He holds out a hand to help me inside. “Ladies first. Careful now. Don’t want to tip the boat over. Your choice of four seats here. Care to sit in the captain’s chair?”
“Is that a nautical pick-up line?”
“No. ‘Want to go for a ride on my dinghy?’ is a nautical pick-up line.”
I pretend to gag. “A bad pickup line for a badly named boat—which, by the way, I refuse to say again during our outing today.”
He laughs. “It’ssobad,” he admits. “The dude who owns it is a total dumbass. He doesn’t know anything about storing boats forwinter. Remember that old rusted boat near the North Star with the holes in the bottom? It was almost that bad.”
“Is the North Star still at the end of the Harborwalk, or has Beauty torn it down to make way for a new colonial museum?”
“Think it’s still standing. I haven’t been out there in years. Not since … well, since you left, I guess. Hanging out in an abandoned boatshed is fine when you’re twelve and have company, but it’s a little depressing when you’re seventeen and all by your lonesome. People might mistake me for a meth addict or a prostitute.”
I snort a laugh as I sit in a plastic seat, trying not to freak out that the boat doesn’t feel all that stable or that the water is … so close. I tuck my arms close to my body and peer over the edge. “What’s that smell?”
“Fish. Or sealant. Fish and sealant,” he guesses, untying a rope from the dock and throwing it into the back. “The sealant was us. Fish was the owner.”
The boat dips with Lucky’s weight as he plops down on the seat next to me, long golden legs stretching out near mine. He puts on a pair of dark sunglasses and starts the engine—it takes a couple of tries. When he backs up the boat, his arm grazes my shoulder as he turns in his seat to look behind us, but he doesn’t apologize. He just maneuvers the boat around without a word … and we’re off.
For several moments, all I’m aware of is the purpled setting sun and the feel of the wind on my face. The salty harbor air in my lungs as Lucky navigates past sailboats and yachts darting around the coast, heading home or flicking on lights to stay outin the harbor for Saturday night booze-cruise parties. And we’re in the middle of everything. It’s thrilling and warm and wonderful, and the water ripples around us like lace as Lucky turns the boat sharply and—
My stomach lurches. I slam my hand on the side of the boat, clutching for balance.
“O-oh dear,” I say.
“You okay?”
“Just a little dizzy.”
He glances at me. “You’ve been on boats, right?”
“Sure. The swan paddleboats at Witch Lake across town, which I vomited on, if you’ll remember.”
Lucky laughs. “Are you serious? When we were, what? Ten? Wait … we never went on boat rides? That’s not possible.”
“You were at the old boat-repair shop. We used to sit in that little fishing boat and pretend to fish off the pier until …”
“Until you said the waves made you sick.”
I moan. “You made fun of me.”
“Oh shit,” he says, chuckling a little. “Josie … is this seriously your first time on a real boat?”
“Maybe?”
He slows down and looks at me, grinning under his sunglasses. “Really?”
“Shut up! I don’t even know how to swim, okay?”
“Of course you do. We used to go over to Leah’s pool every summer.”
“And I sat on the steps while you splashed around in the deep end!”
“How is that possible?”
“No one ever taught me—that’s how! I can’t ride a bike, either. I haven’t had a normal family life like you. Latchkey Josie, remember? That’s what that stupid Golden called me when we were in sixth grade, and then everyone at school picked it up, even though no one knew what it meant. I didn’t even know! Mom had to come talk to the principal about it.”
“I remember.”
