Making her way back to where she came from, Cece can’t help but admit her disappointment. Maybe he’s on his lunch break;maybe he took the day off, but to do what? To go where? Cece’s curiosity gets the better of her, imagining Morgan’s life—where he’s from, what he did before this, whether he’s sleeping with anyone else. Cece isn’t proud of that last question. She has no right to wonder about it—but there it is.
The trailer appears empty, but Cece still gives the flimsy door a good knock and pauses, shifting her weight from one leg to the other. A gruff voice from within follows the sound of rustling paper and slamming drawers. Cece runs her tongue along the back of her teeth and prepares for the worst: a grumpy foreman; an old-timer with some questionable views on women in the workplace. Part of Cece enjoys these newfound sparring sessions, proving men wrong with her gumption and stick-to-itiveness. At least down here at the shipyard and with Santiago and Davi, the men are up-front, almost charming about doubting her capabilities, and perhaps for good reason. At her old job, the men had attended enough mandatory HR training sessions to know how to disguise their dismissiveness, unless Cece had a good idea—then they were happy to be collaborative partners, magnanimously offering to let her take the lead and do all the work in the name of equity.
The door swings open, and it takes Cece a moment to realize Morgan stands before her, pencil behind his ear, a V-neck T-shirt stretched across his chest. For one brief moment that doesn’t feel brief at all, the two take each other in, and Cece struggles to find an explanation for her presence. Morgan smiles, hands in his back pockets.
“I meant to give you a call, but I never got your number,” he says finally.
“Oh, no…I’m not here…” Cece says, mortified to think how desperate she must seem. She points to the white pickup truck, as if it might explain everything. “I’m here for work.”
Is it disappointment flickering across his bearded face?
“Let me guess. Busted engine and you can’t take it anywhere else because Richie’s got beef with someone?”
“How’d you know?”
Morgan steps down from the trailer, the flimsy stairs bending to his weight. “It’s a regular occurrence. Nice guy, but he drives a hard bargain, and that was before this whole Mamacoke Cove shitstorm. Now everyone’s got an opinion, especially if you’ve got a nice little house on the water up there.”
“You mean the new oyster farm?”
Morgan gives a stiff nod. “Bit ironic if you think about it, boat-repair fella not wanting another oyster farm. More oysters, more boats. Then again, he’s the one with the million-dollar view…But yeah, we can take the engine off your hands.”
They make their way over to where Cece parked.
“I didn’t realize you were the supervisor,” she says.
Morgan puts two fingers in his mouth and whistles in the direction of the hangar. “Just whenever the owner isn’t here. Plus, it’s not like these guys need a ton of help.”
They stand by the truck and wait. Morgan runs his hand over the engine, saying something about the make and model, but Cece isn’t listening. She’s too busy trying not to remember their night together, sheets twisted between her legs, soles of her feet cramping.
“You left pretty early on Sunday morning,” he says.
Cece’s face warms. “I didn’t want to wake you.”
“And here I was planning on making you breakfast…Thought I’d dreamed the other night until you showed up just now.”
Two workers emerge from the hangar, their gait slow and plodding. Cece tries to calculate how much time she has. “I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea…Things are complicated.”
“No explanation needed. I’m a big boy.”
“Thanks.”
“For what?”
“Making this easy.”
“Maybe I’m like you. Trying to keep things simple.”
Cece finds herself smiling for no particular reason.
Morgan drops the tailgate with a clang. “Have you been out on the water this summer?”
“Not even for work,” Cece says. “They’ve stuck me on dry land.”
“Why don’t we go out this weekend? The owner lets me borrow his boat whenever he’s not using it.”
“What happened to keeping things simple?”
“Being out on the water is as simple as it gets.”
