He answers with a crooked smile. “You’ll figure something out.”
Then he nods toward a larger tent up ahead, a blue sign flapping gently in the breeze:The Marine Experience.
“You have to see this. I read they have a tank with live marine creatures.”
I reluctantly follow him and end up huddled with a bunch of kids, peering into a shallow white pool, filled with sand and seawater. Snails, crabs and a few anemones scuttle and cling to the rocks and pieces of wood peppered across the bottom.
“You can touch them,” Adam says, far too pleased, nodding at the display.
“Absolutely not.” Blanca stops on the other side, her face twisted in open disgust.
Will stops beside her, hands clasped behind his back, tilting his head, looking between Adam and me. “You can’t be serious,” he says mildly. “This is for children.”
Normally, I’d never entertain the idea. But something about how they both dismiss Adam sets my teeth on edge. They don’t need to be so casually rude.
I step forward before I can overthink it.
With a hard swallow, I search the tank for the least offensive-looking creature. Among the ghastly critters, I spot a dark orange starfish that doesn’t seem to move too much.
Deep breath. I bend until my finger breaches the surface of the water. A quiver runs down my back when my skin makes gentle contact with the rough, unexpected texture. Point proven, I straighten fast, only to find Adam watching me with a wide grin.
“I’m proud of you.”
It’s strange how those words, especially coming from him, burrow in my chest, warming it up.
“There appear to be people by the dock having far more fun than we are.” Will’s calm voice slices neatly through the moment. “Perhaps we should investigate.”
Down by the water, spectators lounge on the grass or in folding chairs, snacks and drinks in hand, laughing at the people slipping into the water.
The banner strung between two white posts readsHarbor Crate Dash.
“What are they even doing?” Blanca squints over her large sunglasses at the people lining up and then scampering, hilariously I might add, across a string of floating lobster crates.
“Look who’s here.”
Martha barrels toward us, short denim overalls over a floral shirt, straw hat in hand. I’ve come to like this lady and her blunt honesty. She always tells it like it is, there’s no bullshitting her.
“We were just trying to figurethatout.” I point to the water.
“A tradition since the seventies,” she says, pushing her green-framed glasses up her nose. “You have to get to the other side without dropping the lobster. I tried it once, back when the crates were empty. When I tell you, I went down like a boulder on step one.” She laughs. “Now they pack’em with seaweed to float better.”
“Sounds ridiculous,” Blanca mutters.
Carter was right about Martha’s death stare.
Her expression hardens into something that could strip paint. “I imagine it would,” she says coolly, “if you’ve got no sense of humor.”
“You could pull it off,” I say, turning to Adam, before Blanca can recover with a rude comeback.
He scrunches his nose. “Think if I win, I might get a summer job on a lobster boat?”
“Nothing sexier than a man smelling like fish and two weeks on a boat,” I tease.
He plays along easily. “And I’d live in a tiny house on a rock that gets cut off at high tide.”
Martha chimes in. “Because you hate people?”
“Because I’m protecting the town from my stench,” Adam replies, and it pulls a genuine giggle out of me.
