CHAPTER 27
TATE
Before I even turn the knob on the front door, I hear the explosion of noise behind it. The kids always know when someone’s home. Especially when it’s their papa. Sure enough, the moment I step inside, two tornadoes slam into me.
“Hey, guys.” I drop to my knees to show them some love. “Aww, I missed you so much.”
Fudge, our chocolate lab, has both paws around my neck. He’s a hugger. Polly, our shepherd, waits her turn like the proper lady she is. She always plays it coy. Sits there looking pretty until I can’t resist.
“Oh, you pretty girl, c’mere,” I tell her, and soon she’s trying to climb into my lap because these two always forget how big they are. Ninety-pound lapdogs. We used to have a third, a border collie named Jack, but he died this past winter. I miss the old guy.
As I rub behind her ears, Polly’s tongue flops out happily. She collapses on the hardwood and offers me her belly. Fudge does the same, and suddenly I’ve got eight paws sticking straight up in the air and two bellies demanding to be rubbed.
Which is how my mom finds me. “Am I interrupting?” she asks dryly.
At the sound of her voice, the dogs jump to their feet, instantly bored of their prodigal papa’s return. Their toenails click on the floor as they dash off to who knows where. I’m but a speck in their proverbial dust.
“Damn. And I thought they missed me,” I remark, watching their disappearing tails.
“Speaking of missing. Hey, kiddo.” Mom laughs and flings her arms around me. “I hate this housesitting gig of yours.”
“No, you don’t. You love the alone time with Dad.”
“Well, duh. But I still miss my son.”
“We text every day.”
“Still miss you. Are you hungry? Dinner’s almost ready.”
“Famished. Where’s Dad?”
“Upstairs in his office. He forgot to fill out some paperwork at work earlier, so he’s taking care of a few things before dinner.”
“Cool. I’m gonna go up and say hi to him. I need something from his office.”
In the upstairs hall, I find Dad’s door ajar. I approach and give it a light knock. “Dad?”
“Yeah, come in, kid.” He greets me with a big smile. “How goes it? How was Beach Games?”
“Intense. We’re currently in fourth place.”
“Who’s in first?”
“Frickin’ dudes from the fire station. They always dominate.” I walk toward the glass cabinet that spans one wall of the office.
It’s pretty much a shrine to our family, containing all the accomplishments we’ve amassed over the years. Dad’s baseball trophies and photos from his time in St. Louis. His and Mom’s wedding pictures. All my childhood trophies and first-place ribbons. And there, sandwiched between Mom’s framed college diploma and a copy of the deed to Bartlett Marine, is the photograph I was telling Cassie about. Me, posing after the first sailing race I ever entered, holding the first trophy I ever won. Or rather, trying to hold it. My teeth-gritting expression reveals I’m struggling not to let the thing flatten me.
“Do you mind if I take this out so I can snap a picture of it?” I point to the photo.
“Go for it.” He chuckles. “Taking a walk down memory lane?”
“No, I was just telling Cassie about this earlier. Thought she’d get a kick out of seeing it.” I open the cabinet and carefully remove the frame, then place it on the edge of Dad’s desk and fuck with my phone camera until I’m not seeing any glare.
“Man, I was a cute kid,” I remark.
Dad snorts. “And so humble too.”
I take a pic of the pic, then return it to the cabinet. As I’m shutting the door, my gaze snags on another framed photo, this one featuring a younger version of my father hanging off the mast of a shiny white yacht. He’s grinning from ear to ear, loving life.
“Was this your Hawaii-to-Australia sail?” I ask, glancing over my shoulder. “The one that took you a month?”
“Thirty-two days,” he confirms. “Man, what an adventure. I almost died in Hurricane Erma.”
“Sounds fun.” My smile falters when I suddenly think about Gil Jackson’s offer. It’s constantly been on my mind, nagging at me, but I haven’t made any decisions yet. It would be a huge commitment, leaving the Bay. And sure, I can do it in sixty days, but who knows if or when I’d get an opportunity like that again. If I accept the gig, I want to maximize my time on the Surely Perfect. That means four months. Four months and the adventure of a lifetime.
“Uh-oh, you’ve gone serious on me.” Dad spins around in his chair, propping his hands behind his head. “What’s going on, kid?”
“Gil asked me to deliver the Surely Perfect to him in New Zealand.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “Really?”
“I know, right?” I lean against the bookshelf. Hesitant, because I value my father’s opinion. But I also know he won’t want me taking so much time off. “They bought a house in Auckland and plan to live there half the year. They’d need her there by New Year’s Day. They’d pay me, obviously.”
Dad is startled now. “You’re considering this?”
“Of course I am. Why? You think I shouldn’t?”
