Page 8 of Hearts Overboard

Cruising the Inside Passage

Tanner was going to injure a child or an old man, and it was going to be my fault.

It was our first full day at sea, and he’d entered us in a Ping-Pong tournament. The tables were located on the top deck, protected from the wind by a clear barrier but offering expansive views of the sea. It had seemed like a decent way to spend the morning.

Only, I’d had no idea he was a vicious table tennis enthusiast. His serves had fancy spins, he moved so fast I could barely see the ball, and he had no hesitation about hitting it so hard it bounced off the forehead of an old man to win us a point.

“Does the football team play this, too?” I asked.

“Yep. Table in Brady’s garage.”

The school quarterback. How did Tanner have time for such an active social life?

“Maybe relax a little?” I suggested. “So we don’t send anyone to the cruise ship hospital with Ping-Pong ball bruises?”

“It’s hard to hide true talent, S’more. And if you’re going to play, you should try to win.”

“Too bad Ping-Pong isn’t a college major.”

“It should be. It really should be. Now, you’ll improve your serve if you angle the paddle like this.” He demonstrated the grip and waited until I mimicked him properly.

Our opponents couldn’t return my next serve, and he offered me a paddle high five.

“Nice,” he said. “You’re not a bad partner.”

It was weird being on the same team, rather than competing against him. Like the planet had tilted on its axis or gravity had shifted or the Federation had allied with the Borg.

“Next time, try hitting it harder,” he said.

I tried to beam a mental apology to the preteen girl and her dad who were our current victims.

After we beat them, he gave the girl pointers, too.

An hour later, Tanner took a selfie of us holding a small plastic trophy with a gold cruise ship on top.

“I’m not kissing that,” I said.

“Hashtag champs.”

“I feel myself getting less boring every second.”

“Yeah, you do. We should play each other, you know, to determine the champion of champions.”

After that display? No chance. I’d learned years ago not to compete against him unless I stood a solid chance of winning. “I’ll just let you keep the trophy.”

We couldn’t post the picture yet, the same way we hadn’t been able to post last night, since our parents had colluded to decide they weren’t springing for the ship’s expensive Wi-Fi. Being so unconnected was weird. What was Jordan doing today? Had she texted? And what about Caleb? Had he seen the pictures from before we’d left? Was he impressed?

“So. Have you decided about tomorrow?” Tanner asked.

I dragged my thoughts away from home and pulled the list from my small backpack. “Maybe zip-lining?”

He leaned in and pretended to inspect my face.

How had I never noticed rings of gold in the middle of his gray eyes? Like sunbursts. I wanted to study them. Wait. I shook myself. This was Tanner.

“Who are you, and what did you do with the real Savannah?” He poked my arm.

I swatted him. Zip-lining had been one of the more manageable options, and it relied on physics. “It sounds fun, right?”

Ugh, it sounded like I needed validation. From him.

“Definitely. But I didn’t expect you to dive right in on the first day. What about zip-lining plus off-road vehicles?” He pointed to the guide.

That seemed excessive. But the shock on his face had been nice, proving I was capable of surprising him, being more fun than he thought I could be. “Okay.”

He blinked at me. “Are you messing with me? You aren’t going to back out, like you always do?”

“You’re finally learning.” I smirked. “I said I’d do new things this week. Go book it before I change my mind, Coach.”

He saluted, grinned, and scampered off.

Finally alone, I took a few pictures of the scenery then went to the forward lounge with the large windows. Today the ship was cruising through the Inside Passage, a narrow, protected waterway along the coast of British Columbia, dotted with islands. Our route wound through sounds and twisting channels. Sometimes the passage was narrow, the mountains close on either side.

The water was deep, vivid blue, and bright green trees swathed the hills. Many mountains were capped with snow.

The vast emptiness of it all hit me like a wave. Ocean and mountains stretched as far as I could see, and our ship was the lone beacon of civilization. No cities on the shores, no cell towers in the hills, hardly any other boats.

I was glad for the genius of engineering that offered a sturdy mode of transportation, a way of venturing into beautiful places. But it was unnerving. The sheer scope of nature threatened to overwhelm me. If anything happened here, we were hours from help and had only the ship to rely on.

I loved looking into the expanse of the night sky, the endless stars and galaxies. But I did that from the safety of Earth, knowing those were distant, unreachable. No chance of me getting lost in them.

My dad came up and took a seat next to me. “There you are.”

“Where’s Mom? Wait, don’t answer that.”

“Client meetings,” he said.

“I hope there are windows so they don’t miss the views.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Have you decided what you want to do thisweek?”

“Tanner’s booking ATVs and zip-lining for tomorrow. I hope that’s okay.” Most of the excursions required adult supervision for minors, but thankfully our dads had said they were game for whatever.

