Chapter Nineteen
nineteen
hope
I’m bent double, hanging over the side of the boat, gripping a rope that’s secured around a lemon shark’s tail, doing my best not to screw up this shot at redemption. Adrian’s at the other end of the shark, with Sylvia between us, LED goggles on as she conducts the ultrasound.
The lemon shark is named because of the yellowish tint of the scales on their dorsal side, a part of the animal that isn’t visible at the moment because we carefully maneuvered the shark onto her back to allow us to conduct the ultrasound. The inverted position induces a trancelike state called tonic immobility which helps keep the animal calm throughout the procedure.
“We’ve got a pregnant shark!” Sylvia says, elation in her voice. “I’m going to go ahead and measure these babies.” Water sloshes into my face, but Sylvia is stoic, calling out numbers to Liam, who’s taking notes.
Once she’s finished, she pulls the goggles off and holds them out. “Want to take a look?”
“Me?”
“Here, I’ll take the tail rope,” Marissa says. She steps up beside me and I wait for her go-ahead to let go. I’ve only done this once, five years ago, and the thrill is just the same when I slip the goggles over my face and a grainy image comes into view.
Live pups. Active ones, with tiny rows of teeth, churning around in the uterus. A sight to behold, and I’m captivated.
I slip off the goggles and move out of the way for Liam to place the tag.
“I’ll watch this first go-round.” I haven’t tagged a shark since my disastrous first day, and though my nerves are settled, fear of failure lingers.
Now that Marissa’s got the rope, I’m at loose ends, left to play spectator. I haven’t screwed anything up, but I haven’t been an asset, either.
“Let’s get this shark swimming again,” Adrian says, and I’m by his side in an instant, ready to assist in undoing the ropes securing the shark. On Marissa’s signal and a nod from him, I loosen the knot, slipping it off. The shark swims away, kicking up a spray of water as a farewell, and I sputter out a laugh. Wiping the salty water from my face, I blink through bleary eyes to find Adrian grinning at me.
I did it. A small thing, to release a shark, but I didn’t fumble the knot, or fall overboard. Little victories.
After the first shark, we hit a string of good luck. I pitch in during all the shark work-ups, assisting where needed, stepping back when I’m not. The work feels seamless, exciting, exactly how it did years ago before I left. On our last shark of the day, Sylvia holds out the tag to Adrian. “Want to do this one?”
But instead of taking it, he turns toward me. “Hope?”
No tremor in my fingertips when I reach for the tag this time. I don’t hesitate, don’t waste a second waiting for fears to overwhelm. A thousand people could be watching, and it wouldn’t matter. I know how to do this, audience or not.
Adrian releases the tag into my grip, and I raise my eyes to find his inky-dark ones on me, steady. Reassuring. Present.
My hands go still, grip firm, and he lets go. Steps back. He’s giving me space. Trust.
I lean over the boat and feel the shark’s rough skin under my gloves, working by muscle memory to insert the tag just below the dorsal fin. Simple. Easy.
Exhilarating.
I step away to let Liam and Sylvia finish up and find Adrian grinning from ear to ear. He grabs me around the waist and swings me up into a hug. My arms go around his shoulders, and I’m laughing, joyous, carried away by the feeling of being back where I was always meant to be.
The years fall away and leave us here together in this moment. At the beginning. Full of promise. What if no longer a barbed memory but a joyful hope.
He sets me down a moment later, eyes locked with mine in a sure, certain way that makes the world fade away as he comes into sharp focus. The sun appears from behind a cloud, light dancing in the depths of his eyes like sunbeams filtering through the shallows, a depth of emotion in his expression that matches the pounding in my chest.
When my feet hit the deck, I wake from the trance, realizing in a heartbeat where we are. The others are still bent over the side of the boat, working to release the shark, and Gabe has the camera pointed their way, but he’s looking at us, his usual grin replaced by a look of concern that has the euphoria of a moment ago evaporating in a heartbeat.
Laden with gear, I trail the rest of the group down the dock at the end of a long, exhausting, productive day. The marina is mostly deserted, with the other boaters at dinner or out on an evening cruise. Sylvia and Liam are chatting excitedly about the outcome of our day with Marissa and Gabe. We wound up examining and tagging eight sharks, three of whom were pregnant. A successful day, and I didn’t freeze in front of the camera once, not even after Gabe caught Adrian and I in a spontaneous hug.
The quick embrace seems inconsequential now that several hours have passed. I was probably blowing it out of proportion in my mind. It was just a hug. A joyous, ecstatic hug, born of adrenaline. Nothing intimate, even though it felt that way.
We load the gear into the vehicles, and Sylvia asks for my number to keep in touch about the program in Santa Barbara. When she says she’ll send me a text to confirm her contact, I pat my pocket to check my phone and realize I must’ve left it on the boat.
Not wanting to interrupt the flow of the others’ conversation, I catch Marissa’s eye. “Gotta find my phone. I’ll be right back.”
