Page 9 of A Christmas Harbor

He was doing all right financially, judging by his taste for top-shelf bourbon and the fact that he had a boat that was “technically a yacht” because one could live on it. Which he did.

Half of the lower lashes on his right eye were blond instead of light brown like his hair. They were mesmerizing.

After a third round of college-classroom war stories, they were rolling out their distant pasts for dissection. No problem. It was the recent past Paul needed to lock up tight to avoid a public breakdown.

“Sorry,” David said, gathering up another handful of Jackie’s holiday Chex Mix, “but I cannotsee you as a realtor.”

“I know, right?” Paul’s laughter verged on giggling, a sign that the three (or four?) bourbons and one hapless mulled wine were having their predictable effect. “Imagine me at twenty-one—clean-shaven in a blue pin-striped suit, throwing around terms like ‘discounted cash-flow analysis’ and ‘risk-adjusted return.’ I completely bombed.”

“What made you try it in the first place?”

“It’s the family business. My parents are the king and queen of Cedar Rapids commercial real estate. Pretend you’re impressed.”

“Oh, very.” David plucked a rogue Wheat Chex off the end of his shirt sleeve, where it had perched like a tasty cufflink.

“So finally my mom and dad were like, ‘Stop embarrassing us and go to grad school already.’ Which was what I wanted to do in the first place.”

“Where’d you go?”

“University of Iowa, for creative writing.” He didn’t expect David to know it was the country’s best writing program, and it would be pretentious to mention that fact. Still… “Some of the graduates have won Pulitzers. Not me, though. They don’t give Pulitzers for books that make people happy.”

“There’s a first time for everything.” David didn’t look like he was teasing. Then again, a nuclear engineer probably thought winning a prestigious writing prize was a cake walk compared to running a billion-dollar submarine. Maybe he was right, since Pulitzers involved way less calculus.

The piano man—whose name was Martin, according to David—finally began playing a more upbeat Christmas carol.

“The thing I never understood about this song,” David said, “is why bother mentioning the ivy if all the verses are about the holly?”

“Huh. I never noticed that.” The question pinged Paul’s story-sense. “Hang on, I gotta write this down.” He pulled out his phone, opened the notes app, and tapped in his thoughts as he voiced them. “What if two sisters were named Holly and Ivy, and Ivy grew up nursing this huge grudge against Holly because of the song—ooh, and because Holly was their parents’ favorite.”

“I can tell you what that’s like, if you need material.” David downed the rest of his current bourbon.

Paul paused with thumbs above the onscreen keyboard, which he’d just smudged with red Chex-Mix dust. “Should they be twins, or is that too corny?” No answer. He mentally rewound David’s last sentence. “Sorry, you said, ‘I can tell you what that’s like,’ and I just blew past it. What do you mean?”

David shook his head like he didn’t want to talk about it, then refilled his glass of ice water from the pitcher Jackie had so kindly brought them.

Paul saved the Holly and Ivy note on his phone while he waited for David to continue. It had been a panic-inducingly long time since he’d had a new story idea, but that could wait. Probably.

David set down the water pitcher. “When I went to the Naval Academy, I was following in the footsteps of my father and big brother. By the end of my first year, I jumped out of those footsteps when I officially announced I was going to be a sailor, not a Marine.”

“Why?”

David used his straw to break apart a clump of ice cubes in his glass. “I’d be lying if I said the combat fitness test wasn’t a deterrent. But mostly it was my burning desire to live in a steel tube 240 meters under the sea.”

“It does sound like paradise.” Paul picked up his own glass of water, reminding himself not to crunch ice in public. “Were they disappointed when you went your own way?”

“They said all the predictable bullshit: I was too soft to be a Marine, too scared to be hardcore. According to Dad, real men don’t hide behind nukes. He fought in Vietnam, so his opinion is understandable.”

“But what you did in those subs—man,thatis hardcore, the hardest of all the cores. And I’m not just saying that because you’re cute and I want you to like me. Though I do, and you are.” He really was, in that Steve-Rogers-Captain-America way that Paul had never found attractive before tonight.

David beamed, though bashfully, and rubbed his right ear, which had turned pink at the compliment. “Thanks,” he said in a voice barely audible above the piano. “For what you said about my time underway. Not for saying I’m cute.”

Paul sensed that despite David’s age, he was inexperienced when it came to flirting. Maybe it was time to dial down the sauciness.

“I don’t even remember learning about nuclear weapons,” Paul said. “As a kid, I mean. They just existed. And it was supposedly normal.”

“Do you remember that TV movieThe Day After, about the nuclear bomb dropped on Kansas City?”

“I’ve heard of it, but I think I was a baby when it aired. Not to make you feel old or anything.”

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