by Cynthia Dane
So far, Rachel didn’t bore him. Let’s be real. It’s because she poses a challenge, and I’m the one who is bored already.
“Tell you what,” Roy continued, “you find out what this woman is thinking right now. Don’t wait another second, because if there’s anything I’ve learned in life, it’s that ruminating for so damn long will be the death of you. That’s not the life you want to live, son.”
“You want me to text her right now?”
“Yes. Better yet, invite her down here. I want to meet the woman you’re willing to bend over backward for and make a damn fool of yourself over.”
Invite her… Well, he had promised to invite her to the marina sometime. But he had been holding off unless she expressed interest because the Priss & Moan was the kind of vessel he invited certain women to. Women he was either already sleeping with or planning to sleep with.
He had no idea what his status with Rachel was right now.
***
Her alarm had long gone off, but Rachel couldn’t bring herself to get out of bed.
She continued to replay the night before in her mind as if it were the only movie she had ever seen. No, scratch that. Felt. I felt that moment with every fiber of my piss-poor being. She had been shocked when Zack kissed her. Infuriated. Disappointed. What else had she expected with a man who had made it clear he wanted to date her? Sleep with her?
Use her?
But I kissed him back. And. How.
Rachel wasn’t a demure virgin. She had slept with enough men to know what that was about. She had also made more than a few mistakes regarding those same men.
And some women, too.
Kissing Zack had been a mistake. But it was the kind of beautiful mistake that Rachel could see herself making again. Continuing to blur the line between sex and friendship. She didn’t want to date Zack, per se. She had also promised herself to not sleep with anyone until the end of August, when she could take better stock of her life. So far she was barely holding on.
Who knew that the moment she made that vow of celibacy that one of the hottest men she had ever seen would walk into her life?
I’m so sad and pathetic. If that neighbor hadn’t interrupted them… would she be waking up with Zack right now?
Hell, she already was! Just not in person!
What the fuck? A text had come in from Zack the moment Rachel tried to put her phone down again. “Hey,” it began. “About last night…”
Rachel didn’t immediately respond. She wanted to see what else he would say first. Meanwhile, my heart is about to explode. And her pussy. Because she really was that pathetic.
“I’m sorry about that. Honestly. I overstepped my bounds. I know how important it is to you that we keep our relationship friends-only. I respect that. That’s why I want to make it up to you. Can we go out today… hang out?”
Rachel swore she wasn’t in control of her fingers as they sleepily typed out a response.
“Sure.”
She continued to think of the kiss they shared the night before while waiting for his answer.
“Meet me by Fifth and Sequoia. One hour?”
It took Rachel a moment to remember where that was. Only a few blocks over from Opal’s, wasn’t it?
“I can be there in forty-five minutes.”
“Even better.”
Boy, she hoped she wouldn’t regret this.
***
She regretted it.
Rachel should have recognized the intersection of Fifth & Sequoia. Everyone who lived in the city long enough would learn the location by proxy. Because it was one of the biggest areas of congestions in all of downtown.
Why? Because that’s where the main marina entrance was.
The marina was a place Rachel conveniently forgot existed. Opal’s was as close as she got to it. Once she was able to start seeing it, however, old fears and phobias reared their ugly heads like a hydra from the river’s depths.
Fuck rivers. Fuck the ocean. Fuck water!
To say that Rachel Taylor was hydrophobic didn’t tell the whole story. At the tender age of five, she had fallen into a hotel swimming pool and only made it out alive by the grace of her mother. Rachel hadn’t known how to swim. She didn’t even know what hold your breath! meant yet. Her lungs, her throat, and her nose burned for the rest of that sad night. She suffered no lasting physical damage, but from that day, Rachel refused to get into any body of water.
This included baths, for fuck’s sake. If I can float in it, it’s too deep! I could drown!
For the most part, she didn’t care about being wet. A shower was survivable if she kept her mind on other things. God knew she was the first to start rubbing ice on her skin when it was a hundred degrees out. Water was one of the only liquids she enjoyed drinking. (Tea was a requirement for staying in cafés, since she detested coffee. Beyond that, however, Rachel wanted nothing to do with water, and that definitely meant getting on docks boats or – heaven fucking forbid – walking on docks at all.
Especially floating docks!
“What’s wrong?” Zack lifted his sunglasses and looked at her at the top of the wooden ramp leading down to the floating docks that weaved between private vessels of all sizes. How could he stand to bob up and down like that? He was bobbing, right? “It’s fine. You’re not going to fall in.”
“Um…” Rachel held her knapsack closer to her body. The cool breeze washed over her sandals, chilling her from toe to fingertip. “We don’t have to go far, right?”
Zack looked down the rows of boats. “Mine’s at the far end there. One of the best slots in the whole marina.” He extended his hand up to her. “I won’t let you fall in.”
He said it so assuredly! As if he could really prevent God from shoving poor Rachel into the nasty river water! Is this water even safe? Didn’t they used to dump garbage and sewage into it? Oh, sure, the city claimed to have cleaned that up in the late ‘80s, but they were probably lying! How many dead bodies turned up around here? People who ended up in there by accident? People who actually knew how to swim, for fuck’s sake!
