by Trish Doller
ChrisDougMike. They’re pretty interchangeable, like most of the guys who used to come into the pirate bar. But I like the soft, knee-wobbling way Chris says my name. And there’s a freckle on the bottom edge of his lower lip that dangles like tempting fruit. Also, I’m a little tipsy. He sees me staring at his mouth and gives me a cocky grin.
“So, what brings you to Bimini?” he asks as we move to a picnic table on the deck. He sits beside me.
“Sailboat.”
He laughs. “Just you?”
I nod. “Yep. I left Fort Lauderdale on Thursday.”
“Wait.” His blue eyes narrow as he studies me. “Were you on a blue boat on the river?”
“Yep.”
“I knew I’d seen that blond hair before.” He runs his fingers down the length of one of my braids and gives the end a gentle tug. The gesture is prematurely intimate, but we’re already on a collision course. “I waved when we passed you.”
“Oh, right,” I say, smiling. “You were the reason I had to wait ten minutes at the Third Avenue Bridge so they could let some traffic pass.”
“Sorry.” His twisty little smirk says he’s not sorry at all. “I hope it doesn’t change your opinion of me.”
“What do you think my opinion is?”
“Well.” He takes a long pull from his bottle and I watch his Adam’s apple move as he swallows. “You were interested enough to let me buy you a beer. You’ve already contemplated kissing me.” My face gets warm and the smirk reappears. “You think I have potential, so I don’t want to mess up my chances.”
“At what?”
“Whatever you’ll let me get away with.”
The afternoon slips away as we take turns buying rounds of beer. ChrisDougMike are all Canadians who have jobs in sales—car dealership, liquor distributor, insurance company—and came to Bimini to catch wahoo. They talk about rods and reels, retelling fishing stories I won’t remember tomorrow, and Chris inches closer and closer. I stop caring about talking when our bare knees make contact beneath the table. Our elbows touch. Arms. Shoulders. As if we’re melting into each other.
At some point, Doug and Mike go down to the beach, leaving us alone. Chris leans over, his lips grazing my neck, my ear, setting off a shower of sparks under my skin.
“You want to get out of here?” he whispers. “I have a room.”
For the first time since he died, I don’t think about what Ben would want. He’s not the little voice inside my head urging me to go, go, go. And he’s definitely not in the warm ache between my thighs. Chris’s callused palm slides under the hem of my sundress, stroking the inside of my knee.
“Anna.” A gentle squeeze.
“Yes. Let’s go.”
The walk from the beach to the resort is a drunken kaleidoscope, scattered bits of need and tumbling shards of shame. My back pressed against the wall of an out-of-business clothing shop with Chris’s mouth on my neck and his fingers inside my bikini bottom, making me gasp. Running. Losing a flip-flop. Tumbling backward onto his bed. The feel of his mouth, his tongue, on all the places that haven’t been touched in months by anyone but me. Hot, sticky, mindless want.
My legs are still trembling when Chris gets out of bed, naked, to get a condom from his carry-on. His phone vibrates on the bedside table as he tears open the foil packet. The screen is alive with a photo of him kissing a pretty blonde dressed in a wedding gown. Shit.
“Anna, wait.”
My name no longer sounds beautiful and, God, I am so gullible. Ben never lied to me or played games. So it never occurred to me that Chris might be married, or that it was even a question I needed to ask. If I had, would he have told me the truth?
I snatch my dress off the hotel room floor and yank it over my head while Chris stands in the bathroom doorway, looking from me to his ringing phone and back, as if he still has a choice. As if there is anything he could say that would convince me to stay. My bikini is lost in the bedding, so I leave it behind with my one remaining flip-flop and an enormous piece of my dignity.
I glance back at Chris as I step through the doorway. “Go fuck yourself.”
I stumble through the resort grounds to the end of the dock where my dinghy is tied. I climb down a ladder to the little boat, where I sit for … I have no idea how long, listening miserably to the happy sounds of an island not ready to sleep. I ran away from Fort Lauderdale because I wasn’t ready to move on, yet threw myself at the first man who asked. I feel dirty. Unfaithful.
