7. Audra
Chapter 7
Audra
“Do you think you could come with us on a rescue today?” Maryanne asks. “I know you don’t have all the training, so we won’t have you doing anything too intense. We’re just short and need some extra hands.” She looks sympathetic, like she doesn’t want to be burdening me with this. I cannot for the life of me figure out why, though. Half of the reason I applied for this job in the first place was because I was praying something like this would happen one day.
It takes all I have not to jump up and down and pull her into a hug. Instead, I keep my composure and smile brightly at her.
“Of course! What’s the story today?” I ask, looking to get more information on what I’m getting my hands on.
“Nothing that requires rehab, thank God. Beached shark is what was called in. You know there’s always a chance that it’ll be a dolphin when tourists call in a shark, but we always stay prepared,” she explains and I nod in response.
“Are we going now?” I ask, standing from my chair.
“Yes, ma’am! Let’s get a rescue under your belt.” She winks at me and I know I’m grinning like an idiot, but I can’t help it. I don’t think I wipe the smile off my face for a single second. Not when we’re loading the van, on the drive there, or even now as we walk down to the beach.
“We’ll start by assessing the situation. Our rescue today specifies the animal is beached, meaning it’s stuck between the shore and deep water due to the change in tide,” Sean, the lead for rescue operations, explains as we finish our trek. I nod, taking it in.
“And what do you need me to do?” I ask, beaming at him.
“For now, let’s see if Rick and I can drag him into deeper water on our own.”
Maryanne cuts in, leaning over to me, “If that’s the case, we won’t be needed at all.”
“Right!” Sean nods before continuing, “if it turns out to be more severely beached, then you two will be in charge of grabbing us supplies, that sound alright?”
“It sounds great! Thank you for asking me to come.”
We finally arrive at the location and sure enough, there’s people crowded around a shark thrashing in the shallow water. Rick and Sean push through the crowd of people as Maryanne and I follow closely behind. Once we’re there on the shore, it’s obvious the shark will just need a push into deeper water.
I’m not proud of the momentary disappointment that I feel when I realize I won’t get to help after all. Although, it just means less stress for the shark which I can’t complain about. Still, I’m ecstatic to be here. Even if I only get to watch from shore.
Rick and Sean wade out into the knee deep water and start grabbing the tail of the shark to pull it out far enough that it can swim away on its own. They struggle some as the shark jerks back and forth, and the tourists scream as if they think Rick and Sean are going to be eaten. After a few minutes of hard work, the two men are able to pull it into deeper water. A few thrashes later, the shark is swimming away.
“That was amazing!” I gush as they walk back up to Maryanne and me.
“Maybe next time, we can do something to get you a little more involved,” Rick chimes in as we turn to return to the van.
The entire drive back to the rescue I’m full of smiles and thank yous for letting me tag along. They remind me a hundred times that due to the short staffing, it was a favor to them. In no time I’m back at my desk filling out paperwork and trying to stifle the stupid grin still plastered on my face.
Just like that, I forgot for half a day how bad things are right now. I think about the last few weeks and all of the ups-and-downs of it all. For the first time since that rainy night, it seems like I’m looking back on the past, not living in it. I know the hard times aren’t over, but it feels like I can catch my breath for once.
* * *
Afternoon rolls around when Maryanne comes over to my desk with a bright smile on her face.
“There’s a gorgeous boy here to see you. Says he has lunch,” she says with a wink, like I should know exactly who she’s talking about. I have a pretty good feeling it’s either Ares or Roman, given the circumstance.
“Did he give you a name?”
“Oh goodness, I figured you knew about this. He said his name is Roman.”
Excitement bubbles in my chest when I hear his name leave her mouth. It’s crazy how much our dynamic changed recently and how close we’ve become.
“Oh! Yes, he’s a friend of mine. I just didn’t know he was coming. You can send him in.”
Maryanne walks back out of the office. A couple minutes later, Roman walks through the door and smiles at me, pointing to the bag of take-out in his hand. He looks— good. So good. He’s wearing white shorts and a orange and white striped button down to match and it’s all I have in me to drag my eyes away from the vintage looking lantern tattoo on his upper thigh. Oh lord, I’m gawking at Roman Dawkins .
“I come bearing food.”
“Don’t hold out on me, what’s in the bag?” I ask, attempting to see inside of it.
“Hibachi, I hope you like chicken and rice.”
“Duh, who doesn’t like chicken and rice?”
We sit in peaceful silence eating our food and I try not to think about the way I felt seeing him walk in the door today. How his thighs look in those shorts or the little sliver of his chest that’s showing at the top of his shirt. Okay, so I’m doing a bad job.
“So, how’s work been today?” he asks, breaking the silence and, thankfully, my spiral of thoughts.
“Oh my gosh, it was so good! Can I tell you about it?” I ask excitedly.
