18. Morgan
EIGHTEEN
Morgan
This year our annual man overboard drill is a solemn affair. We’ve already had more experience than any drill could prepare for.
Cole avoids eye contact as he runs us through donning our survival suits until everyone can do it in less than a minute. We haven’t talked since he fell asleep in my arms yesterday. I probably fucked things up by leaving before he woke up.
I would have stayed, but I had a nightmare that Cole died before the helicopter arrived. He never lost consciousness and suffered until the end, telling me over and over that he didn’t want to die.
When I woke up, the abrupt change from a stormy night to daylight in Dutch was disorienting. My stomach revolted, and I barely made it down to the deck before I vomited over the rail.
“If there’s one thing we learned from last year, it’s that we only enter the water to rescue someone as a last resort, and never without a survival suit,” Cole says, holding a clipboard. “Last year we went off script, and it was deadly.”
He’s right. I lost my head and went in after the man I loved. It’s sheer luck that Cole and I are alive at all—sheer luck and Seb’s sacrifice, that is.
“Morgan, I want you to go in after Alejo,” he says, eyes on his clipboard.
“M-me?”
“That’s not fair,” Lawrence says. “He has the most practice.”
“You itching to go for a swim, Lawless?” Javi says. “I’ll push you in.”
“If you push me in, I’ll take you with me.”
Cole lifts his gaze from his clipboard. “Morgan will go.”
“Roger,” Lawrence says.
“Alejo, we’re ready when you are,” Cole says.
He’s trying so hard to pretend he’s unaffected, but I know him too well. He’s nervous. I’m nervous too.
Alejo stands at the edge, crosses one leg over the other, plugs his nose, and jumps.
“Man overboard!” Lawrence shouts.
Javi tosses a life ring into the water and smashes the panic button. A trilling alarm rings out.
I sprint to the forepeak and grab my survival suit. Most boats only have a single set of survival suits for each crew member, typically stored in the wheelhouse, but when Seb took over the Briar, he splurged on another set just in case.
Wes helps me finish fastening my survival suit, then I run to the edge and jump. The icy water rips the air from my lungs, but I have more than enough experience with that now. I feel pretty damn proud of how well I’m handling it until I look up at the boat.
Day turns to night, and the calm harbor transforms into heavy seas. My heart ricochets around my chest. Where’s Cole? Where’s Seb?
“Morgan?” Cole calls, peering over the rail. “Are you okay?”
Reality crashes into me. Shit.
“Yeah,” I yell.
I swim toward Alejo, already waiting for me at the life ring. Cole was smart to suggest this drill for me. If the first time I went into the Bering Sea after saving him had happened out of the harbor, I would have flailed. Maybe even drowned.
“Hey, Captain,” Alejo says, squinting at me through the sun reflecting off the water. “The water is colder than I expected. I can’t believe you did this midwinter.”
“Yeah.” I grimace.
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have brought that up.”
“Nah. You’re good.” I roll over to float on my back. “We might as well relax while we wait.”
An eagle flies overhead. They’re all over the place up here.
“I hate this part of the drill,” Alejo says. “I wish I never knew how long it can take for the Briar to circle back to rescue someone.”
“Right? If Seb hadn’t already slowed the Briar to a crawl before Cole went over, you guys probably wouldn’t have found us.”
Alejo heaves a sigh laden with guilt.
“Hey, Alejo?”
“Yeah?”
“You did everything you were supposed to do that night.”
“I lost sight of Seb.”
“So did I. That storm, those waves…” I take a deep breath and force the memories away. “You saved two men when one would have been a miracle.”
He smiles thinly.
Briar’s engine drones nearer, and she finally comes into view.
Alejo does a great job getting into the sling, but once the crane pulls him out of the water, there’s no one to keep me company. Only the echoing memory of Seb saving me.
Captains go last. I love you, brother.
“Watch out,” Cole says, standing at the rail dressed in his survival suit. Then he jumps.
Panic overrides my logic. Can he swim? He probably can, right? But has he tried since he got hurt?
“What the hell are you doing?” I yell, swimming over to him. “I don’t need to be rescued.”
Cole closes the distance with the sling in hand. “I know, but I need to know I can do this.”
“Great, well, you did it, so go ahead and get your ass back up there.”
