Chapter Eighteen
eighteen
hope
Phone in hand, I walk to the end of the pier, debating whether to call or text. I need advice, but how do I tell Zuri I kissed the man I’m supposed to be on my way to getting over?
Days later, and I’m still reeling from the effects of that earth-shattering kiss. I’ve dreamt about our kisses often enough in the past few years, but I discovered immediately that memories can’t touch reality. Adrian’s mouth on mine was a reminder of every ounce of tenderness, every ounce of support, of unexpected wonder, that I found in our relationship before.
Everything I’m supposed to be figuring out how to live without.
At first, I tried to rationalize that it was just a test. Kiss him, feel nothing, be free to move on.
But I can’t lie to myself. The kiss wasn’t a test. It was me giving in to the longing I’ve bottled up for three years. Rather than slaking my desire, it made me crave him more than ever. And now that I know he wants me—on some level, at least—I’m further than ever from overcoming my feelings. Trouble is, nothing’s truly changed. We wanted each other before and the wanting wasn’t enough to keep us together.
Tomorrow we’re headed out with the scientists from Charleston, and I haven’t seen or spoken to Adrian since our kiss. I can’t very well talk to Marissa about it—just the idea of her finding out has had me on edge since the turtle patrol shift.
But Zuri will help me find a way to move forward and work with Adrian. Feet planted on the wooden decking, looking out over the endless waves from the height of hovering seagulls, I gather my courage and press the call button.
Instead of hello, Zuri answers with, “I saw the video and you two did so good! You had that cheesy science show banter down. No one would know you’re exes.”
“Thanks, I think?” She’s never been a big fan of documentaries but has humored me by watching untold hours of them and, in return, I’ve sat through all the superhero movies she loves.
“But I’m not calling about that.” If I get sidetracked, I’ll lose my nerve. “I did something reckless.”
“You kissed that man,” Zuri says without missing a beat.
My free hand grips the pier railing so hard that splinters bite into my palm. “How did you know?”
“Because you’ve been sending me updates since you arrived, and the past few days, nothing. I knew you were guilty about something.”
“I’m not guilty.” I am tied up in knots, though. “We didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I agree, but I know you, Hope. You’re feeling guilty because you didn’t live up to your own expectations.”
I hear chatter in the background and ask, “Sorry, are you at work?”
“Stockroom,” she confirms. “Your call is a good distraction.”
“Glad someone’s happy about my situation.”
“You’re not?”
It’s complicated, that’s why I reached out. “I was, when I was kissing him. It was good, like an unbelievably good kiss, Zuri.”
“Why unbelievable?”
“Because we haven’t kissed for three years. Because I can’t stand him.”
“You can’t stand him,” she deadpans.
“Okay, I can’t stand the fact that I can still stand him after everything.”
“Better.” The crinkle of crumpled plastic comes across the line. “Is there a reason you can’t explore it instead of shutting it down?”
“At the end of the summer, I’ll be starting work elsewhere and next year, maybe a PhD. We’d be at the same point we were three years ago, needing to merge our lives, and I’m not willing to base my career options around a person who I haven’t even spoken to for years.”
“Fair.”
I lean over the railing, watching the water churn against the piers below. “But tomorrow I have to work with him again, and we’ll have an audience. Like, a live one.” I explain about the group from Charleston. “How do I work with someone I just kissed against my better judgment?”
“By questioning your judgment,” she says.
“I thought I just established I did that.”
“You said yet you keep finding yourself drawn to him, despite your better judgment. What if your judgment is skewed in this case? What if, instead of trying to stay away from him, you should try being his friend?”
“Adrian? The man who I dated for five years?”
“It happens.”
“Pretty sure the people who make that work aren’t fighting this physical attraction.”
“Maybe not, but you’ve already tried keeping him at arm’s length and it didn’t work. If you like him enough to kiss him, maybe there’s something there and the best thing to do is explore it.”
The thought is tantalizing. To be able to talk to Adrian again, like we used to, without worrying I’ve crossed a line. But it’s also scary how much I want that.
