26. Saved by the Air Horn
Saved by the Air Horn
Josie
When I wake up the next morning with a mild headache and a medium-to-large vulnerability hangover, I’m alone in bed except for Jib, who’s curled up by my feet, snoring softly.
I slide my hand across to Wyatt’s side and find the sheets cool. Disappointment curdles in my belly.
It shouldn’t matter if he’s not here. But after what I told him last night, I’m feeling extra vulnerable. Extra sensitive, too, apparently, because my feelings are hurt.
Did Wyatt freak out because of what I told him? Or because we shared a bed? Did he open his eyes and immediately feel regret? Did I drool on him?
I’m just sitting up when the door opens. Wyatt steps inside, and I suck in a breath at the sight of him, sweat dripping down his bare chest and holding a to-go cup of coffee in each hand.
Sensitivity and hurt feelings and overthinky thoughts evaporate when Wyatt’s gaze softens and his mouth curves up in a rare smile. The sight of him smiling and shirtless and with coffee floods me with warmth. I’m sure my cheeks are pink even before I regain my breath.
“You’re up,” he says.
“And you’ve been busy.” As he approaches the bed, holding out a paper cup, I do my best not to ogle all the shiny, smooth muscle. I take the coffee, then almost drop it. “Wait—were you running ?”
Wyatt takes a small step back and rubs a hand over his neck. “About that. I need to tell you something,” he says.
The phrase that no one ever wants to hear. I wait, taking a sip of coffee for fortitude. Only, it’s not just coffee. It’s a latte with one pump of vanilla—my standard coffee shop order. So much for fortitude.
How did he know? I take another sip. How—
“I was cleared to sail before we left,” Wyatt says finally.
“I know. That’s why we’re here. Sailing.”
He shakes his head. “No. I was cleared to resume normal activities. Like: sail alone .” When I still don’t say anything because he seems more upset about this than I am, he adds, “I lied to you.”
“You didn’t lie. I mean, I suppose it’s technically a lie of omission since you didn’t tell me,” I say slowly. “But it doesn’t bother me.”
“It doesn’t?”
“No. It wouldn’t have made a difference to me,” I tell him. “I wanted to come.”
“Really?” Wyatt smiles again, and it feels too early in the morning for the onslaught of such things.
I take another sip of my latte. “But why didn’t you tell me?”
He shifts, then fixes his gaze on his feet. “I wasn’t sure you’d come if you didn’t have to.” Now he peeks up at me. “And I didn’t want to come without you.”
This makes me smile. I put a hand over my heart. “Aw—this coming from the man who wanted to have me arrested.”
Wyatt closes his eyes and shakes his head. But I don’t miss the smallest twitch of his lips. “You’re never going to let it go, are you?”
“I told you—never.”
It’s only when Wyatt’s in the shower and I’m taking Jib for a walk that a realization hits me like the slap of a rogue wave. Wyatt’s been cleared for all activity. All activity, he said.
Which would include hockey.
I asked him last night if he thought he would go back, and he said yes. Which felt theoretical. But it wasn’t theory. Wyatt already knew.
My mind scans back a little earlier in the day yesterday, when I talked with Jacob on the phone. Jacob—who didn’t ask about Wyatt’s recovery for once.
I thought it meant we were just having a nice conversation. One with zero business mixed in. But no—it meant that Jacob didn’t need to ask. He knew Wyatt was coming back.
I’m not necessarily mad that neither of them told me.
I have no right to be. Not when I’ve told Jacob I don’t want to hear about his work.
Not when Wyatt and I almost never discuss his hockey career.
Except last night. And Wyatt did say he planned to go back.
Maybe he honestly thought that was telling me.
This knowledge feels like a lead weight settling between my shoulder blades, pressing me down.
Boston. Wyatt will go back to Boston in probably a matter of weeks.
And I’ll go back to my apartment and its fake plants.
The physical distance doesn’t bother me so much as the figurative distance that will once again be between us.
Two very different people living very different lives in very different places.
His return to hockey will be a period at the end of the last sentence of the final chapter—the chapter I didn’t want to talk about with Wyatt. And this is exactly the reason.
Then the hockey star went home to play hockey while the school nurse went home to keep living all alone. And they lived unhappily ever after. The end.
No , I tell myself, this is good to know . Because I was starting to crumble, starting to think that maybe this could be something. But up until a few weeks ago, Wyatt couldn’t stand me.
