Chapter 20
I’m surely red-eyed as I clomp through the snow. I park and make my way over.
“Are you here to take him home? Like, properly and finally take him home?” Anjanette asks, all eager.
“He has a car. Why would I drive him home?”
“I didn’t ask about driving him. I asked about taking him home.” Her smile and wink are not subtle.
Oh. I’m not one to blush, but I do. And I suppose she’s right. There’s no reason for me to be here, except that I want to see Dave. To take him home. It’s fun to watch him work and cook. And catch him eyeing me the same way I’m eyeing him—now without the pretense that it’s just friendship.
Anj yelps and pulls my arm, guiding us to a table. “Anyway, come look at this.” She’s very smiley as she flashes her phone my way. “I’m sending you about a million things now. You’ll be posting for days.”
The footage she shares is awesome. First, it’s guys working the boat, pulling in traps, measuring lobsters, and fitting them with rubber bands. Then it’s Anj showing off, hauling traps in record time and letting us know she can kick ass as much as the guys do.
She shows me another video of a muscled guy tossing out traps over and over. “That’s Dave’s dad there.”
“Oh, he did mention he’s from a lobstering family.”
“He is. You liked that? Just wait.” She smiles when the video continues. “This is his grandmother.”
I’m sort of floored as I watch a woman who must be in her late eighties, maybe even nineties, lean over the side of a boat and work her arm muscles like mad.
With the help of a buff crew, she hauls traps on board and then flings around her haul, those to be measured as keepers or not.
She’s also clearly in charge of who is banding the crustaceans—securing rubber bands around those strong claws—and making sure they do a good job so that us regular people will not get chomped to pieces.
When I ask about her, Aje smiles. “Not only is she a legend, but she’s on the path to follow another woman who worked boats until she was over a hundred years old. Lost her a few years back. Her death was an incredible loss to us all.”
“Oh gosh, I read about her. About a thousand articles. Such a wonderful role model. I didn’t realize there were so many women hauling traps. Or are there? Are women treated less awful in this industry than in any other?” It’s a shitty question to ask, but reasonable, given the time.
“There is a definite good old boy–type atmosphere on the boats. They have their CB radios on all day, chatting away, talking about what’s for lunch, et cetera, but there are so many more female captains these days, and it’s awesome.
They include me in everything, and I really haven’t had any problems recently.
I think they admire women doing this work and make us part of their crew. ”
“Dave didn’t want to follow the family business, I gather?”
“I didn’t say that.” Anjanette waits and then skirts a reply. “Oh, and I got more cool stuff.”
She blows up my phone with videos, and I send them all to Megan Madonna. She’ll have a field day with this footage.
“Can you walk me through an average day? Mind if I film it?”
“Mind it? I’d love it!” She beams and adjusts her heavy vest. “Ready?”
“I nod. Hit me.”
“Wake up early. Three or three thirty a.m. Drink lots of coffee. Pack a lunch, head to the shore. And by the way, it’s why we love Dave’s truck so hard.
Most of us forget to pack a lunch because we’re too tired.
Board the boat and head out. TV shows always make it look like we pull traps by hand, but I haven’t seen that since I was a kid.
We use a pot hauler that uses a small engine to pull the rope through a pulley system that brings the traps onto the boat.
Makes it much easier, but it is dangerous.
Ropes can get caught around your foot and take you overboard in a second if you aren’t careful.
Unfortunately, we’ve lost a lot of fishermen that way over the years. Ironically, most of them can’t swim.”
“Wait, what? These people can’t swim? That can’t be right.”
She laughs. “It is right. I mean, I can, and Dave can. But none of these other guys.”
I’m stupefied.
“The larger boats have at least one sternman, possibly more if it is a bigger or more successful boat. Sometimes, the captain only has to drive the boat and doesn’t even get dirty.
Other times, the captain gets into it, doing a lot of the labor.
The traps are hauled in strings usually, with multiple traps per string on long ropes.
The lobsters then get pulled out of the traps, measured, banded.
Typically, mid-July is when it starts getting good. ”
Her information is gold.
She leans in. “Want another piece of insider stuff?”
“I definitely do!”
