by Jayne Rylon
Twelve guests, two divemasters, and one captain.
Archer, Tosin, and Miguel had worked for operations that ran much bigger ratios of clients to guides, but they preferred not to. This way they could make sure everyone had a safe, personalized experience.
Today, Archer’s group would be staying shallower than Tosin’s. That meant he had the less experienced people. Or in the case of his married couple, ones who preferred nicer light for capturing the best underwater photos and videos. The brothers had chosen a depth that would allow them to stay under the longest. Another smart choice, Archer thought.
If he only had a few days a year or every couple of years to dive while on vacation, he’d milk every one of them, too. Sounded like hell to him.
Different priorities for different folks. Everyone had their own reasons for the decisions they made. No different than him. At least that’s what he promised himself to assuage his guilt for not being honest with his two best friends about his life before they’d started exploring paradises together nearly a dozen years earlier. Twice for not telling them about how everything had changed overnight.
He’d confess…eventually. When he could convince himself that it didn’t matter and wouldn’t impact the partnership they’d built. Part of him screamed that wouldn’t be possible, not when he told them about the worst of it. About the unforgivable thing he’d done to her.
Archer couldn’t help himself. A vision of a young woman with hair fanned out around her and gorgeous eyes looking up at him as he made love to her flashed into his mind. It simultaneously turned him on and made him feel sick.
So he ignored any further ribbing from Miguel and Tosin. Let them think what they would. Sure, his date had wrung a few solid orgasms from him, but he’d already practically forgotten about that. God knew he could use a few more to relax him now.
What would he do if this whole existence disappeared? If he had to go back, he’d bleach out and die off like coral in ever-warming ocean waters. He wouldn’t be able to survive in those conditions.
Archer gripped the edge of the cabin and stuck his face into the wind, closing his eyes as he savored the strengthening sunrays and the salt spray pelting his cheeks. He wasn’t ready to let go.
Not now.
Not ever.
Miguel interrupted his wandering thoughts with a low warning. “Archer, behind you.”
He snapped around, searching for the problem.
Married couple had finished getting ready. Without distractions, people sometimes had too much time on their hands. It seemed that was the case today, as they skimmed across the surface of the water toward their destination.
Another common occurrence.
“Need help?” He forced himself to smile as he approached the pair. Crouching down, he held on to the rinse tank at the center of the boat to keep his balance on the moving vessel.
“Sorry, I get nervous. Every time.” The wife swiped at a stray lock, putting it right back where it had started for only a millisecond before a gust slapped it over her eyes once more. Glamour had no place in diving. Skin-tight suits, wind-blown hair, an odd assortment of UV protection—hats, oversized sunglasses, rash guards—and mismatched towels. That’s what he considered their uniform.
Functional. Not too pretty. Definitely informal. Exactly the way he liked things.
Archer wondered if Banks would work some magic and keep him from having to wear an entirely different kind of suit for the first time in a decade. Or, God forbid, a tux. Could the man really pull off the legal and financial shit without dragging Archer back to the States in person?
Lost in thought, he hesitated too long in reassuring his charge. She’d progressed to biting her lip as her husband squeezed her knee. His friends had him covered as usual, though.
Tosin piped up. “No worries. If you don’t do this every day, it’s easy to get rusty. But you’ll be diving with the best. I guarantee when you put your mask in the water and take a peek at the reef below you, your nerves will disappear. Besides, Archer is willing to hold your hand the whole way if you need some extra reassurance.”
Great, he didn’t need his ass kicked by a jealous husband today. Usually they saved that line for the single ladies. And meant it. Diving with a woman was probably the most intimate experience he’d ever had with one. Fortunately, this husband chuckled, confident in his bond with his wife and seemingly grateful for the divemasters putting her at ease.
Archer wondered what it would be like to have that sort of relationship.
He, Tosin, and Miguel had never stayed in one place long enough to try. Being pinned down like that sounded like torture, except for one or two things—like, say, decent home cooking—they might be missing out on. It had seemed like an easy sacrifice before.
Suddenly, he was second-guessing everything.
Damn his father.
Even from the grave, the bastard had the power to fuck with Archer’s head.
Tosin gave him a kick in the ass.
Nervous lady. Right. Archer shook his head, probably making his dark hair stick up worse than it already had been. He didn’t give a shit about that. “Tosin’s right. You’re prepared. I watched you set up. Why don’t we go over the dive plan as a group?”
Head in the game once more, he gathered his six charges around and spoke loudly enough to be heard over the engine. “This is going to be a nice and easy dive at one of our favorite sites, Knife. The boat will be moored in about fifteen feet of water. Sandy bottom. We’re going to head out over the ridge of the reef, where the sea floor begins to slope down. I’ll drop to about fifty feet or so and judge the current. It’s usually going east from here, so we’ll likely turn right, keeping the reef on that side of us. Stay with your buddies, wherever you’re comfortable. I’ll be using a very conservative profile. As long as you let me be the deepest person on the dive and the farthest ahead, you’ll be all set, even if you aren’t confident in reading your computers or the battery goes out or whatever.”