He passes me the sling. “You first. You’ve been in longer.”
I don’t hear Cole. I hear Seb. I’ll take the next one. Captains go last.
“Cole, I swear to god, get in the damn sling or I will put you in.”
“What is this, a leisurely swim?” Lawrence yells down.
“I outrank you,” Cole says.
“I’m a captain and co-owner. You can’t pull rank.”
He throws the sling at me and swims away. Asshole.
“Cole!”
He turns back to me and treads water. “I need to know you can leave me down here if it comes down to it. We can’t let what happened last year happen again.”
Fuck. He’s right.
“The sooner you get up there, the sooner I will,” he says.
“Ugh. Fine.”
Leaving Cole in the water is worse than leaving Seb.
Seconds stretch to hours, and I’m a wreck by the time I get on deck.
The guys are silent, and Lawrence looks like he’s going to be sick.
Does Cole even realize how fucked up it is to force the friends who hoisted his lifeless body over the rail into doing it again?
I clench the railing as Cole climbs into the sling, ready to dive in at the first sign of danger, then take over for Lawrence. As soon as Cole’s in reaching distance, I haul him up and over the rail. He falls forward, knocking me on my ass, and landing in my lap.
I should ask him if he’s okay, but I’m too furious.
“Don’t you ever make me leave you down there again.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, breathing fast.
The wind gusts, blowing a cloud in front of the sun, and I shiver. Cole’s troubled gaze searches mine, then he arcs down and crashes his lips against me in a salty kiss. My husband is kissing me. I didn’t kiss him. He kissed me.
I wrap my arms around him, dragging him closer, deepening the kiss, cursing the layers of insulating neoprene between us.
That’s okay. I’ll have him like this. I don’t want to give him a chance to put his walls back up.
We don’t stop, even as the engine rumbles beneath us and Briar takes the two-minute drive back to the dock.
The PA system scratches overhead, loud and unexpected. My heart stutters.
“I know this is supposed to be romantic,” Lawrence bleats into the mic, “but you guys look like two Gumby toys trying to fuck and we need to tie to the dock.”
“That’s it, Lawless,” I shout. “Get your cockblocking ass down here so I can beat the shit out of you.”
Cole explodes with unbridled laughter, the kind I haven’t heard since Seb died.
“I don’t know why you’re laughing, Sunshine. I’m serious.” I grip Cole’s hips and try to sit up, but he pushes me back down.
“You can’t kill my best friend.”
“I’m not going to kill him. I’m going to rip out his tongue and use it for bait.”
Lawrence gasps through the PA. “Sounds hot. I just have one question, Morgan. Can you tie me down first?”
Cole bursts into laughter again and collapses against me.
Something crashes.
“Ow!” Lawrence yelps. “Sorry. Javi says my tongue services are required. Maybe another time.”
“Shut the hell up, Lawless,” Javi says in the background.
Lawrence’s laughter cuts off abruptly. The wheelhouse door opens, and Lawrence stumbles out like Javi pushed him. He shields his mouth with his hand and bellows, “We’re going to get Astroglide—”
Javi smacks the back of his head.
“—and groceries! So do whatever freaky shit you want to, as loud as you’re willing to risk the rest of the dock hearing.”
“Never mind that everyone on the island can hear this entire conversation right now,” I grumble.
Cole climbs off me and pulls me up. My mouth dries. What if that kiss was just a fluke? What if it means nothing?
He grabs my survival suit and yanks me close, then kisses me again, silencing my fears and reassuring me.
He’s probably reassuring himself too because he just experienced the terror of being separated from his husband on the Bering Sea, so I kiss him back just as ardently, promising him I’m safe and we’re together.
It takes a few minutes to help each other out of our survival suits. We leave them in a heap on the deck and shed the rest of our wet clothes in the gear room.
He drags me by the hand to my room with a single-minded focus.
No kissing pit stops. The mask he put on in front of the others drops, and he roves his hands over my body, mapping the landmarks he missed, mending the cracks in my shattered heart.
I slide equally starved hands up his abs, and over his heart, then wrap my arms around his back and hug him so fucking tightly, burying my face in his neck.