I’m so, so sorry, Ben. Please forgive me.
I want to row out to the boat, pull up the anchor, and sail away from this place, but I’m not sober enough for any of that. And Bimini isn’t really the problem. Instead I curl up on the floor of the dinghy and cry.
question mark (4)
I wake in the V-berth of the Alberg as if last night was nothing more than a bad dream, except there’s a spike of pain splitting my skull and I have no recollection of how I ended up in my own bed. Shifting the comforter aside, I discover I’m wearing yesterday’s sundress. The soles of my feet are filthy, my mouth tastes like I might have vomited, and my bikini is completely gone. I can remember my walk of shame and crying in the dinghy, but beyond that, the night ends in a question mark.
I’m relishing the small relief of being safe when I hear the cabin floor creak and catch a whiff of … coffee? I roll over to see a dark-haired man leaning against the galley sink, drinking from Ben’s favorite Captain America mug. Part of me wants to leap from my bed and snatch it away because that mug belongs to Ben, but the bigger, more rational part of me is trying to figure out why there is a stranger on the boat. He’s not riffling through cabinets like a thief searching for valuables. He looks relaxed, comfortable, as though he was invited. Did I invite him?
The scene jumps to the next level of unexpected when I notice that the lower half of his right leg—from his knee down into his black Adidas sneaker—is bionic and complicated-looking. Not flesh and bone.
I have no idea what’s happening.
“Um … hello?”
He turns in my direction and, under any other circumstances, waking up to this man’s face would probably be a religious experience. He looks like he should be playing guitar and singing in pubs, with dark just-fucked hair and a scruffy jawline. “Oh good,” he says. “You’re awake.”
“Who are you?”
“You don’t remember?” He touches his hand to his heart, covering up the crackled gold letters that spell CIARRAÍ across the chest of his faded green T-shirt. He’s older than I am by a handful of years, but his grin is pure ten-year-old boy with a frog behind his back. And his accent sounds Irish. “Now you’ve gone and shattered my heart.”
I sit up and swing my legs over the edge of my bed. After my narrow miss with a married man, there’s no way I would’ve had sex with a different stranger. I think. “Did we…?”
“Christ, no.” He pours a second mug of coffee. Mine, with flowers and the pink A for Anna. “You were drunker than a monkey, but I did appreciate the offer.”
“Oh my God.”
“I’m joking.” He closes the space between us and offers me the mug. Accepting a drink—even a caffeinated one—from a strange man is not a mistake I should make twice, but the coffee smells good, and I desperately need it. I take it.
“The long and short of it is this—I found you passed out in your dinghy and it wouldn’t have been right to leave you there with your bare arse for God and all of Bimini to see.” His accent grows more pronounced as he picks up speed. “So, I rowed you out here to your boat and helped you to bed, then realized I was stranded unless I took your dinghy, in which case you’d be stranded. I slept on deck. I hope you don’t mind that I borrowed a sleeping bag.”
As if everything about last night wasn’t already deeply embarrassing, this man has seen my ass. He also saved me from … well, who knows what could have happened while I was unconscious and half-naked. Someone else, someone less honorable, could have found me first
. He rescued me from that possibility—and my own stupidity.
“Wow, um—thank you for being so kind.”
He rubs a hand over his messy hair and glances down at the floor before looking at me. “Well, I didn’t want to see you come to any harm, is all.”
“And it’s not that I’m not completely grateful, because I am, but … who are you?”
“Oh, right. Keane Sullivan.”
“Anna.” I opt not to overshare on the personal details. Lord knows what I might have said last night when I was drunk. “How did you guess which boat was mine?”
“There was only one without a dinghy,” Keane says with a one-shouldered shrug. “The odds seemed favorable.”