“Sounds fun.” He studied the view. “What prompted this desire to branch out?”

“Thought it was time for something new.”

“Does it have anything to do with what happened with Caleb?”

I spun toward him. “What—how?”

I hadn’t told my parents the gory details because I hadn’t wanted constant questions about how I was feeling, but they’d known something was up when I didn’t meet him for our regular Saturday dog-walking.

“I’m your dad,” he said. “I know things.”

Because he knew me, he didn’t ask if I was okay. He understood that I’d tell him if I wanted to talk.

What was Caleb doing today? It was Thursday, which was Science Center day. If I were there, we’d be making sure the exhibits were in order, greeting guests. Not that I wasn’t glad to be here, but a small part of me longed for the familiarity of home.

All I had to do was glance at those endless mountains and that drowning feeling threatened to return, everything uncertain and overwhelming.

“How’d Ping-Pong go?” Dad asked.

“We won. Tanner was a little scary.”

Dad laughed. “Tanner’s a nice kid. I know you don’t like him, but I’m glad he’s here so you have someone. You might find some things in common.”

I snorted. But…bowling for trash cans. Ewoks. Mafia deals.

Ridiculous. Those were common thoughts people would have. It didn’t mean Tanner and I were on the same wavelength or anything like that.

A guide came in for a nature talk, so we listened as the woman described the Inside Passage, its one-thousand-plus islands, the wildlife we might see. Whales, orcas, sea lions, seals, eagles, caribou…those sounded cool. We even saw a couple humpback whales out the window while she was talking. But then of course she had to mention the bears. They were replacing Tanner as my number one nemesis. Temporarily, of course.

When she finished, Dad said, “We’re a long way from LA, aren’t we?”

“Yeah.” My answer came out like a sigh.

“Don’t see this view from my desk, that’s for sure.”

“That’s because your office has no windows.”

“Harsh, kid.”

“You should be with Mom trying to convince Mr. Ramirez to give you a better office.”

“Nah, I’m happy. I’ve been there for twelve years. It would be too much work to move. Plus, that exact cubicle is where I met your mom.”

I couldn’t argue with liking what you knew.

I watched the mountains. “How’d you pick accounting, anyway?”

“After I started business school, I found I was more into details than networking and the social aspect, the way your mom is. I’d always liked numbers and organizing. It fit. Why? Do you need help figuring out options? You haven’t talked much about your plans.”

“Just curious,” I said.

I hadn’t talked about it because I was trying to forget that in one year, life would be changing drastically. I’d decided I liked math, and I liked school, and teaching math seemed like a good career. Helping kids make sense of the universe through the simplicity and steadiness of numbers. I’d made a list of colleges in LA and their application deadlines, and with that done, I could put off thinking about it for now.

But…thoughts of Mr. Lin’s program intruded. Physics. Engineering. Projects.

No. I wouldn’t worry about it now. I hadn’t been able to check my email for the details. I had time to decide. And doing the program didn’t have to mean altering my plans for the future.

My dad’s situation was interesting, though. Even if I came up with a great idea for Tanner that satisfied his parents, he could always change his mind later. It wasn’t like he had to know what his whole life would look like, just because I did.

My dad left to check on my mom, and a while later, Tanner found me listening to a podcast and watching the views.

“You can’t sit here all day,” he said. “Let’s do something.”

“I am doing something. I’m enjoying nature.”

“Enjoying nature doesn’t count as something new.”

“In Alaska it does. We saw whales.”

“You’ve seen whales. Whale watching is a standard field trip in Southern California.”

He had a point. I remembered him spending two straight hours making whale song noises while I tried to help Jordan through seasickness.

“We won a Ping-Pong trophy today,” I said.

“You mean I won. Pretty much singlehandedly.”

Yet another good point.

“There are lots of options,” he said. “Come on. I’m bored.”

“I’m not your personal entertainment.” But I found myself standing and pocketing my earbuds.

“Excellent.” He handed me a rumpled daily schedule from his back pocket.

I scanned it. “Afternoon tea?”

“Yawn.”

“Pictionary?”

“Are you messing me with me again?”

I totally was. “Dance lessons?”

“Are you sure you can handle this on a dance floor?” He did an exaggerated hip swivel.

“Oh, yeah, good point. It might make me sick.”

He snatched the paper. “Nope, too late. You can’t take it back. What kind of dance?”

“I don’t know. You stole the paper.”

“Line dancing? No, that was this morning. Ballroom is starting soon. That sounds…” He grimaced.

“New and challenging?” I suggested. If he was stretching my comfort zone this week, it was only fair to return the favor.

