Page 3 of Catch of a Lifetime
It wasn’t a teasing, bold, erotic pulse of sound to set me shivering and make me desperate.
It was a gentle sigh of homecoming.
And it was followed up with a pained, apologetic little grunt as his hands fell away, his mouth slid from mine, and he slipped beneath the waves.
“Morning, Joe,”Jerry said cheerfully when the arsehole finally called me back. “And may I say, it is a particularly fine Tues?—”
“Where the hell have you been!”
“What—”
“I have beencallingyou.”
“All right,” he said cautiously. “I know that, I saw the notific?—”
“For two hours, Jerry!”
“All right now, stop screaming at me, and I?—”
“I am notscreaming, I just need your fuckinghelpif that’s not too much to fuckingask.”
“Wow, Joe. Calm your tits.”
I panted for breath. “He’s hurt, and I don’t…I don’t know what to do, okay? I need you. Please help me to help him, I don’t… Oh god, Jerry. He’s hurt. He’s really, really hurt.”
Jerry’s voice sharpened. “I’m coming. Where are you? Have you called an ambulance? Who’s hurt? You didn’t get in a caraccident, did you? I told you a Toyota isn’t as good as a Land Ro?—”
“It’s Dave.”
“He’s back?” I heard a car door bang, an engine start, and then an annoyingbing-bing-bingsound. “Seatbelt, seatbelt,” Jerry muttered. “Okay, I’m on my way. Where are you? At the house?”
“Beach,” I said, scrubbing at my eyes. “I can’t get him to the house. Not on my own. It took me this long to get him out of the water.”
It had been almost impossible to tow Dave’s incredible weight those last few feet through the waves and onto the shore. He didn’t float. He sank to the bottom and lay there like a rock.
In the end, I’d taken a deep breath and dropped to my knees under the water. I’d remembered the phone in my hoodie pocket at the last moment and turned to wing it up the beach. I didn’t see where it landed, as I was already ducking under the waves.
Dave had come to rest on his back with his head pointing more or less landward. I shifted off my knees and into an awkward crouch, wedging my hands under his arms. I dragged him up the shallow slope in fits and starts, pausing twice to break the surface for air. Even when my head was above the waves, I struggled to breathe. The water was as agitated as I was. It churned and heaved around us, constantly dashing spray into my face.
Almost as if it didn’t want to let Dave go.
Well, it had had him for the last six months. It was my turn now, and so I yelled at it as I wrestled his lax body through the surf.
I never did manage to get him all the way out and onto the sand. I got him as far as I could, dashed over to where my phone had landed in a wet clot of seaweed, and had been calling Jerry ever since.
Thank god he’d called back.
“You two hang tight. I’ll be there as quick as I can,” Jerry said, and disconnected.
“Hold on, Dave,” I said, for the hundredth time. “Jerry’s coming. We’ll get you home. You’ll be safe. I’ll keep you safe.”
The water lapped uneasily around us.
“Hold on for me.”
2
At first, I thought the faint cry in the distance was a seagull. Like anyone who lived on the coast, I ignored it.
