Chapter 18 #2
I’m already moving before my brain catches up.
I come around the side of the yacht and Aidan is on his knees at the edge of the dock, reaching over, his whole body stretched toward the water.
The gray elephant is floating about four feet out, already starting to take on water, one ear submerged, the missing eye facing the sky like a tiny, resigned surrender.
“He fell! Mom, he fell! He was on the railing and the wake from the boat knocked him off and he’s drowning!”
Stuffed elephants can’t drown. I know this. But looking at Aidan’s face—the panic, the absolute terror of losing the one thing that got him through the worst nights of his life—it doesn’t matter what’s rational.
I jump.
The water hits me like a slap. July warm but still a shock after standing in the sun.
My boots fill immediately—I’m wearing work boots, because of course I am, because I was checking electrical connections, not planning a swim.
My T-shirt balloons around me, white cotton going transparent, clinging to everything as I surface.
Stomper is three feet away, sinking. I grab the elephant by his good ear and hold him above the water. He weighs almost nothing dry. Wet, he weighs about two pounds and feels like a dishrag.
“I got him! Mr. Paul got him!”
I swim back to the dock with one arm, the other hand holding Stomper above the waterline like he’s a rescued sailor.
My boots are dragging me down. My shirt is plastered to my chest. The dock ladder is five feet to my left and I grab it with the hand that isn’t holding a stuffed elephant and haul myself up one-handed because there’s no dignified way to climb a ladder in wet work boots while rescuing a toy.
I make it onto the dock. Barely. My left boot catches the top rung and I stumble forward, catching myself on the dock box, water pouring off me in sheets. I look like I’ve been through a car wash. My shirt is completely see-through. My jeans weigh approximately forty pounds.
I hold out Stomper.
Aidan takes Stomper with both hands, presses him against his chest, and bursts into tears. Not the sad kind. The relief kind—when you thought you lost the thing that matters most and then you didn’t.
“Thank you,” he says into Stomper’s wet head. “Thank you thank you thank you.”
“He’s going to need to dry out,” I say, because I don’t know what else to say and emotions make me talk about practical things.
“I’ll put him on the deck to dry. He likes warm spots. Stomper, you’re safe now, buddy.”
Aidan runs off with the soaking stuffed animal held to his chest, leaving a trail of water drops on the dock boards.
He’s talking to Stomper the whole way, reassuring him, telling him about the rescue, narrating it like a movie.
“And then Mr. Paul jumped in. He didn’t even take off his shoes. He just jumped.”
I’m standing on the dock, dripping, in see-through white cotton and waterlogged boots, when Emma comes around the corner.
She stops.
I’m mid-motion—pulling the wet shirt away from my skin because it’s clinging to every part of me in a way that’s uncomfortable. The fabric is stuck to my chest, my shoulders, my arms. Water is running down my neck. My hair is in my eyes.
“What happened?” she asks, but her voice sounds different. Higher. Thinner.
“Stomper went overboard.”
“You jumped in for Stomper?”
“He was sinking.”
She stares at me. I stare back. Water drips off my jaw and hits the dock.
“You’re soaking wet,” she says.
“I’m aware.”
“Your shirt is —” She gestures at my chest. Makes a vague motion with her hand. Doesn’t finish the sentence.
I look down. The white T-shirt is completely transparent, clinging to my chest like a second skin.
I can see every line of my own body through it, which means she can too, and she’s currently looking at the situation with an expression I’ve never seen on her before and can only describe as short-circuiting.
I grab the hem and pull the shirt over my head because it’s uncomfortable and useless and I need it off. The air hits my bare chest and shoulders and the relief is immediate.
Emma makes a sound. A small sound. The kind of sound a person makes when they’re trying very hard not to react and failing.
“You’re bleeding,” she says.
I look down. She’s right. There’s a cut along my ribs on the left side—probably scraped the dock ladder on the way up. Thin, barely bleeding. Not worth mentioning.
“It’s nothing.”
“Then why is it bleeding?”
“Barely counts.”
“Stay here.” She disappears into the houseboat and comes back with a first-aid kit—the kind with cartoon characters on the bandaids because she has three kids and this is the medicine cabinet she has. She sets it on the dock box and opens it with the focus of a surgeon.
“Hold still.”
She steps close. Her fingers touch the skin below the cut and my entire body goes rigid. Not from pain. From the fact that Emma’s hand is on my bare chest and her fingertips are cool from the first-aid kit and she’s standing close enough that I can smell her shampoo.
She dabs the cut with an antiseptic wipe. Her hand is steady. Mine wouldn’t be.
“It’s not deep,” she says, quiet, like she’s talking to herself.
“I told you.”
“You jumped in wearing work boots.”
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
“You could have just used the boat hook.”
“The boat hook was on the other side of the dock.”
“So you jumped.”
“It was sinking.”
She peels the backing off a bandaid. It has a cartoon whale on it.
She presses it along the cut, her fingers smoothing the edges against my ribs, and I feel every single point of contact like a brand.
Her fingertips trace the edge of the bandaid, slow, careful, making sure it’s sealed, and goosebumps follow her touch across my skin like a wave.
She notices. I know because her hand stops moving. Her fingers rest on my ribs, just below the bandaid, and neither of us breathes.
The dock is quiet. The water laps against the pilings. The yacht gleams white in its slip. Somewhere on the houseboat, Aidan is telling Millie the rescue story at full volume.
“There,” Emma says. Her voice is barely there. “All fixed.”
Her fingers stay where they are.
Neither do I.
We stand there on the dock, her fingers on my bare skin, my chest rising and falling under her palm. The afternoon sun is warm on my shoulders. A pelican lands on the piling behind us with the total disregard of a bird that doesn’t care about human tension.
“Thank you,” she says, and she’s not talking about Stomper.
Or maybe she is. Maybe she’s talking about all of it—the rescue and the pancakes and the fireworks and the morning I fixed her running light without telling her and every other small, stupid thing I’ve done that I keep pretending is about dock maintenance and marina safety and not about the fact that I am falling for this woman so hard I can’t see straight.
“You’re welcome,” I say, and I’m not talking about Stomper either.
She pulls her hand back. Steps away. Looks at the first-aid kit like she’s forgotten how she got here.
“You should probably put on a dry shirt,” she says.
“Probably.”
“Before you catch a cold.”
“In July?”
“It could happen. Theoretically.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
She picks up the first-aid kit. Walks toward the houseboat. At the screen door, she turns around.
“For the record,” she says, “you jumped into the ocean for a stuffed elephant. Without taking off your shoes.”
“And I’d do it again.”
She goes inside. The screen door bounces twice.
I stand on the dock, shirtless, in wet boots, wearing a cartoon whale bandaid, and I think about Holly’s sticky note in the logbook. Don’t forget to eat lunch.
Holly would have liked Emma. That’s not a guess. That’s something I know the way I know the tide schedule and the weight rating of my dock cleats. Holly would have liked her laugh and her chaos and her camera and the way she puts her kids first and herself last and never complains about it.
Holly would have told me to stop thinking and go.
So I did.
I go to my boat, change into dry clothes, make lunch, and eat it. Don’t forget.