“I…” She took another step back from the ramp. Her hand grabbed the nearest railing. “I don’t know about this.”
Zack came back up the ramp. “You’re that scared of the water?”
“I’m not scared,” she squeaked. “I’m fucking petrified. I can’t even swim!”
He put a hand on her shoulder. The only comfort it brought was reassuring Rachel that someone would catch her if she fell. Too bad her brain was too jumbled to get that message.
“You’re not going to fall in. I won’t let that happen.”
“Do we have to be here? Because we could go somewhere else. Like a park. Parks don’t have water.”
“Guess that means the paddle boats are out of the running.” Did he think that quip was that funny? Fuck him! “Come on, Rachel. There’s nothing to be afraid of. I want you to meet my uncle. And he practically has gills so he’s not coming up here.”
Oh, sure, easy for the seaman to say! Rachel was used to this dismissal of her phobias, though. Anyone who thought it was so easy to overlook silly things like not wanting to drown could go fuck themselves.
“Rachel.”
She looked at him with eyes that did not completely see him. Rachel was incapable of seeing anything but the water lapping at the boats, the docks, the side of the concrete walls separating cityscape from water. She looked at it as if she expected a sea creature to come out of it at any moment. Maybe the Loch Ness Monster, if it ever got off its ass and swam across the Atlantic. That would make sense right now. Her brain told her so.
She couldn’t swallow. Swallowing reminded her of drowning.
“You’re. Not. Going. To. Fall. In.”
His voice managed to bring her back to reality, but not for long. “You promise me that?”
“Absolutely.”
He had the kind of tone Rachel desperately wanted to believe. Comforting. Commanding. So assured in ways sh
e could never be. Can you promise me that if I fall in you’ll come jumping after me like my mom did twenty-five years ago? No, he couldn’t do that. But she could trust him enough to not let her fall in. That was even better than needing him to jump in after her.
She took his hand and waited for him to lead her down the dock. “I’m not walking beside you,” she asserted. “I’m going to stay back here, right in the middle of the dock.”
“You do that.” Zack made sure to keep a slow pace so Rachel wouldn’t worry about losing her balance and falling over. “I promise you that you don’t even notice the floating.”
“Why did you say that!” Now she would definitely feel it!
“Come on.” Zack wrapped his arm around her and half-hauled her down the dock. “The sooner we get there, the sooner it’s over!”
What an asshole! He really didn’t get it, huh? Rachel wasn’t simply a little wary of being near water. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him to take care of her should anything happen. It wasn’t even the actual fear of drowning that got to her. No, what she couldn’t stand was the potential. The possibilities. The evil thoughts flooding her overactive imagination. The flashbacks to when she was five and seeing her short life flashing before her eyes. People who loved the water, who went on and on about being in it, a part of it, wanting to center their lives around living near it… they didn’t get it. They would never understand the terror that flashed before Rachel’s eyes when she came this conceivably close to falling in.
“Wait!” Her feet ceased to function. “Oh my God!”
“We’re almost there.”
Was this really the same man she almost slept with the night before? Holy shit, I totally dodged a bullet! No man kissed well enough to make up for this! No wonder she had made a vow to stay away from men in the bedroom. It was already working out for her!
“Stop!”
Zack only stopped when he became fed up enough to turn around and loom over her frightened form. “Seriously? What’s wrong with you?”
Don’t give me the attitude. Rachel had half a mind to leave right now. She even turned around, intent on marching back to the ramp and the busy avenue above them. Except they were halfway down the floating dock, and no matter where she turned, where she looked, or how she moved, she was surrounded by water.
Her breath escaped her body. Just as good as drowning.
“Rachel,” Zack said in that commanding tone of his. “My yacht is seriously right there. I swear upon my mother’s future grave that you are not going to fall in. I will carry you up the ladder myself.”
“There’s a ladder?”
“Well… yes?” Zack shrugged. “It’s the most efficient way to get on and off vessels of this size. Only the really big yachts have ramps around here.”
“A ladder!”
“Rachel…” He clasped his hand around her wrist, enough give granting her the power to get away if she truly wanted to. “You have nothing to fear when you are with me. I know these docks above and below water. I practically grew up around here. I’ve been on boats my whole life. My yacht is my second home. Nothing will happen to you. The only way you’re touching water is if you jump in yourself.”
Rachel was ready to snap something back at him. But I want hm to be right. She was still mad that he had brought her out here. Still mad that he wasn’t taking her fears seriously. But she would rather have confidant, pompous Zack than one who didn’t acknowledge her at all.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Can I close my eyes and you lead me there?” A ripple of water suddenly reminded her that they were on a floating piece of wood. “Oh my God. Right now. Let’s go right now.” She clamped her eyes shut. “Right now! Please!”
Zack gently tugged on her wrist. “This way, Rachel. We’re almost there.”
When Rachel opened her eyes again, she gazed upon a medium-sized vessel called the Priss & Moan. Cheeky. But not as cheeky as the steep ladder Zack gestured to as if Rachel should shimmy her way up there like she did it every day.
“Ladies first. I’ll be right behind you.”
Great.
