Page 80 of The Primary Pest
“Get Mom involved. She… can get anything done. I have the technical know-how… podcast and stream. Must be a ton of… like-minded people who would contribute content—” Ajax’s effort to keep talking had cost him.
“You have a beautiful soul, Ajax. Sometimes, I’m simply in awe of you.”
“Nobody has ever… said that before.” Ajax could no longer talk over the wind and water. Dmytro only heard him because he kept their cheeks pressed together.
The water tried its hardest to pull them apart.
“I would imagine you’ve never let anyone see you before.” Dmytro spoke against his ear.
“Maybe not.” Another wave picked them up and dropped them. Ajax caught his breath. “Is it getting choppier out here?”
“Could be.” Dmytro tried to see past the swell but couldn’t. That was a bad sign.
Ajax’s teeth chattered louder between bits of conversation.
Dmytro didn’t think about God often. Until his mother died, he’d been raised in the Ukrainian version of the Russian Orthodox Church. Somewhere, Orthodox clerics got to rule who had jurisdiction over each part of Eastern Europe, but as far as he was concerned, they could all go spit in the wind.
He’d hated every second he’d spent with priests—medieval actors in a two-thousand-year-old play—with their incense, robes, and bearded faces. If there was a God, Anton would be alive and not Dmytro, the family cockroach, still breathing the air and fighting his way out of one disaster after another.
If there was a God, He and Dmytro had no use for each other.
Time passed more slowly still.
He’d noticed, but didn’t mention, that the weather was changing. That clouds had gathered northwest of their position. That waves now lifted them higher and dropped them into steep troughs.
Perhaps he’d insulted God one too many times.
“You feel that?” Ajax pushed the words through teeth that rattled like machine gun fire.
“Yes,” said Dmytro.
Ajax wiped his face down after every few splashes now as if he was simply too exhausted to do it every time his face got wet. “I’m a good swimmer, but this—”
“You are an amazing swimmer. Just hold on.”
“You hold on to this fucking ring too, Dmytro.” Ajax’s eyes widened with new terror. “We need to find something to tie you to it. I need—” He spun in circles and shielded his eyes with his hand, obviously searching for something. “Why, oh why didn’t I think of that? We could have used your pants.”
“Hush, Ajax.”
“No. I won’t hush. We need to find something to tie you to that ring because if I fall asleep, or I’m swept away from you—”
“That won’t happen.”
“Listen to me,” Ajax shouted while salty tears streaked his sunburned skin. “I’m a really strong swimmer, but I won’t last much longer. I’m at the end of my strength. If I lose consciousness—when I do—my life vest will hold me up… probably it will.”
“I will hold on, Ajax. And I will cling to you as long as I have breath.”
“I know you will.” Ajax nodded, spinning more desperately still. “I know. But keep looking. There has to be something. A million sea creatures get stuck in nets, plastic trash bags, and beer-can rings every year. There must be—”
“Ajax, stop.” Dmytro looped an arm around his neck and their legs tangled beneath the waves. He pressed their cheeks together. Water washed over them, and it took several long seconds to fight back to the surface. “Hush, my love. Don’t panic.”
Ajax’s body shook with sobs. “It’s not going to be all right, is it?”
“It is going to be what it is,” Dmytro offered. “But I have never been in love like this, and no god could be so cruel as to separate us now.”
“Right?” Next to his, Ajax’s head bobbed. “Right. We’ve both been through worse, huh?”
Dmytro owed him the truth about this. “Not really, no.”
