted water, Jasper already found himself talking to a cheetah two or three years older than us.

"That accent," he asked, "You from out West? California?"

"Nah, Utah," Jasper joked, "Didn't even know that you had accents in Utah."

"Dude, you should hear my English professor's accent; it's literally deep English!"

I listened and watched them talk about accents and life in Utah versus New Jersey, occasionally sipping on my soda. I couldn't deny he looked good in those matching new swimming trunks. Seeing his dalmatian tail swish and wiggle with his movements made my eye wander to the root, then to the curves of his behind. The same minute I started to imagine peeling it down, I glanced away with an ashamed blush, willing myself not to even think about growing an erection out in public.

My attention drew to a familiar face amid the sea of faces and the sounds of a rumbling ocean nearby; it was a certain coywolf laughing like a madman after hearing something from a stallion. He was still laughing as I walked up.

"Rodney?"

"Hey, Jackson!" He pulled himself back together and smacked my back. Leaning in close, I heard the coywolf mutter, "Wait, you are Jackson, right? I'm seeing your bro over there and been drinking, so I'm not sure..."

"If you're seeing double?" I queried aloud, which made us both laugh. "Nah, I'm Jackson. Jasper's doing his own thing, I guess."

"Who's this?" The stallion asked after taking a swig from his cup, then whinnying from a buzz. "This the dog you mentioned getting fired from your job?"

I stopped breathing for several milliseconds when Rodney mentioned, "Yeah, 'cause he didn't like him having a boyfriend."

My tail wagged harder than it ever did, and I nodded nervously.

"That ain't cool of 'em to do, bro. Love is love!" He shouted, laughing as a few onlookers heard and cheered to that. "Hey, you take care, Roddie! You too, Jackie!"

He sauntered off as I sipped on more of my soda.

"Thanks for the cover," I told Rodney, who simply shrugged. Smirking, I said to the coywolf, "Didn't recognize you without a magazine covering your ugly snout."

"Fuck you," he quipped.

"It's hard to read and drink at the same time, ain't it?" He jested, then joined me in watching some drunken partygoers bump and grind to a rap song blasting from another speaker. A look of slight curiosity could be seen on him in the corner of my eye. "So uh, how's the thing going on between you and...Jasper? You work things out or something?"

I made another swig, almost wishing it were beer. "No, we're still...not together."

"If it makes you feel any better, I'm not together with my sister either," he mentioned, then openly cringed, as I did. The coywolf easily smirked though at my mirrored action, "Ha! Hypocrite!"

Hopefully, nobody heard him out of context.

"At least neither of us would've gotten pregnant," I remarked back.

"Eh, sister or not, she's still too much of a bitch anyway," he shrugged without losing that shit-eating grin that'd started to grow on me. "You should see her for yourself."

"Thanks, but no thanks," I kidded to him, "It's a creed of mine to never date friends' siblings."

The coywolf let out a bark. "So by that logic then," he retorted, "it's not okay unless they are your sibling?"

"...I walked straight into that one, didn't I?" I groaned, much to Rodney's perfect amusement.

"You sure did," he nudged my shoulder. "C'mon, let's go talk to some guys over here. I think you'll like 'em. They're crypto dipshits, but they're still chill."

Sunlight slowly disappeared into the Atlantic Ocean as everyone celebrated the final days of summer. Most chatted with beer/soda/vaping machines in paw, while others danced, watched the stars appear overhead, or swam nearby in the crashing waves. At least, if you were sober.

I'd been hanging out with Rodney and some of his friends, who turned out to be a misfit bunch of friends one could only dream of; there was Stephen, an anti-establishment Siberian husky attending Peninsula City University, much to his verbal chagrin. Next were Vanessa and Valerie, a collie and Labrador who each used to date Luke, the drunken stallion I'd encountered earlier who used to attend high school with Rodney. Then, there was the coywolf's childhood friend, a self-proclaimed 'crypto wiz doggo' named Yancy. He insisted on being called Y-Dog, but I mentally refused to humor the unusually tall chihuahua. Neither of them had a problem with me or Jasper being eighteen, but it did give Vanessa the chance to awkwardly suggest dating, until Luke shot it down by mentioning I had a boyfriend. Well, had a boyfriend.

"Aww, why do all the cute guys have to be gay?" She'd whined. "I thought they all were in New York, not New Jersey...Still, it'll be nice to have a gay friend in this group."

Oh, how I dreaded to tell her I didn't know a single fucking thing about fashion.

