Chapter 10
sofía
How long can someone survive without oxygen? Five minutes? Three?
The question rattles through my brain as waves batter the side of the boat, moored off Manly. The recent memory of Jett and Doug in the water, all smiles with their cameras and fins, does little to banish the worry.
“Relax, Sofía. Pacing the length of the boat won’t make them surface any faster,” Molly says, never straying from her thriller book. She thumbs a page. “They’ll be back in about an hour. Enjoy the quiet.”
An hour?
Humans aren’t meant to be underwater for that long.
It’s unnatural. There’s a reason our skin prunes after fifteen minutes in the water.
It’s nature’s way of saying “get out before I kill you.” My pacing worsens, and I peer into the murky abyss.
The diver’s flag bobs beside us, but other than that, there’s no evidence Jett and Doug are beneath the surface.
I glance at my phone. It’s only been seven minutes since they left.
I’ve run out of things to do to occupy my mind, and scrolling Jett’s social media has become overwhelming.
As I expected, his fans are devouring the vague, teasing posts I’ve fed them, demanding to know more. It’s possible I may have pissed off @Mrs.JettParks with my anonymous post on his fan page confirming another sighting of Jett with a mysterious woman.
Apparently, only she can confirm or deny his movements.
“What kind of animals are common in this area?” I ask the captain, who fiddles with dive gear at the stern.
The dive guide, Simon, leaped into the water with the guys since he knew all the nooks and crannies. He was all shakas and smiles when he splashed in, but he better take dive safety seriously, or I am going to leave a Yelp review so scathing they will never recover.
“Ah, well, you’ve got nudibranchs, seahorses, cuttlefish, grouper, and on occasion, a white pointer.”
“What’s a white pointer?”
“A great white shark.” He catches my arm when my knees buckle. “It’s highly unlikely they’ll encounter one here. It’s mostly raggies in this area.”
“Raggies?”
“Grey nurse sharks.”
“The cannibalistic ones?”
They’re going to die.
He forces me to sit beside Molly, who is unfazed by the predicament her husband put himself in. He can’t fight back with the massive camera equipment he brought. At least Jett can use his fists.
My head swirls until I’m dizzy and sick with the detailed image of them being mauled and shredded by shark teeth.
He’ll go down swinging if it’s man versus shark.
The thought dissipates a fraction of my anxiety, though sweat still trickles down my spine.
Ice rattles as he digs a beer out of the cooler and shoves it into my grip. I spin the metal, frowning. “It’s barely nine in the morning.”
“We’re in Australia, darlin’. And you seem like you need it.”
A hiss sounds when I crack it open and take a sip. The hoppy flavor hits my tongue, and I barely stop my nose from scrunching. “Great Northern,” I read out loud, twisting the tan-and-red can. “It’s…beer.”
“The presence of sharks in an ecosystem is a good thing,” he explains as I sip on the beverage before it gets warm.
Beer is mediocre on its own, but I won’t be able to stomach it if it’s warm.
“It means the system is balanced. Without the top predators, populations can grow out of control and then decimate other populations through over-foraging. They keep the balance. Cull any diseased animals. We want sharks around.”
I recognize the importance from a biological standpoint. It is their ocean, after all. But the less logical part of my brain dislikes the lack of control I have right now with Jett underwater and me on this boat, completely useless if something goes wrong.
It’s unlikely I would be helpful in the water—my five-three body would not deter a shark—but the uneasiness would settle if I had my eyes on him.
“We also have leafy seadragons,” he says, handing me a field guide full of the species found off the coast of New South Wales. “And the rock lobster. It’s known for its beautiful shell coloring. Also makes for good eating.”
Now that I’m preoccupied, which I think was his plan all along, he leaves, and I flip through the species guide, reading about different invertebrates and fish found in Manly.
I avoid the sharks and rays section, and when my drink is gone and I’ve learned everything I can about seadragons and seahorses, my worries are replaced by a soft buzz and a new obsession with sea slugs, or nudibranchs.
