24. We Can Manage
We Can Manage
Josie
It’s a bad idea.
I know it’s bad, really bad, even as I tell Wyatt, “It’ll be fine.”
He turns his back to the hotel desk and the frazzled woman on the other side of it. The one who had trouble locating our reservation.
Lowering his voice, Wyatt asks, “Are you sure there’s nothing else?”
He certainly doesn’t look sure. Jaw clenched, shoulders rigid. Gray eyes flintier than usual.
For some reason, his hesitation makes me more determined. Why should this be a big deal? So, they screwed up our reservation and put us in one room, not two. Without a single other vacancy.
One room. Me and Wyatt. My mouth is the Sahara. My heart is a galloping horse. But my face belongs to a high-stakes poker player as I repeat what I said moments ago. “It’s fine.”
“I’ll sleep on the boat,” Wyatt says. “You take the room.”
There’s no way his oversize bulk can be comfortable sleeping in his cabin’s tiny twin berth. I’ve seen him shu?ing around after getting up in the morning, stretching his back and rubbing his neck when he doesn’t realize I’m looking. This is a man who needs a bed .
And I’m not about to give up my chance to sleep in a real bed.
It’s stupid to think sharing a room isn’t something we, as two mostly functioning adults who’ve spent weeks now in close proximity, could manage.
I readjust Jib in my arms and snatch the key cards off the hotel desk, handing one to Wyatt. He hesitates, then takes it, his fingers trailing over mine as he does. I pretend not to notice.
Giving him a little grin, I say, “I think we can handle sharing a room for a night, Wyatt.”
We can... can’t we?
I mean, we’ve shared a tiny murder cottage. A boat. Some deep conversations.
What’s a hotel room?
But when I walk in, stopping so quickly Wyatt bumps into the back of me, I realize how not fine it is, after all.
The door closes behind us with what feels like a very appropriate slam of doom.
There is one king-size bed. No couch. No floor space—not that anyone should ever sleep on a hotel floor.
How did I miss this not-at-all-tiny detail when we were at the front desk downstairs?
A single room...with a single bed .
Wyatt leans close, his lips almost brushing my ear as he parrots back my words from the lobby. “I think we can handle sharing a room for a night, Josie.”
And we really do handle it fine. At first.
Before dinner Wyatt takes Jib on a long walk, allowing me time for an almost luxurious bath.
The almost is no fault of the bathroom but more because of my paranoia that any second, Wyatt will return to the room.
A fluffy bath towel might cover more of me than the bathing suit he’s seen me in a few times now, but it doesn’t feel the same. Not even a little.
Wyatt must have the same kinds of thoughts, because I’m dressed, fully ready, and about to call in a search party when he finally returns with Jib.
His shirt is damp with sweat, and his expression is relieved when he sees me sitting in a chair by the window, fully dressed.
His gaze moves over the simple sundress I pulled out of my suitcase.
It’s still wrinkled even after I did the lazy girl’s steam by hanging it in the bathroom while I took my bath.
But he doesn’t look like he cares about the fabric. His gaze falls to my legs for a long moment until he blinks and looks away.
He clears his throat. “I’ll take a quick shower.”
I nod like No biggie .
It shouldn’t be. I mean, the murder cottage was maybe a few times the size of this room. I got used to the weirdness of knowing only a single door separated me from Wyatt when he was showering. It’s no longer a big deal on the boat, where the head is right by my cabin.
Whether it’s the change in location, the looming reality presented by the one bed, or the tension that’s been building between us, I cannot stay in the hotel room while he’s showering. Instead, I scurry to the balcony as soon as I hear the sound of the water turning on in the bathroom.
The air outside is still warm, but my skin and cheeks cool when I slump into a chair overlooking the marina. I watch the sun dipping low over the water with Jib asleep in my lap. Needing a distraction, I decide maybe it’s time to stop ignoring my family.
Since Jacob spilled the beans, Mom and Dad have texted a few times to hear all about my sailing trip. Thankfully, their interest has mainly centered around sailing, not Wyatt. But they don’t answer now, which probably means they have no service.
Jacob answers on the first ring. “So, you’re not dead or lost at sea,” he says wryly. “Guess I can call off the search party.”
“Alive and breathing,” I tell him cheerfully. “Not even a little bit lost.” Okay—actually that’s not true. I might be more lost now than I’ve ever been. But not in a way I’m prepared to talk to Jacob about. “How are you?”
“Good. Busy. You know—the usual.”
“Right.”
“Tell me about a sailor’s life. I’m trying to picture you and Wyatt navigating down the East Coast and...I just can’t.”
“I’ll send you a picture. Proof of life—and sailing.”
And because Jacob is in a rare listening mood, I babble on about the trip.
How stressful it can be at points when we’re navigating around other boats or through a narrow passage with debris.
The different kinds of bridges—swing and bascule and lift.
It’s refreshing to talk to my brother without him pumping me for information about Wyatt’s recovery and whether Wyatt is coming back to Boston soon.
It feels like progress.
“I’m kind of jealous,” he says when I’m done.
“Hey—you’re the one who skipped out on the Super Summer Sibling Extravaganza.”
“I know, and I’m sorry. And I’m planning to make it up to you,” Jacob says.
“How?” I demand.
He scoffs. “Like I’d just tell you. That’s not my style.”
Yeah, his style is more in the vein of making plans and coercing everyone else to go along with them. Still, the idea that he has something in mind to make up for ditching our trip makes me happy. And slightly nervous. I think I’ve dealt with enough surprises lately to last me for a while.
“Before you go, I’ve got a question for you.” One I’ve been wondering ever since Wyatt told me he’s from Richmond. “Do you know much about Wyatt’s family?”
The quiet on the line tells me Jacob does. “Enough. He talked to you about them?”
“A bit.”
“I used to pay to fly his uncle up to games.”
“You did?” Every so often, my brother says something like this, reminding me he’s not entirely self-focused. “I’m surprised Wyatt didn’t do it.”
“I think he thought if he offered, his uncle would feel like he had to go. Wyatt is always concerned with not being burdensome to people. He didn’t want his uncle to feel like he had to go.”
It’s hard to see an offer of flying a person to a hockey game for free as anything but a great gift. But then, for someone who grew up with a father like Wyatt’s, I can see his understanding of love and family being twisted up and confused with the idea of duty and being a burden.
“That was really nice of you,” I say.
My brother chuckles. “Don’t sound so surprised. I’m nice.”
“I never said you weren’t nice. You’re just also...” I fish for the right word, but there isn’t one that’s both accurate and kind.
“I see how it is. But just remember to thank me when this is all over.”
“Thank you for what?”
“I’ve got to go. Call or text a little more. And send me the photo like you promised. Just so I know you’re alive. Unless you want me to fly down and find you.”
“Good luck with that.”
“I don’t need luck. I have your location on my phone, and Wyatt gave me your tentative schedule before you left.”
“Wait—then why’d you even ask if I was lost at sea?”
My brother ends the call instead of answering my question, and half a second later, Wyatt opens the sliding glass door, looking like a four-course meal in a button-down shirt and damp hair.
My throat muscles seem to have lost the ability to swallow. Because now, when I look at him, he’s not just a grumpy yet secretly soft man but a man who has endured family trauma and come out on the other side of it okay. It’s dangerous to have this knowledge that makes me like and respect him more.
Because it only makes him look more delicious to me now than he did before.
“Ready?” Wyatt asks, and my mind goes back to our conversation a few nights ago. The one where he essentially told me that I get to set the pace.
I want to yell, Yes, I’m ready!
But he’s asking about dinner, so I nod and smile, deposit Jib in the room, and follow Wyatt downstairs.