We might very well sink this canoe before we get back to shore.
And I’m with Amanda on this one.
It’s freaking hilarious. “Start bailing water,” I tell her.
“With what?”
“Your hands?”
We lock eyes, and we both crack up again.
With her hands?
There’s zero chance she’s bailing this canoe outwith her hands.
“Paddle faster!” she shrieks between gales of laughter. “Why aren’t there two sets of those paddling thingies?”
“Oars?”
“Oars!Those! Yes. Why aren’t there two sets?”
Chili snorts at me.
I paddle faster.
Amanda starts scooping water out of the bottom of the canoe with her hands.
Our gazes meet again as she’s making zero progress. She laughs so hard she snorts. I’m laughing so hard I almost can’t breathe.
It’s coming in fast now. We’ve sprung a leak, and the canoe is done for this world.
But we’re still a good ways from shore.
“Your extra cookie!” Amanda lunges for the brown paper bag resting near her seat, and the canoe rocks sideways again.
Chili grunts.
I paddle even harder.
Amanda puts the bag with my cookie in her teeth and goes back to scooping water out of the canoe with her hands, her engagement ring sparkling and catching my attention with every handful of water that she dumps out of the canoe.
We make it to about ten yards from shore before the canoe gives up on life.
Chili stares at me like I’ve betrayed him, like he wasn’t out here in the lake himself just this morning of his own free will, then pushes off and swims for land.
“You good?” I ask Amanda as we make a swim for it too.
Her eyes are dancing. Hair soaked. Dog-paddling while she holds her head far back, the bag with my cookie still clenched between her teeth.
It’s funny, but it’s also making something warm swell in my chest.
She’s going out of her way to save a cookie for me when I can get another one tomorrow.
But when getting another one tomorrow would mean talking to the woman making our wedding cake.
For our fake wedding.
I rescue the cookie bag as we reach ground I can stand on, then wrap an arm around her and pull her closer to shore, to where she can stand too.
