Chapter 3: Bare Skin and Confessions
The morning in Juneau was a sharp, clean slap of cold air. Azana met him at the gangway, wearing layered hiking gear and a nervous energy she couldn’t quite swallow. He looked different in daylight, in a worn leather jacket and sturdy boots, less the stage phantom and more a man who knew how to navigate real terrain.
“You look ready for a photoshoot in a catalog for people who don’t actually hike,” he said, a grin playing on his lips.
“This is all technically waterproof,” she retorted, adjusting her backpack. “Lead on, tour guide.”
He did. They bypassed the lines for the tram and the herds heading toward Mendenhall Glacier, dipping instead onto a trailhead that quickly devoured the sounds of the port. The path was muddy, tangled with roots, the air thick with the scent of wet earth and spruce. For an hour, they climbed in companionable silence, the only sounds their breathing and the distant, metallic cry of eagles.
“So, the amp crisis last night?” she asked, during a pause for water.
“Fixed. It’s always a wire, come loose from the vibration. Everything falls apart a little at sea. Constant moisture, constant movement.” He glanced at her. “Like people.”
The trail narrowed, winding along a cliff face where the roar of the ocean grew louder, a deep bass note beneath the wind. Then Malik turned, pushing aside a curtain of thick, dripping ferns. “Through here.”
Azana ducked after him, and the world changed.
The grotto was a raw, secret wound in the coastline, hidden from the sky by a jagged overhang. Steam rose in thick, dreamlike plumes from a series of rocky pools, the water a surreal, glowing amber under the diffused daylight that fought through the mist. Moss, a vibrant, impossible green, draped over every boulder. The air was hot, heavy with the eggy tang of sulfur undercut by something sweeter—wild lavender, fighting from cracks in the stone. The crash of waves echoed from somewhere below, a rhythmic shudder they felt in their bones.
“My god,” Azana breathed, the words stolen by the vapor.
“A local guy from the last cruise told me about it. Said the tours don’t come here. Too slippery, too ‘unregulated.’” Malik shrugged off his backpack, his movements purposeful. “I come every time we port.”
She approached the edge of the largest pool. The water was perfectly clear near the rocky rim, clouding into mystery just inches down. The heat radiated up, kissing her face.
She knew what came next. The unspoken next step. She’d packed a suit, a sensible black one-piece, but it was buried in her bag and the idea of it here felt absurd, like wearing formalwear to bed. The steam curled between them, a living, tantalizing barrier.
She hesitated, her fingers on the zipper of her jacket.
Malik watched her, his expression unreadable. Then, without a word, he reached for the hem of his sweater. He pulled it up and over his head in one fluid motion.
The air, already thick, seemed to solidify.
His torso was a canvas. The geometric sound waves from his forearm flowed into a larger, more complex design across his shoulder and pectoral—a lion’s head, rendered in fine lines and subtle shading, its eyes closed as if in meditation or profound sorrow. Lower, across his ribs, script she couldn’t read wound like a vine. Old scars, thin and pale, intersected the ink in a few places, not marring it but becoming part of the topography. He was powerfully built, the muscles of his chest and abdomen defined but not sculpted, the body of a man who lived in it, not just trained it.
He dropped the sweater on a dry rock. His gaze held hers, steady, offering no apology for the display, for the history etched onto his skin.
“Trust me,” he said, his voice lower, softened by the cavern’s acoustics. It wasn’t a command. It was an invitation, and a confession that he knew how exposed this made him, too.
Her resistance, what little was left, didn’t melt. It evaporated. It was incinerated by the geothermal heat and the hotter truth in his eyes.
She nodded, once.
He undid his jeans, toeing off his boots, stripping down to dark boxer briefs. He didn’t wait, didn’t watch her. He stepped into the pool, hissing slightly as the intense heat met his skin, and sank down until the water lapped at his collarbones. He leaned his head back against the smooth rock, his eyes closing. A release. A man coming home.