Did I really think we could move from mutual dislike to—I struggle to even let my brain think the word—love? Or very strong like?
I would do good to remember all this. The reality check— crushing though it may be—will help me keep my head on straight and keep Wyatt firmly at arm’s length. At least in the romantic sense. On a boat, arm’s length isn’t really a thing.
As Jib and I head back, I resolutely toss my still half-full latte in the trash while silently weeping over it.
Telling myself it’s a symbolic gesture. That I can make it through the rest of this trip remembering the end and staying strong, putting my heart back in its protective glass case where it’s safe.
But then I get back to the room and find Wyatt fresh out of the shower in only a towel, his skin a warm olive and glistening, and a giant breakfast tray in the middle of the small room. “I ordered your favorite,” the man I need to keep at arm’s length says. “Belgian wa?es with whipped cream.”
My resolve turns out to be about as firm as a sopping wet roll of paper towels.
Sharing a bed—and sharing my history—apparently threw open a cracked door. Blew the thing right off its hinges.
Because now Wyatt can’t seem to stop touching me. Every single chance he gets. Which is a lot, considering our close proximity.
Light, small touches. The kind I’m amazed that someone his size—whose literal job is to pummel other big dudes on the ice—is capable of.
A delicate brush of fingertips on my elbow when passing by me to raise the sails.
A warm palm barely resting on my lower back as I climb the stair-ladder to the deck.
A shoulder nudging mine as we drink coffee and discuss our route for the day.
Butterfly kisses were immortalized in song, but someone should really write a banger about bird-feather touches. Wyatt’s contact is hummingbird fast—there and gone. Whispers of warm skin disappearing before I can lean in for more. He leaves goose bumps and shortness of breath in his wake.
I swear, I’ve never met a man so steeped in patience. So restrained. A study in self-control.
It’s driving me crazy.
And maybe that’s the point?
Wyatt gives me careful space—but not too much. Always, there are reminders that he left the door open for me to make a choice. To take the next step.
And I know, considering the fact that every day is one day closer to our return to real life, my next steps should be ten big ones—backward.
There’s too much of a disconnect between our lives.
Me: humble elementary school nurse. Only in high demand because so few people want to work for so little.
Wyatt: famous hockey player. In multimillion-dollar demand because he can help teams win trophies.
Or do they win cups in hockey? I don’t remember. I probably never knew in the first place.
See? More disconnect. I don’t even know the basics about Wyatt’s career. The one he committed to when he was just a kid and said he made into his identity.
When we finish this trip, I imagine a giant reset button being pressed.
Wyatt will go back to Boston and his big, important life and then remember he barely tolerates me.
I’ll go back to Fredericksburg and buy a house like I’ve always wanted.
And it won’t make me feel queasy like it does anytime I think about it now.
Even though I do my best to think about these things, to tell myself I should be moving back not forward, I can’t seem to stop drifting into Wyatt’s orbit.
Not when he’s being so sweet and thoughtful and still somehow gruff and serious—a combination that really works for me, by the way—and won’t stop touching me.
When I call Toni that night and explain everything in hushed whispers underneath my pillow so Wyatt can’t hear, she laughs. Laughs!
“You should just kiss the man,” she says.
“What? I— No . Absolutely not. That would be the worst thing I could do.”
“The worst thing for who?”
“Whom,” I absently correct. “And for me. For him. For everyone.”
“Josie, can I tell you something?” Toni asks.
“No,” I say weakly. “But you’re going to anyway.”
“You run scared anytime someone gets close. Maybe it’s time to stop running.”
I disagree. I don’t do that. I haven’t been running. I just haven’t met a great guy. Someone who likes me for me and doesn’t think nude body painting is a good idea for a first date. A guy who’s thoughtful and trustworthy and fun to be around and attractive...like Wyatt.
Maybe a month ago I would have laughed at the idea. But things are so different between us now.
For now , I mentally correct. They’re different for now, but they’ll snap right back into place just like an elastic band stretched to its limits. We’re at the stretching point. It’s not sustainable. And I know the snap back is going to hurt.
After getting off the phone with Toni—who is again insisting I kiss him when I hang up on her—I decide to help ground myself by watching clips of Wyatt playing hockey. This will be the reminder I need of our very different lives and how things can never work between us.
But it backfires.
Because Wyatt on the ice is a thing of beauty. Brutal beauty.