Page 44 of As a Last Resort

AUSTIN

Best condiment ever?” I asked. Our heads faced each other on the pillow. She lay naked, tangled up in my sheets with one leg draped over my waist. Her hair was in a messy pile behind her and she didn’t have a speck of makeup on. This was my favorite look yet.

“Ketchup.”

“Mayonnaise,” I countered.

“Ew, gross! That stuff makes me gag.”

“It’s sent directly from heaven.”

She giggled. That sound was catnip for me. “It’s gross . Favorite color?”

“Navy blue.”

It took her a second. “Red. Ruby red.”

“I thought it was green?”

“I think I changed it.” She beamed at me. “I think I just changed my favorite color.” Her eyes were filled with disbelief, like a kid caught with a hand in the cookie jar and her mom just said, Oh, go on, honey.

“If you were an animal, which one would you be?”

“Ooh, that’s a good one.” She pulled at her lip with her teeth and a flash of her biting my shoulder last night crashed into my mind. “How about a baby kangaroo so you’d have to carry me around all day?”

“You’re too heavy to carry around all day.” She laughed and palmed my face. I rolled on top of her and pinned her to the bed as she laughed. I kissed a line down her cheek, following each of the freckles on her face. I wanted to bury myself in her for the rest of the day.

“We’re going to be here all day if you’re kissing every one of them.”

“That’s—my—plan,” I said, in between pecks.

Patrick and his cousin had been manning the majority of the ferry runs this week while I spent every waking moment I could with Sam.

I wanted to soak in all I could with her.

Some part of me hated to admit it, but they were doing an amazing job.

Not only did it not sink or run aground, they weren’t even late—not a single time.

I even had a few emails in my box praising them.

So, I stayed with Sam.

I’d count the freckles on her face until she woke up in the morning.

Then I’d make her breakfast, knowing she thought runny scrambled eggs were gross and a bite of toast not covered in butter was an atrocity.

She told me how she never had bacon in high school.

She was scared of the grease popping from the stove, and she never had anyone else to cook it for her.

So I did.

Every morning.

I paused after I kissed the faint white line through the middle of her brow.

“It’s from the accident,” she answered without me asking.

“Doctors said I was lucky. They had no idea how I flew through a windshield and walked away with only a scar on my eyebrow. Well, and twenty-three screws in my arm.” She turned her arm around and a faint line trailed down the underside of it all the way down to her wrist. “Oh, and a medically induced coma for three days but there’s no scar from that anywhere. ”

“She came to pick you up that night?” I lay back down beside her and hooked my leg around hers.

“The night of the pep rally. I knew she had been drinking, she always did. I just didn’t realize she was that far gone. She masked it really well.”

I couldn’t imagine living in a house with someone who would put her daughter in danger by choice.

“She’d wake up and have vodka in her coffee and I had no idea for months.

” As she talked she ran her fingers along my arm.

“It was small in the beginning. I’d find her keys in the fridge or in the silverware drawer.

She’d forget conversations we’d just had the night before.

At first I thought she was just having trouble processing everything with Dad, but then I started to find empty containers in hidden places, like in our garage or in the trunk of the car.

This one time I came home from school and there was a take-out soda on the counter.

I took a sip and it felt like gasoline coating my throat. I coughed so hard I almost threw up.”

“Did you ask her about it?”

“I didn’t at first. I wanted to see what she’d do.

When she got home, she picked it up, took a long sip and didn’t miss a beat.

When I asked her what she was drinking she said, Just a Coke .

When I told her I had a sip and it didn’t taste like Coke to me, she got snippy and said, Well, it’s the off brand, it’s not going to taste like Coca-Cola. ”

I leaned in to kiss her scar again. I held my lips to her, breathing in her scent, wondering how many things she’d seen over her lifetime. How many times she’d been disappointed, let down, forgotten about.

I wanted to take care of her.

I wanted to be the one who showed her she wasn’t someone who could be forgotten.

Her phone ding ed from the bedside table. She leaned over to check it and a sour sneer passed over her face.

“PuggyWuggy?” I asked.

“Ooh, that’s a good one.” The sound of her laugh belonged here, in this bed, with me.

She looked at me with sad eyes. “I have to work today.”

