Page 16 of If All Else Sails
I need a minute to think about what I’ve just agreed to.
“Do we have a deal?” Jacob asks.
I glance out over the water, watching a gull circling lazily overhead as the sun starts to dip low in the sky near the trees. “We have amaybe.”
Chapter5
Nothing Easy About You
Wyatt
If there weren’t already bad blood between my possibly soon-to-be former best friend and probably soon-to-be former agent and me, it would be poisoned now. Because Jacob sent Josie here to do a welfare check and make sure I’m alive (I am) and well (I’m well enough) and get me back on track. Whatever that means to him.
Probably in physical therapy so I can be back in Boston and on the ice as soon as possible.
Which is something I’m not even sure I want anymore.
Regardless, Jacob sent Josiehereto see me likethis—with multiple days’ worth of scruff on my face, as many or more days’ of unshoweredness, and a week’s worth of trash piling up in the kitchen. I’m essentially living in my own filth—not unlike the pigs that belong to my neighbor up the road. He owns a whole herd, which I know because I came face-to-facewith them by my mailbox the first day I came here. I can smell them when the wind blows from the east.
That’s me: piglike and wholly unprepared to see Josie.
If Jacob had warned me she was coming, we might have avoided the little snafu with the police.
Which I’m pretty sure Josie doesn’t see aslittle.
To be honest, I don’t either. It’s huge and it’s horrible. I’m not sure how to come back from having Josie detained—which, in practical terms, seems exactly synonymous witharrested— and stuck in the back of a hot cop car for close to ten minutes while I begrudgingly signed autographs. Guilt clings to me like the stink of smoke.
In my defense, I had no way of knowing they left her there without the car running. Without the air-conditioning. Honestly—someone should lose their badge over this. People aren’t supposed to leave dogs in hot cars. Much less a wholeperson!
I plan to file a complaint with the department later. I’ve had little else to occupy my time lately, so I’ve been going down a list writing letters of complaint for days now. Technically, emails of complaint, but that doesn’t have the same ring to it.
So far I’ve written to the Department of Parks about the hole on their disc golf course that resulted in my injury, the city of Kilmarnock about their lack of a public trash service, and DoorDash about the one driver I had to practically chase off with my crutches when she recognized me and gotideas. Plus a few other emails I’ve now forgotten.
The response rate is low, but typing out my every frustration and annoyance is surprisingly cathartic. I’m not sure how much it will help in this situation though.
Just when I thought I couldn’t sink any lower in Josie’s eyes, I took the already low bar she set for me and buried it in a shallow grave.
My new catchphrase should be “You canalwaysgo lower.”
I use my crutches to hobble closer to the window, watching as Josie argues with Jacob on the phone. She stands in the shade of the overgrown azalea, swaying slightly. It makes me wish my stupid foot wasn’t injured so I could go outside and steady her.
I hated not being able to carry her earlier. Instead, I watched helplessly while the two officers struggled to move her from the driveway to my couch. The urge to yank her out of their arms was almost primal.
I frown. Josie really shouldn’t be out there in the heat again. What she needs is more water and a cold shower with a fresh change of clothes. I could offer her my bathroom but...well. The cottage has only one bathroom and it’s in terrible shape. It’s been thoroughly scrubbed by the service I hired, but cleaning only goes so far when it comes to a house this old.
I don’t want Josie to evenseethe bathroom.
Uncle Tom, who left me this house, became something of a hoarder in his last few years. When I was too busy with my career to visit—something I’ll never stop regretting. I hired a company to go through his things while I was still in Boston. Most was thrown away, and I had them sell the remaining salvageable items and furniture. Anything sentimental went into a small storage unit nearby, leaving only the bare minimum here.
I imagined this summer as a time of peaceful relaxationalone, happily living as a hermit while deciding what my plans are for this cottage. And, of course, my sailing trip.
The last is the one I’m bitterest about. Now, I can’t manage the boat on my own.
Teaching me how to sail was the biggest legacy Tom left me. The summers my mom dropped me with my uncle could have been dark core memories for me—one more reminder I wasn’t enough. I wasn’t wanted. At least by one of my parents.
Tom taught me to sail. The only thing in the world I like as much as hockey. I never feel as peaceful and like myself as I do with sun on my face, salt air in my lungs, and the movement of a boat beneath my feet.
Now I’ll spend the next few months staring at a boat I can’t sail.