His casual pose changes, arms dropping, hands clasping together in his lap. His expression grows serious as he considers the question. “What’s the starting point? California?”
“Florida. It’ll take a couple days to sail from Charleston to the port in Miami. I’d stock up there. Prep the boat. And then I’d set sail to Auckland.”
A frown mars his lips. “This is a transatlantic crossing, Tate. No. It’s too much for you.”
“I’d take it easy. Gil said he’ll help me chart a manageable route.”
“Easy? Manageable?” Dad shakes his head in disbelief. “We’re talking about crossing the North Atlantic, the South Atlantic. Indian Ocean. Then you’ve got the gulfs, the Tasman Sea.”
“It’s a lot,” I agree.
“It’s too much,” he repeats. “And he needs her there by the first of January? That puts you in hurricane season.”
“The tail end of it,” I argue. “It adds some risk, yes, but the tough sailing starts later in the journey. By November the season will have passed. Any developing hurricanes are likely to be west, right?”
“That’s not the only concern, kid. The trades will be difficult. You’d be looking at fifteen, twenty knots. Not to mention squalls. I did an Atlantic crossing before you born, nothing too intensive, just to the Canaries. And even that was tough.” He sounds unhappy. “You gotta pay attention to what’s happening north when you tackle a voyage like this. Those long trailing cold fronts from the North Atlantic can fuck with the trade winds.”
“I’d adjust for all that.”
“A friend of mine did an Atlantic crossing in winter once. Said it was the worst sailing of his life.” Dad’s eyes flicker with concern now. “Waters could get rough.”
“I can handle it.”
He rubs the bridge of his nose. “Look. I mean, part of me thinks, yeah, you can. I’ve never seen anyone handle a boat the way you do. But it’s a big undertaking for your first solo, you know?”
“I know,” I say, nodding.
“If it’s something you’re seriously considering, maybe wait until spring, then? And start off a little less ambitious, maybe only a week or two? Chart a course from here to, I don’t know, the Virgin Islands. Yeah, BVI would be good. You could take the Beneteau 49 if she’s not booked for a charter—”
She’s not a Hallberg-Rassy, I almost blurt out, but bite my tongue.
“—and give yourself a small taste of the solo journey. Know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I guess.” We can both hear my lack of enthusiasm for his alternate proposal.
“If you accepted Gil’s offer, you’d be gone, what, two, three months?”
“About that. Longer if I take the scenic route,” I joke.
Dad doesn’t crack a smile. “That’s a long time to be away from home. I need you at Bartlett Marine, kid. I can’t handle it by myself.”
I want to point out that he handled it by himself for years before I started taking on more responsibility. But it’s clear what he thinks of this plan.
Sensing my unhappiness, he sighs. “I built this business for our family. For you, so that one day you would take it over. I thought that’s what we were working toward these past few years. Teaching you how to run it.”
“We are. But if I’m ever going to do a major solo voyage, shouldn’t I do it now? Before I have even more responsibility?”
Dad is silent for several long beats. “I truly don’t think you’re ready for it,” he finally says. “And I need you here, at the dealership. But if you want to go…”
I swallow my disappointment. “No,” I say. “It’s fine.” He’s probably right, anyway. It’s a crazy idea. Dangerous. “I’ll tell Gil to hire a more experienced captain.”
“I think that’s a smart idea. And if you did want to plan something for the spring, I’d be happy to sit down with you and—”
“Dinner’s ready!” Mom’s faint voice calls from below.
“Shit,” Dad says with a pained look. “I still need to send this email. Tell your mother I’ll be right down?”
“Sure thing.”
Downstairs, I help Mom set the table, hoping she doesn’t notice I’m feeling subdued. But she’s a mom, so of course she notices.
“Everything okay?” she asks. “What were you talking to your father about?”
“All good. We were just going over some sailing stuff. And I needed to take a picture of Dad’s trophy shrine to show something to Cassie. I’m meeting her after this.”
Mom smiles and hands me a stack of silverware from the utensil drawer. “Which picture?”
“The one of me after my first dinghy race.”
“Oh boy, I remember that day,” she says with a laugh. “Standing there at the marina, worrying my five-year-old son was going to drown. Gavin assured me you could handle it, and what do you know—he was right. You won. Your dad was practically bursting with pride.” She’s quiet for a beat, then says, “You’re spending a lot of time with Cassie.”
I lay down the silverware on the table. “Yeah. I guess.”
“Is it serious?”
I lift my head to see her fighting a smile. “Not really. It’s going to end when she goes back to school in September.”
“Do you want it to end?”
That gives me pause. “To be honest, I hadn’t considered the alternative.”
“But you like her.”
I do like her. I like her a lot. In fact, I’m getting impatient for dinner to start, because the sooner it starts, the sooner it ends and I can go pick Cassie up for the bonfire. I saw her all day and I’m already dying to see her again.
