Page 42 of Comforting the Grump

We fell into a comfortable silence, the anticipation palpable as the boat cut through the waves and left the harbor behind us. The waves got choppy as soon as we headed into the open waters, but they didn’t seem to bother Marnin. He was scanning the expanse of blue with a focused intensity, as though he could summon the creatures from the deep by sheer will.

“It always calms me,” I said softly. “Being out on the water. I don’t do it as often as I should. It’s so peaceful.”

“I have a coworker who has a boat. He invited me to go sailing with him once. I really liked it, and if he wasn’t such a pompous jackass, I would’ve loved to do it again, but even the lure of the ocean can’t make me bear his presence for a whole day.”

I snorted. “That bad?”

“And then some. He thinks he’s god’s gift to humankind and loves to brag about all the women he slept with, cheating on his wife. I despise cheating. It’s one of the few hard rules I have: I don’t fuck married people. At least, not knowingly.”

“Same. I discovered a few years ago that the man I was dating and sleeping with was married, and I felt awful. He’d lied about it, so it wasn’t really my fault, but I still felt dirty.”

Then, without warning, a collective gasp rose from the crowd. I whipped around, my story about Joey the Cheating Bastard forgotten.

“Over there!” someone shouted, finger jutting toward a distant spray of water.

“Where? I don’t—” My breath hitched as a towering dorsal fin sliced through the surface, sleek and magnificent. More fins followed, a whole pod of orcas gliding effortlessly through the water, their black-and-white bodies stark against the deep blue.

“Oh my god, Marnin, look!” I almost tripped over my own feet, and he grinned as he wrapped his arm around me and pulled me close.

“Careful there. You don’t want to get too close to them.”

“Wow…” I leaned into his embrace as I studied the orcas. “They’re beautiful.”

“More than that,” Marnin murmured, his voice filled with a childlike wonder. “They’re…majestic.”

We watched, spellbound, as the orcas danced on the edges of our world, their powerful bodies cresting and diving with a grace that belied their size. Time lost meaning as we witnessed nature’s artistry, the dance of predators in their natural realm.

The pod allowed us to observe them for several minutes, and then they disappeared into the water, swimming away. Our captain restarted our boat, announcing in a chipper voice that we’d try to find more. Mere minutes later, we found more.

I leaned over the railing, my heart racing as another orca breached, its magnificent body momentarily suspended in a silvery arc above the churning sea. It splashed into the ocean with an almighty plunge, and I gasped in awe of its power.

“Thank you,” Marnin said quietly, his voice nearly lost in the roar of the sea and the excited chatter around us. “For showing me this.”

“I’m glad you appreciate it. It’s special to me.”

“They’re incredible,” Marnin said, his usual sarcasm nowhere to be found. His chestnut eyes, typically sharp and analytical, were now softened by a sense of awe that mirroredmy own. It was as if the sight of the orcas had stripped away layers of his workaholic, perfectionist shell, revealing someone more open, more raw. And in that moment, as the orcas continued their ballet beneath the sun’s approving gaze, something unspoken yet profoundly intimate passed between us.

He held me a little tighter as we watched, but every so often, Marnin’s gaze drifted from the spectacle of black-and-white bodies to me. His eyes held a strange look, something akin to tenderness mixed with curiosity, as if he were seeing me for the first time. He’d glance away whenever our eyes met, leaving me puzzled but intrigued by the change in his demeanor.

“Have you ever felt anything like this?” I asked, turning to fully face him, hungry for his response.

“Like what?” His voice was barely above a whisper, rough with emotion as he kept stealing glances at me, then back to the orcas.

“Like…this uncontainable joy, just bursting out of you because of something so utterly simple yet profound.” My hands gestured wildly, trying to encompass the vastness of the ocean, the majesty of the whales, the intangible connection that seemed to hang between us.

Marnin chuckled, the sound mingling with the salty breeze. “Honestly? No, I haven’t. Not until now.” He locked eyes with mine again, and this time, he didn’t look away. There was an intensity there that I hadn’t noticed before, one that seared right through me, igniting a flame of desire that I thought had been sated the night before.

Hmm, maybe I did want to have sex with him today after all. Because that was the strange tension between us. Sexual attraction. Right?

15

MARNIN

The salty tang of the sea still clung to me as I pushed open the door to my apartment, exhaustion seeping into my bones. But it was a good kind of tiredness, one that brought satisfaction and a sense of gratitude for a day well spent. Ennio trailed behind, both of us wordlessly shedding the weight of our day trip with a bag that thumped to the floor. My shoes followed, a pair of muffled kicks against the welcome mat that had seen better days.

“Home sweet home,” I muttered, the phrase dissolving into a yawn.

“God, I could sleep for a week,” Ennio announced, echoing my fatigue. His hair, usually an impeccably styled masterpiece, now lay fizzy and subdued from the wind’s relentless grooming.

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