With a moan, he pushes me onto the bed, and follows. But he doesn’t take things further. Instead, he eases me down from a feral frenzy with tender kisses, and pulls me into his arms. It’s been so long since he’s done that, since he’s been the one to take care of me, I want to cry.
We fall into silence. The mood shifts, slowly at first, like a storm rolling in, that ozone you can taste on the wind.
Whatever he’s thinking over there is as turbulent as the memories tormenting me.
I feel like I’m still out there on the Bering Sea that night, and the waves are so violent, I can’t hear anything else, and I’m just trying to get to Cole, but I might lose him anyway.
“Do you want to talk about what happened that night?” Cole asks, breaking the silence, giving me hope.
“Do you?” I sling back with a little more hostility than I probably should have. He’s never asked, never offered to listen. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. I deserve that.”
“No. You don’t. It’s just…” I inhale through my nose. “There are things I’ve needed to talk about. Maybe I would have talked to Seb, but I can’t. You’re the only person I can talk to, and you haven’t been there for me. I’m a little resentful, I guess.”
Cole scoots away, just enough to cleave us apart. Cold air rushes in to replace his body heat, and I roll onto my side to face him.
He’s chewing on his lip, jaw clenched as he looks up at the wooden slats of the top bunk. “If you need to talk, I’ll listen.”
I inhale a quivering breath while my heart skips ahead, then nod. “You blame yourself, but it’s my fault he’s dead. Not yours.”
Cole opens his mouth, probably to disagree, but I speak over him.
“By the time I pulled you back to the surface, Seb had the sling. The waves were a churning nightmare. Worse than I’d ever seen. I thought you were dead. I was bringing you back to bury.”
“I’m sorry.”
I shake my head. “Not your fault, Sunshine.”
He tilts his head to the side, a little shrug that says bullshit.
“We got you into the sling, and you were on your way up. Seb helped me into the second sling, while I could do nothing more than try to keep my head above water. I was hypothermic, and so far gone I didn’t even notice.”
Cole covers his mouth with his hand, eyes wide with shock, or maybe horror.
“Seb swam us toward the boat, while the guys pulled the rope, but he said it was taking too long. I thought he meant it was taking too long to get back to you, but he was talking about me.”
I inhale a quivering breath. He squeezes my hand and nods for me to continue.
“Seb told me that captains go last, and let go of the sling. I didn’t want him to let go. I tried to stop him, but he sacrificed himself for me. He wasn’t supposed to die. He had a survival suit. I don’t know why it didn’t work. It should have worked.”
He frowns. “Seb saved you?”
I nod. “He did.”
Cole rises into a seated position, face impassive. He’s slipping away, hiding behind his mask again, but there’s more I have to say. I snag his hand and sit up so fast I bump my head on the top bunk.
“I regret so many things. I should have overridden Seb and sent everyone in before you got hurt. I should have reached you in time to pull you back from the table. I should have brought you inside after you got hurt. If I had done any of those things, you wouldn’t have gone over and Seb wouldn’t have died. ”
Teardrops splash on our clasped hands. I look up. Only mine.
“I regret so much about that day,” I continue. “But I don’t regret going in after you without the survival suit. You didn’t have a minute to spare while I geared up. You would have drowned. I had to save you or go down with you. I go where you go, remember?”
“You said it was a stupid rule.”
“It is a stupid rule, but it’s true. Even if you hurt me, even if you divorce me, even if the only way I can be near you is in the memories inside my head, I go where you go.”
Entire storms rise and fall inside his irises. My stomach sinks.
“I don’t want you to follow that rule anymore.” He climbs off the bed. “I’m going to clean up our mess.”
I blink. “What?”
His eyes are so cold, I feel like I’m back in the water.
“Can I borrow some clothes?”
I nod toward my bag in a trance. I told him all that, after he brought it up, and now he’s just leaving?
Objectively, I know Seb’s death isn’t my fault, but I was vulnerable with Cole.
I could really use his forgiveness, or hell, even a word of comfort, but no.
He doesn’t give a fuck about what I need.
“Cole?”
He pulls on a pair of my sweatpants and a hoodie, avoiding my gaze. “Thanks.”
“Cole,” I call after him, but he doesn’t stop.
When the door shuts behind him, I scream into my pillow until white spots explode in my vision, then I take a breath, and scream again.