Page 20 of Second Tide's the Charm
His teeth sink into his lower lip, uncertain. “But the fact remains that we used to date. You don’t think that might affect our interactions?”
Ugh, I hate this. Hate that this is a million times harder than I expected. Hate that there’s no way I can ever trust him with my heart again, even though part of me wants to fling myself into his arms and never let go. “You’re right. It happened.Wehappened.”
His eyes meet mine, but resolve has solidified in my chest. I’m here to get my life back on track. Our paths diverged three years ago. He stayed on course, and I’m here to find my way back. “We have a history, Adrian. But that’s all it is. History.” Saying it aloud is as much for my benefit as his. My heart needs to be onboard.
He gives a small shake of his head. “I can’t just erase more than five years of memories.” Over half a decade. But we’ve been apart almost as long. “I don’t know how to pretend we’re strangers.”
I didn’t come here to pretend, but I’m also not here to open old wounds. “I’m not denying our history.” Though it’s hard to think of it in the past tense with his presence so immediate—sitting mere feet away, legs splayed, arms crossed, so near I can see the rise of his chest with each inhale.
“But I just want to move on.” Like he so clearly has. “To treat this like a job.”
He meets my eyes, expression serious. “It is a job.”
I huff out a breath. “One where there’s no underlying tension between me and my boss.”
“I’m not your boss,” he says.
“Supervisor.”
His scratches his beard. “I never thought of it that way.” I can see the wheels churning in his mind. He’s prone to finding worst-case scenarios, and there are a million ways this could go wrong.
But after a moment, he says, “We don’t have an HR department, but I’ll have our lawyer draft some paperwork to protect your employment. Make it clear you report to Marissa, not me.”
“That’s a good call.” Part of me can’t help but notice as much as his life’s changed, he’s still the man I fell in love with. Considerate. Thoughtful. Careful in all things, except in his handling of my heart.
He holds my gaze, eyes searching my face. Emotions drift across his dark brown eyes like the play of ripples on the seafloor, then his expression smooths into resolve. “Then let’s move forward as colleagues, and let the past stay gone.”
Exactly what I wanted, though the word feels hollow. But Adrian-as-Colleague is a step beyond the No-Adrian Rule. A way to coexist without the burden of holding on to old hurts. The next step in letting go.
The boat bobs sharply on the placid surface, and I glance up to see Marissa climbing aboard. She sends a tentative smile my way. “Since everyone’s here, I thought maybe we could salvage the day with a trip out to Winyah Bay.”
“To tag sharks?” I smile for what feels like the first time in years, but I temper my expectations. “Or just to get me acquainted with the area?”
“You came to work, right?” Marissa’s words are a dare, and I freaking love a challenge, bruised heart or not.
I crack my knuckles. “Heck yes I did.”
“Then let’s go find some sharks,” she says.
Go time.
Wait time, more like. Setting lines is methodical and we have to adhere to the time allotted by the research permits. Once the lines are in the water, we might hook a shark in five minutes or half an hour or not at all. In the meantime, Marissa outlines the data she’s hoping to collect this summer to study shark immune response to stress, and Adrian’s current focus on migratory patterns of sharks off the Carolina coast.
He leaves us to it, moving off into the stern to work on his laptop. Gabe plops down next to me and opens up his camera case. A rush of queasiness lurches up my throat at the sight. I take a deep inhale through my nose and focus on my breaths until the sensation abates, like I’ve done countless times on rough seas. But this time what’s making my stomach unsettled is the thought of a camera following my every move.
When Gabe hoists a camcorder onto his shoulder, I inadvertently pull back, tense. He must notice my stiff posture, because he leans away from the viewfinder with a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, this will all be edited before we share it, and you’ll always get a chance to sign off before we do. No live filming in the field. Boss’s orders.”
“He’s worried I’ll do something to embarrass y’all?” I’m worried enough for both of us. I tanked my first and only on-camera interview, but this time I’ll be doing familiar work. As long as I can forget about being filmed, I should be fine.
“Not at all.” Cooler in hand, Adrian appears, startling me. His physical presence—very physical, with the way his lightweight tee clings to his torso—is going to take getting used to, since for years he’s been confined only to my thoughts. “It’s our standard practice. For one thing, we don’t want to bore viewers with hours of nonaction. For another, it allows us to control the content, to ensure—”
“Shark on the line,” Marissa calls out, and I’m on my feet in an instant, worries forgotten. We all rush to the stern, where she hauls in the line carefully, hand over hand, until a fluttering dorsal fin appears alongside the boat. “Little guy.” She smiles over her shoulder. “Want to help with the work-up or watch this first time around?”
“Help, obviously.” But my hands are shaky as I step in between them. After the tumultuous morning, I feel like this is a performance eval, and considering I just got fired and my new colleague is my ex, my confidence isn’t so hot. Once I lean over the side of the boat and reach over to help secure the shark, though, my nerves flee. Marissa’s right, it’s a small shark, and I instantly recognize the characteristic elongated caudal fin and pointed snout of an Atlantic sharpnose shark.
Catching one is a normal occurrence here, but there’s no containing the leap of joy I have at seeing the animal just below the surface, the distinctive shape one I haven’t seen in years, yet familiar as ever. I half turn to ask Adrian for a tape measure and catch sight of Gabe. Nerves surge, but he’s lowered the camera off his shoulder, holding it casually at his side as his knees flex with the rhythm of the waves.
He smiles. “Figure you deserve a warm-up round, especially given the gauntlet you went through earlier. We’ve filmed enough tags that missing one won’t matter.”