When she sat up I pulled her arms back down and nuzzled her into the sheets.

“Not all day, just a few hours. Promise. Just enough to stave them off until Saturday when I get home.”

The silence felt like a rupture in my stomach.

Saturday.

One day left.

“I’ll make a few runs with Patrick and we’ll meet up for dinner. Sound good?”

The last thing she needed was to feel guilty about me on top of everything else she was dealing with. I wanted to ask her to stay on the island. To ask if it were possible to work from here for a while. Or come back down. But I needed time to figure out how.

Patrick busied himself tying the boat to the dock. “Alright, spill it. You haven’t let me run a day of shuttles across solo in, well, ever, actually. You’ve let me captain this whole week, and now you’re walking around all smiley today like Shirley Temple.”

“I am not smiley .”

“What’d you do, get laid or something?”

I turned away from him so he couldn’t see my cheeks flush.

“Oh, my good Lord up above, I was kidding! Look at you!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I pulled at my work collar that all of a sudden seemed a bit too tight.

“You’re sweating.”

“It’s ninety degrees outside.”

“You’re pulling at your collar and your face is flushed. And you’re smiling .” His million-dollar smile took over his face.

“I smile,” I argued. “Aren’t you supposed to be tying down something? Or cleaning something?”

He beamed at me. Then I saw the pieces click as his face lost a little bit of its sunshine.

“Wait a minute, you and Sam?” He paused. “Is that a good idea?”

“We’re just hanging out. Now get to work.”

He stared me down. It was the look he gave me after Vanessa cheated on me and I told him I was fine.

“She’s leaving soon, man.”

“And I’m not quite sure why everyone thinks it’s their business to tell—”

“I’m just saying,” he interrupted as his hands flew up, defending himself. “What are you going to do, give me the business and move up to the city? I can’t exactly see you at an art gallery with tight pants and a glass of champagne talking about the rise of impressionism or pop art.”

“What the hell is pop art?”

“Art based on modern popular culture. You have to know these kinds of things when you live in the city, dude.”

“I’m not moving to the city .” But even as the words left my mouth, I wondered if that was an option. What would it look like to wake up next to her every day? What did her apartment look like? Did she lay her clothes over the chair in the corner of her room like she did at my place?

“Just be careful, man, that’s all I’m saying. She’s a good girl, but not one who’s going to stay. Your life’s here, not there. You’d suffocate in the city.”

“And I’m going to suffocate you if you don’t turn your ass around and mop that deck.”

He narrowed his eyes and turned to the bucket. “Okay, okay. For the record I’m happy you didn’t forget how to use your wiener.”

He ducked just in time to miss the ball of rope I threw at his head.

I texted her on our last run back in. Her face was a constant in my vision all day. Her eyelashes. The stray hairs around her forehead that weren’t long enough to reach her eyes. The little red marks she had on her lower lip from biting them. The dip in her cheek when she smiled.

I kept looking at the water and thinking about what she said. I had built this business from the ground up. We were successful, busting at the seams and looking to expand, but was it really what I wanted to do for the rest of my life?

I felt alive on the water. I couldn’t imagine a day without being on it in some form. But I started to think about what I really wanted. What would life look like if I could do anything I wanted?

Patrick’s comment about suffocating kept playing through my mind. Could you even go fishing in New York City? Was that a thing?

Maybe if her mom got better she’d consider coming back home.

She didn’t seem happy at her job, and based on what she told me over the last few weeks, the promotion she was gunning for was going to the pug guy anyway.

I knew she and her mom didn’t have a great relationship, but things could change. They had to if she got better.

The more time I spent away from her, the more I wondered what it would look like if she stayed.

Or if I left. I tried to keep my mind focused on the present, knowing her plans to go back to the city were concrete, but my masochistic heart wouldn’t leave it alone. The pendulum swinging gave me whiplash.

What if?

She texted me she’d be another hour. Patrick and I had locked up for the day.

He was heading home and I had an hour to kill.

If I went home I’d stare at the door and drive myself insane waiting for her, so I headed to Harpoon’s instead.

Most of the local captains took a night cap there and while I normally avoided a tipsy tale, a quick fish story would serve as a welcome distraction.

