“Oops!” he said, his arms still extended in the air, his eyes wide. We watched the cup bounce off the rim of the barrel and land on the wooden dock, where coffee splattered in small drops.
“Sorry. I didn’t see you,” he said as he bent and picked up the cup. He threw it in the barrel and stepped close to me, and there were those eyes. Rings of black and tan and green. He smiled, and I looked down. Looked anywhere but at those eyes.
“Did I get any on you?” he asked.
I held out my arms, looked at my legs. “No. I think I’m good,” I said.
“I’m not known for my jump shot.” He pretended to shoot an imaginary ball, then looked at me. “Hey. How’s the ankle?”
“Good. Fine.” I wiggled it. “Back to new. It’s actually why I came down here. I mean, I didn’t know if you’d remember who I was—”
“I remember. The Jessica otherwise known as Jess.” He looked behind me. “Came down? From where?”
“I work there.” I pointed to the fish shop.
He raised his eyebrows at me. “I worked in the deli one summer back in North Carolina. Filled in for a guy in the fish department one shift. It’s hard work.”
It was, but I loved it. With the door open, the breeze coming through the screen, and the smell of fried clams from next door sneaking in, it hardly seemed like a job at all. I’d worked at a summer camp as a junior counselor when I was fourteen, assigned to the six-year-olds. That was work.
“That’s not exactly easy either,” I said, gesturing to the fishing boat in front of us, the one he’d been loading crates onto.
“Oh, I don’t work on that,” he said. “I just wanted to get a look and thought I’d give them a hand for a tour.” He studied the boat. “She’s a beauty.”
I looked over at it. It looked like every other boat in the harbor.
He saw my expression and dropped to a crouch and pointed at the bottom of the boat.
“She’s got a triple-diagonal mahogany hull.” He looked up at me. “Cold-molded construction,” he said, and stood up.
“You like boats, then,” I said.
“I like boats,” he agreed, grinning.
“So, anyway,” I said, realizing I had to get back to the shop, “thanks for your help that day.”
“It wasn’t a big deal. It’s not like I have a ton going on here.” He waved his hand when he said here, and I took it to mean Alden.
“Well, still. And I wanted to say I’m sorry again . . . for what I said.”
He looked at me and waited. I felt my stomach drop.
“I called your father a . . . a name,” I rambled, feeling my cheeks turn red. “And I—the truth is—I don’t even know him.”
He looked down, studied his shoes. When he looked up, his face was blank, empty.
“Anyway. With my ankle, you know, hurt, I didn’t remember if I apologized. So, um, sorry.”
He didn’t speak, just looked at me like he’d rather be anyplace else in the world than talking to me. Suddenly I wished I’d just stayed in the bathroom with my brown-eyed, brown-haired self.
“I have to get back. Thanks again for the ride,” I mumbled.
I walked away from him as fast as I could. The only noise I heard was the sound of my sneakers against the gangplank. I pulled open the back door, stepped in, and shut it behind me, my heart pounding.
I passed Boon’s office on my way to the front. He was on the phone and waved at me, pointed to his watch and grimaced.
I went to the front door and flipped the sign to OPEN. There was already a line of customers waiting at the door. I went behind the counter, pushing Alex out of my mind.
It was noon when Boon came out of his office and told me to take a break for lunch. After my knives were clean and my area scrubbed, I grabbed my lunch from the freezer and went out the back door.
I walked to the slip where Hope Ann usually was. My father was out fishing, and I slipped off my sneakers, sat on the dock, and dangled my feet in the water.
Our small skiff rocked slowly in the water. I put my foot on the edge of the stern and turned my face to the sun, letting it warm my skin. My eyes were closed when I heard Boon’s voice from the deck above. I held my hand up to shade my eyes and saw Alex walking toward me, a brown bag in his hand.
When he reached me, he pointed at Boon. “That guy is waiting for you to give him a thumbs-up, or he’s going to rearrange my face.”
I looked at Boon, who was fifty yards away, above us, watching us with his arms folded across his chest.
“Can you?” Alex said, glancing over his shoulder. “He didn’t seem like he was joking.”
I put my thumb in the air, and Boon waved and went back in the shop.
“Mind if I sit?” Alex asked, pointing to the dock next to me.
I scooched over to make room, and he sat down.
“I work next door. At the sailing camp. I stopped by the shop to see if you had time for lunch, and that guy told me you were here.”
“Boon,” I said.
“Huh?”
“His name is Boon. And he was kidding about rearranging your face. He’s never serious.”
“I thought he was your father the way he was grilling me about why I was looking for you.”
“He’s my uncle. Well, just my dad’s friend from forever ago, so I call him uncle. If it was my father, he would have been serious.” I rolled my eyes.
“Well, that guy, I mean Boon, puts on a good act.” He glanced back again. “I almost didn’t come down here.”
I looked at him, wanted to ask, Why did you? Instead, I concentrated on my lunch, tried not to stare at his legs, only inches from my own. A slug-shaped scar ran across the top of one knee. I looked out at the water, surprised at the urge to reach out and trace the shape of that scar with my fingertip. He opened the bag on his lap and took out an apple, rolled it around in his hand like a baseball.
I thought of Carly and the way she’d go on and on about Griffin Pike, the captain of the varsity hockey team. She’d analyze the way he said Hey, boss, to her when they passed in the hallway, or whether the high five they’d shared at the pep rally was actually more than just a high five. She’d tell me even being near him made her heart race, her palms sweaty. Sometimes she’d catch my look when she said this. You don’t understand, she’d whine, desperate for me to feel the same way about someone. And she was right; I didn’t understand.
Until now.
I concentrated on breathing, tried not to notice that my limbs were suddenly heavy. Maneuvering the grape from my hand to my mouth in one motion seemed impossible. Instead, I closed my fist around it, looked at the water, and waited for him to speak.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw him fidget with the brim of his baseball hat, pushing it up and then down again. He saw me watching and stopped, put his hand under his leg, apparently aware of the habit.
“I wanted to explain about earlier,” he said finally. “You caught me off guard.”
I turned to face him. He looked as nervous as I was.
“I actually drove past your house a couple of times. I wanted to see if you wanted to hang out. Go to a movie or something. But I chickened out, and then this morning you just appeared out of nowhere, and . . .” His eyes darted nervously at me, and he stopped talking.