He’d added that last part for his problematic pair.
“Whoever hits eighteen-hundred PSI first will signal to me using the half-tank sign.” As a reminder, Archer demonstrated, putting one hand up and the other across the top so that it made something like a T. “At that point, the whole group will turn around. We’ll ascend—slowly.”
Extra pointed stare at the disaster duo there.
Unfortunately, they were digging around in their pockets, not paying attention.
“Stay around twenty to thirty feet deep and put the reef on your left for the return swim. The current will be in our favor, helping us back to the boat with less exertion in a shorter amount of time. Plus, the decreased pressure at the shallower depth will ensure we make it there with plenty of air left. Feel free to use it to explore the area beneath the boat. Tosin and Miguel spotted a seahorse and a frogfish in that exact location last week. We may get lucky. I’ll be sure to point out anything of interest so you can take pictures or come in for a closer look.
“When you’re down to about eight hundred pounds of air, I’ll send you up to the base of the boat’s mooring line to do your safety stop. Stay for three minutes at fifteen feet. Your computer will count it down for you. Then ascend nice and easy to the boat. Miguel will be waiting to help you out. As always, please remember this is a protected marine reserve. Do not touch anything. Keep your distance from the reef, especially the soft corals. Don’t harass the animals. And definitely leave only bubbles behind.”
With a plan in place, his nervous diver seemed more relaxed. Good thing, since they’d reached the mooring pin. A buoy connected by a line to a concrete slab carefully placed on the sea floor allowed the boat to stay in one place without dropping an anchor that could tear up the reef.
Miguel and Tosin were securing a rope to the mooring pin. Archer checked his tank one last time, ducked into his BCD, snapped himself in, tightened the straps, and headed for the platform at the back of the boat. His gear seemed heavier than usual. O
r maybe he was simply off balance. He hated to admit, even to himself, that he might be reeling from the news Banks had given him.
He slipped on his fins and mask then waited for the all clear from Miguel. When his friend flashed the sign, Archer turned to his group and said, “I’ll be waiting in the water when you’re ready. Miguel will help you if you need anything prior to entry.”
Tosin’s group of more advanced divers were already giant striding into the ocean and bobbing behind the boat, talking excitedly about how clear the water was and what they might see. A few were hoping to catch a lionfish for dinner. The species wasn’t indigenous to the Caribbean and had been devouring juvenile fish on the reef, so it was open hunting season. Malicious and delicious, as the locals liked to describe them.
With a final glance over his shoulder and a nod from Miguel, Archer put one hand on his mask, the other over his regulator, then took a single step out into the ocean.
A curtain of bubbles rose around him as he plummeted a few feet below the cerulean surface. He loved the moment he became part of the sea again. The puff of air he’d added to his BCD before entering lifted him enough that his head stuck out of the water, though, as he waited for his guests to join him.
One by one, they splooshed into the water.
When all six of his charges were huddled around, peeking at the hidden world below their dangling flippers, he asked, “Who’s ready to go down?”
He flashed the thumbs-down. In return, he received an okay gesture from most of his divers. Of course, the sixth one—part of his trouble couple—shot back a thumbs-up. In diving language that meant “ascend”, not “awesome”. He shook his head and the diver corrected himself, changing to an okay instead.
With that, Archer popped his regulator back in, held his deflator hose up with his left hand, dumped the air from his BCD, and began to descend. Water filled his ears and closed over his head as he entered the magical universe beneath the surface. At least for an hour or so, he could forget his worries.
Had to, in order to do his job right.
These folks trusted him with their lives. He’d never lost a diver yet, and didn’t plan to start today. Sure, they were only fifty-three feet below the surface of the Caribbean Sea.
Still plenty deep enough to drown.
That wouldn’t be happening on his watch. If nothing else, he was certain of one thing.
He was a damn fine divemaster.
Three
A month later, Archer did a lazy frog kick, propelling himself through the warm, blue ocean. Tosin was a few feet to his right and Miguel a bit ahead of them as he peered at the shoal of squids that hovered in the shallows nearby. Their fins fluttered along the length of their bodies like a girl’s skirt ruffling in the wind. They changed colors and textures as their tentacles waved, flashing some sort of mesmerizing message the humans in their midst couldn’t decipher.
Though they’d seen these animals or ones like them many times before, the cephalopods still fascinated Archer. His friends, too.
Sure, it was their day off. That didn’t keep them out of the water.
Instead, they got to enjoy their time below the surface instead of worrying about anyone else. Miguel and Tosin were plenty capable of taking care of themselves. So was he. They glided offshore from Windsock, a dive site they visited often. It got its name from the device at the end of the island’s runway, which was right across the street from the beach where they’d made their shore entry for today’s excursion.
Though they normally set an easy pace on their guided dives so that the tourists who’d hired them could keep up while gawking at the marine life surrounding them, today they progressed even more slowly. Deep, measured respiration maximized their bottom time. It also forced Archer to chill out for a while—a skill he seemed to have lost any time he wasn’t underwater lately.
