Page 61 of Adrift

“Uh huh,” I mutter, weighing up the keys in my palm as I try to figure out how to get the keys back to him, all while trying to hold in the scream in the back of my brain that doesn’t seem to want to stop.

“Park on the road, leave the keys under the seat. I’ll pick it up at dawn.”

“Cool. Yeah.” Despite the ache that threatens to rip me apart, I swallow hard with gratitude. Murph’s a good friend to me. A lot of people here have been lately.Just like Kieran predicted.

Ironic, huh?

Murph stops me with a hand on my bicep. “Listen to your heart,” he says quietly, and that’s all. He lets go and raises a hand. “Good night, man.”

“Night,” I mumble back.

As he strides down the slippery concrete to the water, I slide into the golf cart seat and start her up, blinking as the road turns a little bit blurry.

Keep it together, Gage.

Once this barrel is home, everything will be ready for the festival tomorrow... and what was supposed to be the best day of my life.

How could it have all gone so wrong?

Chapter

Twenty-Two

KIERAN

As Will reverseshis boat out of the little marina and I stand there to wave him goodbye, I can’t help noticing that I’m not alone.

Murph is crouching by the cleats on the dock, double-checking the ropes securing his barge in place.

He doesn’t moor here all the time. But on a late night with a high tide, it’s not that unusual. Whatisunusual is the way he’s taking his sweet time. Normally, he’d linger on the barge pretending to do things until I’ve left. Or he’d speed-walk up the dock while I have my back turned.

He doesn’t hate people—he’s just very good at avoiding any conversations he doesn’t absolutely have to be involved in.

Really, Murph is just the anti-Berty. For every force, an equal and opposite force.

I’m turning to head up the wharf, and conveniently, Murph has just finished checking over the knots he ties all day, every day.

“Thank you for your help,” I tell him as he falls into step beside me and we climb up to dry land together. Not that it’s a ramp at high tide—it’s more like a walkway. “It means a lot to me. To both of us.”

Murph grunts and tips his head a little bit as he lifts his shoulder, which I think meansyou’re welcomein his world. But then he glances sideways at me.

Something in his expression gives me pause. He’s not going to say it out loud, but I can tell that something’s wrong.

Shit, shit, shit.

Suddenly, I’m envisioning some terrible accident—the cider barrel slipping loose and crushing Gage, or the orchard catching fire, or the festival being called off…

“Murph? What is it?” I stop dead in my tracks at the top of the wharf, just underneath the little shelter.

He comes to a halt a few steps ahead of me and turns, the gravel crunching under him as he studies me. My mouth goes dry as I scan his expression for the slightest clue.

At last, he sighs. “How come you didn’t tell him?”

Fuck.

My heart leaps into my throat as panic floods me. I’m tired and spaced-out enough that it feels like the moment a dream announces itself as a nightmare.

Fuuuck fuckbloody fucking shitty hell, that can only mean one thing, right?

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