Chapter Eight #7
I wobble into the living room. I close my eyes and twirl in a circle, imagining a radio playing the week’s top hits.
I let myself sway a little, and when I open my eyes, Clay is standing in the kitchen doorway, watching me with a tiny, careful smile.
And a thought fills my mind: James has never looked at me like that.
With a faraway question in his eyes. Like I am something he needs to unravel.
And truthfully, my heart has never raced when his eyes fell on my flesh.
I steady myself, exhaling. “What?” I ask. “You’ve never seen a drunk girl dance?”
He smiles wider and shakes his head.
“It happens all the time in my world. Spring break, New Year’s Eve, twenty-first birthday parties.”
“Aye, I’ve seen a drunk lass dance before,” he clarifies. “I’ve just never seen you drunk before.”
I laugh, turn in a circle, then, without bidding, my legs carry me toward Clay, my arms reaching out. I pull him all the way into the living room, where I fold my arms around his shoulders, like I’m leading him onto a dance floor without music or lights or another living soul.
“Ellie—” he starts to say.
“Can you hear it?” I cut him off. “The scratch of the record player, the music echoing through the speakers like wind through a screen door.” I smile, eyelids fluttering, losing myself in the imagined moment, resting my head against his shoulder.
Reluctantly he places his hands around my waist, softly, careful, like I might break, and we move in time with the silent music, listening to the storm beat against the house.
The motion of our steps soothes me, calms the alcohol in my bloodstream, and I feel his hands against the small of my back, pulling me a little closer.
When was the last time he touched a woman like this?
Too long. Years. He touches me now like he’s holding me up, keeping me from falling.
A man who is calloused by the sea, but softened by it too.
Unshakable. Both steel and linen. And when I lift my head, his gaze flicks to me, watching me like he’s caught somewhere in the past and the present.
I pull myself back, my head spinning, being so close to this man who smells of salt and clover and afternoon sun on skin, whose hands feel so good against me that it frightens me.
My lips fall open, searching for a word, but I swallow instead, reaching out for the edge of the couch.
I stumble sideways, my balance tipping too far in the wrong direction.
His hands find me again, steadying me, and my palm spreads across his chest. The sweet smell of whiskey makes my heart press tightly against my ribs, and his shoulders flex as he slides an arm around my waist and leads me toward the stairs.
“Neil Hagdorn makes a stiff whiskey,” I say, my eyes slipping closed, my legs feeling suddenly weighted and useless beneath me.
A second later, he hoists me up into his arms. I wish I wasn’t so drunk; I wish I could form a clear thought, a clear sentence, but then he’s climbing the stairs with me in his arms.
“His whiskey’s been known to steamboat even the hardiest sailors,” Clay answers.
“I’m not a sailor,” I mutter, smiling, my face only a few inches from his. “I’m a pirate.” I laugh, and I can see the smile in his eyes.
We reach the bedroom, and Clay lowers me to the bed. It feels impossibly soft, the mattress curving around me, smelling of mint.
“Best ye sleep it off, or risk staggering out into the sea.”
I blink up at him, wanting to make some joke about how I swam across the sea once, I’m sure I could do it again, even drunk, but stop myself—certain that the words will leave my lips in a long slur.
“I’ll have a strong brew for ye in the morning. I suspect ye’ll be needin’ it.”
I let my head sink back into the pillow. “You’re not so bad,” I say, eyelids shuttering closed. “Not as rough as you’d like me to think, I might even start to like you. Could be friends, even. We are roommates, after all.”
He makes a sound from the doorway. “Yer good an’ sloshed.”
“I don’t even know what you’re saying most of…” My voice trails into nothing, into my dreams, into the dark of my eyelids, until there is only the sound of his footsteps on the stairs and the wind against the walls of the old farmhouse.
Shit.
Two glasses of whiskey, maybe three, and it knocked me flat on my ass. But not before he had to carry me to bed. Shit.
What did I say to him? The details are murky—shadowy flashes of memory that feel like a dream. I wish they were.
Did I try to convince him to dance with me?
What the hell was I doing?
My head pulses in time with my heartbeat, each thud cracking against my temples as I wobble from bed.
At the doorway, I brace myself against the wall to keep from retching.
To keep from pinwheeling to the floor. The stairwell is crooked, the ceiling tilting too far to the left.
I grip the banister and half slide, half stumble down the stairs, pressing a palm to my forehead as I reach the living room.
