28. Cole
TWENTY-EIGHT
Cole
Over the next week, we fall into a familiar grind. When Morgan and I aren’t working, sleeping, or fucking, we plan the changes to the Briar, and our life on land.
I still miss Seb, and I haven’t forgiven myself yet, or at least not fully. But in the quiet hours I spend alone in the wheelhouse, I’ve started to process what happened. The memories hurt to poke at. Sometimes they hurt worse than my injuries. But I’m trying.
I even let myself think about the years before Seb died, all the times he took care of me like a father.
I feel the memory of his hand resting on my shoulder.
Sometimes I feel him holding my hand when I grip the throttle.
I let myself remember every profound moment from our childhood, all the times he protected me, the fun we had, the things he taught me. But I don’t wallow.
Returning to the ocean was what I needed. I feel closer to him here. Returning to the boat fixed what I broke with Morgan.
I’ve always loved the Briar. Hell, I’ve considered her more my home than any I’ve lived in on land, but now she feels like a family member.
I found my way back to my husband on the Briar, to myself, to my friends, and I’m going to make sure our found family sticks together, even as our lives change.
The morning before we set what will hopefully be our last string of traps feels like the perfect time to tell the crew about the changes we want to make, especially with the ocean calm enough that I can turn on autopilot and focus on the conversation.
Morgan stands behind the captain’s chair, resting a claiming hand on my shoulder, thumb stroking me soothingly. The stairs creak under heavy feet and the guys file into the wheelhouse armed with coffee mugs.
I look up at the picture of Seb pinned to the wooden beam, then to them. “Thanks for meeting me up here.”
Lawrence drops into the co-captain’s chair on the other side of the wheelhouse and perches his feet on the dashboard. “What is this, a staff meeting?”
“Sort of,” I say.
Javi leans against the wall beside the staircase and crosses his arms over his chest. The only eye contact he makes is with the ocean through the front windows.
“There are a few things I need to say that are long overdue,” I begin. “First of all, thank you. For so many things. For even showing up this season. For saving me last year.” I swallow. “Thank you for saving my husband, and for trying so hard to find Seb.”
Alejo’s face tightens into a pained expression. “I wish we could have found him.”
Wes slings an arm around Alejo and hugs him from the side. “You and Lawrence did everything you could. I watched from up here, remember?”
Alejo nods, a tear sliding down the side of his nose.
“Saving one person from the Bering Sea in a typhoon is unheard of.” I meet Alejo’s gaze, then Lawrence’s. “I don’t blame any of you for not finding Seb. What happened was out of our hands.”
“He’s right,” Morgan says. “Seb knew the risks. He jumped in to save Cole.” He pauses. “And he let go of the sling to save me.”
I layer my hand over Morgan’s, still resting on my shoulder. I didn’t expect his confession. I don’t know if he did either.
“Wait, what?” Lawrence drops his feet from the dashboard with a thud and leans forward in his chair.
“He let go?” Alejo asks.
Morgan nods. “I couldn’t move my arms and legs well enough to swim. I was probably minutes away from succumbing to hypothermia, and had no idea. Seb saved me.”
“Sounds like Seb,” Wes says.
“He was a goddamned hero,” Lawrence says.
“He really was.” I glance at the photo of Seb and Finn again as tears fill my vision. “He always took care of us.”
Morgan squeezes my shoulder. “Without the sling, I would have drowned, so whoever thought to toss another sling in, thank you.”
“That was all Alejo,” Lawrence says.
“Thanks, man,” Morgan says. “Quick thinking.”
Alejo flushes, tips of his mustache twitching with a tight smile.
“Seb chose to save me,” Morgan repeats. “What happened to him is not on you, Alejo. Not on any of you.”
Alejo’s smile warps into a grimace, and he ducks his head in a polite nod before hiding his mouth behind his mug.
“That wasn’t on you either, Morgan,” Wes says.
“I cosign that.” Lawrence salutes Morgan. “You were a goddamned hero too.”
Alejo agrees with the others, and while it’s really sweet to see the crew rally around Morgan, Javi’s silence on the topic concerns me. He seems checked out of the entire conversation, attention still fixed on the ocean like he’s the one manning the wheel.
“Javi.” I wait for him to drag his gaze from the window. “Morgan saved my life first, but I never knew how much you saved me too. Thank you. Truly.” I take a deep breath. “Thank you for saving Morgan too, and for helping him prepare to lose me, for making sure I held his hand while I was dying.”
My words come out in a rush that leaves me breathless. Javi probably thinks I’m parroting a speech I rehearsed, but I meant every word. It’s just that if I reflect too long on how much pain Morgan went through that night, I want to claw my skin off.
