A deep chuckle rumbles out of him. “Alright then, Fitzgerald—what’s your idea of the perfect holiday?”
I fidget with my seatbelt, feeling very boring. “Just being somewhere relaxing and pretty with people I love. Reading books. Eating too much. Not worrying about whether my extremities might snap off.” I pause. “I guess I just want to feel happy. And safe.”
Safe.The word drops between us like I’ve admitted something deeply unsexy.
His mouth twitches. This man craves avalanches the way I crave biscuits. He runs toward danger; I run toward the kettle.
“We’re all looking for safety in different ways,” he says finally.
“What? Your holidays are the opposite of safe.”
“They look that way. But when I push myself, I learn exactly where my limits are. I know how far I can push and still survive. There’s no greater safety than knowing your own capabilities.”
“Huh.” I chew my lip, sneaking a glance at him. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe safety isn’t about avoiding risk. It’s about knowing who you are when it all goes wrong.” I pause. “Although, to be fair, nothing really goes wrong when you’re reading on a beach. Worst case scenario, a seagull shits on your chips. Or, you know, tsunami.”
“See? You do live dangerously. Seagulls are vicious bastards.”
I bite my lip to stop my grin. “Did Jake really faint when your toe snapped off?”
He chuckles. “Dropped like a stone. I wish I’d filmed it. Big surprise, huh?”
“Not to me. Jake hasn’t always been Mr. Tough.”
That earns me a raised brow. “Sounds like a story I need to hear.”
I roll my eyes, already blushing. “Our last holiday with Dad, Jake swam straight into a jellyfish. He was thrashing about, shouting he was dying. I was the one who dragged him to shore. I was fourteen. He was twenty, six feet tall, bawling like he’d been shot. To be fair, the jellyfish did sting him very close to the family jewels.”
Patrick laughs. For a second, I glow under it. Then the warmth fizzles, replaced by a strange hollow. Was I braver at fourteen than I am now?
“I’m saving that story for later,” he says. “He’ll never live it down.”
This feels shockingly like banter.
His gaze drops to the bird-watching guidebook in my lap. “You’ve annotated the whole thing.”
I glance down at the highlighted, color-coded pages. Sticky tabs stick out.
Heat floods my face, like he’s caught me with porn instead of puffin facts.
“I wanted to know what to look for,” I mumble. “Besides puffins. I like to be prepared. And... birds are nice.”
“Birds are nice,” he repeats, so dry I brace for mockery.
“You think that’s sad, don’t you? That I’ve color-coded a bird book for a boat trip?”
But he doesn’t smirk. Doesn’t tease. He glances over at me, and his voice drops lower. “No, Georgie. I think it’s sweet.”
My heart forgets how to beat. It just stops, stutters, then races to catch up.
“We’re here,” he says, breaking the spell.
I follow his gaze to the harbor below. A small fishing boat rocks in the water.
Oh God. Just the two of us. On a boat. For hours.
Patrick
After showing her the puffin colony, I take us further along the coast.
