18. Seth
Seth
I’m not sure how long I’m in and out of consciousness. I have vague memories of lying in the lifeboat in Nick’s arms, being tossed around by the ocean.
I have memories of a stranger talking to me. “It’s going to be alright. Can you help me out now? Can you hold on to this?”
Followed by memories of a different sort of undulation. Wind instead of water.
Nick’s arms around me again.
People in blue scrubs wrapping me with blankets and shouting out numbers. My body temperature, I think.
Nick saying, “I’m fine. I want to stay. Please let me stay with him.”
Because in every memory, he’s there. He doesn’t leave my side. He holds me through the pins and needles, through the brain fog, through the sleep between sporadic windows of consciousness.
“I love you,” I remember more vividly than anything. The moment right before the plunge.
His voice is the first thing I hear when I wake up again. It takes a minute to piece together what he’s saying, who he’s talking to. His parents, I gather, though all I hear from their end of the line is muffled speech.
They have more to say than he does. He just sounds… exhausted. Defeated.
I keep my eyes shut for a while, trying to tune out the conversation and give him privacy. They’re talking about the wreck. For Nick, I’m sure it’s the same as if he had to call to break the news of a family member’s passing.
But then he says my name, and I can’t help but pay a little more attention. Because all he calls me is Seth. No qualifier. No Seth, one of the guys on my crew. No Seth, my first mate. Not even a my friend, Seth. Just Seth.
He’s talked about me before. And I’m wondering how much, for how long, when Nick says over the phone, “Actually, he’s sort of… more than that.”
He doubles down on it, too. If there was any doubt in my mind that he was telling them about us, it’s gone by the end of their conversation.
I turn over and face him to make sure I’m not hallucinating. And sure enough, he’s there. He’s all bundled up in a way-too-big set of sweats and his cheeks are reddened in blotches from the cold and dryness. His eyes land on mine as he wraps up the phone call with a barely-there smile.
I watch him for a moment. Wondering how long he’s been awake waiting for me, and how he still manages to be the most captivating man I’ve ever laid eyes on when he’s been through hell and back.
“Hey,” he says softly. “How are you feeling?”
“Good,” I croak, my throat dry.
I’ve spoken too soon.
The moment I sit up, my body can’t seem to remember that we’re no longer out on the ocean. The room rocks back and forth, up and down. My stomach clenches into a tight, hard knot.
Holy fuck, I’m going to throw up, I realize in just enough time to grab the trash can beside the hospital bed and hold it up to my face.
It’s been a while since I ate anything. Stomach acid and burning bile is all my stomach expels, but the room keeps rocking back and forth. And I keep heaving.
I’m still face down in the trash can when I feel a warm, solid hand on my back, rubbing my shoulders. Nick stands by patiently, soothing me until the last of the convulsions have stopped and the shivering has subsided.
And then, because he’s the best man to have ever walked the face of the Earth, he goes to empty the trash can in the bathroom.
When he returns, it’s with a clean waste basket and two cups of ice. Both of which, he hands to me. He heads for the brown paper bag sitting beside the landline and pulls out a package of peanut butter crackers and a can of ginger ale.
“Here.” He opens both and sets them on the tray table beside the bed. “To settle your stomach.”
I take a sip of the soda and nibble on a cracker, feeling the sharp and sudden inclination to bury my head in his chest and find out if there’s a way for me to live inside him. It wasn’t long ago when I was sure I wouldn’t live at all.
“Thank you,” I say.
He nods, laying the shopping bag on top of the bed now and pulling out items while he talks. “Got you a toothbrush too. I think I found the soap you like. Also, a couple pairs of clothes, and some socks and shoes for when they discharge you. Or if you’re cold. Are you cold?”
He says it like he’s haunted by the thought of me ever being cold another day in my life. Like he’s been waiting for me to wake up just to ask me, and I don’t doubt that’s the truth. I know what it’s like to be loved and to be wanted, but Nick makes me feel precious.
“I’m good for now.”
That doesn’t seem to ease the furrow of his brows.
“I promise. We do live in Alaska, though. I’m going to get cold again.”
“No, you’re not. I’m not letting that happen.”
I scoot over in the bed, heating packs tumbling to the floor as I pat the sliver of space beside me. “Come here.”
His eyes land on the IV, the blood pressure monitor, and the tubes sticking out of me before they ever land on my face. “There’s not enough room.”
“We’ve made do with ‘not enough room’ before, haven’t we?” I give him a small smile. “Come on. If you wanna keep me warm, this is how you’re gonna have to do it.”
That does the trick. He slides in under the scratchy sheets, both of us pushed to the edges of the bed. He smells clean—like bar soap and fresh clothes—while I can feel the crust of dried seawater on my skin, but that doesn’t stop him from folding me into his arms.
