29. A Panic Sinkhole
A Panic Sinkhole
Josie
“You’re very quiet,” Wyatt tells me as we start walking back to the boat from dinner at a restaurant not far from the yacht club.
“Maybe it just feels quiet with them gone,” I say, even though I know Wyatt’s right. I am quiet. Quiet and pensive and, admittedly, a little moody.
Our seafood dinner looked good, but I’m not sure I tasted it. I was glad baseball was playing loudly on several screens in the restaurant to provide a distraction for Wyatt. Though it must not have been distraction enough. Clearly, he noticed my current mood.
I’m not sure what brought it on. Maybe being surrounded by people for a solid twenty-four hours—more noise, more engagement, more being on . But I think it has more to do with the conversations I had and the worries that sprouted in their wake.
My brain has devolved into chaos, thoughts ping-ponging from the idea of knowing to the concept of a “normal life” to what it would mean to be a hockey girlfriend. Or a hockey wife .
“Still with me?” Wyatt asks, his voice a gentle nudge.
I force a small laugh. “Mostly.”
Wyatt’s hand brushes mine, but rather than linking our fingers easily as he might have done just a day or two ago, he hesitates, then shoves his hands in his pockets.
I could really use his steadying touch right now, but I’m not about to reach for him.
Not with the unmoored thoughts banging around in my head.
A breeze lifts my hair off the back of my neck, a momentary break from the humidity, which seems to have swelled since the sun went down.
Then the night goes still again, and I feel sweat gathering at my lower back.
In the distance, there’s a quick flash—lightning hidden by the clouds.
The tension crackling between Wyatt and me mirrors what’s hanging in the air tonight.
“Anything on your mind?” Wyatt asks.
Lots. But nothing I want to say out loud.
“Sorry—I’m kind of rotten company tonight. It was good to see my brother, but I think I’ve got a Jacob hangover.”
My attempt at humor falls flat. Or maybe it’s just that Wyatt knows me well enough now to perceive there’s more to my mood.
“Do we need to worry about that?” I ask, waving vaguely toward the sky. The moon is visible for a moment, then disappears between wispy, fast-moving clouds. Far off, there’s another quick flash.
“This storm should stay to the east,” Wyatt says. “Though I think a more serious system is moving in tomorrow.”
“What do we do if there’s a storm? Like, what’s the protocol?”
“It wasn’t in your books?” he teases.
I elbow him, and for half a second, the tension eases between us. “Not really.”
The guidebook talked about a few spots you wouldn’t want to be in during bad weather.
Mostly because of shoaling and muddy bottoms making it hard to hold anchor.
Before this trip, I thought dropping anchor meant literally just that.
But it actually involves dragging the anchor as the boat moves forward, trying to catch it securely along the bottom.
Which is only as easy as the conditions of the channel bed.
Some areas are too silty or muddy to hold.
I haven’t worried about this before now, and maybe it’s just the combination of the distant storm and my muddled thoughts, but there’s an uneasiness swirling in my gut.
“It shouldn’t be too big of a deal,” Wyatt says. “I’ve got us a spot booked at a marina.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to be at an anchorage? Away from other boats and solid things?” Images flash through my mind of boats splintering against one another or against the docks.
Wyatt shakes his head. “It’ll be fine. Just a few bumps.”
Somehow, I doubt riding out a storm on a sailboat will be just a few bumps , but I guess I’ll find out.
When we set out in the morning, the awkward tension still lingers.
Probably because I’m leaking it like oil from a damaged car engine.
Even the conversation plotting our route over coffee felt stiff.
I considered putting Jib in her new jersey and dressing to match but instead opted to put her in a striped shirt with an anchor on the front.
If Wyatt is disappointed, he doesn’t say it. The things unsaid seem to be stacking up like bricks in a wall. Or dominoes, ready to topple.
I’m grateful the passage today doesn’t allow us time to relax.
There are a lot of boats combined with a narrow stretch of deep water.
The current is fast, the wind is wicked, and everyone seems to be hurrying to their next stops ahead of the storms. It’s hazy and cloudless now, but by evening that should change.
We pass a number of wrecked boats, which only ramps up my nerves, though Wyatt assures me they washed up in hurricanes. Not normal travel. Still. They seem like some kind of sign.
Way to go, emo , I tell myself, trying to dislodge the negativity clinging to me.
Wyatt is, as always, patient, and I find myself wishing he weren’t. Part of me wishes he would take me by the shoulders, stare into my eyes, and demand I talk to him like a mature adult. He doesn’t.
