29. A Panic Sinkhole #2
As though reacting to his words, the boat tilts again, accompanied by a bellow of thunder. Lightning highlights the gray in Wyatt’s eyes, and suddenly I’m aware of how closed off I’ve been. Wyatt seems to remember at the same time, the expression on his face shifting.
Before either of us can speak, the hatch flies open. Instantly, rain is slanting inside the saloon. Wyatt grabs for the hatch, and I hold on to him when the boat sways again, the wind howling through the opening as water pours in.
“Do we need to check the sails or anything on deck?” I shout over the gale.
Wyatt hesitates. “I prepped things earlier, but sometimes things blow loose.”
“Let’s double-check. I’ll go with you.”
He’s already starting to climb out. “I’ve got it. You stay—it’s not safe on deck.”
But I’ve already slipped on my boat shoes and am following him up. We’re both soaked through by the time we get on deck. I swing the hatch closed behind me to keep more water from going inside.
It’s wild up here, and Wyatt steadies me with a strong hand on my arm, tucking me close as the boat dips. All around us, I can see boats being tossed wildly. We aren’t the only ones on deck, securing things in the rain, though there are just a handful of people in sight.
A few slips over, a couple is fighting with a sail that’s ripped right off and is flying around them.
Thankfully, our sails are in place. Wyatt probably secured everything while I was on the phone with Jacob. Or while I was asleep after.
A few ropes are whipping around, and Wyatt and I each grab one, firmly tying them up again. One of the bumpers has come loose, and Wyatt tucks it back into place, tightening the knot while I stand behind him, one hand on his back.
“I think that’s about all we can do,” he shouts. “Let’s go back down below!”
I nod, but there’s a pressure building in my chest. Remnants of my earlier anxieties are shifting, taking a new shape. Expanding until there is no longer any room for them inside me.
Before Wyatt can open the hatch, I grab his arm. “Wait!”
He turns to face me again, a sheet of rain plastering his hair to his face. Wet like this, it almost looks black. So do his eyes.
And still—even like this, he’s the handsomest man I’ve ever seen.
“I’m sorry about how I’ve been acting!” I shout.
Thunder booms and the boat tips. Wyatt’s fingers grasp my hip while another hand grabs a railing, keeping us balanced.
“You really want to talk about this now?!” Wyatt yells, tipping his head my way. Even so, it’s hard to hear over the storm’s din.
“Is this not a good time for you?”
I’m not sure where the sarcasm comes from or why I’m screaming at the man instead of telling him I think I might be in love him, but here we are—soaking wet, on deck in a storm, and shouting at each other in what has to be the worst relationship talk ever.
But Wyatt laughs, head thrown back until he chokes on rain, spluttering as he tilts his head back down, his eyes meeting mine.
“Let’s finish and get back inside.” Wyatt leans closer but still needs to shout over the wind. “Then we can talk, Rookie.”
I grab his arm as he starts for the bow, tugging him back. “I don’t want to wait!”
“What do you want, Josie?”
The bravery that fueled me to start shouting at Wyatt in the first place ebbs, and with the next boom of thunder, I jump. Tucking me closer to his chest, Wyatt holds me steady. I’m no longer sure if the wetness on my cheeks is rain or tears.
Wyatt bends, placing his ear near my lips with a simple command: “Tell me.”
“I’m scared, and I don’t want to be. I don’t want to mess this up. I don’t want to keep running. But I don’t know how to trust this when...” I swallow around a growing lump in my throat, temporarily losing my ability to form words.
“When what?” Wyatt says, and I realize he’s not shouting anymore. That the storm, though still raging, has suddenly lightened up a bit.
I rest my cheek on Wyatt’s, feeling the slight burn of his closely shaven skin as I force myself to say the words that scare me most.
“It’s hard to trust this when you’ve hated me for so long.”
He reacts as though I’ve struck him, rearing back until those gray eyes—almost black in the darkness—practically burn into me. His hand on my back flattens, pressing me closer, holding me tighter. “I—what?”
“Just because I helped you through a hard time, and you flipped a switch—”
“Flipped a switch?” Wyatt practically bellows.
“You used to hate me; now you like me. A switch flipped.”
“That’s really what you think?”
“Isn’t that what happened?”
Wyatt stares at me for a very long moment. There’s a feeling not unlike dread swirling in my gut like water around a slow drain. What I don’t understand is why.
Or why he looks like I’ve just stolen his puppy.
“Am I wrong?” I ask.
I know I’m not. I know how things have always been with us.
Don’t I?
I think back to what Jacob said about that night so long ago, how different it seems with a new perspective. I remember Wyatt telling me he has a problem saying the wrong thing to me.
Though it feels like entering an alternate reality, I realize it’s entirely possible that I’ve read things wrong for years.