When I lower my hand, eyes watering, Clay is crossing from the kitchen, a mug in his hand.
“Wasnae sure I’d be seeing ye on this side of the living today,” he says with a knowing grin, unable to hide his amusement.
I don’t answer, but I take the mug—the scent from the steam is bracing, the herbal tea awakening my whiskey-clotted mind. “I don’t know what happened.” I touch my temples with my fingers, trying to push away the ache.
“I shoulda warned ye,” he answers.
I make my way toward the front door. “I need fresh air,” I mutter. Back home, after a night of too many glasses of wine with James, I always slept with the windows open, even in winter, because the clear air always seemed to steady my swirling head and stomach.
Clay walks beside me, a hand against my back, like he’s afraid I’m going to tip to the floor. “I need to check a few things after the storm,” he says as we reach the door. “But I’ll be back to make breakfast. Ye should rest.”
I nod, pulling open the door. I just need a few deep breaths, and then I’ll sink onto the couch and wait for him to return. But when the door swings wide and the cool morning air rushes over my face, I see down to the shoreline.
I see something that wasn’t there before.
A boat.
“Clay—” I suck in the damp air. “Do you see it?” I don’t trust my own eyes; the fog of my hangover could be materializing things that aren’t there.
He moves past me, stepping out onto the porch, a hand over his eyes. “Aye.”
Leaving the cup of tea on the railing, I stagger down the steps, then propel myself toward the dirt path. I sway briefly, touching the garden fence for balance, before pushing myself on—the skyline tilting, my eyes wincing away from the bright morning sun—until I reach the rocky shoreline.
I buckle over, certain I’m going to vomit, sweat beading at my temples, but I draw in a slow, measured breath and tell my stomach to stay where it is.
I lift my head, and there, bobbing aimlessly against the rocks, is a small wooden boat—not much bigger than a bathtub.
No motor. Only a single oar knocking idly against the hull.
But it’s floating, and it isn’t taking on water. At least not that I can tell.
I nearly drop to my knees. A fucking boat.
Relief and shock and disbelief thunder through me.
A real, not imagined, boat. As if the gods of the sea have thrust this little life raft onto our shores just for me.
As if they’ve taken pity on me: Here ya go, Ellie, you deserve a break. Sorry for all the bad luck.
My escape.
My way out of here.
“Storm must’ve brought it in,” Clay comments, coming up beside me.
I stand up straight, pull in another breath, and without a word, I start down the steep slope.
Every rock is slick from the storm, but I reach the water’s edge and wade in up to my ankles.
A short, frayed rope sags in the water, the other end attached to a metal cleat along the starboard side.
I manage to grasp it, heaving the boat up over the first few boulders.
But the rope snaps—too sun-bleached and sea-soaked—and I fall back against the rocks, my hip lancing with pain, and the boat slides down into the sea.
My temples throb and my body still feels like it’s turned inside out—the whiskey pumping back through my veins from the effort.
But I turn and see Clay maneuvering easily down the rocks above, stopping to blink down at me like I’m a lost, clumsy puppy.
He reaches down and hoists me up to my feet in one swift motion.
I close my eyes to steady myself, to keep from vomiting, and when I open them, he’s already dragging the boat up over the rocks to the grassy embankment.
I scramble up behind him, peering down at the tiny boat, surveying its insides like someone buying a used car.
I notice something along the top edge, where the gunwale must have sustained damage at one point but was repaired.
A piece of wood has been carefully fitted over the split boards, nailed in place and sanded down.
The repair seems recent, the wood still pale and soft.
Someone mended the small boat shortly before they lost it at sea.
Maybe they went overboard. Drowned somewhere out there.
Clay seems less excited about the discovery, his expression dubious. Skeptical. As if it were a Trojan horse.
“This is what I’ve been waiting for,” I say, breath ragged, head still pounding.
“Been waiting for land, not a boat. This thing’ll get ye nowhere.” Clay shoves it with the toe of his boot, and it teeters slightly, looking tiny in comparison to him.
“It stayed afloat long enough to reach the island,” I point out.
“Even if she kept afloat, ye dinnae know where we are. Could be in the middle of the Atlantic, days from the mainland. Ye could paddle in the wrong direction, against the current. Into a storm. No telling.”
I frown at him. “I can’t stay here any longer.”
He nods softly to himself, then turns toward the house.