Page 64 of The Captain
“I’m going to tame my hair and put on a dress and speak in complete sentences,” I said. “They won’t see anything I don’t want them to.”
“Sure,” he murmured, admiring. “But they’re going to feel you like weather.”
“Good,” I said. “Let them bring umbrellas.”
We rinsed fast in the shower, no detours, just soap and a kiss under the spray that almost cost us another ten minutes. I towel-dried my hair and twisted it into a low knot that said I didn’t plan to fidget. I swiped on mascara because a woman deserves a weapon or two. The navy wrap went on and skimmed my hips. Nude heels that clicked. A thin gold chain at my throat. Professional. Female. Not sorry.
He dressed while I did. Clean white shirt open at the neck, sleeves rolled, dark jeans that didn’t apologize for his thighs, boots that had seen more than I wanted to know. He buckled on the watch he’d left beside my sink and slipped his dog tags under his shirt so only the chain showed. A man who could be introduced to a general and not embarrass me.
He watched me slide lipstick on. Red. The color of a mouth that means it.
His pupils dilated. Good.
“You’re dangerous,” he said.
“Practice,” I said, tucking my phone and a clean notebook into my bag. “Ready?”
He picked up his duffel, then set it down again. He opened the drawer where he’d left a shirt and a toothbrush and added a second tee, a pair of socks, another charger. He caught me watching and gave a crooked grin.
“Provisions,” he said. “For after.”
“After what?”
“After you light the Navy on fire.”
I smiled.
“That’s my girl,” he said before he could stop himself.
I touched his jaw once with the back of my knuckles and felt the scrape of his shave as if it meant something. Maybe it did.
On our way out I paused by the little table where I keep my keys and the basket of things I pretend I’m not sentimental about. I dropped in the Coast Guard crew’s card the chief had handed me at the park, scrawled with a number and a crude smiley face. Next to it was my mother’s St. Brendan medallion that I never wear because superstition lives in my bones, even when I am pretending to be above it. I slipped the chain over my head and hid it under the wrap dress.
“You good?” he asked.
“I’m good,” I said. Then I kissed him once more because you don’t walk into a fight you might win without carrying some luck.
Outside, the day had brightened like it had decided to see what we’d do with it. I texted the crew again as we walked to the Jeep.
Me:On my way back. 1400 with Navy still on. Last call for any numbers you want in the room.
Tamika:Bring the hard stare. We’ll send the good charts.
Becca:And a photo of the calf. For your pocket.
Miguel:I need Ryker’s headcount on that idiot line. Ask nicely. Or don’t.
I smiled. Jacob read over my shoulder and shook his head. “You run a tight little insurgency,” he said.
“They follow me because I’m right,” I said.
“They follow you because you never ask them to do a thing you won’t do first,” he said. “And because you make it feel like winning even when it’s not.”
I didn’t answer that. Compliments sit funny in my chest when they land too close to the truth.
We drove with the windows down. River air and heat and the faint sting of salt on my skin where his teeth had left a mark the dress hid. Every minute toward 1400 was another tick where I sharpened what I wanted to say until it could cut.
“You really think they know?” I asked, eyes on the road. “That there’s some ugly under the water they haven’t told me about?”