“Okay, but hurry. We want to grab a table before it gets busy.”
She invited the others out to dinner before they make the long drive home. The thought of a crowded restaurant makes my shoulders sag, but it would be rude to skip. I want nothing more than to head home and eat reheated leftovers on the couch while the TV drones in the background.
Nights in with Adrian were my favorite. When he was in town, I never felt the need to entertain him or dress up my life for his visits. We’d walk for hours on the beach or sit entwined on the couch and just talk. Just be. Just love one another. And when I went to his place and discovered nothing but peanut butter and sliced bread in his cupboards, I never felt compelled to drag him to the grocery store for a pantry makeover. We’d eat toast for dinner and vent about work, or gush about a breakthrough, or complain about family, and it was perfect.
But now he’s making pizza dough from scratch and spending his free time lifting weights. He’s changed, in so many ways, and yet the man I kissed is the same Adrian I loved. The man who kissed me on the beach and wrapped me in his arms on the boat for that brief moment today is the same person I lost my heart to years ago.
But I promised myself I wouldn’t fall for that man again. Promised myself I’d get over him. And I will not think of how amazing it felt to have him hold me again. Head down, I clamber aboard, pushing thoughts of Adrian aside.
I will not think of his lips, or his talented tongue, or his—
Naked chest, right in front of me.
His head pops through the T-shirt he’s in the act of putting on, glorious abs on full display. He wobbles, unsteady and dangerously close to tripping. I act on reflex and throw both arms around his waist—no one else is falling overboard on my watch. His skin is warm but erupts with goose bumps under my fingertips. Shifting my weight, I haul him upright, no easy task given his size.
As soon as he’s steady I let go and all but leap backward.
“What are you doing here?” He wrestles his shirt down, which is a pity.
“Looking for my phone.” I go from flustered to indignant in a heartbeat, his proximity wreaking havoc on my emotions. “Maybe you should make sure no one’s around if you’re going to run around naked.” Naked is a stretch, considering he’s wearing shorts and shoes, but he keeps catching me off guard.
“I thought I was alone.” He gestures around the deserted marina. “Maybe you should announce your presence when you go prowling around someone’s boat.”
“Call me a bandit again, I dare you.”
We’re toe-to-toe, and I’m staring him down like the self-righteous pain in the neck he is. The kind of pain in the neck I want to wrap my legs around and kiss senseless.
My chest is heaving, and his eyes are fever-bright, the color of polished onyx in fading light. “What would you prefer I call you?”
Mine. I want him to call me his. To stake his claim and not give up on me. On us.
Our lips are a whisper apart and he closes the distance with a kiss that’s fevered in an instant, no hesitancy this time. He walks me backward two quick steps until my shoulders hit something solid and I let out a muffled, “Oof.”
“Sorry,” he murmurs, but I pull him back down for another kiss, because I don’t want his sorry—I don’t want apologies or looking back. I want his mouth on mine and for his kisses to never end. He rocks against me, and I gasp, his lips curving into a smile I can feel. Then I match the pressure of his hips, take satisfaction when his grin dissolves into a guttural groan that has him sliding his calloused, tender hands down my curves, over my waist, his thumbs slipping under my shirt to expose my skin to the dewy evening heat.
He tilts his head, deepening the kiss, and I ignite under his touch. Until the other day, I hadn’t felt this good in ages—years—and from his ragged, wanton breathing, he’s as far gone as I am, kissing me with reckless abandon for what’s only a moment but feels like eternity.
A loud snap sounds from the water below, and Adrian springs away. I whip my head around just as an enormous bird flaps up out of the water and lands on the dock. It waddles in an ungainly half turn, shaking water out of its brown-gray wings.
“Pelican.” Adrian’s face is grim, like he’s meeting an old nemesis, and I press my lips together to keep from smiling. He gets creeped out by large birds—big birds, I said once, which he did not appreciate, though I was thoroughly pleased with myself—and I’m sure the pelican’s ill-timed arrival is going to be added to his already extensive list of reasons why he prefers scaled creatures to feathered ones.
The weight of desire is shattered, but it’s for the best. We can’t keep doing this. Kissing. Wanting. Trying to resurrect what’s lost.
I do a quick scan for my phone and spy it on one of the benches. Bending to retrieve it, I say, “I need to go before anyone comes looking.”
Adrian’s posture is stiff, nothing like the pliable way he fit against me only a moment ago. “I don’t think this is working,” he says, and I straighten up, on guard.
“What?”
“The kissing, it’s not...” He looks away. “I can’t keep things separated.”
“Because we’re just colleagues?” I hate that it comes out as a question.
“What else would we be?” His words are flat, a double-edged blade, and the idea of answering, Friends is so ludicrous, I don’t know how I ever considered Zuri’s suggestion.
“Nothing.” We can’t be anything to each other, not if I want to keep my heart intact.
With a swiftness that rocks the boat, he passes by, leaving me alone in the fading dusk, the word a hollow echo in my chest. Nothing. But he used to mean everything to me.