I must hesitate for too long, because Zuri speaks up again. “Or get what you came for and be done with him. It’s your choice. But if your heart wants to be open to him, I say don’t deny yourself.”
She’s got it backward. It would be denying myself to go back on my commitment to get over him, wouldn’t it? “How would being his friend solve anything?”
“Let me ask you this. Have you missed him the past three years?”
“Yes. But—”
“Maybe the kiss was you trying to get closer. But intimacy isn’t always physical. I get that you weren’t sure of building a life with him, but what about a life with him in it?”
Put that way, I begin to see her point. But I’m still afraid that I won’t be able to accept anything less than everything with Adrian. Regardless, it’s not a decision I could make alone, and not one that I can make today.
“That sounds terrifying and also risky, so I’m going to go with my original plan of ignoring him.”
“Ignoring the person you’re doing a highly collaborative job with?” Zuri sounds skeptical in the extreme.
“Ignoring my attraction, my feelings.”
“Ignoring left you two kissing,” she fires back.
Did it? Am I really going about this the wrong way? I can’t fathom being Adrian’s friend, not after everything, so I dig in my heels. “Admitting we were both interested in kissing each other led to the kiss. From here on out, it’s denial until that becomes our reality.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“I don’t need a warning,” I assure her. “We got the urge out of our system. Now we just have to figure out how to work together like it never happened.”
Field research is a blend of focus, communication, teamwork, and physical exertion. Add in unpredictable weather, wild animals (or not, depending on whether we manage to catch any), and the need to document scientific data, and each day on the boat calls for concentration and teamwork.
Concentration, after a weekend of restless nights caught between reliving a kiss and telling myself to forget it. Teamwork, with the man who I ran away from because I was too scared to admit how much he means to me.
If I had to grade my progress toward my goals on the whole, it would be a solid F.
Get back into shark research? I tagged one shark and then proceeded to choke on the second go-round like a rookie. I did deliver a lecture on estuary habitats with relative competence. I guess that’s a Meets Expectations, planting me solidly in the average zone for my career goals. However, and this is a big however, kissing Adrian bulldozed any progress I’ve made toward getting over him.
Not to mention the beach make-out session totally undermined my first goal, undoing all the effort of getting comfortable with each other the other day on the boat. Now I’ll have to survive what should’ve been the first normal workday of the summer with the taste of him lingering on my lips.
Classic avoidance might work fine in an office setting, with desks and the chance to take solo lunch breaks and escape to the bathroom if the tension becomes unbearable. Not so effective on a small research boat where cooperation is key and communication is a must and close quarters prevent any semblance of privacy.
The other flaw in my plan is that Adrian told me he can’t pretend, can’t forget. I haven’t seen him since the day we kissed and have no way to gauge his feelings. He never even showed up at Marissa’s to pick up the towels we forgot about the other night. I have no clue what he’s been drying himself with; for all I know he air-dries after showers by walking around his house nude.
I look up to find him walking down the dock—not naked, but still the embodiment of my lustful musings. His hair is held back with a thick fabric headband and he’s wearing a form-fitting T-shirt and teal board shorts that hit mid-thigh. When he reaches me, I’m still frozen in place at the enormity of our slip-up.
He hesitates, as if unsure whether to pass by or acknowledge me. “Would’ve been here earlier, but I missed my alarm.” His voice is gruff from sleep, the rasp of it a reminder of the morning on the beach, and the handles of the cooler turn slick in my suddenly-slippery grip.
He moves to step past me, but I make the same choice, accidentally blocking his way. “Ope, sorry.” My Midwestern upbringing has me apologizing for nothing, and my embarrassment grows.
“All good.”
We both sidestep again, making the same choice, and wind up in another stalemate.
“You go ahead,” he says, and before we wind up trapped in another standoff, I hustle toward the boat.
Marissa’s waiting, head cocked, eyebrows up, and it’s clear she witnessed the entire interaction. “That was fun,” she says. “Are you two planning to make this a habit?”
“Working?”
“Being awkward as sin.”
