Chapter 25 #2
“Just some mild allergies.” He picks up his mug, the one with big letters spelling out PECKERS AND TITS above various illustrations of birds. He told me it was a Christmas gift from his sister. I’m using its more sophisticated sibling mug featuring beavers.
“Happy birthday,” I tell him, rounding the island to bring him into a quick hug.
“Is this my gift?” He tightens his arms around me like he’s squeezing the most out of it, if so.
“A hug? For your birthday? Have a little faith.”
He tightens more. His head tucks down into the crook of my shoulder, and mine angles reflexively and I—shit. I take a deep sniff of his neck like he’s my last meal. Mint, salt, maybe a hint of vanilla. Something rich and complex but refreshing.
“Sorry,” I mutter, stepping away.
“I snuck a whiff, too,” he says conversationally. Probably it’s just too early for us to keep up pretenses.
“You gonna be warm enough in this?” He reaches over and zips up my windbreaker.
“I think so.”
He shakes his head.
“I won’t?”
He shakes his head again.
“I’ll go grab another layer?”
He nods.
We make the thirty-minute drive out to the bay in companionable silence, stopping at a gas station for some appalling breakfast sandwiches that neither of us can choke down, and packs of waxy chocolate doughnuts that we devour.
Silas says he looked up the conditions and that they should be calm, but we both take some precautionary meds for motion sickness anyway, as approved by Dr. Moseley.
I am inexplicably nervous about Silas’s birthday gift, so I’m hoping they’ll curb the stomach flutters from that, too.
The wind is bracing when we climb out of the truck at the docks.
I let out a little surprised yelp at the bite of it on my cheeks, and he tosses me a thick, shearling-lined vest he had the foresight to grab.
I throw it over my thickest flannel jacket and pull on the blue beanie I borrowed from him, too.
He yanks it down on one side with another admonishing headshake for me.
“Who doesn’t own a single hat?” he says.
“They’re against my religion,” I explain.
“Which is weird, because I think most religions specifically feature a special hat,” he observes.
“I have great hair. And I can’t pull them off.”
He tugs on his mustard-yellow beanie, and it’s ludicrous how he manages to make the stretch of some fabric over part of his head look sexy. A muscle flickers in his jaw and the laugh lines around his eyes crease. “Bea, I promise you can pull off anything you want to when you’re with me.”
Absolutely flirting. I don’t mind his nicknames, but damn, it’s potent when he says my name.
It’s now been nineteen days since our night on the couch, not that I’ve counted, and unfortunately, time has only sharpened and exaggerated the memory of it and made a hundred other moments feel weighted in between.
At this point, though, even if his flirting is a little torturous, I’m doing my best to quit overthinking it.
Overthinking equals more thinking, which only equates to more wanting at this point, anyway.
Plus, it’s not as if I’ve been the paragon of modesty 100 percent of the time.
It slips out of me naturally, too, and I’m tired of wrestling with that part of my nature.
I’m trying to interpret it as a sign that I’m doing well.
A little bit of my old self resurfacing.
And it’s his birthday, so, screw it.
“If I did start pulling things off, I might never get them back,” I say.
I regret it the instant I see the look on his face. I’ve got no idea if he found my underwear after our night together. Maybe he did find them and didn’t even know whose they were. He would have been well within his rights to possess an entire cache of other women’s forgotten panties.
Either way, he has no clue what I’m talking about.
“What do you mean?” he asks.
I laugh again and turtle into my vest. “Nothing. Don’t even worry about it. Seriously.”
We come upon the marker for our meeting spot, a cement table under a light pole glowing through diaphanous fog. I shamelessly huddle closer to his warmth while we wait for more people to arrive, and my pulse spikes when I see part of his birthday gift walking down the pier our way.
“That looks like my brother.”
He frowns at me before he stands up and greets Wren and Ellis, quickly hugging them both. “What are you doing here?”
“Bea invited us for your birthday,” says Wren.
“She informed us she reserved us some spots, is more accurate,” Ellis adds. Wren cuts him a look, and he winks at her.
Silas looks at me accusingly. “But they already celebrated me last weekend.”
“Well, yeah, but come on. Today’s your real birthday, and I figured you’d want your favorite people around,” I say.
He won’t stop giving me that incredulous glare.
