Page 122 of If All Else Sails
“My shoes are leather!” Jacob shouts, starting to climb.
I can’t hold back a laugh. Wyatt glances at me, surprised, then offers me a rare full grin.
“What?” he asks.
“I just think it’s funny that this”—I gesture to my drenched brother, nearing the top of the ladder—“is leading you to want to mend family ties.”
“I lost my sunglasses!” Jacob shouts, as if to prove my point.
“Oh no! You lost one of your fifty pairs,” I tease. “What will the other forty-nine do?”
Jacob glares.
“It’s weird that this makes me miss my brother,” Wyatt says. “But if you can’t throw your family overboard, are you even family?”
Touché.
“I’m serious about my stuff,” Jacob says, pulling his shirt away from his body and wringing it out. Already, a puddle surrounds him on the dock.
“I’ll write you a check,” Wyatt says. “New shoes and sunglasses are on me.”
“I regret the present I got you, Josie.” Jacob reaches the boat, dripping and still griping.
“What present?” I ask.
“It’s in your berth or cabin or whatever you call your bedroom. But I should just return it. You don’t deserve it. Neither of you does.”
“He said neither of us,” Wyatt says as the three guys pile into their rental car after hugs and goodbyes. Jacob was still grumbling as they left. “Guess it’s a gift for me too.”
So I bring it to the saloon, setting it on the table. Wyatt watches as I tear into the box, which is wrapped in layers of duct tape. Very Jacob.
But the gift isn’t for Wyatt and me. It’s two matching Appies jerseys—one for me and one for Jib. Wyatt picks mine up and turns it, swallowing hard when he sees his name on the back.
“These are the new style,” he says, sounding dazed, still looking at the jersey and not meeting my gaze. “I don’t even know how Jacob could have gotten these. Especially since it’s not my team anymore.”
But I’m not surprised. My brother always finds a way to get what he wants, and I have to wonder if this will come to include setting his best friend up with his sister.
Chapter29
A Panic Sinkhole
Josie
“You’re very quiet,” Wyatt tells me as we start walking back to the boat from dinner at a restaurant not far from the yacht club.
“Maybe it just feels quiet with them gone,” I say, even though I know Wyatt’s right. I am quiet. Quiet and pensive and, admittedly, a little moody.
Our seafood dinner looked good, but I’m not sure I tasted it. I was glad baseball was playing loudly on several screens in the restaurant to provide a distraction for Wyatt. Though it must not have been distraction enough. Clearly, he noticed my current mood.
I’m not sure what brought it on. Maybe being surrounded by people for a solid twenty-four hours—more noise, more engagement, more beingon. But I think it has more to do with the conversations I had and the worries that sprouted in their wake.
My brain has devolved into chaos, thoughts ping-ponging from the idea ofknowingto the concept of a “normal life” to what it would mean to be a hockey girlfriend. Or a hockeywife.
“Still with me?” Wyatt asks, his voice a gentle nudge.
I force a small laugh. “Mostly.”
Wyatt’s hand brushes mine, but rather than linking our fingers easily as he might have done just a day or two ago, he hesitates, then shoves his hands in his pockets. I could really use his steadying touch right now, but I’m not about to reach for him. Not with the unmoored thoughts banging around in my head.