“You’re the awkward one.” I pass her the cooler. “We’re just trying to load up.”
“Trying is right. Failing is righter.” She points back and forth between us. “I thought we solved this. Y’all were so relaxed in the video. What happened?”
He meets my eyes above her head.
“Saw that!” Setting down the cooler, she gives us her full attention. “You two need a minute to talk things out?”
“No,” we both say at the same time. Not suspicious at all.
Marissa’s eyes are impossible to see behind her wraparound sunglasses, but I can feel the calculation in her stare nonetheless.
“Uh-oh.” Gabe walks up, a coil of line over his shoulder. “What’d I miss?”
I shoot Marissa a pleading look, willing her not to make this a thing. “Nothing, apparently.” She climbs aboard and carries her gear toward the stern.
Gabe doesn’t look convinced, but unlike Marissa, he lets it lie. Somehow, I don’t feel like we’re off the hook, though. “Awesome job with the video by the way.” He leans across the gap between the dock and boat to retrieve his camera from the open compartment near him. “Can’t wait to see more of that energy today.”
Adrian lets out a strangled cough, and I can’t help but picture the energetic activities we got up to on the beach. Why did we dig ourselves that hole?
Gabe shoulders the camera. “Saw the scientists from Charleston unloading gear in the parking lot and I want to get some shots of them walking the gangplank like the rock-star scientists they are.”
“Not a gangplank,” Adrian calls, though Gabe knows full well what a gangplank is. Marissa told me he grew up in Fort Lauderdale and learned to scuba dive as a teenager. He’s probably got more experience on boats than I do, not having set foot on anything larger than a canoe until college. When people find out I grew up in a lake town, they’re often surprised to discover I didn’t go boating. But that was for tourists; I spent my days on the beach or in the waves, not on them. Sounds like Gabe had a different experience. I’d love to hear his story about being raised near the ocean.
“Argh, didn’t catch that, cap’n.” He hops nimbly onto the dock with a cheeky grin.
Adrian’s brows dip in a glower so ferocious that I have to duck my head to keep him from spotting my smitten grin. Why do I find everything about him so irresistible? His rough edges ought to smooth away my yearning, not act like friction to kindling. All I know is I have to avoid him if I have a chance of making it through today.
Avoiding Adrian on deck turns out to be pretty impossible. Which is why I find myself making my way to the helm for a breather. Gabe is at the wheel, beaming like a pirate with treasure in sight as we cut through the moderate swells. I step up next to him, one hand grasping the frame for support, and he turns his wide smile toward me. “Never gets old,” he says, voice raised above the wind.
“How’d you get put on captain duty?” I’m grouchy from trying to pretend this is all normal. I’m beginning to think Adrian was right; it’s impossible.
Gabe’s brows dip together above his blue polarized sunglasses. “We take turns, just depends on the day.” He clocks my expression, then lets out a laugh. “Wait, did Adrian tell you there was some rule about it?”
“Yes!” A wave lifts the hull and I flex my knees. “He said no bet.”
“Bet?”
My cheeks flush at the wording. “I meant, he told me no.”
His smile disappears. “That’s weird.” Glancing over his shoulder, he asks, “Is he giving you a hard time?”
I blush at his unwitting word choice. “Not at all.” More like the other way around. A smirk tilts my lips at the thought, but I’m not supposed to be remembering the kiss. And thinking back, did he actually tell me I couldn’t drive the boat, or just that he wouldn’t make a bet on it? No way to call him out now, so I settle for glaring toward where he’s sitting in the bow with Sylvia and Liam, the doctoral students we’re taking out to perform ultrasounds today.
I remember when it used to feel effortless to sit with him. How our friendship blossomed into something more, natural as breathing. The texts that made the distance collapse to insignificance. The beginning of a love story that ended years ago. Now I’m keeping my distance, trying to erase it all.
“I meant what I said about the video,” Gabe says, getting me out of my head. “You did an awesome job on camera.” He returned two days ago from the Bahamas, but this is the first we’ve spoken. “Today should be no problem since you’ll have the sharks to focus on.”