“Well, thank you. For everything.” I take a sip of coffee and steal a quick glance at my phone to see if anyone responded to my job offer while I was off making bad choices. There’s a notification, and a string of digits that don’t look anything like a telephone number. The text says: I am a professional sailor and delivery captain currently in Bimini. If you haven’t already filled the position, I’m interested.
“Excuse me one second,” I say, typing a quick response.
I haven’t filled the position.
“Are you hungry?” Keane asks, digging into his back pocket. He pulls out his phone and looks at the screen. “My apologies. I’ve got to check this.” He quickly taps out a message as he talks. “Whenever I’m hungover, fried eggs and buttered toast usually set me to rights.”
The thought of food makes my stomach queasy, and this man has done more for me than anyone should have had to do. “I don’t know if—” My phone chimes with a new text.
Meet me at the Big Game restaurant in an hour? I’ll be wearing a green shirt. I’m Keane, by the way.
My shoulders shake with suppressed laughter as I respond.
You’ll probably recognize me by my ass.
Keane looks down at his phone, and up at me, laughter escaping him in a great gust. We laugh until I have tears in my eyes and my sides ache. I haven’t laughed this much since before Ben died. The sound withers in my throat because … shit … I’m not ready for this. I didn’t think about having to share the boat with someone, even for a few days. Keane is taller and broader, and his presence takes up so much space. My second thoughts have second thoughts.
Keane notices. “Doing okay there, Anna?”
“I, um—”
He hands me a worn, folded piece of paper, his résumé, a two-page list of boats he’s crewed aboard and yacht deliveries he’s done. Ben bought a boat before he knew how to sail it, but Keane … he’s sailed all over the world, even raced across the wild Southern Ocean.
“Listen, if it’s the leg, I assure you I’m more capable with one than most people are with two,” he says without a hint of swagger. “I can get you to Puerto Rico.”
“It’s not the leg. Truly,” I say, as I hand back his résumé. There’s a just-rightness about Keane Sullivan that is comforting. He feels like someone I can trust. “I mean, what you did for me last night proves you’re the perfect person for the job, but I didn’t think this through. Since leaving Florida, I’ve made a series of bad decisions and I need to consider whether continuing this trip would be one more.”
He nods as he folds the list back up and shoves it into his pocket. “I understand. If you change your mind, you have my number.”
“Thanks again,” I say.
“Think nothing of it, Anna,” Keane says. “Would you mind giving me a lift back to the dock?”
Carla once told me that the best way to make a decision is to flip a coin. She said that when the coin is in the air, you’ll usually figure out what you truly want. There’s no spinning coin here, but as Keane turns to climb the companionway ladder, I realize that if I let him leave, I will not find anyone better. And I don’t really want to go home.
“I’ve changed my mind about those eggs.”
* * *
Keane plows into his breakfast as though he’s being clocked for speed. His cheek is stuffed with food as he tells me how he left home in County Kerry, Ireland, when he was only seventeen.
“My older brothers were footballers and hurlers, but I was drawn to the sea and loved mucking around in boats,” he says, smearing red currant jelly on his toast. “As soon as I was able to swim, my mom signed me up for sailing lessons at our town club and that’s all I’ve ever done.”
“So, you just … sail?”
“Essentially. I began as crew on local boats for fun, then team raced for the College of Charleston in South Carolina and worked my way onto yachts that were seriously campaigning,” he says. “Built something of a reputation as a world-class bowman and became a hired gun for anyone who wanted to win races.”
“Oh, um—we should probably talk about pay.”
“That was not meant to be a segue,” Keane says, gesturing at me with his fork before stabbing a piece of egg. “But listen … I need to get to Puerto Rico, so if you’re willing to give me a lift, I’ll do the job for free.”
“Are you sure?”
He nods. “Absolutely. To be honest, I’m eager to have a sail on this gorgeous boat. How did you come by it?”
“My boyfriend found it in a boatyard in Fort Lauderdale.”
“The one in the photo?” Keane gestures toward the V-berth.
“Yes.”
