Hearing a low whistle behind me, I turned to find Logan walking down the steps from the house, a bottle of sunscreen in hand. He looked amazing in a white T-shirt and black swim trunks, hard muscles gliding along his frame as his body moved toward me. His dark brown hair was all wild waves underneath his backward hat, and the sight of him quite simply took my breath away.
“Hey.” He grinned as he reached me on the shore. I could almost see his eyes twinkle through his sunglasses. Or perhaps I was simply imagining it. “Here, put this on. You’ll get burned really quick out here next to the water.” He held out the large tube of sunscreen.
“You came all the way down here to bring me sunscreen?” I asked, looking from the bottle in his hands back up to his face.
“We have a long day in the sun ahead of us, and I don’t want you to get hurt,” he said simply, as if there was nothing else to consider. As if this wasn’t actually a really thoughtful gesture, but merely a standard transfer of resources.
I smiled at him, suddenly feeling as if I were floating rather than sinking into the wet sand. “Thanks, Logan.” I took the sunscreen from his hand and watched as he swiftly turned and walked back to the house, content that his mission was accomplished.
Before long, the seven of us were climbing aboard a boat that was run by a local company who brought tourists out to sea for various excursions. True to their word—that they’d practically screamed from the hallway—Adam and Logan were taking us all snorkeling. Each of us grabbed rental gear from a large bin and found a place on the boat to sit. I tried not to think about how many faces had been in the snorkel mask in my hands. The driver of the boat introduced himself as “Fancy Pants” and offered everyone a beer.
Mackenzie looked up at him, squinting in the sun. “It’s, like, nine thirty in the morning.”
Fancy Pants shrugged. “Suit yourselves.”
We boated out to the Cabo Pulmo National Marine Park, a reserve with a thriving coral reef and plenty of wild marine life to explore with our snorkels. After a brief training run-through at the stern of the boat, we all jumped into the warm ocean and scattered around, looking for some marine action.
It didn’t take long before I was completely transfixed by the bright colors of the hundreds of fish all around me, following various schools of them around the reef. The whole scene was like a fluttering, underwater rainbow. It was pure magic.
As I watched a big, beautiful sea turtle glide out into the ocean beyond the reef, a scene straight out of something on the National Geographic channel, I glimpsed a sudden movement in the water to my left. I instantly panicked, thinking that I was about to be eaten alive by a menacing reef shark. I swung my head toward the commotion and saw a flurry of bodies and bubbles.Uh oh.
I quickly kicked my legs to push my head above the water’s surface so that I could see what was going on. Were we in danger? Was there an apex predator nearby? Instinctually, I began swimming for the boat.
I reached it in record time, thanks to a kick of adrenaline. As I pulled myself up onto the back deck, I heard Gwen let out a loud scream. “It fucking HURTS!” I could tell that she was in full-fledged panic mode.
I heard another voice, one that was low and soothing. “Gwen, you’re okay. Look at me.” Pause. “Deep breaths.” Pause. “See, you’re okay.”
Logan. That was Logan’s voice.
I stood up, stumbling on my feet as the boat rocked in the water, and noticed Adam and Nora swimming toward the boat as well with concerned faces.
Turning back to Gwen and Logan, I saw that she was lying on one of the boat’s bench seats, holding her leg in the air. Angry, red blisters were spreading in a cluster of welts on her calf. Logan was kneeling in front of her, attempting to calm her down.
“What happened?” I asked.
Logan turned to look at me briefly before refocusing on Gwen in front of him. “Jellyfish, I think. She was swimming next to me and I realized something was wrong, so I helped her back to the boat and carried her over here.”
“You carried her?”
He shot me another quick look, eyebrows furrowed together in confusion. “Yeah, why?”
“What’s wrong?” Adam asked, pulling himself up from the back of the boat right behind me.
“Jellyfish sting,” I responded.Why did I sound so flippant?
“Oh man, that looks bad,” Nora said as she nudged past me toward her friend who was now panic-crying and squeezing her eyes closed, as if pretending like she couldn’t see the wound would help the pain go away.
Logan turned to Adam. “Do you know how we can help her?”We.I felt a surge of frustration at his words.
Fancy Pants suddenly appeared at the stern. “You need vinegar! Hold on,” he said, pulling up the lid to a floor compartment in the boat. He pulled out a gallon jug of vinegar and reached out to hand it to Logan.
“Gwen, I’m going to pour a little of this vinegar on your leg, okay?” he said gently, watching her for permission. She kept her eyes closed but nodded her head. Logan tilted the open jug of vinegar so that liquid began slowly pouring onto the welts on Gwen’s leg. She winced, but stayed focused on taking the deep breaths that Logan was now encouraging her to take. I suddenly felt like I needed a few deep breaths, myself.
Adam called out to Trevor and Mackenzie, who were still about thirty feet away from the boat and unaware of our current turn of events. When they looked up from the water, Adam motioned for them to come back aboard so that Fancy Pants could bring us home.
Once they reached the boat, Trevor and Mackenzie pulled themselves up out of the water and everyone sat around Gwen, looking for opportunities to help her. I knew with zero doubts that I was being absolutely ridiculous, but the storm that was raging inside of my body felt all too familiar, and I wasn’t prepared to deal with it right now. Not here. So I wrapped myself in a large beach towel and sat down on the side of the boat, staying near the back and away from Gwen and Logan.
ChapterTwenty-Five