I blow out a breath. “Not so sure.”
“I am.” He looks over at me. “You seem like the kind of person who doesn’t give up.”
“Yeah, but there’s always the possibility to fail in new and disastrous ways.” The thing is, I never used to mind failing. Or at least, didn’t let it stop me. Failure leads to new ways of thinking, but I’d never failed in such a major way, and it affected me more than I thought possible.
Gabe shoots me a wry look. “That’s a possibility too.” He looks down at the GPS, then back at the open water ahead. “I guess what it comes down to, is whether it’s worth it.”
One of the hardest parts of working in the field for me is the need to make small talk for the long hours of inaction, but it turns out Sylvia and Liam are easy to talk to.
“I’ve had more than my fair share of experience being on the receiving end of ultrasounds,” Sylvia says. “Had enough of them to last a lifetime with my high-risk pregnancy.” Flipping her braid over one shoulder, she rises up on one hip to pull out her phone and passes it to me. Her lock screen is a toddler with a precious gap-toothed grin.
“How old is she?”
“Three. Light of my life. She’s one of the reasons I’m so interested in conservation. Want to make sure she has an ocean full of biodiversity to explore when she’s older. Or y’know, she might spend her days in a studio making clay pottery. Whatever makes her happy,” she says with a proud smile, pocketing her phone.
“What’s our game plan for today?”
She blows out a breath and settles back against the railing, arms spread. “We’re hoping to do work-ups on pregnant sharks, and if so, we’ll looking at the species distribution of pregnant sharks, number of pups, what point in gestation the sharks have reached, and whether the animal has been tagged before to see if they’re returning to the same pupping grounds.”
“However, to do that, we actually need to catch some sharks .” Liam, the other researcher, raises his voice for the last phrase, hollering over his shoulder at the water like it might make a difference, and we all laugh.
We’ve been anchored for nearly half the time allotted for drum lines, a type of fishing we’re permitted to use for research purposes only. The weighted drum rests on the seabed, with the line stretching to the surface, a conical buoy attached.
A buoy that hasn’t moved aside from the rhythmic bob of waves since we set the line. No movement means no bites. No bites means no sharks to examine.
All part of the job, but after the three years, these extra few minutes are surprisingly hard to bear. It also brings everything I’ve questioned to the forefront. Today the camera is the least of my worries; working closely with Adrian after our mind-melting kiss has pushed fear of the camera to the back burner. But the familiar setting soon eases my nerves.
Marissa and Adrian are working on their laptops across from me, and I’ve been chatting with Sylvia about her research while we cut bait. “Do you see a potential policy correlation for your findings?”
“That’s Liam’s interest,” she says. She lifts a scale-coated finger, then grimaces and lifts her chin instead, indicating her colleague. “He’s pursuing a PhD in marine science and conservation. He wants to work in policy. Prefers boardrooms to boat decks.”
“Heard that,” he calls from the stern, “and you’re absolutely correct.”
He makes his way over and settles on the seat across from us. “Two words: iced coffee.”
Sylvia shakes her head, reaching into the bucket for another fish. “Last week it was access to vending machines.”
“My love of creature comforts knows no bounds,” he informs her.
I chuckle and he makes eye contact, a wide smile stretching across his tanned face. “What’s your poison?”
“From vending machines?”
He nods, and I don’t have to think. “Snack mix,” I say at the same time as Adrian, who’s been quiet since I joined the others on deck.
Liam shifts his gaze between Adrian and I, blue eyes appraising beneath the brim of his cap.
“I prefer M&M’s,” Sylvia says, rescuing us from the awkward silence after our inadvertent jinx. “Sweet tooth.”
“Regular or peanut?” Apparently, Liam doesn’t play when it comes to vending machine fare.
“Easy,” Sylvia says. “Regular, no contest.”
“Mm-mm.” Adrian shakes his head. “Peanut,” he says, at the same time as I do, and I cringe inwardly.
“You two work together a lot?” Liam lifts his cap and rakes his hands through his sun-streaked brown hair in an overly casual way that lets me know he’s already formed an opinion.
