Page 78 of The Beach Trap

“Are you going to help me get on this thing or what?” I ask.

Henry’s face lights up again, and he holds his hand out for me to step into the boat. It wobbles beneath my feet, and I’m glad I settled on white flip-flops instead of the wedge sandals that looked cuter with this outfit.

“Shall we?” he asks, grabbing my two bags and wedging them next to the big red cooler, which I assume is filled with boiled peanuts, not beer.

“Let’s go sell some nuts,” I tell him.

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Turns out,I don’t have to try very hard to have fun. The tiny boat has its benefits. It doesn’t go as fast as the ones I’m used to, but being closer to the water makes it more exciting.

It’s too noisy to talk, so I close my eyes and feel the wind in my face and the water spraying pretty much everything as we cut across the sparkling water, the sun shining down on us. With Instagram off my agenda, I can just enjoy the day for what it is.

Henry and I cover every inch of Crab Island—which isn’t really an island, just a shallow section of water near the Destin Bridge. On nice days it’s like a floating block party, with boats anchoring together or on their own. The water is waist-high so people can walk around, play Frisbee and football, or just float from boat to boat.

Since Henry’s boat is so small, we easily maneuver in between the normal-boat-size boats and yachts, which is some of the best people watching I’ve ever witnessed.

At the first few boats we stop at, I sit back and watch Henry make the sale. He’s able to close the whole deal with not much more than hand gestures and a “That’ll be five dollars.”

At first, the extent of my helping is either making change or handing Henry bags of the boiled peanuts from the cooler. But after about half an hour, he putters past a boat where I see a woman wearing the same Rachel Worthington cover-up as mine. That turns into a conversation, which turns into a sale, and after that, I’m hooked!

By the end of the day, we’ve switched roles: Henry is handling the money and the nuts, and I’m talking to customers and drumming up sales. Although to hear Henry tell the story, I’m doing less selling and more talking. But we still manage to sell the last bag by two o’clock.

“That was really fun,” I tell him as we head back toward the dock.

“And you almost didn’t come,” Henry says, as if it’s fact.

“Not true,” I tell him, even though there was a hot minutewhen I was considering coming down with a spontaneous stomach bug.

Henry shakes his head. “The look on your face. And your outfit.”

“Hey,” I say in defense of myself and the great Rachel Worthington. “I look cute.”

“You look beautiful,” Henry says, which makes me unexpectedly glow inside. “Just not dressed for a day’s work.”

“Which you forgot to mention,” I remind him—even though Henry insisted earlier that I had all the information and simply chose to believe what I wanted to.

“Either way,” Henry says, “I’m glad you stuck with it. You made the day a lot of fun.”

“And I was a big help,” I add.

“You made the day more fun,” he says again, a smile cracking on his normally serious face. The smile fades and he’s all business as we come in for a landing parallel to the dock. “Watch your hands,” Henry says.

He hops out of the boat with ease, even though the dock is a good foot and a half above us. “Hand me the rope?” he asks, nodding toward a thick white rope coiled in the bottom of the boat. He wraps the loose end around a pole, doing one of the knots I’m pretty sure we learned at camp.

Once the rope is secure, I stand, trying to get my balance. It feels like the floor of the boat and the water are moving in different directions. “What’s next, boss?”

Henry laughs. “You’re relieved of duty. I’ve got the cleanup; you helped more than enough with the sales.”

My ears perk up and I grab Henry’s extended hand to help me out of the boat. “What’s that?” I tease as I step onto the dock. “Did you just admit I was helpful?”

Before he can answer, my left flip-flop catches between twowooden slats on the dock, and I fall forward, catching myself on Henry’s broad, sturdy chest.

His hands are instantly on my waist, holding me steady. I look up at the same time Henry looks down, and our eyes lock. My heart is racing and I’m as out of breath as if I’ve just run a mile, not tripped an inch. We hold each other’s stare for what feels like forever, until he breaks it, his gaze drifting down to my lips.

My breath hitches and I realize I want to kiss him. Even more surprising: I think he wants to kiss me, too. I can feel his heart beating beneath my palm, heat radiating from his skin. I tilt my head up, ever so slightly, an invitation to cross the friend-zone line.

An invitation he turns down with a hard stop, going stiff and taking a step back. The playful, fun energy we’ve had between us is gone, replaced by a sinking feeling of embarrassment. I must have completely read that moment wrong.

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