Page 58 of The Captain
Miguel didn’t bother to pretend he wasn’t listening. “Did he say please and thank you?”
“Out,” I said, pointing at the dock. “Go.”
Becca laughed and scuttled. “That’s a yes.”
“You can file this under community engagement,” Tamika said dryly.
“Go,” I said, but my mouth had already betrayed me into smiling.
The laugh took some of the ache out of my body. I stayed with the Kogia long enough to feel her breaths smooth a little more. I was writing notes in the margin of the log when the air in the aisle shifted. Not a wind. A presence.
He stood just inside the door, the morning pushing a hard rim of light around him. Jeans, T-shirt, boots, yesterday’s scruff. Jacob looked like a man who’d jogged through a forest fire andthen realized the smoke was inside his chest. Eyes too sharp. Shoulders drawn tight like wire.
“Hey,” Tamika said, the friendliness in her voice careful. “Marine.”
“Hey,” he managed. His gaze found me and didn’t stop.
“I have work,” I said, before he could get a word out. It came out too crisp, defensive in a way that made me wince at myself. “I was with you last night. I owe this place?—.”
“I know,” he said quickly. “It won't take long.”
He didn’t explain the rest. He didn’t have to. That look—like someone had pulled the ground out from under him and he was pretending gravity had new rules—overrode my impatience. I set the clipboard down. I nodded at Tamika. She nodded back, understanding without intrusion. Becca gave me a look that said I could step outside without the world falling down. Miguel was already moving to cover the line.
“Ten minutes,” I told the room, and slid past Jacob into the small hard light by the loading bay.
We stood with the river wind in our faces and the smell of iodine in our throats. He didn’t reach for me. Points for restraint.
“What happened?” I asked.
He pressed his tongue to the back of his teeth like he was keeping something big from spilling out. “I told you I’d tell you my last name.”
He said it like an offering, not a trap.
“Okay,” I said, slow. “I’m listening.”
“Dane,” he said.
Charleston practically put that syllable on its money. Dominion Hall had a wing full of it. The word hit a dozen places in my head at once.
“As in the Danes at Dominion Hall?” I asked. “The ones who can buy and sell my facility without looking up from a menu.”
He didn’t confirm or deny.
His mouth twisted. “I got some news this morning that I wasn't ready for. It’s about family.”
The word family thudded in my chest in a way that wasn’t about me. For a second, I considered what it meant that his last name paired him with that mansion on the harbor. Then I looked at his face—shock still drying on it—and I understood the only useful thing: he wasn’t ready to make the sentences I wanted.
“I’m not asking questions,” I said, softer. “Not now.”
He let out a breath like he’d been waiting for permission he couldn’t bring himself to ask for. “Thank you.” His eyes searched mine, checking for something brittle. “I want to be clear. I want to be with you. I want to face whatever this is with you. I know that’s fast. I know last night doesn’t earn me claims. I just—” He broke off and shook his head once, frustrated. “I don’t want to do this alone anymore.”
I surprised both of us by stepping in first. I put my palm flat on his chest, where a small warm grief lived. His heart beat against my hand like it had decided to go on, anyway.
“I assumed,” I started, then stopped because assumptions are the shortest road to trouble. “When you walked in here and I saw the look on your face, I would have thought you were drowning in Lily again.”
He shook his head. “Different thing. Lily is always there. This is—new. And ugly. And not my story to tell without thinking first.”
“Okay,” I said, because okay is a kindness. “What can you do right now that won’t break you?”