“Fishermen are very territorial, and it is, like, unwritten law that is heavily enforced. Each fisherman has a territory they are allowed to fish. If you fish in one area, you can’t fish past a certain point, and if you stray from your designated area, you’ll get forced out by getting your gear cut.
It is seriously risky, and I’m surprised nobody has been killed. ”
“Oh, and are you all still hauling in the winter? I read that it’s not a great season.”
“It’s not. Those who do go dark to dark. Meaning they leave in the morning when it’s pitch-black out and return with the same lack of light. It is brutal in the winter. Lobsters then? The shells are hard, and the meat is less flavorful. Many switch to scalloping in the winter.”
“Ah, so my new friends are probably scalloping now?”
“Very likely.”
It feels like ages until Dave shuts down, but he finally sits next to me. He even slides over a cup of bisque, and Anj winks and waves as she leaves. Eric is closing up.
“I have to stop by my house. Mind following me? I could use a second opinion.”
“Of course not.” I drive behind him and park without totaling my new car.
We walk through his house and the work that’s been done, and he seems pleased. Not that I’m any kind of expert, but it’s kind of hard not to swoon at how beautiful the work is.
“It’ll be nice for you to be back here. Home,” I say.
He wanders for a bit and then gestures me out the front door. “Sure.”
We leave, and he walks me to my car.
“See you in a second.”
But before he takes even a few steps away, he stops and pivots. “So, you saw my grandmother?” he asks. “In that footage from Anj?”
“Yes. And your dad.”
He smiles as he backs away and opens his car door. “She’s ninety-five. A legend. She’s been covered by every news agency. I’m surprised you haven’t looked her up yet.”
“What makes you think I haven’t? She’s kind of a celebrity in New England. I’d be kind of an asshole if I didn’t know and love her!”
He laughs. “Oh, of course you know about her. While she doesn’t do all that she used to, my grandmother still measures lobsters to make sure they’re legally sized. Nothing seems to slow her down.”
“She sounds incredible. And I’ve seen videos of your dad, too. You never wanted to join the family business?”
He holds my gaze and then shrugs. His nonresponse tells me to let this go for now.
“Should we head home?” I ask gently.
Dave is for sure not telling me something here, but I reach out and grab his hand and hold it in mine for a beat before I nod.
“Anjanette gave me orders, so, yes, let’s go home.”
Dave laughs. “Disobeying Anj sounds terrifying, so I’m with you. Home it is.”
We simultaneously slam our car doors and drive. I know I’m blaring music, and I feel sure he is too. Amping up, escaping. Readying.
Dave beats me home by a few minutes—as I’m now a bit of a nervous and slower driver—and my Whiska Hargitay is howling when I walk in the door, but Dave is already plating up food for him.
There is also a book readied on the counter.
Dave has been planning on reading to my difficult cat.
And while I want to change into something cute and sexy, I sit back on the bed outside of what’s become the cat’s bedroom and watch while he takes care of Whiska.
He feeds him and then sits on the bathroom floor and reads from a beautifully illustrated children’s book about a little bear, Sam, who bakes cakes with his mom and delivers them to neighbors during a snowstorm. His voice is intoxicating.
I cheer along with the text. You can do it, Sam!
When Whiska has rolled over in his soft cube and is soundly asleep, Dave drops the book and finally comes to me.
I am even more fired up now after witnessing how he is so damn … Well, so damn everything. With me, with this cat. With how he seems to care about people in a world that feels mostly awful, and bigoted, and hateful these days.
He’s someone holding on to and delivering kindness.
Before he’s even touched me again, I’m melting.
David touches my shoulders, then caresses my frame up and down ever-so slowly. He finally moves a hand under my shirt and starts to lift it. Just an inch or two.
“Why are your clothes so soft?” he asks as he gently begins to inch up my top.
I laugh lightly, as I raise my arms up. “Lots of alpaca wool.”
His lift continues. “Why only solid colors?” he asks.
“Easy to mix and match.” I’m getting breathless. “You complaining?”
He flings my top to the floor. “Not at all. Those off-the-shoulder things? The mock turtlenecks. They all drape against your body. Covering everything, and clinging to and showing, and teasing everything. Argh, those soft, flowy pants you’ve been wearing that sway against your ass? Been killing me since Puerto Rico.”