Droplets of water fall from Wyatt’s hair into his eyes, but he doesn’t take his hands off me to wipe them clear. It’s like he’s frozen, staring at me with a look I can’t understand. My stomach flips right out of my body and lands with a soft thud on the deck.
“You couldn’t be more wrong when it comes to how I feel about you,” Wyatt says, then leans closer, pressing his wet forehead to mine. “How I’ve always felt about you.”
The deck moves underneath me. But this time, it’s not the storm. No—it’s the world as I know it, tilting sideways. Collapsing.
Sucking me through a black hole and shooting me out the other side into a whole new galaxy.
Wyatt has feelings for me—has always had feelings for me?
I—
He—
We—
“I don’t understand.”
“Yes, you do,” he insists. “It just doesn’t fit with the narrative you’ve apparently had in your head where I hate rather than love you.”
My world isn’t tilting anymore. It’s a globe that’s been knocked off a table and is being kicked like a soccer ball around the room.
“Did you say—”
Wyatt suddenly surrounds me, his chest pressed to mine, his arms around my lower back. When he slides his arms up and over my shoulders, sparks cascade over me like I’m a malfunctioning socket.
“ Love . Yes, I said it.” He sighs, thumbs stroking my cheeks. “I didn’t mean to tell you like this. So soon. Or when we’re soaking wet in the middle of a storm. But this is still my curse with you—I can’t ever say the right thing.”
“Oh, it’s a curse now? I thought it was foot-in-mouth disease .”
His eyes snap to mine, like he can’t believe I’m teasing him right now. It was a risk, and for a moment I think a bad bet. I hold my breath, hoping I haven’t offended Wyatt by making light of things right after he confessed that he loves me.
“Maybe it’s both,” he says, the smallest of smiles lifting one side of his mouth. “Should I try to say it again—say it better?”
“Not yet,” I tell him. “I need a minute.”
The truth is, I may...need a lot of them.
My brain needs to play catch-up. I need to spend some good long hours reframing all my memories. Examining all the little clues that told me Wyatt felt one way about me—clues I read wrong this entire time.
I lean closer, trailing my hands up Wyatt’s chest to his shoulders. When I touch his neck, my fingers slip over his wet skin.
“You know what they say is the best way to break curses?”
Wyatt’s brows pulse together. A look of confusion. “No.”
Of course he doesn’t. His dad made him watch documentaries on the stock market rather than watching classic cartoons or reading children’s stories.
“The way to break a curse is with a kiss,” I tell him, lifting up on my toes as he sways forward to meet me.
And then we’re kissing. Or curse breaking.
The kiss is messy—we’re soaked and slippery and moving like we’re in some kind of desperate panic. Maybe we are.
Wyatt’s fingers tangle in my hair and mine tug him closer by his shirt. When he chuckles, I feel the rumble of it through his mouth.
A mouth I want to spend a lot more time with.
Any fears or hesitations or worries I had evaporate. Because there is none of that coming from him. Only a pure male confidence and surety that reminds me of all those videos of him on the ice.
Wyatt kisses like he skates.
Not with brutal force, but with power and the delicate precision that allows a man who must weigh more than two hundred pounds to balance on tiny blades, changing directions on a dime.
He kisses me like a hero returning from war. One who has been dreaming about this exact moment for days or weeks or months. Maybe years. Like the meeting of our lips is the culmination of so many long-held hopes and dreams.
With gentle fingers, Wyatt tilts my head, deepening the kiss until my legs aren’t just boneless. I’m not sure they exist at all.
Wyatt drops his hands, wrapping them around my waist as though he sensed my impending fall to the floor.
It’s hard to stand up when a kiss has stolen your legs.
I want to commit to memory the gentle command of his mouth, the way his neatly shaved jaw still manages a pleasant burn where it drags against my skin. Wyatt isn’t always a man of words, but his kiss speaks promises. Softly, sweetly—and, okay, yes—with a little dash of roguishness.
I didn’t know that was a thing I’d recognize or even like so much, but it’s the only word flashing through my brain as Wyatt pulls me closer, a small sound at the back of his throat making me suddenly desperate to catch it.
“We should probably get below deck,” he says, lips brushing mine with every word.
“We’re already drenched,” I say. “What’s the point?”
“The point,” Wyatt says between kisses, “is that I’d like to kiss you without fear of either one of us falling overboard or being struck by lightning.”
“Reasonable,” I say, while pressing a kiss to his jaw.
“Also—I don’t want this jersey to get ruined,” Wyatt says, pulling back to look me up and down.
I’d forgotten I was wearing it.
“How does it look?” I ask. “It’s way too big.”
“It’s perfect,” Wyatt says, bending forward to kiss me again before gently turning me around and brushing my hair away from my neck. “My last name looks good on you, Rookie. Maybe we can find a way to keep it there.”