“Used to.” Adrian’s voice is neutral. “Small field.” He doesn’t so much as look my way, and I send him a silent thank-you.
“Have you published lately?” Liam directs this question my way and I’m starting to wish I hadn’t left the safety of the helm.
I lick my lips. Questions like these are commonplace, but this is my first time being asked since I’ve been back. “I co-authored a study on the efficacy of various techniques to stop the spread of zebra mussels in Lake Michigan.”
“Michigan?” He frowns slightly. “Long way from the ocean. How’d you end up there?”
My eyes dart toward Marissa and Adrian. They both know my story, but only Adrian was personally affected. Having to explain myself in front of him is uncomfortable, but I knew this might happen when I signed on. “I grew up there. After I earned my master’s degree in marine science, I worked in elasmobranch research for a couple years, but a friend of mine lost her husband, and I wound up moving in with her to help her with her kids. Worked in freshwater biology for the past few years.”
“Sorry to hear about your friend,” Liam says, and Sylvia nods. “I bet you have some cool insight, working in the Great Lakes. What was your focus?”
His easy acceptance of my story, like everything is actually okay, has my heart full. The first stranger that I’ve had to explain my work history to, and it was no big deal. Granted, he’s not a prospective employer or potential doctoral advisor, but a weight I’ve been carrying for a long time lifts as I delve into my research in Michigan.
At one point, I catch Adrian’s eye, and he smiles. No awkwardness, no trace of a barrier, just the support of someone who cared—and maybe still cares—about me. For a moment, the world feels pretty close to perfect.
“I love how you were able to come back to this after your time away,” Sylvia says. “I was in a similar situation after I had my daughter. I planned on jumping right back in, but I ended up taking a year. Coming back, I was scared of getting labeled a typical mom, or a cliché. But screw that,” she says. “We do what we need to, for ourselves, our friends, our family. And we keep going. That’s all that matters.”
Her words are an echo of Gabe’s... Keep going. Don’t give up. Could that be true for Adrian and I, or just wishful thinking? If I’d been willing to try to share a home with him, even at the risk of failure, might things have been different now?
“Don’t look now, but I think we’re being watched,” Liam says in a false whisper.
I glance up so fast my neck spasms and sure enough, Gabe’s recording us.
“Just getting B-roll,” he assures us.
“Which means?”
Marissa glances up from her laptop. “That he’ll have that on all day, and you should ignore it,” she says. “Trust me, you do not want to hear him go into the history of filmmaking right now.” She drops her chin to her chest and fakes a snore.
“Big talk from someone who once spent over an hour explaining the etymology of the term ‘mermaid’s purse’ for shark egg cases and the unique embryonic development of shark fetuses, complete with illustrative specimen photos from your phone’s camera roll.”
“When you have access to source material, you use it. Academia 101.”
“We were in a karaoke bar.”
Liam lets out a laugh. “I’ve got to confess that I’ve watched every one of your episodes, but you guys are even more fun in person.”
“Right?” Sylvia is grinning. “So cool to be a part of this.” She turns to me. “You said you’ve got an interest in white shark migration, right?” At my nod, she says, “Because Gwen—Dr. Gwen Oswald—are you familiar with her work?”
“Of course.” Her research center in Santa Barbara is one of the most prestigious white shark research programs in the United States.
Sylvia looks pleased. “She was my advisor during my master’s program. Anyway, the lab offers seasonal research internship opportunities to give scientists experience with technology and techniques to use in their own research.”
“I actually looked into applying this spring,” I tell her. “But by the time I was ready to apply, the window had closed.”
She grabs a towel and wipes off her hands. “Yep, but Gwen was telling me the other day that one of their candidates for the fall term had to drop out and they reopened to applications. I think the deadline is Friday. If you’re still interested, might be worth a shot.”
Before I can thank her, Gabe raises his arm, pointing toward the buoy.
“Hey guys, I’m still fairly new to this,” he says, eyes on the viewfinder, “but I’m pretty sure the buoy rocking like a used car lot inflatable means we’re in business?”