Page 8 of After the Rain
“What are you working on?” he asks, nodding at the bowsprit held in the vises on the edge of my bench.
“I’m planing the bowsprit for this yacht.” I indicate behind me where Red Admiral looks down on us proudly from her position on top of the building jig. “Then I’ll sand it and put it to one side, as I can’t fix it to the bow before I finish cladding the hull with the teak planks.” He stares at me blankly for a few seconds before bursting out in laughter.
“I literally didn’t understand a word of that.Were you speaking English?” I smile indulgently at him.
“Big picture rather than detail.” I nod with a smile, leaning against my workbench beside him. “Got it. I’m building a yacht for our hire fleet.”
“Big picture is probably best.” His grin takes my breath away. “What’s a hire fleet?”
His guilelessness is very endearing, and I have no doubt that he’s asking out of genuine interest, and not some sense of politeness.
“Grab your tea, and I’ll show you.” He carefully rises from the stool, wraps both hands around his mug, and hugs it to his chest. Before we head out, I ask, “Are you cold?”
He giggles again – be still my fucking heart – as he says, “A bit. I think I underestimated the cold. It never really gets this cold in London.”
I walk over to my workbench and grab the fleece-lined plaid shirt that I wear when I’m working out here. Well, at least I wear it for about an hour before I get too hot. Boatbuilding is physical work, and I run hot anyway. I shake the shirt roughly to try and dislodge the worst of the wood shavings before I hand it to him. He grins sheepishly as he takes the shirt and holds out his mug of tea for me to hold while he shrugs it on.
“Oh my god, that’s so much better.” He meets my gaze with his beautiful aquamarineeyes, and I feel like he can read every thought I’ve ever had. Fuck, I need to get my shit together. I hand him back his cup of tea. “Thanks, Aidan.” His eyes drop to his hands, and he gazes into the mug.
I nod my head towards the doors, indicating he should follow me, directing us around the side of the shed and down the boarded walkway until we reach the quay heading. The sound of Pax’s claws tapping out a slow rhythm close behind Rain’s soft footsteps brings a smile to my face. The quay heading, where our entire hire fleet thus far is moored, is slippery in the winter, so I call out a warning for Rain to be careful. I hear Rain’s sharp intake of breath as his gaze lands on the boats.
“Oh my god, Aidan. They’re…” He pauses as he tries to find the words he’s looking for. “They’re magnificent.” A sense of pride in my own work, sure, but also my brothers’, fills me. “Did you build all of them?”
“We all did – me and my brothers, Cole and Archer?” I feel heat rise up my neck as his eyes widen, and a hint of mischief twinkles in them.
“Is that a question? Are you not sure?” There goes that giggle – and my heart – again. I laugh, embarrassed and unsure why.
“Not a question. We all built them.” There. That sounded a bit more certain. “I built theyachts; Archer built the cruisers,” I say, gesturing towards the three slightly bigger vessels, which are entirely engine-powered and don’t have the mast or sails of my yachts, “and Cole builds all the interiors. He also makes a bit of furniture for private buyers in between waiting for us to finish the next boat. We don’t have a full fleet yet, but we’re getting there. Once the hire fleet is done, we can start building for private sale.” We slowly wander along the quay heading, and my chest tightens at the sense of awe I can feel coming from Rain as he takes in each of the boats as we pass.
“What are they named after?” he asks, standing in front of the three yachts in the water, Red Admiral, Painted Lady, and Cabbage White.
“Different butterflies. Red Admiral is Dad’s favourite butterfly; Painted Lady is Mum’s. Cabbage White was Liz, my uncle Alan’s wife’s favourite. He taught us everything we know about boatbuilding, and so we wanted to honour her, since he lost her when she was still quite young. Cabbage White was actually the first one I finished.” Rain nods along as I speak, and his eyes don’t move from my face. He listens with his whole body, and it’s intoxicating to be the recipient of such focused attention. It’s a bit unnerving, too, given that other than my family and a couple of friends, I really don’t spend muchtime around people. I’m choosing to ignore the fact that, since Rain arrived, my anxiety hasn’t reared its ugly head at all. I am not delving into what that means.
“What about these?” He gestures to the cruisers.
“We called this design the ‘Dawn Cruisers’. We only have Misty Dawn and Winter Dawn so far. Archer’s working on Spring Dawn at the moment.” I gesture to the cruiser that still has a tarpaulin over the cabin heading. “These are a bit easier to operate than the yachts, as the helm is in the central saloon and is basically a steering wheel, whereas the yachts use a tiller” – I point out the long wooden arms that sit centrally in the aft of each yacht – “and the logic of those is a bit backwards.”
“What do you mean ‘backwards’?” His expression shows such genuine interest and curiosity that I feel a warmth in my stomach that both excites and terrifies me. I have spent approximately half a day in the man’s presence; he has clearly, recently, escaped from some horrendous situation or other, and I highly doubt he would be interested in starting something up with the random dude he’s staying with. And yet, I feel drawn to him in some inexplicable way. I’ve never felt this pull before. I’ve had dates, used the apps to get off when I needed a release, and havehad a couple of short relationships that never really went anywhere, because the guys couldn’t handle my level of anxiety when it came to going out. I’m far better than I used to be since starting my medication, but I definitely wouldn’t say that the SSRIs have cured my anxiety. More like they keep it under control, for the most part.
“Well, to turn left, you have to move the tiller to the right and to turn right, you have to move it to the left. If you move too far or too quickly, the front end can get away from you, and you’ll end up zig-zagging your way up the river. And then when you are out on the Broads themselves, you want to turn the engine off and just sail. That’s a whole other bag of tricks.” I smile at him; he smiles back, and I want to jump in the frigid river to cool the blush that won’t go away.
“So, are you a mechanic as well then?” he asks, an adorably confused expression on his face. “If these all have engines?”
“No. That would be my baby sister, Wren’s, domain. She doesn’t let us anywhere near the engines, which, honestly? I’m good with. Then Mum made all the interior design choices like which bedding, which cushions, and stuff. I think she despairs at how clueless we all are about stuff like that.”
He chuckles, and the soft, warm sound fillsme up and makes my stomach swoop.
“What did she choose?” he asks, peering over, trying to get a peek inside.
“I have no idea. It’s all white. I think it’s a whole company that just do white stuff?”
“Do you mean The White Company?” he asks, a teasing glint in his eye.
“That sounds about right,” I hedge, rubbing the back of my neck, embarrassed that I don’t know this pretty obvious detail about my own business. “All I know is that it was expensive as fuck, but she swore if we wanted luxury, then we had to pay for it.”
Rain nods in agreement, coming back over to stand next to me.
“I’ve never been on a boat before,” Rain confesses quietly.
