“So he just, like, lures women into marriage for their looks?” Her voice is critical, and in some ways perhaps it’s justified, but my protective instincts kick in.
“I don’t think helureswomen into anything. He’s a catch,” I say, thinking about his good looks, kind nature, and lucrative career as a surgeon, “who wants to be caught. I assume he just wants to be happy?”
Her laugh is a scoff. “By finding a replica of your mom? I hope he’s talked to someone about that, because that sounds an awful lot liketransference.”
My brows dip. “What’s that?”
“It’s when you unconsciously redirect your feelings, desires, and expectations from an important person in your past to a new person. It usually happens after a traumatic loss.”
My stomach dips at how accurate that description is to what I’ve watched Max go through since my mom died. I’ve always thought of these rebound relations as him trying to replace her but maybe, instead, he’s just trying to find someone to fill that void.
“Why do you know this? Are you a therapist or something?”
“No, but I majored in psychology, and that’s basically Psych 101. So, you don’t think this thing with our parents will last?”
My bark of laughter is so loud and sharp that it echoes off the walls and the water, repeating the sound around us in a way that’s almost eerie. “No.”
“Because my mom isn’t good enough for him.” It’s not a question. Deep down, I think that this is the conclusion she’s already come to and is just looking for my confirmation.
“I don’t know your mom well enough to know the answer to that. But based on what I do know, she’s not going to last.”
She grits her teeth, and as I watch her trying to keep her expression neutral, I wonder if she’s battling between knowing I’m right and feeling like she should defend her mom. Though based on what I saw of their relationship last night, I can’t imagine why she’d feel the need to defend her.
She clears her throat and looks out toward the opening of the cave. “There are some clouds moving in. If you want to snorkel at that shipwreck, we might want to do that before those afternoon storms.”
Chapter Twelve
MORGAN
Ipoke my head up out of the water as another wave crashes over my snorkel. I glance back toward the boat and note that it’s moved farther from us than it was when we jumped in the water. I can see the taut line of the anchor chain, but the waves are moving the boat around for sure.
“Danny,” I call out when his head pops up, and he looks over at me, pushing his mask up to his forehead as he does. “The waves are getting a bit choppy, I’m going to swim back.”
He glances up, and I do the same. The white puffy clouds that were covering the sky when we rode across the harbor—which is separated from the open sea by small islands—are now gray. The air is cooler as the wind has picked up.
“Fuck. Yeah, let’s go.”
I’m extra thankful I decided to wear the life vest while snorkeling out here, given how hard I have to push through the waves to make it back to the boat. The waves aren’t that big but they feel angry, like the sea is churning.
He holds onto the side of the boat as I go up the steps on the back, then he follows me onto the deck. I flip the steps up as he rushes to the bow to bring the anchor up. Of course, with us so far from it and the boat pulling the chain, the anchordoesn’t budge when he tries to reel it in. The wind whips around us, as though trying to carry his words away when he calls out something in my direction.
It’s obvious I can’t hear him, so he walks back to me. “I’m going to have to jump in and dislodge the anchor from whatever it’s stuck on. See how the wind is pushing us back toward that island? Once the anchor is loose, there’s a good chance the boat will be pushed back into the reef, so here’s what we’re going to do...” At the helm, he starts the engine and shows me how to accelerate slightly once I notice the anchor is loose.
“Won’t I just bring the boat right into you?”
“You’re only going to give it enough juice to keep the boat in place, not to move it forward. You’re basically just preventing it from going backward into the reef.”
My stomach churns. I don’t knowanythingabout driving a boat, and I’m terrified I’ll run it right into him and kill him, but equally terrified of drifting back into the reef and becoming the next shipwreck in the harbor. Especially because there’s nothing but jagged pieces of rock-like coral dotting the water and smooth cliffs of solid rock behind us, and the closest beach to us is the one we just came from. Which looksveryfar away from over here, where we’re separated from it by hundreds of yards of choppy waves. I’m fairly sure I could not swim over there even if my life depended on it.
I grab a larger life vest from the seat behind me and loop my arm through it in case Danny needs it after he dives for the anchor. With the way the sky is darkening, I’m worried that he’s not going to be able to see the bottom to find the anchor once he’s in the water.
“Okay, show me what to do again.”
He steps behind me, places one of my hands on a lever on the dashboard, and the other on the steering wheel. His head dips low, near my ear, as he reminds me how to accelerate justenough to hold the boat steady, and what direction to turn the wheel to keep us moving away from the reef and cliffs behind us.
“You’re doing great, hold it just like this,” he says, then presses his lips to my temple before he returns to the bow, pulls his mask back down over his face, and jumps toward the anchor.
I can tell the minute he’s pulled it free because the boat is pushed backward a little, and I accelerate a tiny bit to hold us in place. I scan the waves in front of the boat but he’s not there, which has me freaked out. But I can’t leave the helm to look for him, or the boat’s going straight back into the rocks.Fuck my life.