My arms reach around his neck and pull him down. I’ve needed his weight against me again, but I haven’t been ready until now. “We done talking about my wardrobe?”
“I sure hope so.” His lips brush against mine.
His patience and sweetness have been everything, and I know most guys wouldn’t have waited this long without obvious frustration or irritation, but David has saved me during this goddamn dark time, and he’s solidified the connection I felt from the moment we met in Puerto Rico.
I’m just finally ready to accept it. Embrace it.
We kiss for what feels like forever, his lips both gentle and fervent, until I push him away only slightly. “I’m sorry that I’m not the same girl you met. That I’m all fucked up. But I’m trying. I want to be whole again. Me again.”
“It’s okay,” he murmurs. “I get it. Patrick is dead. You get to be devastated.”
He wipes away tears that I didn’t know were falling.
“Yes, Patrick is dead.” I don’t know how many times I’m going to have to think this and say these gross words before it’ll sink in.
Dave somehow understands that it’s almost how I now have to end nearly every sentence.
“I can’t not be with you any longer because of that. And I want to be Prince. I want to turn this hard rain into something spectacular. With you.”
“Let’s make that happen,” he breathes against me. “But are you sure you want this tonight? Us? Like before?”
“Vacation Us?” I grind up into him. “Yes.”
“Yes, but also, no. We’re not just Vacation Us now, are we?” His hand roams up and down my body. “We’re more.”
He’s right.
“We are,” I agree. Or admit. “But is it wrong to want to get lost?” My shaky breathing might be clouding my thinking.
He moves his hand and sweeps my hair behind my ears. “Not at all. There’s a good way to get lost and a bad way. It’s still okay to have fun. To live your life. To feel good. It doesn’t mean you’re abandoning your friend or your grief.”
He’s so right.
“I guess that I could get lost in a good way,” I agree. But I have to challenge him. “Are you ready?”
This proposal feels very Patrick approved.
Even though Dave doesn’t reply, I keep talking.
“Can I tell you something?” I ask. “As much as I hate and am terrified by the word romance, I wouldn’t mind some.
I’ve never really had it.” I slap a palm against my forehead.
“Ugh, that feels like an embarrassing confession I should have kept to myself.”
“I love that you told me that.” His mouth brushes against mine as he whispers sweetly, “And I’ll do whatever I can to bring all the romance.”
“I want it so much. With you. I want to fall in love. Maybe I already have. And I’m so damn scared.”
“And maybe I already have too. Fallen. Crashed into smithereens when I landed.”
I move Dave’s hand between my legs. Inside me. Not only do I want to feel him again physically, I want that emotional connection that comes when we’re together. The one I tried to deny in Puerto Rico.
“Kiss me and drive me crazy again?”
“Just once?” he asks with a smile before he lovingly moves his mouth and tongue against mine until it feels like time explodes and we are so beautifully lost together. Gone for what feels like ages.
When he finally inches his lips away and forces us both to breathe, he nuzzles against me.
Then he does that magic with his hand. Wriggling his fingers around inside of me and making me sound in ways I haven’t before him.
After, way after I’ve absolutely lost my mind a few times, when I’m still wildly turned on, I try to usher him on top of me.
But he gently rolls me onto my back and lifts my leg, angling me forward just a bit and moving his chest against my back.
“It’s my favorite position.” His voice and words are so soft and sweet. “I get to cradle you this way.”
When Dave is inside of me, breathing hard against my neck, I clasp on to the pillow, then reach back and grab him, relishing every minute that he’s with me like this.
As he’s beginning to lose his breath, his guttural, intoxicating sounds capture me, just before he tightens and then shudders against my body.
It’s obviously impossible that there is a life this full of constant bliss, peace. One of such relaxation and fulfillment forever, but it sure would be amazing.
Dave drifts off easily, and I’d like to, but I can’t rest until I pull up a video. I have to watch this Prince Super Bowl that he talked about.
And so I do. About ten times. Entirely mesmerized by every second.
Then I go down a rabbit hole of interviews with people who worked that event, who talked about how crazy, and insane, and dangerous, and beautiful it was. There was clearly some kind of magic in the air that night. Magic that Prince had created. That he had asked for.
The hard rain that delivered magic.