Page 64 of Forget Me Not

“I’ll get back to you on that,” I say, sucking in a deep breath.

With my hands on his stomach to settle myself, I look around.

I’m on a fucking boat.

A fucking boat over the ocean and I’m not having a full-scale nuclear meltdown.

Reid’s hands are warm where they rest on my hips. He watches me, a cold, calculating look in his eyes, as if he’s putting something together in his head.

I don’t like it.

“Are you going to show me around?” I know I’m just trying to focus on literally anything to take my mind off however many feet of open water sit below us. I may have gotten on the boat, but I’m still not comfortable with it.

Carefully, Reid releases me and steps back. As soon as he’s gone, I want him back. He’s like a life raft, floating in the sea and right now, he’s floating the other direction.

“That is the wet tank where the lobsters are kept until we get them back home. It’s filled full of salt water, so they don’t die.” He steps around the boat, pointing to another large pot. “That’s where we put bands on their claws, so they don’t kill each other in the wet tank.”

“Sounds like corporate America,” I joke, trying to lighten the mood.

“Sounds like the rest of the world, too.”

He leads me to the front of the boat, where the cabin sits. Stepping inside, it’s small and it smells like crustaceans, though I don’t know what else I was expecting.

“This is where all the sonar is.”

“You have sonar?” Pappap never had anything like that. His boat was old. Bare bones, but that’s the way he liked it.

He nods, pressing a button that makes the screen light up. It calibrates for a moment, before it shows a distorted grid.

“That’s a rock,” he says, pointing to a lump in the graphing. “That is a dinghy. Probably sprung a leak and was too far gone for anyone to care to pull it up.” He points to a number on the side of the screen. “That says the water here is nine-point-five meters deep.”

“How deep is that?”

“About thirty-one feet. Nothing to worry about.”

I rub the aching spot in my chest, sucking in a deep breath. Thirty-one feet is deep. I’m only five-three. That’s like six of me stacked on top of each other.

I sit down in a seat in front and take the wheel, looking out at the ocean beyond.

“It’s terrifying.”

“The water?”

“How deep it is. How dark it is.”

He’s quiet for a moment, studying me.

“What made you so afraid of the water?”

What are you hiding from, little bird?

I should tell him. Come clean and let this whole thing go to rest. Reid’s not going to want me. Who am I kidding? The weird girl who’s afraid of the ocean, rivers, and lakes. The girl who refuses to date because all she can feel when she thinks about being with someone else is guilt?

I’m not the girl I used to be. The girl who liked adventures and swimming. Who wanted to see the world.

“Four years ago, I wrecked into the Mississippi River and almost drowned.”

His jaw clenches, his eyes flashing with something dark before being replaced with an unreadable mask that I hate.

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