Page 38

Twenty-Eight

Huck

The day starts early, and I am wrecked with exhaustion and the unique kind of hangover that comes after one has opened their big and extremely moronic mouth and said the worst possible thing ever.

Did I haul ass back to my bunk just to lay in bed with a pillow over my face contemplating smothering myself to end my imminent misery as soon as Stella left the kitchen?

Maybe. Did I pray that our kitchen interaction was some kind of scopolamine-induced hallucination, and I did not just fucking say you’re the only one who matters to me ? Yes. Yes, I did.

Unfortunately, I mentally checked the tape about a thousand times last night and every time the replay was identical.

Stella says her bit and then I basically ask her to marry me.

Well, maybe it wasn’t that bad, but it was in the fucking neighborhood.

She knew it. And I knew it. And she didn’t say anything back to me, of course she didn’t.

Stella’s smart. She understands that we have a history and we’re on a boat in very tight quarters for a month and that dredging all of that up is the definition of asking for it.

Still, I wouldn’t be surprised if she spent the night plotting my murder.

But she’s reading the book. That can’t be nothing. At least now I can die with hope.

That hope is why I force myself to get up, get dressed, have a cup of coffee and a croissant, and prepare to face the day.

Now I glance across the deck to where Stella is organizing the gear along the bow.

She’s wearing those frayed cutoff jeans that have become my obsession over the last week and a neon pink string bikini top that it would be unwise for me to delve into further detail about.

Dwelling on the contrast between her creamy skin and the bright fabric does things to me that I can’t explain. She looks so fucking good.

Teddy is working next to her, shirtless.

His skin is already golden brown. He looks like he belongs beside her.

Arranging oxygen tanks, stopping to double knot the bows on her back and at her neck, smoothing reef-safe sunscreen on her shoulders.

They’re laughing about something. At one point, she glances back in my direction, but her baseball hat’s too low over her eyes. I can’t tell if she was looking at me.

I find Zoe and Gus engaged in their own morning preparations, eating cinnamon toast and dancing to calypso music played on an old boombox.

“You want to dive today?” I ask Zoe. “I don’t mind staying out of the water.” Space could be good. Necessary even after the kitchen confession and that fucking bikini.

“Nope, it’s all you, Huckleberry Finn.” There’s an edge to her voice. Gus must pick up on it too because he kisses her on the cheek and says, “As much as I love an awkward moment, I’m going to take this energy as my cue to get another cup of coffee before we start the dive.”

We both watch as he shimmies across the deck, stopping midway to yell over to Ted about prepping some heliox tanks.

“Turn that shit up,” Ted calls, before he does a move that can only be described as something between the most glorious and most pathetic attempt at twerking that has ever occurred on land or sea.

It makes me forget about the kitchen and the pink bikini with its sunscreen-smeared edges for just a moment.

I turn back to Zoe. “I’m happy to go out again.”

“Well, good, because I don’t plan on diving at all.”

I frown. “Sorry, I’m confused. Stella said that you all dive. She called you, specifically, a fish, said you love sea life and protect everyone from sharks?”

Zoe places a hand on her abdomen and taps her index finger one-two-three.

“That’s true. It’s also a fact that you and I both have a secret.

So how about a trade? I’ll tell you mine and then you’re going to tell me everything that happened with Stella in Iceland and all about that thinly veiled love letter you wrote her that people are currently snagging from the front tables of Barnes I’d worry too if the roles were reversed.

I let my mind drift for a moment before answering.

If only I’d just dropped everything back in Iceland and followed my whim of becoming a sheep farmer.

I could be drinking Bjork and being booped by wooly creatures all day long, and I wouldn’t have to answer these questions or feel this way.

I wouldn’t have to wake up each morning with the knowledge that I’d met the woman who filled in all my gaps, who understood the way that I was broken and made me want to piece myself back together so I could stand by her side…

only to ruin it. Now she’s laughing with my old friend and I’m jealous.

I should be sick with regret and shame over my transgressions—I am, but I’m also neon green with envy and freaking disgusted with myself over it.

Across from me, Zoe starts tapping her foot on the deck.

I clear my throat. “For research.”

Her brow furrows. “ Research .” She over-articulates this so that I can’t miss the you-have-to-be-fucking-kidding-me in her tone.

I nod.

We’re in a face-off. I realize within a few seconds that trying to lie to Zoe was a massive error. She knows every possible tell, and she’s about to call me on it. “You sure you want to go with that?”

I can’t bring myself to speak.

“Okay, let’s talk about the book, then. Not sure if you knew this about me, but I happen to be a voracious reader myself.”

I swallow, hard. “You are?” She had called it a thinly veiled love letter earlier, hadn’t she?

“Mmm. Quite a fast reader too—a very helpful attribute for an attorney, as you can probably imagine. When I heard Stella was reading your book, I grabbed a copy on my e-reader and read it from cover to cover last night. Imagine my surprise when I realized that the main character in it is a very lightly fictionalized version of my best friend. And the hunky criminal love interest with a troubled heart of gold bears a striking resemblance to you. Finn? I mean it’s so obvious it’s almost painful. ”

Zoe’s on a roll now, a train barreling down the track aimed directly at me. I can only watch her close in. It’s not mean-spirited, I don’t think. Just direct.

“She’s never said what went down. Only that you two were getting close and it just didn’t work out. But that’s not what I read between those lines.”

“It’s just a book, Zoe. It’s not real. It’s fiction.”

“Were you in love with her?”

Direct? Fucking hell. This is an inquisition. Just say no.

You’re the only one who matters to me.

“Was she in love with you?”

“I can’t answer that.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t know. I really don’t. I would say that I wish I knew, but it wouldn’t make this easier. It might even make it worse. You have to see that. At the end of the day, it changes nothing. I know I blew it.”

“I think we both know that’s not exactly the whole truth.”

I don’t respond. It’s not like I forgot what I wrote, it’s more that I haven’t completely cataloged all the ways everything from Iceland permeated my story or the impact it would have for everyone who had lived it.

“You should tell her all of it.”

Zoe’s right. “I want to…but I can’t. Even if I could, I just don’t know how to do it. I think about it every day, even now, and wish I could go back and change it but I can’t, and I’m not sure that telling her everything will help.”

“So that’s not why you’re here?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know why I came. Maybe I thought I could fix it. Or maybe I was just being selfish. Maybe…I can’t write without her.”

“You need your muse in order to write your next book? Are you serious? That better not be your real answer because if it is, I’ll turn you into chum— Oh, hi, Ted!

” She grins at Ted, who slides an arm around her waist and joins our conversation, but her eyes are fixed on me like two murder orbs.

I actually get the chills. Zoe is kind of amazing… She’s going to be a fantastic mom.

“Gear’s set,” Ted says. “Think Gus will be up soon?”

“Yeah, he’s just grabbing a coffee below deck. I’ll go get him,” Zoe says.

“Fantastic!” Ted takes a deep breath and spreads his arms wide. His hair’s gotten lighter. He looks like when we were in school, the golden boy who let us all bask in his glow. “Gotta love that salt air, right, Huck? Smells like treasure.”