Chapter 11 #3
"Since the first time you came into the store." His mouth quirked. "You asked for a recommendation and I could tell you actually meant it. You weren't just making conversation. You wanted to find something real."
"That's what you noticed?"
"I remember everything about that conversation." He shook his head. "That's not—I don't usually—I'm not doing this well."
Lori laughed. The sound surprised her, easy and unguarded.
"You're doing fine," she said.
Behind them, back toward the barn, someone called John's name. Distant, probably one of the staff wondering where he'd gone.
Neither made any move to go.
"They're going to come looking for you," Lori said.
"Let them."
The frog by the pond went quiet. The fireflies kept blinking.
She looked at him, and then she leaned in and kissed him.
It was soft at first, tentative—a question more than a statement. His hand came up to cup her face, gentle, like she might pull away. She didn't.
When they pulled apart, they were both breathing differently. Even the highway seemed farther away.
"Well," John said.
"Well," Lori agreed. She was smiling and couldn't seem to stop.
Someone called his name again, closer this time.
"I should go deal with that," he said, but he didn't move.
"You should."
He reached for her hand, squeezed it once. Then Lori laughed again—that same easy sound—and rose from the bench. "Go. I'll find my way back."
"I'll see you soon," he said.
"I'm not hard to find."
He smiled. The full version this time, not held back. Then he headed toward the voice, glancing over his shoulder once before disappearing between the vines.
Lori sat back down on the bench. The pond held the sky's reflection, patient and still. She wasn't ready to leave. Not yet.
Brittany had never been kayaking before. Not really, not the kind where you actually paddled somewhere instead of just drifting around a calm lake. But Ryan had suggested it after their shift, said he knew a spot, and she'd said yes before she could overthink it.
Now they were here, sliding through the back bay in rented kayaks, the sun dropping toward the mainland and turning everything gold. The beach club felt like it belonged to a different world. Out here, there was just the water and the marsh grass and the sound of their paddles dipping in and out.
"You're doing good," Ryan said from his kayak, a few feet ahead of hers. "Most first-timers tip over by now."
"Is that supposed to be encouraging?"
"Take the win."
She adjusted her grip on the paddle, trying to find the rhythm he'd shown her.
Dip, pull, lift, switch sides. Her arms were already starting to ache, but she didn't want to say anything.
The water here was shallow enough that she could see the bottom in some places, sandy and scattered with shells and the occasional dark shape of something alive.
Ryan guided them toward a channel between two stretches of marsh. The grass rose on either side, taller than she'd expected, dense and green, wild and orderly at once.
"My grandfather used to bring me through here when I was a kid," Ryan said, his paddle resting across his kayak. "Before the crabbing, before anything else. He'd cut the motor and just let us drift." He nodded at the grass. "Said you had to listen to a place before you could understand it."
"What did you hear?"
He was quiet, tilting his head like he was trying to remember.
"Everything. How a mullet jumps and you can tell by the splash if it's running from something.
The sound the water makes moving through the grass.
Different than open bay, softer." He slowed his paddling, letting her catch up.
"He knew this marsh the way some people know their own house.
Could tell you where the blues would be running just by the smell of the air. "
They moved deeper into the marsh, the channel narrowing. The sounds changed. Less splashing, more birdsong, the soft rustle of wings somewhere overhead. A cormorant sat on a piling, wings spread to dry in the fading light.
"It's like nowhere else back here," Brittany said.
"That's what I love about it. The beach is great, but everyone sees the beach. This part—" He gestured at the marsh around them. "You have to want to find it."
They paddled in silence for a while. Brittany settled into the rhythm, the strokes, how the kayak responded to each movement, the calm that came when she stopped trying so hard.
"At the bonfire, you told me about your grandfather. The crabbing spots that don't work anymore." She paused, choosing her words. "Have you always wanted to protect this? Or did that come later?"
Ryan slowed his kayak, turning slightly so they were parallel. The sun was lower now, the light softer, catching the water in streaks of orange and pink.
"I think I always noticed things," he said.
"But noticing isn't the same as doing something about it.
For a long time I just figured someone else would handle it.
Scientists, politicians, whoever." He dipped his paddle, let it drag through the water.
"Then I took this marine biology class junior year.
The professor brought in all these photos from the seventies.
What the bay looked like back then. The seagrass beds, the oyster reefs.
It was like a different planet. And I realized I couldn't just wait for someone else to handle it.