Azana turned slightly, granting herself a sliver of privacy. She peeled off her layers, the cool, damp air raising goosebumps on her skin until she was down to her own simple underwear. She felt acutely aware of her body, its curves, the small scar on her knee from a childhood fall, the newer one, thin and straight, on her forearm from a shattered window on a job.
She stepped in.
The heat was immediate, total, an embrace so complete it stole her breath. It wasn’t like a bath. It was elemental, seeping into muscle and marrow, unlocking tensions she’d carried for years. She sank down opposite him, putting a few feet of steaming water between them. A low, involuntary moan escaped her lips.
His eyes opened. A slow smile touched his mouth. “Told you.”
“You undersold it.” She let her head fall back, the rock warm against her scalp. The world shrank to this: the mineral scent, the primal thrum of the ocean, the silent man sharing the water. The exhaustion she wore like a coat began to dissolve, molecule by molecule.
“The lion,” she said after a long while, her voice echoing softly. “Why eyes closed?”
He was quiet for so long she thought he hadn’t heard her over the water’s gentle lap. He trailed his fingers through the amber surface.
“My brother,” he said finally. The words were measured, pulled from a deep place. “He was a Marine. Killed in Helmand, seven years ago. He had this stupid, perfect tattoo of a roaring lion on his arm. Got it when he was eighteen. I got this after.” He touched his chest, just over the image. “My lion’s at peace. His is still fighting, somewhere I can’t reach.”
The raw honesty of it was a physical thing in the mist. Azana didn’t offer platitudes. They were useless here. She knew about carrying the dead.
“I’m sorry,” she said, simple and direct.
“Me too.” He looked at her, really looked, through the steam. “Your turn. One real thing. Not the job. Something before the tired.”
She watched a droplet travel from her hairline, down her neck, into the water. She thought of the sterile, bright lights of the ER, the smell of antiseptic and blood. But that wasn’t what he asked.
“I wanted to be a photographer,” she said, the admission surprising her. “Not portraits. Landscapes. Big, empty, quiet places. I got accepted to a good arts program. Then my mom got sick. The kind of sick that needs nurses and money. The program wasn’t in state. Paramedic training was faster, local, had benefits.” She shrugged, the water rippling. “I sold my camera gear to help with the first round of bills. Never bought it back.”
“You see landscapes anyway,” he said. “Just through ambulance windows. At high speed.”
The accuracy was devastating. She felt seen, in a way that had nothing to do with her body in the water. “Yeah,” was all she could manage.
He moved then. Not toward her, but along the rocky edge, closer, until he was an arm’s length away. The heat from his body amplified the heat of the spring. He didn’t touch her.
“This is a quiet place,” he murmured. “For now.”
They sat in that silence, the mist weaving around them, the water holding them both. The past was there, in their scars and their stories, but it was held at bay by the present’s profound warmth. Azana felt a knot in her chest, one she’d named ‘permanent,’ begin, for the first time, to unravel.
Malik shifted, his leg brushing against hers under the water. A jolt, electric and warm.
“The water’s getting to me,” he said, his voice a rough whisper. “I should get out.”
But he didn’t move. He was looking at her mouth, then back to her eyes, waiting for a sign.
Azana lifted her hand from the water. It trembled, just slightly. She reached out, not for his body, but for the tattoo on his chest. Her fingertips connected with the inked lion, with the warm, wet skin beneath. She felt the strong, steady beat of his heart against her palm.
He went very still.
“It’s not getting to me,” she lied, her own heart hammering. “I’m fine right here.”
His hand came up, covering hers, pressing it more firmly against his chest, binding her to the story etched there. His other hand rose from the water, dripping, and cradled the side of her face, his thumb stroking her cheekbone.
The momentum of everything—the climb, the confession, the heat—crested in that touch.
He leaned in. The world reduced to the space where his breath mingled with hers in the cool air above the hot water. The crash of the waves below marked the passing seconds.
“Azana,” he whispered, a final, quiet question against her lips.
She didn’t answer with words. She closed the last inch between them.