Page 94 of The One

“Go, Rhett! Go!” She squeezed my shoulder. “You’ve got this, captain.”

She acted as though this were a race, not a catastrophe.

That I wouldn’t be dead the second my father found out.

That I wouldn’t be paying him back for the rest of my life and beyond.

“Stop,” I growled.

I didn’t know if I was talking to Penelope or to what was unfolding, but I needed both to happen.

“I want to help?—”

“You can help by keeping fucking quiet and holding on.”

The only things I could do—and hoped to hell they worked—was turn the wheel a little, praying it would be enough to clear the other boat’s left side, and lower my speed without causing an accident with the boats behind me. But if the one in front of me continued at the same rate, that would add some space between us.

Seconds would tell, and so would patience.

With Penelope’s hand on my shoulder, as she shouted words in my face, patience was becoming a real problem.

My boat instantly reacted as I pulled back on the throttle, and I held my breath as I assessed whether the change had helped. The tip of my anchor, which sat front and center of my boat, was what I used to judge our position. One thing I could tell right away was that we were no longer aligned with the middle of the other boat’s engines. By turning, we’d shifted at least a foot.

But would it be enough?

If the depth of the water wasn’t an issue, I would have pulled off onto the side and let everyone pass. But the markers that were dug deep into the sand—posts that stuck out from the surface of the ocean—clearly defined the channel, and anything outside those tall sticks would bottom out the boat, causing a whole other nightmare.

With each second that passed, the space between our two boats began to grow, and the tension in my chest slowly released since the threat of crashing was getting less and less. Somehow, I’d done the right thing, I’d fixed this. I just needed to maintain the same speed so the boats behind us didn’t face the same issues I’d just had.

But just because the danger in front of us was diminishing, that didn’t mean I was back to breathing normally.

That there wasn’t a fucking monster clawing its way out of my chest.

I’d never been in a situation like this before. I didn’t screw around when it came to driving my dad’s boat; I took this shit seriously.

And what had happened with Penelope? That wasn’t okay.

Things had gotten out of control.

She hadn’t listened to anything I’d said.

She’d turned what had already been a risky situation into something that could have been fatal.

I needed a second, so when I saw the opening up ahead—a widening between the markers that would allow me to idle in the water—I navigated toward the right. I decreased the horsepower until I could shift into neutral.

Once the boat was stopped, my head dropped, and I clutched what I was holding, letting the air come into my lungs, doing everything I could to bring down my pulse.

“Yay, you did it!” She threw her arms around me. “You’re my hero.”

A fucking hero?

That was what she was going to say to me? After what could have just happened?

I couldn’t take any more of this.

“You need to get off me.” My fingers clenched as she squeezed her face into the side of my neck. “Penelope, get the fuck away from me.” When she still didn’t respond, I found her wrists and pulled her hands off me. “Jesus Christ, why don’t you listen?!”

She looked as if I’d just slapped her. “What the hell is wrong with you?”