Page 4 of A Loser by Christmas
Nope.
It’s about real-life heroes and villains. I’ve got plenty of footage of the latter. All I need is one more hero to follow beforethe submission cutoff. One more rescue made against all odds, but right now, my other deadline won’t wait any longer.
I set off running to where my own boat is all but hidden by more expensive vessels. That’s where I check in on the reason for the timer set on my phone. A duck laid this early Christmas present the day I arrived to set up for the show. That duck paddled away without looking back once, leaving me with an unexpected Secret Santa gift of an egg to take care of.
I mean, I’m no wildfowl expert, but leaving something this fragile exposed to the elements didn’t seem right. Taking it below decks to keep warm in my blankets at night, then returning it to its nest each morning with a hot water bottle in case its mother had a change of heart, seemed my only option.
Someone had to step in, right?
I do that again now by scooping up a baby-to-be that I’m pretty sure has been abandoned.
Shit. Almost completely cold again.
It’s a good thing my YouTube subscribers can’t see me holding this egg so carefully. It would ruin the cutthroat reputation Lito mentioned. So would how closely I clutch this fragile oval when someone bulky looms out of the wintry afternoon gloom.
His face is shadowed by a ball cap, and he’s the only witness to something else Lito wouldn’t believe, even if he’d watched it play out on my channel.
I’m worried.
Not for me.
And not because I can see that this stranger has curled fists. The moment a shout rings out from the other direction, I’m concerned for the contents of this eggshell.
“Valentin!”A sleety gust of wind carries Dad’s yell to me. “What have you got there?” He pounds along the mooring as loud as ever and as business focussed. “Put that bloody cameraaway.” He’s too far away to see what I do actually cradle. “I said, put it away.”
He’ll tell me that selling speedboats is more important than protecting something helpless. I know it.
Instinct has me shoving my hands behind me.
My fingers curl around a duckling-to-be that he’ll discover at any moment and no doubt think I’m a loser for wanting to keep safe. That outcome seems certain until I’m jostled hard from behind.
Warm hands close around mine. “Sorry, mate.” A stranger apologises as if our collision was accidental. He murmurs more quietly, “You can let go. I’ve got it.”
I’d think a stranger had staged a rescue mission if I didn’t glimpse a familiar profile.
Reece?
No.
This hero isn’t the star of my unfinished contest entry. I see that more clearly when he passes Dad and turns around to face me. His wild beard is another Trelawney difference that I get a better look at when he pauses to hold that egg up where mon père can’t see it.
He winks, and I’m surprised into smiling.
Into smiling?
I fucking beam, and my rescuer’s jaw drops. He almost stumbles, nearly dropping the egg, while looking about as shocked as his bestie once did in a video that went viral. Because that’s who just made a save for me, I think. The Trelawney brother who Lito described as big, bad, and brutal.
He isn’t the only one who falters.
Dad does too.
He stops in his tracks to return a smile he must have thought I’d aimed at him. I’m instantly guilty for ever thinking him uncaring as he gives me a surprisingly sweet reminder ofChristmases when we were pleased to see each other. It’s so unexpected that my eyes sting. Or maybe that’s due to the bitter breeze I couldn’t risk leaving an egg out in for any longer. By the time I blink them clear, someone who I’d bet my boat was one of Reece Trelawney’s brothers is gone, and Dad gets busy reminding me of a different deadline.
“You sell a boat by midnight for me, and I’ll bump repairing your old tub to the very top of my list.”
The wind must have blown the words after Reece’s brother—he mentions it when I next see him.
Which isn’t until hours later.