“Yes. I like her.”
“Then why does it have to end?” Mom asks.
For the life of me, I can’t think of a good answer to that.
Later, at the bonfire, I’m still thinking about my mother’s question.
Why does it have to end?
I mean … does it? Cassie and I agreed to a summer fling, but sometimes flings … evolve. My biggest fear was that I’d end up hurting her because of my need to keep things purely physical, but that need seems to have … evolved. We go out on the boat. We have dinner when I get home from work. Hell, I’ve gone for dinner with her and her mother. Somehow, without noticing it, I allowed all this to happen. And I don’t even care. I like it.
Fuck.
Whatever we have going on these days, it’s a lot more than physical.
I gaze across the fire where Cassie’s sitting with Genevieve and Heidi. She and Heidi are laughing about something, which is a bit shocking because Heidi isn’t the chatty, giggly type. She’s the type who eats her own young. That’s why she and Alana are such good friends. Stone hearts, those two.
Speaking of Alana, when I go to the coolers to grab another beer, my former flame sidles up to me. She looks gorgeous as always, and yet I’m startled to discover I’m not attracted to her anymore. She’s gone back to being the Alana I first met in junior high, just another one of the awesome girls in my platonic friend group, someone it wouldn’t even occur to me to sleep with.
“Hey,” she says.
“Hey.” I twist open a fresh beer.
“You’ve been avoiding me.”
I glance over. “Not at all.”
“Oh really? So it just happens that we used to see each other all the time and now I haven’t seen you since…” Alana thinks it over. “Damn, since the last time we were here together.”
“Shit, really? That was more than a month ago.”
“Exactly.”
“I promise, I’m not avoiding you,” I assure her. “I’ve been slammed at work this entire summer. I haven’t really hung out with anyone other than Cassie.”
“Ah,” she says knowingly. “The other redhead.”
“Purely coincidental,” I reply with a grin, although I do find it funny.
“So you’re not avoiding me.”
“No.”
Those sharp eyes continue to study me. “I don’t think you’re lying.”
“I’m not. I’ve been at the dealership, the yacht club, chilling with Cassie. This weekend is Beach Games. Lots going on. I’ve gone out with Evan for a couple drinks, but that’s about it. And I’m housesitting for the Jacksons, so I’ve been away from the regular ’hood.”
“Oh yes, you’re lapping it up in the land of clone luxury.”
“Pretty much. How’ve you been?”
“I’m good. Got a job as an au pair.”
“You hate kids,” I remind her, grinning.
“These ones aren’t too bad. And the pay is great. I swear those clones like to throw their cash around like their entire life is one long strip club visit.”
I think about how much Gil offered me to sail the Surely Perfect and I have to agree. “You dating anybody?” I raise a brow.
“I am not … unlike some people.” Alana laughs. “It’s weird seeing you with a girlfriend.”
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“Uh-huh, that’s what they all say.” With that, Alana saunters off.
Beer in hand, I wander to the fire and grab a chair, dragging it next to Evan’s. Heidi’s gone, and Gen and Cassie are now near the deck in an intense huddle with Mackenzie and their Beach Games teammate Zale. When Cooper passes their huddle, Mac lifts her head and all but hisses at him like a feral cat. He holds his hands up in surrender and keeps walking, rolling his eyes when he approaches us.
“I just got accused of espionage for walking by their team,” Coop says cheerfully.
I snicker. My eyes remain on Cassie, who’s laughing at something Gen said.
“Gen really likes your girl,” Evan remarks, following my gaze. “And Gen hates most people.”
“It’s hard not to like Cassie,” I admit.
Cooper’s brows jerk up. Then he chuckles. “Interesting.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You sound like my mother. She was just grilling me about Cass.”
“I mean, you’re acting very boyfriendly,” Evan pipes up, sounding amused. “So if that’s not the path you want to take,” he warns, “you should probably course correct right about now.”
I take a swig of beer. “Boyfriendly how?”
“Every time I turn around you’re holding her hand.”
“So?”
“You never held Alana’s hand,” Cooper points out.
“Alana would bite a dude’s dick off before she let him hold her hand.”
“Did you even try?” challenges Evan.
I pause. “No.”
“Why not?” His smug smirk tells me he already knows the answer to that.
And he’s right. I never felt that sort of tenderness toward Alana. We both kept an emotional distance because we knew it was never going anywhere.
But there’s no distance with Cassie. She’s always within my reach. She melts into me when I come to her. She doesn’t keep me at arm’s length. Doesn’t play games. I’m happy when I’m with her. And as I think about all the ways she and I just fit, that question once again surfaces in the forefront of my mind.
Why does it have to end?