Page 79 of If All Else Sails
“Areyounervous?” I ask Wyatt, gently tugging my hands from his and pushing on him so I can scratch his back again. He resists at first, but then rolls over with a sigh.
“About sailing? No.”
“About something else?”
He’s quiet for a long moment. “I have some concerns.”
“Like what?”
His silence stretches longer this time, and I’m about to poke him and ask if he’s awake when he quietly says, “I want this trip to be good for you.”
I smile into the darkness, letting my nails trace a wavy line up his back.
“But this isyourtrip,” I say. “The one you were going to take with your uncle and then alone.”
“Itwasthat,” he says. “But now it’s ours.”
I barely have time to register all the ways his words are sinking deeply under my skin when Wyatt suddenly swings his legs over the side of the bed and walks to the door without looking back.
“Get some sleep, Josie. You have nothing to be nervous about. And you don’t need boat shoes.”
“Says the man with three pairs.”
He chuckles as he goes, and though I fall back asleep, I miss the comforting presence and warmth of Wyatt beside me.
Chapter19
Hands on the Wheel
Josie
Our first morning starts as a bit of a bummer. “Holy fog, Batman,” I say, walking out the back door of Wyatt’s house at six o’clock.
I’m talking to myself because Wyatt is already on board. At least I think that’s Wyatt and I think that’s the boat. The vague shape of a tall person—a hockey player–shaped person— moving around has to be him.
I refuse to see the fog as some kind of omen. But it’s wild— other than the one morning I woke to a torrential downpour that lasted less than an hour, every morning since I arrived has been bright. Hot. Sunny.
Then today we get fog. Not pea soup fog either. It’s more of a nice, creamy baked potato soup.
“Come on, Jib.”
She’s off before I finish talking, running ahead and barkingout a greeting to Wyatt. She only pauses to lift her leg on a dock piling. Because yes, lifting her leg is Jib’s potty preference.
“Really?” Wyatt asks as I reach the boat. He’s looking from me to Jib. More specifically, at what Jib’s wearing.
“What? Too on the nose for you?”
Today I have her decked out in a little rain outfit: a yellow slicker, matching yellow hat, and black boots that fit over her tiny paws. I’ve never seen something so cute. Honestly.
Ridiculous and unnecessary? Yes.
But if you have a rain slicker, when better to use it than a foggy morning?
With a sigh, Wyatt scoops up Jib and pulls her onto the boat. She snuggles happily against his chest. I don’t blame her—it’s a great chest for snuggling into—and though he turns away, I don’t miss Wyatt’s smile.
I never would have predicted it, but now I see little signs of Wyatt’s kindness every day. And it’s leaving me with a very nagging sense that I’ve spent years misunderstanding him.
Such a secret softie.