Despite the fact that they’d already been down more than an hour, they hadn’t covered nearly as much ground as they did when they were escorting passing visitors through as much of the aquatic landscape as possible.
Keen eyes, trained, could pick out any number of curiosities less experienced divers would zip right past, none the wiser. Like the lobster hiding beneath a vase sponge at depth, or the seahorse clinging to a swaying soft coral a few hundred feet back, or the teeny Pederson cleaner shrimp nestled in an anemone. They went about their business less than three feet from his face right then.
Each thing he saw awed him, as if it were his first time witnessing the splendor of this environment. Down here, Archer’s troubles couldn’t eclipse his wonder.
The only other time he experienced a rush this intense followed by contentment this profound was during an epic fuck. Just like then, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t make it last forever. Too soon, regret rushed in. When compared to the single night he’d spent with the girl whose name he couldn’t bear to think—even to himself—every other experience paled, even if it made him a sick fuck to admit it.
Tosin clinked a carabiner against his tank a couple times. When he had their attention, he flashed his low-air signal. Together, the three of them turned toward the shore and made their way to the outcropping of fire coral they used as their safety stop marker when they dove here.
Those final 180 seconds ticked by in a flash. Literally, as Archer watched the lacey reflections of the powerful sun dancing across the sea floor. They lit up the electric blue spots and fluorescent yellow tail on the juvenile damselfishes peeking out from between the blades below him.
How many of them would survive long enough to thrive on the reef? Despite their best attempts at hiding, the majority would be gobbled up by something higher on the food chain before they could fully mature.
He wondered if his odds were even half as good as the ones dealt to the fingerlings, who darted into some hidden nook when Archer’s shadow passed over them.
After their countdown completed, they followed each other single-file through a channel in the coral, over a bed of rubble. Archer’s computer marked each foot they rose, from fifteen to five. Before he was ready to rejoin the realm of land-lovers, his head crested the surface.
“Did you see how that thing almost ran into me?” Miguel was pumped over his close encounter with the squid.
“It was awesome. I could see the surface of its skin changing colors and my own reflection in its eyeball. Lucky it didn’t hypnotize me or some shit!” Tosin joined in.
Usually, the first moments above water bubbled over with excited chatter as everything they’d been thinking rushed out once they regained the ability to speak. Sure, they had perfected their own version of sign language, and carried slates to write notes to each other when that wouldn’t suffice, but nothing beat talking about their discoveries.
Today, Archer had nothing to contribute.
The whole world had flipped upside down. Dropping his regulator and taking his first breath of air from the atmosphere, he suddenly felt like he was drowning.
He sighed as he braced himself against the waves in thigh-deep water, then tugged on the spring straps of his fins, completing his transformation from merman to stealth billionaire. A guy he wasn’t sure he wanted to be anymore.
With one final glance over his shoulder, he ducked his head and trailed behind his friends.
They trundled through the gentle surf toward the beach. Salt water sluiced off him, making his footprints in the sand turn dark and clumpy. He relished the burn in his calves and thighs as he hauled himself and his sixty-plus pounds of equipment up the unstable incline, over rocks and past cacti, until they reached their truck, parked at the side of the road.
No need for a gym membership when this was part of their daily regime. Sometimes they did as many as five dives in a day. Often they followed it up with some midnight cardio that worked entirely different sets of muscles. Exhausting, but he’d never gotten sick of it.
Miguel rested his tank on the tailgate as he slipped off his mask, then unsnapped from his BCD. “If
you guys will break down my stuff, I’ll go get in line at the street-meat stand.”
Fish from a roadside tin can? Guaranteed food poisoning, right?
Archer had been skeptical once, too.
Now he knew better than to listen to his inner snob.
The place served the freshest fish, caught daily, and had become a staple of their diet since they’d landed on the tarmac not too far from where he stood. Hard to believe that had only been a few short months ago.
If their patterns held true, it wouldn’t be too much longer before one of them got a tip on another destination looking for help. Someone who’d be downright giddy to take on a trio of divemasters with their credentials. Off they’d go again.
Who knew where they’d end up next?
Well, he actually had some idea. But would the guys be onboard? Would they come onboard?
Archer screwed the dust cap onto his regulator and finished neatly arranging their gear so they could dunk it in the freshwater bins back at the resort before retiring to the tiny cabanas provided for each of the staff members in an attempt to justify their ridiculously low wages.
Honestly, he wasn’t in any hurry to return. He hadn’t been able to sleep much recently. Every time he closed his eyes, dreams of her turned into a nightmare replay of the situation that had driven him to leave it all behind. Another night of staring at the bamboo ceiling might push him over the edge of his sanity. Tosin and Miguel went out a lot of nights, or were otherwise occupied, so he’d spent a lot of time alone lately.
He snagged their pile of blankets then headed back to the beach. Lizards scattered in front of him, and a kickass blue whiptail sunned itself on the yellow-and-black painted rock that marked the location of the dive site along the way. More than sixty of those helpful stones dotted the shores of Bonaire, which was truly one of the most SCUBA-friendly places they’d ever lived and worked.