As go-with-the-flow as he can be at times, Jett is smart. He wouldn’t do anything dangerous—not without considering all the possibilities first. His credentials and certifications are more advanced than I expected. Plus, he can always sacrifice Doug or the dive guide if it comes down to survival.
The intense sun beats down, and I remove my swimsuit cover, revealing the floral one-piece Jett bought for me. I was not bold enough this morning to wear the bikini.
Molly gasps at her book, sits up, and chucks it at the other side of the boat, the papers flapping as they bounce along the deck.
“What was that for?”
“I always know the twist,” she says, shaking her head. “Always.”
“But not this one?”
“No, they fucking killed her! The husband and her doctor were in on it.” Molly digs through the cooler, cracks open a beer, and takes a long, deep gulp. “Let’s talk about you. What’s your deal?”
“My deal?”
“Yeah. You’re young and pretty. Are you dating? Do you have a boyfriend? Tell me something fun so I don’t have to think about that book.”
“There’s not much to tell. I’ve given up.”
Molly chuffs. “You’re too young for that. What happened?”
“The last guy I was seeing called me his ‘West Coast piece’ and had a different girlfriend in each region of the United States.”
I leave out the part where he called me sugar tits in bed.
That’s not for Molly to know. It’s bad enough Jett is privy to that knowledge, even if he did apologize profusely.
I never would have agreed to give you the shirt if I had known, he said as we boarded the plane.
I’m sorry if it made you uneasy. He offered to burn the shirts, which seemed extreme, but I waved him off.
The embarrassment has faded, and I can objectively admit the shirts are hilarious. “Oh, that’s bad.” Molly grimaces. “But that’s one apple in the bunch.”
“The one before him told me I would be prettier if I lost ten pounds. And before that, it was a man who worked in tech and drank chlorophyll water and followed a carnivore diet.” A gust of wind dances over the water, and the chill distracts from the heat flooding my cheeks.
Those are only the men in the last year.
I don’t bring up the four-year shit show with Tommy—I can’t open that can of worms. He took my weakness as an opportunity, preying on the times I needed him and used them to mold me into something more palatable for him.
When I finally picked myself back up, I told myself it would be different with the next guy—I could be different—but it hasn’t been.
So now I pick myself back up and rely on myself. It’s easier this way.
At least, that’s what I tell myself.
“I met Doug when I least expected it. Could happen to you, too.”
I grunt.
Not holding my breath. But I will be buying one of those air suction toys when I get back to LA. I miss having sex, but I am not sacrificing my peace of mind to hook up with a stranger.
“How did you two meet?”
“A salsa class. He was my dance partner. Kept stepping on my toes.” She sighs, a fond expression brightening her face. “He’s a horrible dancer.”
“Sounds like love at first sight.”
She cackles. “God, no. Our first date was so awkward I almost didn’t call him back. But the next week, he showed up to our class with a bouquet of ranunculus. I had mentioned they were my favorite once when we were dancing, and he remembered. He got a second date.”
“I love peonies, but they’re expensive and have short seasons. Most men get roses.”
I fucking hate roses.
“My piece of advice: Find someone who remembers. The big things, the small habits, all of your little quirks. Words are a declaration of love, but remembering is the action of it.”
The words strike a chord. How much can I remember about Tommy, about my family, about my friends? How much do they know about me? I don’t think Tommy knew anything about me, nor did he care to learn.
I’m left with the thought and my field guide, flicking through the pages. Water splashes, and I drop the book, running to the side of the boat. Jett pops his head out of the water, all smile as he rips the mask off and waves.
Chatter fills the air as they climb out of the water and remove their gear. The engine kicks to life, and we’re off, hopefully back to shore.
“About forty minutes to the next site. Grab some food, and we’ll chill for our surface interval,” Simon says, fiddling with the oxygen tanks.
“You’re going back in?” I ask, poorly hiding my panic when Doug and Jett make it to the front of the vessel.