Which makes me want to grab him by the shoulders, glare into his eyes, and demand he tell me that whatever’s happening between us is real and will last beyond this trip. I don’t.
What I do is call Jacob from my cabin after another awkward meal with Wyatt. The storm system, threatening all day, seems set to miss us completely with distant lightning and thunder lingering but not coming closer.
“Miss me already?” he asks in lieu of hello.
“Debatable,” I say, then pause. Because I’m not completely, one hundred percent sure why I called my brother instead of Toni.
“Still there?”
“I’m here.”
“And you called me because...?” I can hear him drumming his fingers on something.
“What if this ruins everything?” I blurt. “Or what if it doesn’t work? Or what if it doesn’t last and then there will always be this awkwardness between you and Wyatt or maybe your friendship will be completely destroyed?”
“Wow, okay. So you’re in a panic spiral.”
“It’s less of a spiral and more like a vortex or a sinkhole. A panic sinkhole.”
Jacob chuckles, but it’s kind and gentle. Just like his voice when he speaks. “Hey, I know this is probably scary. For a lot of reasons, not the least of which being that you just now figured out what a good guy Wyatt is.”
“He really is,” I say miserably.
“Why do you sound upset by that?”
I wiggle into my bed, tracing my fingers over the low, curved ceiling above my head. “Because it was easier when Wyatt was a jerk. When he was the guy picking up your sloppy seconds with Grocery Store Girl and—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hang on. Is that what you think happened?” Jacob sounds incredulous.
“That is what happened. I should know; I literally walked in on them.”
“Yeah, but you don’t know the whole story. Turns out Grocery Store Girl recognized Wyatt.”
“But he wasn’t even famous!”
“She was some crazed hockey fan and knew of him. And the contract he’d just gotten. Her endgame was Wyatt, not me. And he was shutting it down when you walked in.”
I think back to the night Wyatt and I met, the awkward kitchen incident, trying to reframe it from this perspective. I guess this explanation could make sense.
Unfortunately, if so, it shaped my every interaction after-ward with Wyatt.
“That doesn’t change what he said.”
“What did he say?”
I want to roll my eyes, but of course Wyatt’s words wouldn’t have haunted Jacob. Just me. “He said, ‘Not your sister .’ Like I was some kind of disgusting virus.”
“Uh, that might have actually been my fault, considering I kind of told him to leave you alone before we got there.”
“Jacob,” I growl.
“Sorry! Don’t worry—he knows now that I wholeheartedly give my stamp of approval. In fact, I’ve already nominated you as couple of the year.”
“We’re not even a couple yet!”
“Ah-ha! I heard the yet .”
“You’re exasperating.”
“And yet lovable,” Jacob says. “Also, don’t worry about my friendship with Wyatt. You know what they say. Bromance before—”
“Don’t say it.”
“Romance. What did you think I was going to say?”
“Not that.” I pause. “So, you think I could handle dating a professional hockey player? Would I have to quit my job? Move? Would I need to worry about women slipping into his DMs?”
Jacob laughs. “Wyatt hates social media. And so far as I know, he’s never hooked up with a fan or had any interest.”
“Really?”
“Maybe you should, I don’t know—be a grown-up and go talk to the guy.”
My brother is right. I should. But after we hang up and I change into the new jersey—hoping it will bring me some kind of luck—and spend a little time overthinking, I instead end up drifting off to sleep.
I wake up sometime hours later as I’m rolling into the wall. My forehead smacks the edge of the built-in shelves, and pain spears through my skull.
Lightning flashes in the tiny windows, and I realize how loud it is—sheets of rain hit the side of the boat and the wind sounds like an angry banshee. The boat tilts again, this time in the other direction. I barely manage to keep myself from rolling off the bed.
Using the momentum, I get to my feet, steadying myself against the walls as the boat tips and pitches, thunder rolling. How did I manage to sleep through the storm until now? I throw open the door to find Wyatt standing in the hallway just outside, hand raised to knock.
Lightning flashes, revealing the worry etched in his face— and a bump on his forehead. “Are you okay?” he asks.
“Are you ?” Keeping one hand on the doorframe, I reach up to touch his head just as the boat rocks hard to one side, sending us both practically flying into the saloon.
Wyatt grabs the table with one hand and wraps the other around my waist, keeping us both upright. Barely.
“Where’s Jib?” I ask, practically having to shout over the noise of the storm.
“Believe it or not, sleeping. She tucked herself into a little storage nook so she’s not rolling around.”