Page 51 of Our Hearts Knew Better

“You’re still drunk,” he argued again. Then a pause, my pulse thudding like a lullaby. “Ask me…ask me when you’re not.”

I grinned in my sleep, sleep, sleep. “So tomorrow?”

A laugh. So low, a piece of the lullaby. His next words my dreamland. “Tomorrow.”

Little orphan Annie had nothing on me.

I heard him flop over to his back with another gusted breath, like he hadn’t taken one since I went all suggestive.

And my grin went with me as it became tomorrow in my slumber.

Thief

I woke up on one of the bench seats, hot beneath a thin blanket. It took a second for the night to coincide with the day—me, on Levi’s dad’s boat. . .

The bottle of wine several spaces from me on the sole of said boat. . .

Summer heat settling back in. . .

Levi.

He was up, folding another blanket at one of the other bench seats. He’d moved me from the sole to here, then stayed with me all night. Carried me. It was only a few steps, but the image still sent a wave of wakefulness through my skin.

I pushed myself up. “Hey.” My throat was scratchy and I could barely swallow.

Levi moved to the mini fridge and came over to me holding out a bottle of water. “Hey,” he said with a wisp of a smile. “Drink this slowly,” he warned as I took the bottle, slowing my rush to chug. My mouth was a desert, this water the miracle river.

The other bottle captured me in a stare-off, a challenge to drink what was left or release it to the bay. I wouldn’t drink more, because I didn’t like who I was when I drank. I learned I was way more awkward and that was a trait I’d been trying to extract from my molded marrow. And I wouldn’t contaminate the sea with my dad’s wine—with my dad—but I still pictured myself pouring the rest down a drain. So now I’d have to make the image real.

I next saw my phone, lying where I’d left it on my bed, and wondered if my dad had tried to call me when I hadn’t returnedhome. It wasn’t a crime free town anymore, since I stole his alcohol. I was a thief. Who learned from another thief. My dad, stealing a life. This town had let in a criminal months ago.

My dad had old, unfixable wiring, and he’d made me the same way with him, looking for any form of care around corners just for that appearance of love that came with metal bars I could reach through but never break through. Walls I could shake but never tear down. Clouds covering just a sliver of sun.

I needed that missed call and mixed messages as much as I needed a new number.

“I called my dad,” Levi told me, beside me again, when I managed to sit up. He was now folding the blanket he’d given me, just so, even lines and perfect corners, and I knew he’d gotten that from his mom. I pictured them folding things together.

Right before I froze at his words.

Right before I took in his face as he said them, seeing what it was likenotto be hung up on. He had atrulycaring dad. Sunny skies in open fields with only a fence.

But Elliot would still be disappointed. His son stayed with me all night as I engaged in underaged drinking on his boat.

Normal disappointment.Normal. Not stark and distant disappointment that led to silence.

“You don’t have to worry,” Levi told me next, a hold on my gaze, taking in the fragments of that worry in my face. “It’s cool. And you know,” he added, his tone a bit edged, his jaw a bit hard, “we’resupposedto disappoint our parents at this age.” He gave me a half smile, assuring. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Well, you did, but…” said a man—Elliot, as he walked into my sight on the dock, the older version of Levi’s half smile on his mouth. “It’s not the end of the world.”

Those were the words I needed to hear, an instant smile with my relief.

He joined us on the boat and shared a look with Levi, before Levi walked off to occupy himself at the bow.

I straightened, cagey, as his dad closed in.

“Are you okay?” he asked me, the question as firm and kind as his eyes, and my inhale was sharp at the immediate sickness in my stomach. The water I’d drunk sloshed. I told myself the feeling was from the hangover instead of the fatherly concern itself feeling off.

My smile came back, my relief. “I think I’m getting there.”

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