Why on earth would they do that?
“Well, we’re gonna move a bit to a new dive site, but yeah. Hoping we can film a Port Jackson shark,” he replies, running a towel over his hair.
I stumble into the seat. Now they’re willingly chasing the dangerous animals. Great. They’re going to send me to an early grave. Jett mistakes my worry for hunger and runs over to the cooler, scooping up an armful of food and returning to the chairs.
“You need to eat,” he says, shoving a turkey sandwich in my direction. A bag of pizza Shapes falls into my lap beside a piece of candy. “Your sugar is low.”
“It’s not.” My hand trembles as I raise the sandwich to my mouth.
Okay, fine, maybe it’s low, and maybe I’m overwhelmed at the idea of Jett getting back into the water. I don’t like the onslaught of emotions or the anxiety that coincides with them.
Water drips off Jett’s skin, and I peek at his chest, a droplet traveling down between his pectoral muscles.
An arm raises, and muscles flex as he drags his hands through his wet hair, water landing on my skin.
I can almost hear the sizzle when they hit their mark, evaporating against the warmth stretching along my arm.
We hit a wave, and I jostle into him, knocking the bag of pizza Shapes out of his hand and scattering them along the deck. He gasps and reaches around my waist to steady me when we hit a few more bumps.
“My crackers.” He pouts, and I offer him mine. “Oh, thanks, sugar tits.”
I smack him square in the chest, and he barks a laugh. “Couldn’t help myself,” he chokes out.
“Don’t let that catch on,” I grumble, dipping my head to hide my blush.
There’s something titillating about hearing the word tits roll off his tongue. I scoot away to create some space between us. The sun and the alcohol are zapping my brain cells.
“Wanna watch some of the footage?” he asks after polishing off the crackers. “Got some wicked shots on my GoPro.”
“Sure.”
He eats up the space I tried to create and annihilates two more of my logical brain cells. “That right there,” he murmurs, “is an eastern blue grouper. And that is a leafy seadragon. I almost missed it, but Doug has the eyesight of a hawk.”
His voice is low, intimate. The tips of his wet hair graze my scorched skin, and I jerk from the intensity of the contact.
He should get back in the water so I can recalibrate my system and stop thinking about the water droplet and the route it took along his skin. Goddamn liquid is haunting me.
“I read about those. Males care for the eggs, rather than the females.”
“Mm-hmm,” he hums. “We also saw a few massive groupers. Doug has footage of those.”
A strangled sound escapes me—I’ve found another water droplet cascading down his bicep— and Jett’s eyebrows squish together, but he flips through more photos. “They need to be edited, but I think we have some pretty good shots.”
“They’re great,” I say, and he beams at the praise. “Could you send me some to post to promote the documentary? I don’t have a lot of followers on my account, but maybe someone will like it?”
It comes out as a question, unsure and small. I hate it. It probably wouldn’t matter if I posted anything or not.
“I think that’s a killer idea,” he says, bumping my shoulder with his.
He finishes his food in a few quick bites and then swaps out the batteries on the cameras and secures the waterproof housing so it doesn’t leak when they’re underwater. My pulse skyrockets as he completes the mundane tasks, forearms flexing.
The heat is getting to me. I crack open another drink, this time an alcoholic ginger beer, which is much more palatable. Delicious and crisp.
The engine quiets, the boat bobbing back and forth, and the anxiety returns in full force.
“Gear up, lads,” Simon calls out.
Jett collects his camera. My body moves before my brain can process it, and I snatch his hand. He lifts a brow, his eyes flicking down to where I’m clutching his palm, then to me, a silent question in his gaze.
“Just…please be careful.”
The smile he offers me, all goofy and carefree, does not soothe any worries.
“I am the king of the ocean. Call me Aquaman.”
He lifts an arm and flexes his bicep.
Oh, god.
If he sees a shark, he’s gonna get himself killed. Nausea bubbles in my gut, and I take another deep gulp of ginger beer. It’s going to be a long hour.