I CAN’T TELL.
One by one, he tugs off my sneakers while I remove my lifejacket. We both empty our pockets. Then he urges me off the chair and leads me to the back of the boat, where we step down onto a half-moon deck that curves around the tail. We sit side by side on the inner edge of the moon, legs dangling into the warm water. It … feels really nice, actually.
“How’s your seasickness?”
“Huh?”
A smile splits his face. “See? Your signals aren’t scrambled. Baby steps, Josie. Baby steps.”
Before I can respond, he slides off into the harbor, feet first. A seal slipping off a rock into the ocean. He holds his nose and disappears under the surface for a moment. And when he reemerges, he’s glistening, hair slicked back, lashes blinking away water.
“Feels fantastic today,” he says, kicking in place with his feet. “You ready?”
“For what?” I say, terrified.
He swims below me and reaches up to grip my hips with sun-kissed arms. “Just hold on to the deck with your hands and slide on in, feet first. I’ll catch you, don’t worry. I won’t let you drown. Lifeguard training with the Red Cross when I was fifteen. Totally certified.”
“Seriously?”
“Yep.”
“You have those super tight lifeguard trunks and everything?”
“Nope. Mom wanted me to do it, but I started working on the motorcycle instead,” he says, grinning and a little breathless. Heplayfully slaps my hip with a firm hand. “Come on, Saint-Martin. On three, two, one.”
“I’m not ready!” I shout, but I slip into the water anyway with a terrible splash.
Warm, briny water engulfs me and soaks my clothes as gravity pulls me down. For a shocking moment, I’m terrified that I’ll plunge right through the surface. That I’ll keep going. The harbor is endless and deep, and I accidently suck in salty water, but—
Steady hands snag under my arms.
“I’ve got you,” he says. “Stop fighting me. Put your arms around my neck. There you go. Okay, okay.”
I only put one arm around his neck. The other I use to grip the deck of the boat. “I can’t do this!” I tell him. “I’ll pull us both under.”
“Nope, you won’t. Look at my face. Hey, hey. Look at me.”
I look at him, and he smiles at me, head just above the water’s surface. I can feel his legs kicking below. And after I stop panicking, he tells me how he’s doing it, like an eggbeater. And how I can do it too, if I hold on to his shoulders from a little farther away. The funny thing is, I actually am able to.
“I’m doing it!”
“You are.”
“I’m kicking.”
“You’re treading water.”
“I’m treading!”
“Kablam.”
I laugh, but it makes me lose my rhythm, and I nearly choke him to death when I panic all over again and try to cling to him like a monkey. He’s not deterred by my loss of progress. “Let’s see if you can float.”
Patiently, he shows me how to grip the half-moon deck with both hands and let my body gently float out behind me while he keeps guard, one hand on my stomach in case I slip.
“See? This isn’t hard,” he tells me after a few false starts.
“Famous last words.”