“What’s up, Skipper?” A strong hand squeezed my shoulder and I turned my head to find Robby sliding into the stool next to me at the bar, a fierce sunburn surrounding where his aviators blocked the rays.

“Not much, Sea Legs. You feeling a little less green?”

“It’s Director Sea Legs to you. Got word just a few minutes ago.” He signaled for a beer to the bartender.

My stomach turned over. I didn’t have to ask, but I did anyway. “What do you mean?”

“The job. It’s official. I’m officially celebrating.”

Shit. The promotion. I wondered if Sam knew. She was going to be a wreck now that the promotion was his. I checked my phone but it was a blank screen.

“Funny seeing you here,” he continued, “although it’s the only place I’ve found open for a decent beer on the island so far.

” He looked around, eyeing the weathered nautical rope hanging from the ceiling and the battered wooden beams that lined the patio water view.

“The water views are nice from some of these places, but I still don’t get why people love it here so much. ”

“Depends on your priorities, I guess.” He stared at me, waiting for my answer.

“So, the views, yes. The sunsets are pretty spectacular. But there’s something about the way of life down here.

It’s easier. It’s like places you read about in books, or see in movies, but it’s all the time.

Not just this special place you get to visit.

It still has this charm about it, like an undiscovered cove that not many people know about. ”

“ Yet. Not that many people know about it yet . Once we finish this resort and our marketing team gets moving it’ll be a different story. It’ll top all the travel lists coming up in the next couple years.”

Sam seemed conflicted about the resort lately, like maybe she didn’t want to bring throngs of people here. Or maybe it was the promotion. But every time I brought it up, she would change the subject.

“And you get to single-handedly deliver every one of those tourists flocking in. Aren’t you a lucky bastard.” He grinned, nodding to the bartender for a drink. “What are you going to name her?”

“Name who?”

“The new boat. I was thinking Ferry Godfather . That’d be pretty funny, huh?”

I shook my head, trying to latch on to what he was hinting at.

“You get too much sun, Skipper? Isn’t the captain supposed to name their boat? I thought that was a thing.” He chuckled and took a long swig from the bottle. “I told Samantha it’s not every day you get a multimillion-dollar boat handed to you. I told her I thought you lucked out.”

Lucked out? Multimillion-dollar boat?

I looked over at him. His typical arrogant smirk was dialed down. Like he wasn’t aiming to poke me, just laying it out flat.

“Right, yeah, it’s definitely a thing. Tell me more about this boat I lucked out on.” I kept my voice steady, hoping he wouldn’t catch on that I had no idea what he was talking about. “How big is it again?”

“I don’t speak boat, but it carries five hundred at a time, I think.”

Five hundred.

He shrugged, like that was nothing. “It’ll be a lot different than what you’re used to, but I guess a boat’s a boat, yeah? They’ve all got a steering wheel, and they float. Although I think this one drives itself. Hell, you could just sit in your cockpit and drink a martini, if you wanted.”

“It’s called a wheelhouse.” The motion in the room slowed down around me, the hum of the bar muffled in the background.

“Whatever. I’m just glad you agreed to it. Would’ve been an awkward conversation if you wanted to keep your own ferry in business, know what I mean?” He laughed into the neck of his beer again as he took a sip.

My hand gripped my beer bottle hard enough to send it shattering. “Absolutely.”

“Makes sense that it’s you though, I guess. You still get to be out on the water, just don’t have to deal with all the runaround of owning your own business anymore. Glenn will probably pay you way more than what you make with your boat anyway. I mean, no offense or anything. It’s a win-win.”

He clapped my back and all I saw was red.

“Yeah, sounds like it.”

“Nature calls.” He pushed his barstool back and disappeared down the hall toward the bathroom.

I stayed frozen, gripping my beer bottle, watching a single drop of water slowly slide down the side of the glass. Was this why Sam wouldn’t talk about work?

Was it possible she knew the resort planned to incorporate a five-hundred-passenger ferry into its design?

Five hundred guests at a time.

Every hour. Every day.

The numbers swirled in my head as the drop of water fell to the bar top and vanished underneath the bottle.

Once that thing started running, I’d be out of business in less than a month.