I had little desire to learn to ballroom dance. Describing my rhythm as nonexistent would’ve been generous. In the short amount of time we’d spent at junior prom, Caleb and I had watched from the sidelines, and we’d both been fine with it. Or, I had been. I’d thought he was. Now I was trying to remember if he had wanted to dance and I had declined, or if he’d wanted to ask but hadn’t bothered because he’d assumed I’d say no.

“Are you going to veto this, Fun Coach? Are you afraid?”

Tanner set his jaw. “No veto needed. I will wow you with my moves.”

“I’m sure I will be saying wow. Just not the way you think.”

We took the stairs—the elevators on this ship took forever—and I asked, “Did you do your homework?”

“You sound like my mom.”

“I promised I’d help you, and I keep my word.”

He sighed. “Fine. Remind me what it was?”

I inhaled slowly and counted to five. “Subjects you like, hobbies, anything at all that interests you outside of football and tormenting me?”

“Can I major in that? I would ace tormenting you.”

“I have no doubt.”

“Where do you want to go to college? I’ll just apply there.”

What game was he playing? Surely he was as eager to escape me as I was him. “I told you this isn’t about me. Stop avoiding the question. Favorite class? Academic class.”

He shrugged.

“What do you do outside of football and tormenting me?”

“Does working out count? Ping-Pong, obviously. Poker. Parties.”

He would not make me give up. No matter how hopeless this seemed, he couldn’t be a completely lost cause. “Okay, what class do you hate the least?”

“I liked lit last year. We watched a lot of movies, which meant I didn’t have to read the books. Did Jane Austen really have that proud guy climb out of a pond in a wet shirt? Oh, I also liked art. As long as you said you were feeling the muse, Ms. Reynolds didn’t care if your painting looked like a drunk cat did it or if your ceramic mug leaked coffee all over your shirt.”

“We’ll come back to this later.”

“Good idea. I need to focus now.”

“On what?”

“Learning to dance, obviously. So I can be better than you.”

I shook my head. The quality of his art didn’t surprise me. Neither of us had ever been big on art, music, theater. I’d won honorable mention in an art fair once, and he’d had a single line of dialogue as a spoon in Beauty and the Beast while I played a nontalking chair. But mostly it hadn’t been worth competing. Sometimes I wondered if he’d given up everything I didn’t care about, other than football, because he didn’t find it worth the effort if it wasn’t something he could beat me at. Sometimes I wondered if I’d done the same thing.

He swept into the main promenade with its gleaming floors and high ceilings. Whose brilliant idea had it been to hold dance lessons in such a public place? This seemed better suited to hidden corners or dark rooms or places with guards outside to keep spectators at bay.

Two people from last night’s show were teaching, and the students were all older, including one of Mom’s coworkers, who beamed at us.

Tanner, of course, kept going, front and center. I stopped midway back to the side and refused to move, and he looked around until he spotted me. He shook his head and joined me.

“I said I’d try something new, not that I’d do it on center stage,” I said.

“Oh, S’more,” he sighed my name.

The instructors demonstrated the basic hold and steps of the foxtrot, “a gliding, graceful dance perfect for elegant occasions.” Elegant occasions weren’t exactly my thing.

I was going to have to partner with Tanner. Everyone was here in couples. Why hadn’t this occurred to me before I suggested the lesson?

Around us, hands clasped or slid to their partners’ shoulders.

Tanner and I eyed each other. I’d never realized how tall he was. He made me feel short in a way Caleb never had. When he stepped in front of me, his broad shoulders blocked my view of everyone else.

My face got hot. Tanner shuffled his feet. Was he nervous, too? Or hesitant to touch me?

Why did that bother me?

This didn’t mean anything. It would be fine.

I tentatively placed a hand on his shoulder. He was wearing a T-shirt and jeans, same as me—not exactly ballroom attire. Through the thin cotton, he was warm, and his muscles were solid. His hand slid to my middle back, and I jumped slightly when his fingers pressed my spine.

Our other hands lifted and started toward each other, but we both hesitated before his fingers closed around mine. He clutched my hand gently, as if it were fragile. I swallowed hard.

The teachers were calling out instructions, reminding us of the steps. I moved back, back, side, as the woman had demonstrated.

I’d half expected Tanner’s complaining to be a front to hide secret skills. But he…was not that great. He managed the footwork fine, but he wasn’t as graceful as I’d feared, with none of the rhythmic hip action our teachers had. It was nice to see him not be awesome at something, but since he didn’t care, and since I wasn’t any better, there was no point in teasing him.

“Aren’t you two precious?” asked Mom’s coworker as she and her husband glided past us, far more graceful than we were.

I was going to go hide now. Forever.