“You don’t have to thank me.” He shrugs, but the chip on his shoulder remains. “You would have done the same for me.”
“Still. It must have been really hard to take care of me when you thought I would die. I’m sorry.”
Javi lifts his chin like he’s bracing for a punch. “It’s okay. I slipped into paramedic autopilot, and pretended you were a stranger.”
I hate when he closes himself off like this. He started when his dad died, and got worse after Lawrence was arrested. Behind his cold exterior, I know he’s hurting.
“I’ve had a lot of flashbacks,” Morgan says. “That night when I thought I saw someone jump, I kept checking the gear room for Cole’s body because the way he sat me down on the trunk reminded me of when Javi did last year.”
Javi stills.
“I was about to call you to help me get a grip on reality,” Morgan tells him. “I was afraid Cole died and I couldn’t take it and all of this was some psychotic break fever dream.”
Lawrence clicks his tongue. “Damn, that’s rough, man. No wonder you put Cole through the mattress.”
Ah, there’s my other best friend’s coping mechanism—humor and hypersexuality, no matter how inappropriate the timing.
“It’s hard to be here with all the reminders,” Morgan continues. “I think about what happened whenever I go through the gear room, and I hate that fucking sorting table.”
“You’re not alone in that,” Javi finally admits.
Alejo places his thumb and index finger just above his lips and spreads them apart, as if he’s making sure his mustache is still there. “Whenever I look for the buoys at the rail, I have to stop myself from looking for Seb.”
Wes turns to him. “I wish you said something.”
“It’s hard to talk about when you think you’re the only one.”
Lawrence twirls his chair toward Alejo. “If you get caught in a loop of looking for him, tell me and I’ll distract you with my buffoonery.”
Alejo smiles. “Thanks.”
Guilt churns in my chest. “I’m sorry. I should have realized working on the Briar would trigger you guys.
I don’t remember as much from that day, and I was so lost inside my grief that I didn’t think about how hard this must be for all of you.
” I inhale a shaking breath and blink back unshed tears.
“I spent the last year wishing I had died when I should have appreciated the second chance you all gave me.”
“Cole…” Lawrence’s shoulders sag, hazel eyes telling me exactly how crestfallen he is.
“I wasn’t suicidal. Not actively, anyway. I just wished I had died instead of Seb.”
“Just? Next time, tell me, okay?” Lawrence says. “I’ll knock some sense into you or kidnap you again.”
“I will. I’m sorry.” I clench my eyes shut, then open them again. “When I lost Seb, I pushed everyone away and told myself I lost my only family, but that wasn’t true. You guys have always been my family, and it was pretty fucked up of me to abandon you.”
“We understood you were trying to figure things out,” Wes says.
Lawrence eases down from the chair, and crosses the distance quickly, then throws his arms around me. Morgan tries to shuffle out of the way, but Lawrence drags him back into our awkward three-person hug without comment.
“Thanks, Lawless.”
“Anytime, brother.”
Javi clears his throat. “My turn.”
When Lawrence steps aside, Javi hugs me, and only me, probably to Morgan’s relief.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“Me too,” he whispers back.
“I have to stop hiding from what happened,” I say once we part. “I want you guys to feel like you can talk about Seb and everything else that happened. You can call me out for my bullshit and hold me accountable too.”
“Oh, I never stopped calling you out,” Lawrence says.
I laugh. “What we have is special. I want you all here. Seb might have been the glue that held us all together, but we can do it without him too. Which brings me to, hopefully, my last point. I think we should talk about pay. Without Seb, we have a lot more money left over. We’d like to bump you all up to nine percent. ”
Lawrence whistles.
“Are you sure?” Wes asks. “That’s a lot of money.”
“It’s the best deckhand pay in the fleet,” I say with a grin. “But you’re more than deckhands to us.”
“We can swing it with money left over for repairs,” Morgan says. “We’re lucky to own the Briar outright.”
“Plus Dad’s quota,” I add.
“Well, alright, then,” Wes says. “Sign me the hell up.”
“We also want to bring another person on,” I say. “Kent.”
Lawrence slaps the dashboard. “Hell yeah! Let’s bring Kent aboard.”
“Calm down, Lawless,” I say. “We all have to agree.”
Javi’s forehead wrinkles. “I don’t know about Kent.”
Lawrence turns toward him. “Why? Is it because of—”
“No.”
“You don’t know what I was going to ask,” Lawrence says.
“Is Luke okay with it?” Javi asks.
“He doesn’t know,” I say.
“Fucking over Luke is going to start a war,” Javi says.
Lawrence scowls at Javi. “What is this, the boat mafia?”
“Is he bringing quota?” Wes asks with a casual sip of coffee from his mug.
“He wants a break, not to leave completely,” Morgan says.