“So did you walk out of here in the suit or the hospital gown to get all that stuff?” I ask. No matter the answer, my heart’s already giving devoted little pulses at the thought that he would trek out in the snow to make me a little bit more comfortable.
“It’s twenty degrees. Like I’d walk around with my ass hanging out.”
“Mm. You’d be doing a public service.”
And here I thought his cheeks couldn’t get any redder.
“Full transparency, I also got stuff for the other guys.”
As if that’s supposed to make the gesture mean anything less. All it does is remind me what a good person he is.
“And you rubbed their backs while they threw up, then crawled into bed with them?”
“Of course not.” His thumb rubs circles over my shoulder. “You’re the only one who threw up.”
I laugh. “How are they doing?”
“Perry got air-lifted to a bigger hospital in Anchorage—he should be getting out of surgery soon, I think. If he hasn’t already.
Jorg and Orlov weren’t admitted, but they’re in the waiting room.
Next air taxi doesn’t leave until tomorrow morning.
I can go let them know you’re up, if you want. They were worried about you.”
I nod, running my fingers through his tangled hair. “In a little while.”
Nick manages to accept that and lie still for a whopping two minutes before I feel his whole body tense in anticipation of whatever he’s about to say.
“I’ll make sure you all get paid for the catch, too.
I don’t have the funds to settle everything out of pocket right now, but I should be able to front most of it.
I’m gonna file a claim with the insurance when I get back, and when that money comes in I’ll—”
“I don’t care about the money. Give my share to the rest of the crew if it’ll help.
They need it more than I do.” I take his hand.
“I care about you, Nicky. That’s all I care about.
I care about making sure you’re not beating yourself up for saving my life.
I care about how you’re doing after that talk with your dad, because I know how much the Suoja meant to both of you.
And… I care about what you told him at the end there. ”
“Oh. I didn’t plan that. But the things that used to worry me just”—Nick gnaws on the inside of his cheek—“don’t, anymore.
Not after yesterday. I shouldn’t have been worried in the first place, because they took it well.
Part of me always knew they would. They’re good people.
The best. They didn’t care about that any more than they cared about the Suoja.
And now I’ve made them feel terrible by keeping who I am a secret from them all these years—”
“Hey.” I give his hand a squeeze. “You don’t need a reason to keep any part of your identity to yourself. You don’t owe anyone any part of who you are that you don’t want to share. This is your life. Whatever moment you pick is the right moment. All that matters is that they support you now.”
He offers a grateful, albeit bashful, smile. “They want to meet you, fair warning. I told them it was new, so they know we’re still figuring things out. But I can’t blame them when they’ve never seen me with anyone. I think they’re just excited.”
“I’m not figuring anything out, Nicky,” I tell him. “‘New’ and ‘casual’ aren’t synonyms. I’m serious about you. I asked you to come to Seward, too. Or did you forget?”
“I didn’t know if you’d still want me to go,” he says, as if he hasn’t broken my heart enough with how hard he’s being on himself.
But the harder he’s going to go on himself, the easier I’m going to handle him.
“I want you everywhere I am, baby. I wanna fall asleep beside you every night and wake up next to you every morning. I wanna go fishing and hiking together. Get an RV and take a stupid-long road trip. I wanna get a dog with you. Two, so they each have a friend. We can wait until we retire from the commercial shit, or we could go adopt them right now. I’ll drop them off with Audrey while we’re working and cash in on all that free babysitting I’ve done. ”
Nick’s eyes soften. “What if I’m a cat person?”
“Then it turns out I don’t know you at all, because there’s no way in hell.”
He finally, fully, lets himself laugh.
“You’re the one for me.” I cup his jaw, my thumb tracing the outline of his beard. The outline of his lips. “And if you would’ve given me a second to say it back before throwing me off the damn boat… I would’ve told you I love you, too.”
His eyes glass over right before he pulls me in with shaking hands, pressing a kiss to my forehead. And when that one ends, another. A lingering brush of his lips.
It doesn’t occur to me until then that, at thirty-four, this is the first time he’s ever heard those words romantically.
I’m the first man who’s ever told Nicolas Lundvall that I’m in love with him, and that’s the biggest shame I can possibly imagine. So I keep telling him.
“I love you.” I rest my head in the crook of his shoulder. More than anything, I want to kiss him, but my breath has never been more revolting.
“I love you.” I kiss his collarbone instead, over his sweatshirt. “I love you. I love you. I love you, Nicky.”
“I love you,” his voice breaks apart into something watery and thin when he says it back.
It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him cry. Not from losing the boat that belonged to his father and having to rebuild his business from the wreckage. Not from everything he lost, but from what the two of us have found.
That night was the hardest thing I’ve gone through in my life. But this season gave me him. I wouldn’t trade a single memory we made to erase the hurt. I’d do it all over again.