“You’re not going to let me fall down, right?”
“Absolutely not. That’s why I’m going to be behind you.” Zack cast his voice upward. “Hey! Uncle Roy! You up there?”
A head of scraggly white hair looked over the edge of the boat. Tanned wrinkles spoke of a man who had spent way too many years at sea. “That your lady friend, son?”
Son? This was not the kind of man Rachel expected to be Zack’s dad…
“She’s coming up first! Could you help her over the edge when she gets there?”
Roy saluted them. “See you in a bit, sweetheart!”
Rachel sighed. She might as well get this over with. She had made it this far, hadn’t she?
She took the ladder one rung at a time, sure to place her feet solidly on the metal bars as she slowly pulled herself up and refused to look down. She kept her eyes above her and on the angular face of Roy Feldman. Or at least that’s who she assumed it was.
“I got ya!” Roy grabbed her arms before she had the chance to say hello. “One, two!”
She shrieked when she was pulled over the edge. Behind her, Zack chastised the other man for being too rough with his friend. “Come on, Uncle Roy! She doesn’t have any sea legs!”
“You’re telling me.” Roy put his arms akimbo as he got a load of Rachel’s shaking legs. The boat was floating, rocking gently back and forth. Was that supposed to be soothing? Because fuck this! “She looks like she’s going to throw up.”
Close. More like pass out, which was what Rachel promptly did when the next incoming tide rocked the boat enough to give her motion sickness. Goodbye, world.
She collapsed into Roy’s lap the moment he sat down on a lounge chair. Unlike Zack, who had promised to catch her should she fall, Roy had made no such statements. So Rachel landed right on the deck, nose smashing against a pile of ropes.
It only hurt long enough for her to officially pass out.
Chapter 11
“She’ll be fine,” Roy said with a dismissive shrug. “Let her sleep it off while I order us some lunch. She ain’t a vegetarian, is she?”
Zack continued to look after Rachel, currently laid out on the bed in the depths of his yacht. Not unusual for a woman to make herself nice and cozy in his marina-based bed, but it rarely happened under these circumstances. “I don’t think so,” Zack finally replied. “Thanks for helping me get her down here.”
“Son.” A wrinkled, calloused hand slammed upon Zack’s shoulder. “If you’re going to lose your mind over a woman, try picking one that isn’t terrified of a little bit of water.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, thanks.”
Roy waved on his way back up to the deck. He closed the door behind him, leaving Zack alone in the cool quiet of his floating bedroom.
The interior of his yacht was arguably nicer than most of the exterior. It might as well be, for as many people he entertained in there. The oak panels on the walls brought in a bit of the outdoors even when they were in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. Plenty of windows brought in the beautiful sunlight, although most of them were currently curtained to keep things cool in the summer heat. The bed was a relatively modest queen-sized, but Zack made that concession so he would have room for the large flatscreen TV (complete with satellite streaming), the leather couch, and the light box shoved into the corner. Oh, and the bar, he supposed. Always fully stocked, although most of the other yachts around there had more bar space than he did. Not a big drinker when I’m on the water. I know! I’m crazy. For some reason Zack preferred to stay sober when he captained sea vessels. The drinks were mostly for his guests.
Rachel lay in the middle of his bed, both pillows stacked beneath her head. Zack sat on the edge of his bed and debated what to do. He wanted to call for a doctor (also named Seth) but his uncle assured him that he had seen stuff like this a hundred times befor
e. “She’ll be back up in about half an hour. Doubt it’s fatal.”
Zack felt terrible.
He hadn’t known that Rachel was scared of water. It had never come up in their few conversations, even when he mentioned his yacht and his love for sailing or hanging out at the marina. How was I to know? When she expressed dissatisfaction for where he had brought her, Zack assumed it was leftover anger from the night before. How was he supposed to know that she was suffering from a genuine phobia?
A phobia he would never, ever understand. People who were this afraid of the water did not often come down to the docks. I’m so stupid. Why did I make her do that?
Rachel stirred behind him. Her grumbling was enough to make Zack look behind him and hope for the best.
“Ugh,” she muttered. “What a terrible nightmare.”
“Hey.”
She was silent for a moment. Then, “Shit.”
“Yeah. Sorry.” Zack leaned toward her. “You passed out. You’re in my bed. Er, I mean… my yacht’s bed.” There. Did that sound better?
Rachel slowly pushed herself up and gave him a heated glare. “I hate water.”
“Really? Thought maybe you were reacting to bad shellfish.”
He grinned at her. Eventually, Rachel was compelled to snort and smile back at him.
“I’m sorry about this,” Zack continued. “I had no idea it would be such a problem.” He cocked his head. “What made you so scared of the water?” In his experience, people didn’t have these kinds of phobias for no reason. Usually, there was something sinister in their pasts. When it came to hydrophobia, it was probably mother nature being a bitch.
Rachel pulled her hair out of its ponytail. Somehow, her hair being down accentuated the features of her face more than pulling it back. Dark brown hair shrouded Rachel’s cheeks, drawing Zack’s attention to her dainty pink lips and frosty blue eyes. Damn. I mean… damn. This was the kind of image missing from his work.
