They paid.
Captain Pancake posed beautifully.
I received nothing.
By ten-thirty, three actual students had arrived for their scheduled lesson.
None of them mentioned Savannah.
I loved them immediately.
A father and his two adult daughters listened while I explained the equipment, asked sensible questions, and did not attempt to photograph my wrist.
Underwater, the world remained exactly where I had left it.
Quiet.
Blue.
Uninterested in search results.
I watched the students work through their first nervous breaths. One daughter kept reaching for her sister’s hand. The other pretended not to need it but never moved more than a few feet away.
I adjusted the father’s mask.
Pointed toward a stingray half-buried in the sand.
Waited while all three stared.
For forty minutes, no one knew who I had kissed.
No one asked what Savannah Brooks was like in bed, which one particularly ambitious email had attempted before Hank deleted it and suggested setting the computer on fire.
My only responsibility was keeping three people calm and breathing.
I understood that.
When we returned to the surface, the father pushed his mask onto his forehead.
“That was incredible.”
One of his daughters laughed.
“I forgot everything else existed.”
“Best part,” I said.
I had once said almost the same thing.
The memory arrived without permission.
Annie beside me in the water.
Her eyes wide behind the mask.
Her hand closing around mine.
I turned toward the boat before anyone could read my face.