“Of course, that’s why I asked.”
“When I got my job here, it was for desk work only and I knew that. I didn’t have the qualifications for anything else. It was close enough to what I loved that I took the job anyway. But today, I got asked to go on a rescue!” I gush. “I got to watch the whole thing, Roman. It was amazing !”
“What kind of rescue was it?”
“Beached shark.”
“What kind of shark was it?” he asks.
I’m a little shocked that he cares enough to give me more of an opportunity to talk about it.
“Hard to tell in the water, either a hammerhead or a bonnethead.” I shrug. He’s smiling so big, I can’t help but smile back. I wonder if I was smiling so big from earlier that it made him smile. By the end of the day, I’m sure my cheeks will be sore from the amount of smiling I’ve done today.
“What made you bring lunch today?” I ask.
“I hadn’t heard from you in a few days. Not really since we talked in the kitchen,” he says. I know he doesn’t mean to, but bringing it up transports me back to that night. Laying in Ares’ bed reading that message, the way the air was sucked out of my lungs. The way Roman walked me through my breathing.
“Yeah. I just needed a couple days to turn my phone off and sit at home.” I sigh. “The whole Tyler thing has been really overwhelming.”
“Have you considered talking to someone about it?” A piece of me wants to snap at him for bring it up. The hesitation in his voice stops me though.
“No. I don’t want to.”
“I don’t mean like Ares, I mean like a therapist.” The words come out like he’s testing the waters, and I feel guilty that I’ve made him feel like he can’t say these things to me, especially when I know it’s out of concern for my well being. I know it’s what I need, but I just can’t risk someone else knowing.
“I just don’t think I can,” I say quietly. It’s partially to keep my privacy, but mostly out of shame.
“I looked into it for you—I hope that’s okay. Everything you tell a mental health professional is confidential. You’d be able to talk to someone and get some help without worrying about Tyler knowing you told someone,” he explains.
My heart warms as tears fill my eyes in the best way. I can’t remember the last time I cried joyful tears.
“You looked that up for me?” I ask, wiping a tear from my cheek. Before I can reach for the other, he wipes it with his thumb.
“Don’t cry, pretty girl. I just wanted to help.” Pretty girl. Butterflies flutter in my stomach. I don’t know what’s going on with me today, I’ve never thought of him this way before. Something has changed though, I know it from the front flips happening in my abdomen. I also know that now is not the time for me to be feeling this way. I shouldn’t be thinking about how sexy he looks or how good the words ‘pretty girl’ sound coming from his mouth.
“That’s just the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me,” I gush. Maybe that’s where these feelings are coming from. At least that’s what I tell myself.
“You deserve nice things done for you.”
* * *
The rest of lunch is nice. It’s the perfect addition to an already great day. Roman leaves when my lunch break is over and I have a few hours of work left before I’m done for the day. I spend about as much time doing my paperwork as I do thinking about everything. Mostly, I think about the way things felt with Roman today.
I feel more myself with him than I have in years. Every time I see him, I find myself wishing for more time together. But when we’re together, there are those split seconds where I’m thinking about him in a way that I absolutely should not be, and I have to wonder if more time is a good idea. How can something so good and so perfect be a bad idea, though?
I also think about his suggestion to speak to a therapist, how I might bring up everything with Tyler in the first place. Fortunately, my thoughts are halted when Maryanne walks in my office.
“So, who’s the boy?” she asks, raising a brow at me. It’s funny seeing her waltz into my office looking to gossip about boys when she’s pushing sixty-five years old.
“You remember Ares?” I ask. She nods her head. “That’s his brother,” I add.
“So you’re dating his brother then? How’s he feel about that?”
“Oh, no. We aren’t dating—just friends,” I say, throwing my hands in the air.
“That poor boy is in love with you and you’re walking around calling him your friend?” she teases.
“What?” I pinch my eyebrows together. “No he’s not. We’re just friends,” I state again. In love with me? Yeah fucking right. Surely if Roman was in love with me, I would know about it. I would at least know he has feelings for me. Which I don’t. So he can’t.
“Honey. That boy looks at you like you hung the stars in the sky.”
That can’t be true. I definitely would know if he looked at me like that. But then again, maybe I wouldn’t. Maybe I’ve been too wrapped up in all the Tyler stuff and my own pain, that I failed to notice him.
“I don’t think so…” I say, dismissing her claim.
“Well, if you say so.”
She shrugs me off and walks out of my office. I think about Roman and if there’s something I’m missing.
I think back to the night Ares and Ravyn took me to that party. How he didn’t think twice before leaving the gorgeous girl on his arm to take me home. Then there’s all the hugs and shoulders to cry on over the last few weeks. The panic attack I had in his kitchen and the way he talked me through it.
Roman might actually have feelings for me. And I don’t have a fucking clue what to do with that.