Page 17 of Winging It with You

“Are you feeling up to it?”

“Do I have a choice?” he says, forcing a smile.

There he goes, putting on his facade like armor.

I want to press the issue, to tell him it’s okay if he needs to collect himself for a moment, but he’s on his feet in no time, hands on hips and ready for business.

The sailboat is midsize, I’d estimate around thirty feet in length, with a thin but completely bare mast. At the far corner of the stern sits a wooden box covered in Epic Trek branding, so that seems like a good place to start.

Asher beats me to it.

On unsteady legs, he opens the lid, revealing a folded heap of canvas and a thick loop of white rope.

Running the rope through his hands, one over the other, he looks up at the mast behind us, his expression laced with equal parts determination and fear.

“Alright, Mr. Midwest, any idea where we begin?”

It’s been years since I’ve been on a sailboat, let alone assembled the sail.

That was something my dad always did, but when Asher passes me the rope, a lifetime of memories comes crashing back.

“I think the first thing we should do is unfold the sail to make sure we get it laid out in the right direction.”

I watch Asher’s eyes scan the thin mast, and I begin to lay out the large canvas between us.

“Here,” I say, holding the rope out to him. “As I roll it out, follow behind me with the rope and weave it like you would a shoelace through these grommets here,” I say, tapping the metal rings along the sail’s edge.

He takes the rope from me, inserting it through the first grommet, and then another.

“Like this?” Asher asks. We’re both kneeling now, practically nose to nose, and I’m not sure if it’s the way the light is hitting him or the reflection of the deep hues of the ocean, but his eyes have never appeared this vibrant.

Depths of jade stare back at me, and for the briefest of moments, I’m too stunned to talk.

Come on, Fernandez. Focus.

“Is this wrong?” he asks, insecurity lingering in his voice.

“No, that’s perfect,” I say, shaking my head.

We work in tandem, me pulling and stretching the sail to make room for Asher as he continues weaving the rope in and out. When we’re finished, we each stand up, admiring our handiwork before we need to attach the sail to the mast.

“We just need to get this…” I stretch up on the tips of my toes, trying to get the end of the rope through the pulley at the top of the mast. “…there. Now, we should be able to pull this all the way down…Yup, just like that,” I say, as we work together to pull the length of the rope up and back through the pulley, effectively securing one portion of the sail to the mast.

Almost done.

“Ash, you see that line right there?” I say, nodding to the other end with my chin.

He picks it up, quick to understand where I’m going with this.

“Yeah, that one. If you can just run it through the pulley over there on the other end of boom, we should be all set,” I say, tapping the long, horizonal pole attached to the mast.

He does what I ask, repeating the hand-over-hand movement we just did together on the mast.

“Alright, the last thing we need to do is attach that rudder to the stern—the back, sorry—of the boat and we’re golden.”

Asher picks up the removable rudder, inspecting it from behind his glasses before placing it in the groove at the back of the boat. “Here?”

“That should be good?” With the sail and boom in the way, I can’t be completely sure, but once we hoist the sail, I’ll be able to adjust if necessary. “Can you come and help me with this?”

“Aye aye, Captain,” Asher says, giving me a half-assed salute that my former commanding officer would have had a field day with.

“We’re going to raise the sail now, and when we do, we just need to remember to watch out for the boom,” I say, patting the thicker piece of metal between us. “Ready?”

“Let’s do it,” Asher says, his demeanor now absent any seasickness he may have been feeling earlier. He almost looks like he’s having fun—an important first for us.

He’s so close now. Close enough that I can feel the warmth—his warmth—radiating off his sun-kissed skin.

Focus, Theo.

“Pull!” I shout.

We do, with all our might, our hands clumsily trampling over each other as we raise the sail inch by inch until the crisp white fabric reaches the top of the mast, bucking as it finds the wind.

We’re practically flush against each other now.

Two random puzzle pieces at first only pretending to fit together, but somehow, even though they were plucked from two entirely different boxes, starting to realize that perhaps, by some stroke of actual fate, they do.

I’m starting to think I don’t care whether it’s all for Arthur’s perfectly placed camera.

Or if Jo’s words are ricocheting around his brain like they are mine.