“Sage and Fisher would be here, too, but Sage has been getting sick every morning, and Micah said he didn’t want to. Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Micah doesn’t fuck with boats,” he says, still scowling.
“I wanted you to feel special,” I say.
His face untethers finally. His eyes bounce back and forth between mine. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“But thank you is what he means to say,” Ellis says, cuffing him on the shoulder.
“I was getting to it,” Silas retorts. “I was getting to that,” he says to me. I can’t tell if he’s blushing or if he’s red from the cold.
“I had no idea Silas even liked fishing,” says Wren. “I’m excited. I’m glad you thought of us.” She envelops me in a hug.
“That’s the thing. He’s doing it for me, anyway. I figured this was the least I could do,” I explain.
More people start to gather around, and eventually, the captain comes up from the dock ramp and introduces himself before he checks us in individually, ensuring we each have a fishing license for the day before we’re handed a life vest and sent down to the ship.
Silas takes my cold hand into his warm one to guide me onto the deck before pulling me off to the side.
“I would have been happy to spend the day with just you, too,” he tells me. “I want you to know that. But thank you.”
I reach up and thumb the frown lines between his brows. “You’re welcome. You deserve to feel special on your birthday.”
“I don’t deserve anything,” he says, his voice dropping lower, more strained than usual. “But this is really nice, and I’m . . . Just, thank you.”
We take off from the docks, and we’re led into the boat’s cabin, where we’re taught basic safety instructions as well as the difference between passengers and sailors.
“Passengers are just along for the ride. You all are sailors today, because you’ve all got jobs,” he says.
We’re shown where the live bait is stored and told what to yell out when we have a fish on. Where to go on the boat if any of us start to feel queasy. Which is exactly where Ellis heads when he starts going a little green, with Wren trailing after him.
“Well, now I feel bad,” I tell Silas.
“Ellis is tough. He’ll bounce back,” he says. “He always does.”
After a few minutes, I find that I need some fresh air myself, so we head out of the cabin area and secure a couple of spots on a bench hugging the central tank.
“Try to keep your eye on the horizon. It’ll help,” Silas says.
I focus on the fixed point where gray sky meets grayer water, until it’s like my mind goes gray, too.
I relax.
There’s no wild animal in my head searching for meaning or the lesson I’m supposed to find here. I feel present in my own body, in the places where the wind abrades my cheeks and in the warmth of the man at my side. Even if there’s an ache being this close, too.
Today, I am a sailor of my grief, and conditions are good.
“Have you been out here before?” I ask Silas after a bit.
“Handful of times when I was younger,” he says. “My dad took us a few times on boats like these.”
“You think we’ll catch something?”
He sips from his paper cup. “I know we will.”
It feels natural to let my head fall onto his shoulder. He’s experienced so much loss. So much unfairness. Both of his parents far too young, one slowly and one suddenly. And he still keeps moving through life with all that determined generosity and playfulness.
“Si?”
“Mm?”
“You deserve more than you think you do.”
“Fish on!”
“FISH ON!”
“I think—yeah! Fish on!”
Everyone on this boat is catching fish, other than our party of four.
I can confirm that halibut are both real and look exactly like something someone’s toddler drew.
At first, it was exciting just to see people bringing them in, but it’s been more than two hours since the first one was caught, and I’m officially getting annoyed.
Silas is a different story. He’s currently making his way down the deck away from us to celebrate with the same old man for what I believe is the third time. He gives him a two-handed high five so hard the poor guy stumbles, and Wren lets out a laugh beside me.
“So, what sparked this idea, if you don’t mind me asking?” she says. “Have you always been a big angler?”
Ellis stands stoically on the other side of her, a few feet in between each pole. He stares at his like he can make a fish bite through sheer force of will.
Either that or he’s eavesdropping fiercely.
“Merritt, actually,” I tell Wren.
“Oh yeah?” Her smile grows, and something plucks in my chest. It is so refreshing to be able to talk about Merritt and not have someone go completely solemn or sad.
“Yeah,” I say. And the rest comes pouring out. I tell her about the letter and about IVF. I explain that this is why Silas let me move in. That he volunteered to do a silly bucket list with me, too. Her smile blends into something softer, and her arm drapes over my back.
Up close, I notice her eyes are watering.
“What an incredible thing you’re doing. I am so excited for you.”