There was plenty to see. Everyone waved and yelled out pirate-y things like “Matey” and “Har, har” as they passed us. No one said jack shit about my face. I saw one guy who could be Johnny Depp’s brother, but mostly people paired eye patches, plastic swords, and gaudy necklaces with their guns.
We unzipped our life jackets in unison. Max’s chest was tanned and taut and only slightly smudged from the salt spray. The ropy muscles he attributed to building houses and climbing were lovely.
For an instant, I wished I had on a swimsuit. If only I could show off my hard-earned running muscles without revealing Pink Floyd and Tennessee.
Max lifted our guns and locked his backpack in the storage compartment. “You ready to kick some ass?” he asked.
“Uh, yeah,” I said, more confidently than I felt.
“You two are toast,” Gray taunted.
“In your dreams, Garrison.” I pulled my trigger finger a few times in his direction.
“Sadie is pretty much a beast,” Gina agreed.
Gray poked Gina in the ribs. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”
“We don’t know whose side I’m on yet, dude,” she said, flipping her hair. “I just might have to take you down.”
I looked at my old friends in this familiar place and realized I’d found another tiny piece of myself. The moment was so perfect, I chugged it like a Gatorade.
Max noticed and kissed me on the temple. No flinch from either of us. I was glad he did it in front of Gray, but it sucker punched the conversation.
“Come on, gang. Let’s go register.” Gina threw an arm around my shoulder like old times. She didn’t realize she was touching Tennessee. I let it go without comment.
We all stepped out and followed the crowd.
No one lived on the little island, and I had no clue who owned it. There used to be No Trespassing signs, which everyone ignored, but they’d been gone for several summers. Maybe the city bought the property, because private groups had rented it for all sorts of things: concerts, events, fireworks, and games like Pirates and Paintball. The island was small enough that you could walk around its circumference in two hours; Gina and I had done that plenty of times when we docked here to picnic and swim.
“Thank you for giving me this weekend,” Gina said.
“I’m happy I could.”
Her head tilted into mine. “After this weekend, can we talk?”
“Talk-talk?”
She nodded. “I have a confession I need to get off my chest.”
I succumbed. “Okay. One rule: no apologies.”
“I’ll try.”
“Then I’ll try too,” I said.
Give me a frickin’ medal. I’m actually growing as a human being, I thought. Forgiveness was going to be my bitch by the end of this thing.
The registration team clearly wasn’t expecting this many participants, so we waited forty minutes to pay our twenty-five-dollar fee. The lady taking money, Marge, had been with Pirates and Paintball since it began. Max and I both recognized her immediately. There weren’t many women who wore a striped pirate tube top quite like her. A talent indeed.
Her hands clamped over her mouth, and she crawled under the table, through the sand, and popped up beside us.
“You came.” Her delight was plain to see, as well as her cleavage. I squirmed a little as she slapped a hug on me without warning. Max raised his eyebrows, and I swear, somewhere in the ether, Trent giggled.
“Wouldn’t miss it. Right, Sadie?” Max teased me.
“Nope,” I said, even though I’d come up with a million excuses to do just that.
Marge handed us two mesh jerseys, one green, one blue. “Green’s for the privateers. Blue’s the pirates. Take your pick, kiddos.”
I gave Max the See, I told you this would happen look.
We chose and she wrote down our numbers under the respective team names.
“Thanks, Marge,” he said.
Marge thumbed toward a large gathering of players standing around the starting point. “Just think, sweetie . . . All this energy . . . Your brother would have loved it.” She patted us on the shoulder and shoved us on our way in one motion. “Next,” she called, because the line really was out of control.