of his, and his hair is a particularly floppy mess today, and it’s all driving me a little wild. All of it. All of him: the adorable parts, the sexy parts, and the parts that did all this research.
This is a much bigger boat than Big-Enough. I wouldn’t call it a party boat, but it’s big enough for several people to take out fishing. I just wish it was someone else instead of me. Especially when Lucky forces me to strap on an ugly orange life jacket—“them’s the rules”—and leads me up four steps to a covered cabin with the boat’s controls and two seats. From here, I can see the deserted boatyard and the backs of all the brick warehouses that line the South Harbor. I can even see the Quarterdeck Coffeehouse, which is where I’d rather be right now.
“Deep breath,” he tells me. “And watch the horizon.”
That’s exactly what I do as Lucky starts up the rumbling engine of the Narwhal. Abandoning the lollipop in a wrapper inside my shorts pocket, I go for the stronger ginger gum, chewing down on it like a camel as Lucky maneuvers the boat around the Karrases’ small dock. Then we motor through the harbor.
I try not to look at anything, but I can tell we’re going the opposite direction from where we went in the smaller boat that first evening. Every once in a while, I allow my eyes to dart away from the horizon—toward the disappearing Harborwalk, cobbled streets, and bright flags blowing in the bay breeze. We’re up so much higher in this boat. It’s strange to be out here, to see it all from this point of view.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Don’t talk to me. I’m trying to concentrate on the horizon.”
“We’re almost there. You’re doing great.”
A few bigger yachts cut through the water near us, a few sailboats, too, but Lucky veers around them gracefully. At least I thought. When I watch the last turn, I feel the queasiness begin to rise up in me—it starts in the back of my cheeks and with a cold sort of sweat that sweeps over my brow.
“Oh no,” I tell Lucky.
“Okay, okay,” he says. “We’re just about where I wanted to be. Yep. Okay. I’m shutting the engine off. Look at the horizon. Are you focused on that?”
“Ugh.”
I feel the boat sway, then it goes quiet. Then it stops. After some loud grinding noise, Lucky puts a hand on the back of my neck. “You all right?”
“Think so.”
“You want to lay down on the deck?”
I think about it for a second. The queasiness is subsiding. Not gone, but better. “I’m managing. If the water would stop moving, that would be great.”
“I can help with that. It’s why I brought you out here.”
I blow out a hard breath and dare to turn in my seat to look up at him. “To kill me and throw my body in the water? I knew this was a Cape Fear situation.”
“Nope. I’m going to teach you to swim.”
I stare at him. “Um, what?”
“Swim,” he says, paddling like a dog. “Me, you.”
“In the harbor?”
“Prudence Beach,” he says, pointing behind us.
I look out over the harbor water, and sure enough, there’s a sandy beach stretching around the southern tip of the coast. No surprise. Lots of beaches around Beauty. One right near the center of the historic district by Goodly Pier, in fact. It’s littered with tourists and bright umbrellas as we speak. This beach, however, is sort of rocky and windy. South of town. Not the pretty beach. Practically deserted.
There’s another problem. Well, there are about a hundred of them, but another big one: “It’s, like, a half a mile from us or something,” I say. “There’s no dock.”
“Nope,” he says. “We aren’t going to the beach. We’re swimming right here.”
Here, he means. In the harbor.
“This is where my dad taught me to swim. It’s completely safe,” he assures me.
“I don’t have a swimsuit.”
“Don’t need one. You can swim in your clothes. The world won’t end. There are clean towels downstairs.”
“You said my mom could watch us.”
“Can she really, though? I said I thought she could. I don’t know anything about your cameras.”
I glance back at the town’s jagged buildings, crowded along the shore in the distance. I’ve got a cheap telephoto lens with a serious zoom for my digital camera, but there’s no way it could get detail this far. She could probably see the boat through it, but not us. What am I even