Chemistry.

All I know is that Asher Bennett is looking at me in such a way that makes me think he’s weighing his options.

Like he’s trying to logically calculate the odds against his next move.

And maybe, out here in the middle of the waves and the chop and the warmth of the now-setting sun, he’s figuring out if I’m one of them.

“You know what I’m thinking?” I ask, my voice a barely there whisper. I lean into him to ensure my lips are concealed from the camera’s lens.

This is it.

The point of no return. The one that could change whatever dynamic has been brewing between the two of us, and if I’m wrong—if I’m wrong and somehow miscalculated whatever signals or insinuations that kissing me is something Asher is even remotely interested in—my humiliating rejection will find its permanent home in some depressing corner of the internet for me to relive at my leisure.

“What’s that?” he asks, his chest rising and falling rapidly from the sudden increase in cardio.

His hair is wild, and his glasses are tilted ever so slightly on the bridge of his freckled nose.

If I didn’t want to kiss him before, seeing a genuine smile dance across his face as he stares into my eyes seals the deal.

Something’s clicked this afternoon.

Something that has made the thought of kissing Asher Bennett stop feeling like something I’m supposed to do and instead feel like something I want to do.

Like if I don’t taste that smile on my own lips, this moment will somehow be forgotten.

An unexpected dip in the waves shifts our bodies suddenly, and with the sail’s ropes in one hand, I reach down to place a steadying hand on Asher’s waist, doing my best to hold him in place.

“I’m thinking a real couple would probably kiss right now,” I whisper through halting breath, intentionally grazing my lip on his temple.

Asher slumps against me, and I’ll never know if it was because of the force of the sea or my words but watching his lips part makes my stomach flip.

“You know, for the camera,” I add, reminding him of the roles we’ve agreed to play.

“Right,” he says, swallowing hard. “That.”

“Can I kiss you, Asher?” I ask after a lingering moment, our cheeks now pressed together, and he doesn’t hesitate to nod, slowly nuzzling his way toward my lips. My grip on his waist tightens, and I pull him even closer as he tilts his face to mine, a bracing hand intentionally placed on my chest.

It would be cruel to drag this out any further. To lean back and allow every second—every unexpected detail—of this moment to reveal itself like a candid Polaroid. Sliver by sliver and then beautifully, all at once.

But Asher’s pressing the entirety of his body against me now, so whatever patience I’ve tried to exhibit reaches its limit.

With my eyes pinched shut, I search for his mouth, my lips dragging across the expanse of his stubble.

His breath hitches, and if the wind hadn’t been forcefully funneling into the sails around us, I’d know with certainty if a soft moan just escaped his lips or not.

Desperate to have both hands on him before our lips fully collide, I fumble with the excess rope between us to tie it around the hook of the boat’s mast when a massive gust of wind comes barreling toward us from behind.

The boat lurches forward, its fully furled sail stretching against the force of the wind. Asher and I are ripped from each other and thrown backward.

We slam into the back wall of the stern and reach out for the lip of the boat or anything we can get our hands on to avoid toppling overboard.

But the rudder—and Arthur’s camera—weren’t so lucky.

Between the violent gust and our bodies careening backward, the rudder was knocked off its groove and sent crashing toward the ocean floor.

And Arthur’s camera and its entire mount follow right behind it.

“Well, that’s inconvenient,” I say, peering over the side of the boat. Asher slumps down and rests his back firmly against the boat’s wall. “What is it they say about sailing in a rudderless ship?” I can’t help but laugh at yet another mishap on the Asher and Theo reality show from hell.

He looks at me, glasses askew on the bridge of his nose and mouth agape in disbelief. “I’d be willing to bet it’s nothing good.”

“Nope.”

/////////////

“Well, now what?”

After scanning the boat for something, anything, with which to rig some sort of makeshift rudder—we even tried hanging off the stern of the boat and plunging our arms as deep into the water as we could reach—we gave up.

“Now, we wait,” I say, furling the sail and securing it back to the mast. Without a rudder, we’d be sailing around directionless, so there’s no point in leaving the sail up. “I’m sure production planned for some sort of mishap like this.” I hope.

Asher and I sit side by side in silence on the boat’s bench.