Page 40 of South of The Skyway

“Five,” I laughed.

“Wasn’t too keen on the last one, so it stayed off my agenda.”

“And now?”

“When he knows what he’s doing?” Brexley glanced over her shoulder, stifling a smile with fire in her eyes. “It’s not too bad.”

Squeezing her hips between my calves, I grumbled, “Oh man, I’m in trouble.”

“The bar is high, Hotshot.” Brexley took up her paddle and rowed, and I smiled at the subtle jolt forward, shifting to do the same. It took a couple of minutes to get into a good rhythm together, but after a few clumsy splashes, our movements synchronized, both naturally compensating for Royal’s happy shuffling from one side of the nose to the other as she stretched out to sniff at the water rushing by.

“You don’t seem to have lost much,” I said with a smile, watching her defined arms and ripple of lean muscle down her back. My hands buzzed with the need to run rough palms across that smooth stretch of tan skin.

“Like riding a bike,” she offered as she swapped sides and I wordlessly did the same. The crystal water of the creek flowed silently beneath us, the only sound a subtle splash of our paddles. Up ahead, the creek narrowed, thick tropical flora stretching together like arms made to grasp. Birds chirped high above us as the roar of city traffic faded behind.

“I forget,” she breathed, “that we can actually find pockets of quiet out here. The city is so…much, all the time.”

“Has a pulse of its own.”

“Yeah, it’s exhausting. Never ceases.”

“I’m just enamored with the ability to find any kind of food whenever I want.”

She snickered before asking, “Not a lot of selection on the island?”

“I mean an abundance of fish. Burgers. Greasy spoons.”

“Charming.”

“It is, in its own way. Quiet, friendly.”

“Good sense of community?” she asked, and I wished I could see her face. Was she intrigued? Appalled at the idea of a tiny fishing village on a North Pacific island? I might’ve been planning to live near my parents, but Mistyvale would always be home. Even with the never-ending gossip of a small town.

“Nosy, meddling gawkers is more like it. Still, yeah, they rally when it counts.” A small fish leapt directly in front of us, marring the glassy surface as the ripples worked their way out towards the banks.

“Why Florida?”

“You can only see gray for so many months a year. Back when we were kids, we’d plan trips to the lower forty-eight at least twice a winter, longer stretches if the warm seasons were good.”

“You sound like a fairytale.”

I chuckled, turning my face up to the sun peeking through the dense greenery above us and reveling in the warmth. “More like a brood of rugrats shoved into an RV for months on end.”

“A stressful fairy tale,” she acquiesced. Royal laid down with a clumsy thud, setting her muzzle on the nose of the boat. Sighed dramatically. “I can’t wait to get out of here.”

“Why?” She couldn’t see it, but I quirked my head on instinct, returning to a casual paddle as she set hers across her lap. The shade of the canopy grew denser as the banks narrowed on either side of us.

“Are you kidding?” Brexley scoffed, shaking her head. “It’s a freaking swamp. There’s nothing good here if you’re not a beach bum. And even then, there’s nothing to do except roast in the sun. We don’t get a big enough surf to ride. Red tide spoils half the year. I’ve been here my whole life, and half of it has been spent inhaling fumes in traffic.”

“Paints a pretty bleak picture for my parents.”

“Yeah, well, at least you can prepare them.”

“Where to?”

“What?” she asked, sneakily slipping her paddle between the edge of the boat to push off a gnarled root reaching from the bank.

“Where to? If not here, where would you go?”

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