We settled into trying for real. Gliding and elegant were notwords to accurately describe either of us, but Tanner’s face was set with concentration as he repeated the steps. It was incredibly inconvenient that I found determination an attractive trait.

His arms were strong and secure, like he would hold me up if I needed it. I couldn’t meet his eye, instead focusing on his collar when I wasn’t watching my feet.

“Chin up,” he said.

“I’m trying not to step on your feet.”

“They can take it.”

I glanced up and found him gazing into my eyes. No. Not gazing. Tanner didn’t gaze at me. Just watching me.

“Try taking bigger steps.”

“Now you’re an expert? Says the guy whose hip swivel looks like you’re having a chiropractic adjustment?”

His lips quirked. “Excuse me. Not having natural rhythm doesn’t mean I can’t grasp the steps.”

He had a point. I complied, and we moved easier.

Every millimeter of where his fingers pressed my back tingled. His hand was warm and solid on mine.

We bumped into each other, thighs and knees knocking. A few steps later, we ran into another couple.

“You’re supposed to let me lead,” Tanner murmured after we apologized.

“Why, because you’re the guy?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Why can’t I lead?”

“You can if you want.”

I tried to reverse what we’d been doing, go forward instead of backward and steer him at the same time. I ended up planting my nose into his firm chest.

“Ow.” I took my hand from his long enough to rub my nose.

He snorted. “May I?”

“Fine.”

The male instructor came up beside us. “This isn’t a competition. You’re a team. You need to work together, not fight each other.”

Fighting was our natural state.

But Ping-Pong had worked out. Surely we could manage to be partners for a bit longer.

“Now, feel the music.” The instructor placed his hands on our shoulders to guide us.

I listened for the beat, and we began again. This time, I tried to relax my arms and shoulders and let Tanner steer.

He might not have had a dancer’s grace, but he remembered instructions, mimicked the steps, and soon we were, if not gliding, at least not bumbling across the room.

“We won’t be winning any trophies for this,” he said once we’d gotten into rhythm. His voice was light.

“That doesn’t bother you?”

“Why would it?”

“I thought you always had to be the best.”

“I like to be good at the things I care about, but I also like to have fun. There’s no reason you can’t do something you enjoy, for fun, without having to win.”

Huh.

“Does it bother you?” he asked. “I mean, I know it bothers you that I’m better than you, but in general?” The words were teasing, and I shook my head and smiled.

Nah,” I said. “I want to set a record at the two-mile or the pole vault, or win the Math Bowl, but I’m also fine doing something just because it’s fun.”

“Like what? What’s fun?”

He seemed to genuinely want to know, and it wasn’t like he hadn’t heard most of this through our moms, anyway. Still, it felt weird having a normal conversation with him while we were inches apart and moving across the dance floor.

“I like watching sci-fi shows. Building stuff. Podcasts. Looking at the stars.” Astronomy Club. But I wouldn’t say it and give him the chance to gloat. Our temporary partnership hadn’t erased his theft of my presidency.

“Ha,” he said. “I knew you still did LEGOs.”

I twitched a shoulder. “It helps relax me. Gives me something to focus on.”

We attempted the spin they’d shown us, and I managed not to break my nose again.

“You didn’t ask me what I find fun,” he said.

“You already told me.”

“It’s called being friendly, S’more. Is it so hard to make pleasant conversation?”

“Let me guess, football?”

“Obviously. But also watching with people. I like cheering in a group.”

“And Ping-Pong and poker,” I added. “No matter what you just said, I’m sensing a theme of games you can win.”

His hand shifted on mine, fingers readjusting until he held it more securely. My hand felt tiny, enveloped by his, and the contact was sending waves of not-unpleasant shivers up my arm. “I guess so. I do like games. But I like them with people, when you’re talking and teasing each other and laughing and there’s food. Oh, food, for sure. And stars, obviously. I love outer space.”

“Uh-huh. Right.”

He meant taking over the club, but we’d had a decent conversation, and it helped me understand him a little more, so I didn’t argue. He did like games, and he was competitive, but mostly he liked to have fun with people. Somehow, it was something I’d known but never really understood before this moment.

He paused and took out his phone. “Can you take a picture of us?” he asked a lady nearby.

She raised the phone, and he resumed our pose, but right as she said, “Smile,” Tanner dipped me backward. His arms were so secure, I never even considered he might drop me.

When he pulled me up, I was out of breath. I took a second to straighten my shirt to hide it.

He showed me the photo. My long ponytail brushed the floor, and I was mid-laugh because he’d surprised me. The muscles in his arms were obvious as he held me tightly.

It made a strange warmth pool in my chest, and I didn’t want to dwell on what it might mean.

I also wasn’t sure I wanted him to post that one.