Page 69 of Falling Overboard

“Oh?” That was far too hopeful. I didn’t repeat it in a more uninterested tone, as I decided that would draw too much attention to it.

“You’re not the only one who needs to follow the rules.”

He had joked in Saint-Tropez that he was an international man of mystery, and I was believing it. There was something he was leaving unspoken, and it felt important. I wanted to solve the puzzle he’d just dangled so temptingly in front of me.

Before I could ask him about it, he continued on, “Plus, I’m not interested in either one of them.”

“Oh?” Now my voice was shaking, I was repeating myself, and so I forced myself to go back over to the dress so that I would have something else to focus my energy on.

Because I was giddy. Utterly giddy that he wasn’t interested in either one of my stews.

He might not be interested in you, either.

I brushed that annoying voice of mine away. I was going to live in glorious denial until he said something to the contrary.

Not that we could act on it, but just the fact that there was some small glimmer of hope was enough to make me feel like I was being lit up by 1.21 gigawatts of electricity.

Then I went and found a way to destroy that feeling. “But you made a face.”

His quizzical expression told me that he had no idea what I was talking about. “I what?”

“When Kai and Emilie kissed in the taxi. You made a face. I thought it was because you liked her.”

“It was because I didn’t think it was okay for them to be doing that in front of the rest of the crew. We were all given the same rules by thecaptain. They put all of us in an awkward position. Nobody wants to snitch on them but they made us their accomplices.”

The fact that he was a rule follower made him even more attractive. Bad boys had never held much appeal for me.

He folded his arms and continued his TED Talk, gesturing toward the list. “You’ve said that Georgia is your friend. But if she was, she wouldn’t be doing stuff like this. Putting you in a precarious position.”

“She is my friend. But yachting makes relationships different. It’s a ‘let’s be friends until one of us quits or gets fired’ sort of situation. Everything in our lives is temporary. You might keep in touch on social media, but it’s never the same as when you worked together.”

“So you make friends thinking that things will always end?” he asked.

“They do end. The impermanence is why the captain’s rule is a good one. Nobody here is going to wind up with a happily ever after. I mean, you do hear about it happening, and those people go off and work on yachts together as a couple, but that is more the exception than the rule. Relationships are usually short lived.”

“But not always.”

“Not always,” I agreed.

“That seems . . . sad.”

Realizing that I was neglecting Sasha’s dress, I started dabbing at the stain. “It’s our life here. We have to live in the present and enjoy our days the best we can because we never know when it might all change.”

“That’s true of life in general,” he said, taking his spot on the counter again. “It kind of sounds like college. You have these friends and roommates you see every day and then college is over and everything changes. It was a strange adjustment.”

I ran lukewarm water in the sink to wash the dress, grabbing a mild detergent. “I wouldn’t know. I didn’t go to college. I wanted to, but obviously there wasn’t any money for it.”

“College hasn’t gone anywhere. You could still go. You’d do amazing.”

I liked the way he talked. Like the world was still full of possibilities for me. Where I saw doors that had been shut, he saw a way to open them up again.

He made me feel like I could say the things I felt and he wouldn’t turn away from me. That he would listen and understand.

My heart began to pound as I thought of telling him how much I liked being with him.

That I didn’t want our situation to be impermanent. How a piece of my soul hoped that our friendship would last long past our time on this yacht.

That maybe we could be something more. Someday.

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