Page 80 of The Sailor in Polynesia
So I did, I stroked him hard, and licked and sucked and took him over the edge mercifully quickly, swallowing him down.
He shuddered and groaned, making these wonderful little noises, noises I would never forget.
I crawled to him and he wrapped his arms around me.
* * *
When I woke up, Jonas was gone. And sometime between cooking dinner and getting ready for bed, I looked up andEikwas gone. A flash of relief made its way through my body; I didn’t think I had it in me to be the one to leave first.
Thirty
For the next week, I tried to fit my life into some kind of normalcy again. What was normal? I flipped open books, but I’d find myself staring at the page, my eyes focused beyond the words. Boats came and went in the bay, and part of me secretly wished each sail on the horizon wasEikreturning, but I knew time slipped on and Jonas was further away.
Liam had twined into my life slowly, and the extraction had been painful and drawn out. Jonas had come into my life with a splash, and out with a puff of breeze.
Unlike the rip of a Band-Aid, Jonas’s disappearance got worse each day. I missed his calm presence, his small, tender smiles. Eventually, I knew, I would have to moveWelinaagain, and having to do it without Jonas there to help me, to once again be alone, seemed like an insurmountable task.
My satellite device pinged. I rolled over on the settee, my eyes darting around the cabin. Where was my phone? I’d switched it off days ago to save money on the expensive cell phone service when I couldn’t find a free Wi-Fi signal.
It was tucked under my logbook on the nav desk. I switched it on and connected directly to the sat.
Your dot hasn’t moved, but you aren’t answering my messages. Are you alive? Or is the kraken devouring ships in Moorea?
I rolled my eyes at James, and dutifully switched my phone onto the cell network. Pings filled the cabin as notifications popped up on my screen. I had twelve from James, including a photo of him holding up a bottle of kombucha and smirking.
I’m alive. No kraken here.
His message came back immediately.Good. Will call off armada of kraken hunters. They never stood a chance anyway.
Revenge killings of mythical beings rarely ever turn out well.
How’s Jonas?
He left—I consulted the calendar—last week. Bound for points west.
Aw, Miamati, I’m sorry.
The screen showed my brother typing for a few moments, then the dots disappeared, then there was more typing, then not, then typing...
Hypothetically speaking, if one wanted to track down Jonas, where would one find him?
You can’t fly halfway around the world to punch Jonas.
What’s his boat name again?
You aren’t tracking him on AIS either.
This was easier when you dated those schmucks in high school.
It was satisfying when you threatened Billy Radcliffe and he avoided me for the rest of senior year.
James didn’t answer for a couple of minutes, so I flipped through my apps and caught up on messages. When I switched over to my personal email, I sat up straight. My inbox, normally pretty empty, had a slew of unread emails, a mix of messages from Jonas andEik.
I opened the first one.
Mia, pulling up the anchor last night and sailing away from you was one of the hardest things I have ever done.
I greedily devoured every email he sent me. Some were sent fromEik’s at-sea email address, with updates on sailing (We departed Bora Bora after only two days, taking advantage of the good weather,Eikis moving along at eight knots with the wind deep behind us, we expect to arrive tomorrow), but they almost always included a peek into Jonas’s mind.
