Page 58 of The Love Bus

“What’s in the cooler?” their dad, who looked to be in his early thirties, asked as he worked his way to the back of the boat. And then, upon opening it, “Anyone else want a beer?”

Oh, yeah. Tay had mentioned that refreshments were provided.

“Let me see what they have.” Bending over, Melissa climbed along the inflated pontoons to the back.

She didn’t return but cracked open a beer and claimed the seat by the cooler.

Both she and her husband were half-listening, half-checked out, sipping beers like the river was just another lazy Sunday.

“I’m surprised they let people drink on these things,” I mused quietly.

“It’s not ideal.” Noah’s shrugged, though his words were as low as mine.

Cody went right on rowing, his eyes focused ahead.

Without their mom right there, surprisingly, the two boys seemed to settle down. They leaned over the sides trying to spot fish—or skip rocks or splash each other—I wasn’t totally sure.

I shifted slightly to glance at them, uneasy. “Should they be leaning out that far?”

Noah followed my gaze. “They should be fine,” he murmured, but his eyes stayed on them.

The raft dipped slightly as J.J. shifted his weight.

“Dude, I saw something! An alligator!”

“They don’t have alligators here. You’re making that up!”

I turned to Noah. “Do they?”

“Nope.”

But the boys’ voices kept getting louder as they bickered back and forth.

And then, before anyone could stop it, Kill gave his brother a hard shove.

One second, JJ was on the raft—mouth open, mid-laugh. The next, he was in the water, flailing and shrieking in childish outrage, but once he resurfaced and realized he could float, he started laughing again, kicking off away from the boat, apparently deciding to go for a swim.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Cody murmured, sitting upright, but then he yelled, “Get that kid back in here! There’s a strainer ahead!”

My pulse spiked. Even I knew what that meant.

I had actually listened to the safety talk, after all.

Strainers were piles of debris, trees and branches and the like, that had gotten caught on something in the river.

There were enough gaps to let water pass through, but not larger objects—like people, for example.

A person could become pinned. Dragged under.

I lurched to my knees, eyes searching the water downstream. And sure enough…

JJ was thrashing playfully, splashing around in the water, clearly enjoying himself—completely oblivious.

“He’s laughing,” I said, panic prickling up my spine. “He thinks it’s a game.”

Cody lunged for a throw bag, but Noah was faster.

“Grab on!” Noah shouted, unspooling the rope and tossing the end toward the boy.

JJ didn’t see it. He was twirling around in the water, just looking up at the sky.

“Damn it,” Noah muttered. And then…

He jumped.

Of course, he would be the one to go in. He was Noah.

I scrambled toward the edge, heart in my throat, watching him slice through the current, straight for JJ, arms powering him forward.

Cody moved to regain control of the oars, because up ahead, the strainer loomed—gnarled branches jutting from the water like a skeletal hand.

JJ was still laughing when Noah reached him, clearly unaware of the danger. But whatever Noah said, JJ listened and started kicking toward the raft like it was all part of the plan.

From there, everything happened really fast. Cody was out of his seat and, with what looked like surprising ease, pulled JJ back up into the boat.

But Noah was still in the water, one arm hooked over the side of the rubber pontoon.

“Hold on, dude!” Cody had taken hold of the oars again.

I reached down and grabbed the shoulders of Noah’s life jacket, kneeling, braced to pull him in.

That was when we hit the strainer.

The sound was sudden and horrible—branches clawing against the hull. I felt them scrape the underside of the rubber floor, jostling the raft while I used all my strength to pull on Noah’s vest.

And then he was in the boat, on the floor beside me, the danger behind us.

I crouched beside him. “You okay?”

He nodded, but the second he sat up, he was reaching for JJ, checking him over, running practiced fingers along arms and legs.

“Did it scrape you? Does anything hurt? You aren’t bleeding, are you, kid?”

JJ shook his head, wide-eyed and silent now. Kill had curled up near the edge of the raft, face red and looking like he’d burst into tears any moment.

I moved to Kill, crouching beside him. “Hey, you okay?” I asked gently, brushing his damp hair back from his forehead. “Your brother’s fine. Look, Noah’s with him, see? He’s just fine.”

By the time Melissa finally made her way to the front of the raft, her can of beer still in hand, things were already beginning to settle. Cody, in what I could only assume was a valiant effort to return us to “normal tour experience mode,” cleared his throat.

“So, if you look just ahead to your left, you’ll see the turn that makes up the famous Horseshoe Bend. Carved over millions of years, it’s one of the most photographed spots in Arizona…”

I took my seat again, my body still buzzing, one hand locked around Noah’s.

We glanced at each other. “ Are you okay, really?”

He dismissed the scrape on his leg. “Just a scratch,” he said.

I just nodded. “Need to clean it up as soon as we get back.” Yes. I knew he was the doctor, but…it was a pretty deep scrape. And this water wasn’t exactly pristine.

“Yes, Dr. Farraday.”

I let out a relieved laugh. Honestly, we’d been pretty lucky. It could have been so much worse. If JJ had still been in the water… If Noah hadn’t already been halfway back inside…

“I think,” I said softly, “those people at work, they need to give you whatever you want.”

His lips twitched. “You think so?”

I nodded. “Yeah. They’d be idiots to let you get away.”

He didn’t respond right away, but then he sighed. “Unfortunately, I think they might be idiots.”

A few minutes passed. The boat glided forward through the bend. And then, quietly, Noah nudged my leg with his knee.

“What about you?” he asked. “You gonna let a few idiots chase you away?”

I winced. “I don’t want to think about that.”

But then I laughed, because somehow, in that moment—wind in my hair, blood drying on Noah’s leg—the demise of Lunch with Leo and Luna didn’t matter nearly as much as it had a week ago.

The old Luna was gone, sure, but that didn’t have to mean that there wasn’t room for a new version of myself. A new life.

And maybe… No, I couldn’t… Just…not yet. But I could enjoy this fling for what it was.

I should be able to allow myself that much, right?