Not long after the orange sky turned blacker, Vanessa and Valerie convinced me and Luke to go swimming. Rodney didn't feel like drowning that night, so he opted out, while Stephen grew enamored with some goth tabby lighting a cigar nearby, and Yancy preferred to watch his Bitcoin rise and fall on an unoccupied picnic table.

"Shit, that's cold!" I hissed as my genitals went underwater.

"Pussy!" Luke cackled mid-dive into an incoming wave. "Bwah! Fuck, fuck, it is cold!"

"You two don't know pain!" Valerie scoffed before diving under and whipping her hair into Vanessa's face. "Eek, sorry there!"

"You're so dead, Vessa!" She splashed in her direction, who splashed back. "Eek!"

"That's right, now kiss and make up..." Luke encouraged them before receiving a splash.

I shook my muzzle and felt myself be carried with the black waters. Weightless eternity synchronized with breaking waves of water as they drowned out ambient noise. The sounds of cheering, laughter, music on the beach, and Luke's banter towards the giggling girls became distant as I stared up at another sea above us. Though slightly obscured by light pollution from nearby buildings, the diamond stars still looked unbelievable.

Somebody swam next to me. I didn't register who it was until I suddenly found myself pulled underwater. I struggled for a moment until recognizable arms hugged me behind my back, and we gasped for air again.

"Jasper," I smacked his side in slight annoyance, "you scared the shit outta me!"

"Hahaha, sorry, I couldn't resist!" He cackled without care, until I pushed him away. "C'mon, you have to admit that you were so scared."

"No, I wasn't!"

"You were!" He swam closer to me and motioned to Luke, Valerie, and Vanessa several yards away. "Ran into Rodney earlier. He said we ought to hang out with them..."

"We should," I nodded meekly, a little realizing that Jasper had waded close enough for me to feel his swim trunks brush mine. "Luke's pretty chill. And Valerie and Vanessa know some good cafes we haven't been to. Not sure if you'd like Yancy though."

"Y-Dog?" He stuck his tongue out.

I rolled my eyes while continuing to kick at the colder water tickling our toes.

"I refuse to call him that," came my firm reply. "It's stupid."

"Who're we to judge, really?" Jasper pondered aloud. When I didn't say a word back, my twin brother had the audacity to say, "I mean, I could always tell 'em about that nickname you used to like being called back in elementary."

Snarling and hating how much I was laughing, I warned him, "Don't you dare!"

"I'm so terrified!" He mockingly waved his arms. "Come at me, bro!"

"You're mincemeat, bro!" I barked the last word.

Somewhere nearby, Luke and the girls cheered at my chase of the other dalmatian. We thrashed through the water in several circles, sometimes around the trio, other times as far out into the ocean until Jasper found the idea to go for the beach, hoping to escape me on land. Grinning, I vowed not to let him do just that. Rather, I wadded violently until I got closer. He tried running faster, but the receding waves pulled him backwards. Taking the open shot, my hindlegs kicked at the sand below and pounced like a dolphin out of the water.

The jump had been on target, my lean body leaping right onto my twin. My arms clung around his torso, and we fell to the sandy shores, only to feel a larger-than-usual torrent of seawater push up closer to the beach. We fell against the sand, getting our chins full of sand.

The two of us chortled uncontrollably. Jasper clutched his stomach and I struggled to breathe through laughter as we fell on our sides, facing each other.

It reminded me of looking in a mirror. Our smiled reflected each other, as did the sparkle in our cerulean eyes, reflected from neon lights. A mutual understanding was exchanged between us in a silent gaze. Jasper and I missed this, being so close and having fun together. We weren't being ourselves like this. We were pretending to be something we weren't, like homophobes trapped in a closet, trying their best to hide themselves under blankets of shame and silence.

"Jasper..."

"Jackson..."

Time froze still, and so did we. Like the vast ocean, our attention towards each other drowned out everything else. The only thing to bring us back to reality was something instinctual, when Jasper pulled me into an earth-shattering kiss.

I happily embraced it like an alcoholic reuniting with whiskey. Tasting him again felt so good. Touching noses together mid-French and feeling his paw against my chest felt so right. Smelling him so closely with the hint of seawater felt better than any nostalgic memory of him. Jasper considered it so too, because he strengthened the kiss further when my back pushed into the wet sand underneath us, and he immediately straddled me before parting our breathless lips.

Only then did sound return to the world.

"Oh my God, I'm freaking out how hot this is, Val!"

"They're brothers!"

"Holy shit!"

"This is so wrong..."

"This is better than fanfiction!"

Our eyes traveled to Rodney's friends, who saw the whole thing.

Well, shit.