“Why is he not making this trip with you, if you don’t mind my asking?”
I’m afraid to answer his question because I don’t want to see Keane change into someone who treats me as though I’m made of glass. Despite my bad judgment last night, he has treated me like an unbroken person. But I need to be honest so that if I come unglued, he’ll know why.
“He’s, um—Ten months ago he died by suicide.”
He looks up, hazel eyes wide. “Jesus, that fucking sucks.”
A laugh escapes me, and I flatten my hand over my mouth, horrified at myself. There’s nothing funny about Ben’s death, but Keane’s reaction catches me off guard. Tears sting my eyes and the world gets blurry.
“When I lost my leg,” he says, “people kept apologizing. I know they were genuinely sorry that I’d experienced such a terrible trauma, but I got so bloody tired of hearing it. Just once I hoped someone would say, ‘Jesus, that fucking sucks.’”
“It really does suck.” I scrub my eyes with the heels of my hands. This time I laugh because I’m embarrassed that he’s managed to see me only at my worst. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” There’s a light of understanding in his eyes, and for the first time in months, I don’t feel like a moldy unidentifiable lump in the back of someone’s refrigerator. I feel seen.
“When were you thinking of leaving Bimini?” Keane asks.
“As soon as possible.”
* * *
Taking a shower makes me feel human again, and while Keane takes the dinghy to get his things from the yacht he delivered yesterday from Key West, I catch up on the phone messages I’ve been ignoring.
My mom’s voicemails are alternately angry and weepy, demanding that I call her back, then begging me to come home. Listening makes me heartsore. Her life hasn’t been easy. Dad dragged her to the States as a military bride and then walked out when my sister and I were kids. I’ve tried so hard to not give her reason to worry, but I don’t possess her German stoicism. I can’t pretend my grief doesn’t exist.
There’s a missed call from my boss, informing me I’ve officially been fired. And a second call to remind me that if I don’t return my uniforms, I’ll be charged for them.
Finally, there’s a voicemail from Ben’s mother. She barely spoke to me when her son was alive, and after his death, she gave me one week’s notice to move out of his apartment. Swept me away like trash. She’s left several voicemails in the past few weeks, but I’ve deleted them all, just like I delete this one.
Instead of calling my mom, I send her an email, explaining that I’ve hired a reputable guide to travel with me to
Puerto Rico. Try not to worry too much, I write. I’ll call when I get to San Juan. Ich liebe dich.
The dishes are washed and stowed, and my bed is made, when I hear my name. I climb out of the cabin as Keane maneuvers the dinghy alongside the sailboat. With one hand he passes up an enormous yellow duffel bag that’s so heavy, I stagger backward.
“Jesus,” I say. “Is this thing filled with rocks?”
He laughs. “No, just all my worldly possessions.”
“Really?”
“Aye.” He hands me the oars, and climbs onto the boat, hauling the dinghy up behind him. I’ve seen people with prosthetic legs who need canes or crutches, but Keane moves with the fluid grace of someone who knows his way around boats—prosthesis or otherwise. “And lately I’ve been thinking it’s time to downsize.”
As I pull the plug to deflate the dinghy, I don’t tell him my entire wardrobe is crammed into this boat, including a pair of strappy sandals in the hanging locker and a bronze sequined skirt folded into a drawer. He doesn’t need to know that I’m a messed-up girl flying by the seat of her pants. He’ll find out soon enough.
so fucking unfair (5)
Sailing with someone to spell you when you’re tired or need to pee is a vastly different experience from sailing alone. Keane and I create a four-hour watch rotation, giving each of us time to eat or nap or read a book. On his first watch, Keane sends a fishing line out from the stern, trolling for whatever might take a bite. Bimini is fading into the horizon.
I am down in the cabin, trying to decide what to make for dinner, when the line starts whizzing off the reel and Keane’s fishing rod bends in an arc.
“Anna,” he calls. “A little help, please?”
I take over the tiller while he picks up the pole to do battle with the fish on the other end of the line.
