Page 62 of The Sailor in Polynesia
We were both quiet, and I picked at the sheets underneath me. Jonas watched me. “Our relationship didn’t start out bad. I mean, relationships never do, right?”
“Relationships are complicated, and my marriage may not have been happy, but I do not believe it was everbadfor me.” His voice turned soft. “But I also don’t know anyone else who was in a really bad relationship.”
When I wasn’t forthcoming, Jonas flipped the topic. “Tell me some good things.”
I told Jonas how Liam and I had met, how we’d dated and married and struggled through jobs and family issues before buyingWelina. Talking about the good stuff had loosened me up. “Us moving aboardWelinawas kind of a role reversal. Yes, Liam liked sailing and was learning a lot really quickly, but he was never going to have it in his blood like I do.”
“Salt water in your veins.”
“Yeah, exactly. I think he started to resent it. He was the boss before we bought the boat—at work and at home—and it chipped away at him.”
I flipped to my stomach, propping up on my elbows, the phone resting on the pillows. “What about your ex-wife?”
“She was never a sailor. I took her out a few times, but she did not enjoy it. I had never vocalized my sailing dreams, so I left them by the side.”
“She wasn’t a sailor? How did you meet, then?”
“At a work event. It was... networking? Where you meet with people in similar jobs or industries?”
“Yeah, networking.” I smiled a little bit, having a hard time picturing Jonas as anything other than a sailor. “Did you wear a suit and tie to work?”
He chuckled. “Ja.”
I hummed, picturing it. “Did you have your long hair back then?”
Jonas beamed. “You like the long hair?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Well, no, I did not. That is a new thing. Anyway, I met Anika at a networking event. I asked her for drinks afterward, and then we dated.” He waved a hand. “It was a very normal relationship. Until it wasn’t.”
We were both quiet, lost in our own thoughts for a few minutes.
“Let’s get some sleep, okay?” I yawned. “We can talk tomorrow.”
Jonas turned to look at me. “Tomorrow,” he agreed.
I smiled, attempting to imprint on my brain this one last view of Jonas before I hung up. “Night.”
* * *
I had brought my laptop with me and the SD cards from my cameras, so the next morning at James’s house, when I couldn’t sleep, I worked on making a video. I set up in the breakfast nook just off the kitchen, and as daylight brightened the room around me.
While I hadn’t planned anything out, I had some miscellaneous footage: snorkeling, a few shots ofWelinasailing, and the drone footage.
I didn’t have many clips of me talking to the camera, but when I did, it was like a different person from the footage a few weeks prior. I had better color, my smile actually reached my eyes, I looked more relaxed.
Excited, I reviewed all the footage, slid the best clips into the software program, and found a song to work with. The trickiest part was the sunset time-lapse I’d done at the beach, but I managed to get a halfway presentable video put together.
Well, actually, the trickiest part was watching Jonas, over and over again. I giggled when I saw the footage from the beach bonfire, Jonas looking at the camera over his shoulder every few minutes. I’d taken some clips of him while we were sailing, and now that I knew how his lips felt, I couldn’t take my eyes off them. I’d filmed him sitting in the cockpit, gazing out over the ocean, and when he’d turned and caught me filming, his cheeks had pinked.
And that look on the dronie... I watched it over and over again.
James staggered into the kitchen and, bleary-eyed, started the coffee maker. I ignored him, focusing on my laptop and the clips and the music, trimming here and there while also adjusting the colors until I got the footage right.
Finally I’d done enough, and I took my headphones off and sat back.
“What time did you get up this morning?” James asked, leaning against the counter.
