Page 87 of Knockin' Boats
“Well, can I ask you one question?”
“Yeah?”
“How does it make you feel? Being with Ash?”
“A little unhinged,” I answered honestly. “Like, wild and primal, and I don’t know…excited,I guess.”
“I haven’t heard you talk about anything except your wakeboarding shit that way.”
I laughed. “Yeah, I guess it is kind of like that. It’s a rush. Makes me feel alive.”
“Well, then, enjoy the ride, Saw. You always were an adrenaline junkie.”
I snorted. “I know. And yet you always accuse me of being too cautious.”
“It’s a weird contradiction, isn’t it?”
He left me pondering that notion and said goodbye. I sat there, phone in hand, staring out at the lake.
Ash and I had slept in, considering our late night. The camp was bustling with activity. Folks packing up breakfast or sitting in their chairs talking and laughing.
Shua was out front with their mom, trying to clear up some broken dishes from the ground. I opened my camper door, heard the shower running, and figured I had time to help.
I slipped on sandals, grabbed some work gloves from a junk drawer to the left of my door—in the kitchen—and headed over.
“Hey, y’all have an accident over here?”
Shua brightened. “Hey, Sawyer! My mom’s boyfriend?—”
“Ex-boyfriend,” Audra said darkly, face pale and tense.
“Yeah, she kicked him out and he threw a tantrum like a little kid,” Shua said.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
She glanced over at me, a hint of pink entering her cheeks. Not embarrassment, but anger. “He shouldn’t have talked to my so—my child the way he did. Shua is who Shua is meant to be.”
“They sure are.” I reached out to tussle Shua’s hair, but they ducked away.
“Sorry, Mom,” Shua said. “I know you liked him.”
Audra shook her head, eyes glassy. “No, baby. Not enough to put up with that shit.”
Sometimes, I worried about Shua’s home life. But seeing their mom put them first was reassuring. Audra was a single mom doing her best, and I knew how tough that could be. I’d seen Ash’s mom—and later my own—have to deal with a lot of shit.
Sometimes, I really hated being a man because it meant I was associated with guys like these.
I pulled on the gloves. “Well, let me help you clean up this glass. We don’t want any cuts.”
“Thanks, Sawyer,” Audra said, smiling wanly. “That’s real sweet of you.”
“No problem.”
“You’re always real good to Shua,” she added. “Like a surrogate father or something.”
I crouched to pick up broken fragments, tossing them into the trash bag Shua held open.
“More like a brother,” I said. “Right, Shua?”
