Chapter 5
Starboard
The moment Dane turned the boat starboard, the night changed.
It was not dramatic in any visible way. The engine kept its steady rhythm. The water remained calm. The moon rose higher, round and white, laying a broken path across the waves. But Nathan felt the shift as clearly as if a door had closed behind them.
The harbor was no longer the destination. The evening had acquired a secret.
Marissa stood and walked toward the starboard rail. Nathan followed her, but slower. He was trying to understand why his fear had begun to taste like anticipation.
Dane adjusted their course with one hand on the wheel. "It'll take about forty minutes. The entrance is narrow, so we'll slow before we go in."
"Is it safe at night?" Nathan asked.
"For me, yes. For anyone who doesn't know the rocks, no."
Marissa looked back at him. "That sounds like exactly the sort of thing a boat captain would say before a woman makes a terrible decision."
"Terrible decisions usually involve ignoring the chart," Dane said. "This one is on the chart. It's just not on the tourist maps."
"Convenient distinction," Nathan said.
Dane smiled without taking offense. "Necessary one."
Marissa wrapped the blanket around her shoulders. The wind had cooled. Nathan stepped closer, intending to tuck the blanket more firmly around her, but Dane moved first, catching one loose edge before it slipped.
He did not touch her skin. He did not need to.
"There," he said.
Marissa looked up at him. "Thank you."
Nathan watched the exchange and felt something inside him split into two equal and opposite desires. One wanted to step between them, reclaim the small service that should have been his. The other wanted to remain exactly where he was and see what would happen if he did not.
Marissa turned to Nathan as if she sensed the conflict.
"Are you okay?"
"Yes."
"Nathan."
He looked at the water. "I'm trying to be."
Dane moved away without being asked, returning to the helm and leaving them inside a pocket of relative privacy.
Marissa took Nathan's hand. Her fingers were cold. "We can go back."
The offer was real. That made him want to refuse it more.
"I don't want to go back."
"You looked upset."
"I am." He laughed quietly, embarrassed by the honesty and relieved by it. "But not in the way I expected."
She waited.
He had imagined telling her someday, perhaps in bed, perhaps after too much wine, about the strange thoughts that had begun visiting him over the last year.
They had arrived first as sparks of jealousy when men noticed her in restaurants or at weddings.
Then the jealousy had twisted, becoming something he revisited alone, ashamed and fascinated.
He imagined her being desired. He imagined another man's confidence near her.
He imagined himself watching her choose and feeling both wounded and chosen by the fact that she came back.
He had never found the courage to say it plainly.
On the boat, in the dark, he found something close.
"I like seeing you remembered," he said.
Marissa's brow softened. "Remembered?"
"By yourself. By the world. I don't know. You looked at the water earlier and I realized I hadn't seen you look that free in a long time. And then he looked at you like he saw it too."
"Dane."
The captain's name in her mouth did something to Nathan's breathing.
"Yes," he said.
"And that bothered you."
"Yes."
"And?"
Nathan met her eyes. "And it didn't only bother me."
The boat cut through a patch of moonlight. For an instant Marissa's face became silver and unreadable.
"Is that why you booked this?" she asked.
"No." He thought about it. "Maybe not consciously."
A smile touched her mouth, but it was not teasing. "That's a very therapist answer."
"It's the only honest one I have."
She looked toward Dane. He stood at the helm, profile lit by the instruments, eyes forward, giving no sign that he heard them.
"He makes me nervous," she said.
Nathan's throat tightened.
"Bad nervous?"
"No." She looked back at him. "Awake nervous."
There was that word again.
Nathan wanted to kiss her. He also wanted Dane to see him want to kiss her. He also wanted, with a force that startled him, to see whether Dane could make her say that word a third time.
He lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles.
Marissa's eyes shone in the deck light.
"No pretending," he said.
She squeezed his hand.
Dane called from the helm. "Marker ahead. After this, no cell service."
Nathan looked toward the cliffs. A single red buoy blinked in the distance.
"How reassuring," he said.
Dane's mouth twitched. "The ocean prefers commitment."
Marissa laughed softly.
Nathan did too, though his heart was hammering.
The red marker slid past on their left. Behind them, the last easy exit disappeared into the dark.