Page 21 of Stay Close
We stagger back to our seat, Lucas holding me around the shoulders like packing material cradling a family heirloom. I glance at the gathering clouds. “We’ll make it in time,” I assure him.
His mouth is grim. “How do you know?”
“My parents ran a little launch around Martha’s Vineyard each summer—not the bougie side, the islander side. I’ve been around boats,” I explain.
Maybe he thinks I’m trying to talk myself out of being nervous because he slips my hand into his. “It sounds bougie.”
My hand is cold, and he lifts it to his mouth, warming the skin. The shiver that works through my spine has nothing to do with temperature or a threatening storm. The air crackles with potential, but I lightly bump his shoulder, swallowing away my reaction to even that. “It’s not ‘I’ve got a whole dirt bike track in the backyard’ bougie.”
We travel back the whole way like that—him holding me for reassurance, me pretending to need it—and when we sail through the mouth of the harbor, the boat bounces wildly in the twisting currents. I’m tossed against the bulkhead and then into his chest.
“I’ve got you,” he says, our eyes meeting longer than necessary, our breathing dropping into a common rhythm.
We’re right on the edge of doing something foolish when the captain calls out. “We got company.”
Lucas tears himself away from me and gets to his feet, scanning the horizon, immediately in protection mode.
I tug the corner of his coat. “What is it?”
He tips his head, never taking his eyes off the view. “Company. We’ve got protestors. Both varieties, it looks like, camped out at the end of the pier.” He half-crouches and continues to assess the situation. “There’s a news camera. Maybe seventy people. Keep your head down,” he directs.
I know better than to ignore that tone.
“Can you park the boat over there?” he asks the captain.
“Park the boat.” I feel the rudder change course, and the captain laughs, “Yes, I will use different slip.”
“Binoculars,” Lucas says, waving his hand at me. I retrieve them from a cubby and hand them off. “No other point of escape,” he says, like a nurse triaging a wound. His neck twists. We beat the storm, but the sky is pregnant with dark, menacing clouds. “Making for another port is…?” He looks at the captain.
“Bad idea.” The captain’s nostrils flare. He thumps his chest with a finger. “Highest safety rating.”
Lucas absorbs this information, training his binoculars on the shore. “They’ve got a big picture of you, Edie,” he says. “It’s a little blurry, but they printed a huge banner. Someone must have snapped a picture as we drove through the gate. They’re organized, I’ll give them that. What does it say?” he asks, handing the binoculars to the captain.
“Dangerous to walk on thin ice,” comes the translation.
I don’t have to pretend to be nervous anymore. “That’s a threat, right? That sounds like a threat.”
Lucas crouches, balanced on the balls of his feet, a look of concentration on his face.
“I don’t think they know which boat we’re coming in on.” He looks to the captain. “Do you have any all-weather gear?” That’s too much English for Captain Bloch. Lucas mimes his needs. A slicker. Waders. A rain cap. Anything.
The captain opens yet another cubby and begins pulling out bright orange gear.
Sondish men are some of the tallest in the world, and even though I’m not petite, I’ll be swallowed by this stuff. Lucas sorts it quickly, thrusting the smallest pair of coveralls at me.
“Quickly,” he urges, making short work of his own gear.
As I slither around the floor, I think about how cute I used to look—how carefully I considered my height and coloring, the weather, the nautical theme. I am not vain, but for the love of all that is holy, I didn’t plan to end this day in an all-weather slicker.
We’re nearing the slip, and the noise of the crowd rises to meet us. “We’ll hop off with this cooler,” Lucas says, zipping me into a long orange jacket and rolling back the cuffs of my sleeves. He pulls a knit cap that smells of the sea over my hair, stuffing the ends inside, fingers brushing the tips of my ears and the back of my neck. The clothes have done nothing to douse his attractiveness. If anything, he looks like an advertising model for a seafood company whose sales pitch amounts to “The hot man wishes you to eat more fish.”
“Edie,” he prompts, dragging my attention back to the dangers at hand. “The captain says he goes out on regular runs, and other boats are coming in now. There’s a chance we’ll be mistaken for an ordinary launch. You need to remember to—”
I nod. “Stay close. I know.” He stands perfectly still as I pull the hood of his slicker forward to shield his face, touching the groove in his cheek. “I’m not worried.”
I’m a little worried. But Lucas did his research well. The captain idles the boat and brings it in soft enough to kiss the old tires near the bow just as the first fat raindrops begin to hit the dock. He leaps out to tie up, and I leap after him. Lucas tosses me the cooler, and I do my best to look like an old sea hand. Lucas takes one handle and I take the other, following the captain at an easy pace.
We approach the gauntlet and I adjust my grip, keeping my face averted. Captain Bloch wanders over to the nearest protestors, asking, I presume, what the fuss is about. Sondish words flow too fast for my ear, but he’s keeping them distracted as we continue our progress.
