She gasps and freezes, and I step to the center of the boat to balance the weight. Once we stop rocking, I set her on her feet and push her backward into one of the white seats.
“Asshole,” she mutters.
“Brat,” I spit right back, but the word has no bite. Why do I like this side of her so much?
“You didn’t have to manhandle me. I could have easily gotten on this boat myself.”
“Yeah, when you turned to walk away, itreallyseemed like you were getting on the boat,” I say, turning away to untie the rope from the cleat at the edge of the dock. I push off, then headto the helm and sit in the seat behind her so I can start the motor.
“Where are the life jackets?” she asks right before the engine roars to life.
“Every seat has one under it, just lift the part you’re sitting on,” I say, remembering how the guy who rented me the boat showed me that along with some other features before she arrived. “Wait,” I say as the boat slowly moves away from the dock. “Why do you need a life vest? Can you not swim?”
“I can swim. I just hate boats.”
“Oh, so thatwassarcasm I heard in your voice last night?” I feel a bit bad about throwing her over my shoulder and bringing her onto the boat if she’s scared. At the same time, I’m selfishly not willing to let her get off. Instead, I’ll help her stay comfortable so she realizes that boats are not, in fact, scary.
“I guess.” Her cheeks get a little pink, like she’s embarrassed she wasn’t better at hiding it, or that her mom didn’t pick up on her hints. Does Anne actually knowanythingabout her daughter? I think about how close Max and I are, and wonder how I’m closer to my stepdad than she is to her own mother.
“So, let me help you get over that fear.”
“I didn’t say I wasafraidof boats, I said that I don’t like them.”
“Okay,” I say, wondering if there’s actually any difference. I keep the boat at a slow pace as we head toward the channel that will take us over to St. George’s, the small town that was the site of the first permanent British settlement in Bermuda. “Tell me what you don’t like about them.”
“I don’t like that when I get off a boat, it feels like I’m still on it and then I feel seasick.”
“That happens to me too,” I admit. “I’ve got Dramamine in my bag. It helps a ton. What else?”
She looks away and then says, “I don’t like being too far from land. I want to know that if something happened, I could swim back to shore.”
“Okay, we’ll stay close to the shore.”
“No.” The shake of her head has some of her hair falling loose from her clip and hanging to frame her face. “I don’t want to ruin the experience.”
“This is a twenty-foot Boston Whaler with a single engine. It’s not like we’re taking this thing out on the open ocean. We’re just going to take it up the channel to St. George’s Harbour, walk around the town a bit, then come back to Castle Harbour. There’s a beach out on Frick’s Point that’s only accessible by boat unless you own one of the mansions on the cliffs above it. And there’s a shipwreck not too far from there, if you’re feeling adventurous. We’ll never be more than swimming distance from shore, and we’re in a protected bay the whole time. You’re safe. I promise.”
She glances over at me, her eyebrows dipping as she likely tries to work out why I threw her over my shoulder and made her come with me, and why I’m now trying to reassure her. I don’t really want her to know that it’s because getting to spend the whole day, just with her, has already made the second half of this trip so much better than I expected it to be.
She shrugs out of the cover-up she’s wearing, and clips the life vest around her chest. “All right. Since youpromised.”
“Hey, you want to hold this steady for me,” I say, nodding down to the wheel, “so I can put the Bimini up?”
“What the hell is a Bimini?” she says with a laugh, as she grabs the silver support pole to balance herself while moving from the front of the boat to the helm, while I explain about the fabric cover that will give us some shade from the intense sun.
I nod toward the two to-go cups of coffee sitting in the cupholders near the steering wheel. “You said you weren’t a morning person, so I got you coffee. How do you take it?”
“That’s... unexpected. Thank you,” she says. “Milk and sugar.”
I don’t want to think too much about why she sounds genuinely surprised at this small gesture, so I tell her to take the cup on the right. Then I rush to explain a bit about the different parts of this particular boat, while snapping the Bimini in place.
“You seem to know a lot about boats.”
“I grew up in a beach town,” I tell her. “My best friend’s family owns the local marina, so I spent a lot of time on boats growing up. Don’t worry, I have my boating license.”
“Didn’t know that was a thing,” she says. “And you have a pilot’s license too? Or was that all bullshit the other night?”
I huff out a laugh as I watch her sip her coffee. “No bullshit. I’m a man ofmanytalents.”