If people like me didn't learn how this stuff worked, it would just keep getting worse. "
Brittany watched his face as he talked. He wasn't looking at her. He was looking at the water, at the marsh, at the horizon beyond.
"So now you're out here every chance you get," she said. "Learning the names of things. Paying attention."
"Trying to." He ducked his head, almost embarrassed. "My family thinks I should be a doctor. Make real money. But I can't stop thinking about the water."
"That's—" She searched for the right word. "That's really beautiful, actually."
He glanced at her, surprised. "Most people think it's depressing."
"It's not depressing." She shook her head. "It's purposeful. Like you're not just drifting."
"That's exactly it."
They paddled on. The channel opened up into a wider stretch of water, the marsh falling away on one side to reveal a view of the bay and the distant shore beyond. The sun was almost touching the horizon now, the sky shifting through colors she didn't have names for.
"We should pull over here," Ryan said, pointing toward a small sandy bank. "Watch the sunset then head back. The current makes the return trip faster anyway."
They nosed the kayaks onto the sand and climbed out, pulling them up past the waterline. It was a tiny strip of beach, maybe twenty feet across, sheltered by the marsh grass on three sides. Hidden. Private.
Brittany sat down on the sand, wrapping her arms around her knees. Ryan sat beside her, close enough that she could feel the heat coming off his skin.
"Thanks for this," she said.
"Anytime."
The sun met the water and began to sink. A few birds flew past in silhouette, heading somewhere with purpose.
"I've been thinking," Ryan said, not looking at her. "About what you said the other night. At the bonfire."
"What did I say?"
"That you feel like everyone else knows what they want. What they're doing." He picked up a shell from the sand, turned it over in his hands. "I think that's just what it looks like from outside. Most people are making it up as they go."
"Even you?"
"Especially me." He kept turning the shell in his fingers.
"I talk a good game about the environmental stuff because I've had time to think about it.
But the rest of my life? Total mess. I'm working at a beach club instead of taking summer classes.
I have no idea if the grad school thing will even work out. "
"But you have a direction."
Ryan tossed the shell toward the water. It skipped once before sinking. "You don't need a plan at nineteen." He turned to look at her. "Look, I'm twenty-two and I'm still winging it."
"Tell that to everyone asking what I'm going to major in."
"Tell them to mind their own business." He smiled. "Or tell them you're exploring your options. That always sounds good."
She laughed. Only a sliver of orange remained above the horizon now.
"I didn't know it could feel like this," Brittany said. "Easy. Like I don't have to try so hard." She didn't look at him. "I keep waiting for something to go wrong, but it just—keeps being good."
"Maybe nothing's going to go wrong."
"Maybe." She let herself believe it.
She turned toward him. The last light was catching his face, softening the angles, and she forgot to be nervous.
"I like you," she said. "I wanted to say that out loud, even if it makes things weird."
Ryan didn't answer right away. He held her gaze, and she watched his expression shift—surprise, then a slow smile.
"It doesn't make things weird," he said.
Then he reached over and took her hand.
They sat like that as the sun finished setting, his hand warm around hers, not talking, the last glow fading around them. His thumb brushed across her knuckles, and her breath caught. She didn't want to move. Didn't want this moment to end.
When the first stars appeared, they were still holding on.
"We should head back," Brittany said eventually.
"Probably."
She stood and offered him her hand. He took it, let her pull him up, and held on a beat longer than necessary before releasing it.
They pushed the kayaks back into the water. The paddle back was easier, like Ryan had said, the current carrying them, the strokes coming naturally now. They didn't talk much, but the silence felt different than before. Fuller. Comfortable.
The launch spot came into view, the parking lot and the shore and the world they'd briefly left behind. Ryan punched a code into the lock on the storage shed, and they slid the kayaks back onto the rack while Brittany shook the sand from her sneakers.
His truck was parked under a streetlight at the far end of the lot, an old Tacoma with a faded surf shop sticker on the bumper.
"I can drive you," he said. "It's on my way."
It probably wasn't, but Brittany didn't argue.
The drive to the rental house took five minutes, windows down, the radio playing something acoustic she didn't recognize. At a red light, his hand found hers on the console. Neither of them said anything.
When he pulled up to the curb, he let go to put the truck in park.
"I had a really good time,” she said.
"I'm glad you came." His eyes held hers, and her stomach flipped.
She reached for the door handle, then stopped. Turned back. Leaned across the console and kissed him on the cheek—quick, before she could talk herself out of it.
His surprised smile was the last thing she saw before she climbed out and headed up the walk, her heart pounding, and not from the kayaking.