Page 6 of Better than Yesterday
And Braden Coleridge had just knocked it off the dock.
Chapter Three
BRADEN
I spentthe rest of the morning pretending the meeting at the marina hadn’t detonated a decade’s worth of emotional TNT right under my feet.
Spoiler—I was terrible at pretending.
Back at Tidal Hops, I tried to lose myself in the clean logic of brewing, with its gravity readings, valve checks, and the satisfying clack-click of stainless fittings seating home. I sanitized the transfer line to the bright tank. Twice.
Dr. Donovan.
The words wouldn’t stop looping, snagging on the memory of her standing on the dock, hair slicked to her cheeks, trying to look like a professor while dripping like a drowned kitten. I should’ve been too shocked to enjoy the slapstick of it, but instead, laughter lodged behind my ribs. There’d been something in her eyes—not the certainty from when she’d recite species names for fun, but a flash of embarrassment and something else that yanked on a livewire I thought I’d deadened. Then a moment happened. An almost friendly one.
But theDoctortitle slid under my skin and stayed there. Not because she hadn’t earned it—God knew she had—but because it reminded me that she’d been launched like a rocket off this tiny island while I’d been the guy clapping from the ground.
With a sigh, I capped the bright tank and pulled a hydrometer sample. Crisp finish. My brain cataloged the numbers, but my chest didn’t care.
The bay door slammed open from the outside, rattling in its tracks, and Eli burst in like he’d been fired out of a cannon. Blond hair salt-stiff, he held a dive slate like a shield, his expression a mix of panic and apology. He looked like a man coming to confess he’d just scratched his brother’s truck.
“Okay,” he said, breathless, holding up a hand. “Oh wow, Braden. I was wrong. Monumentally, catastrophically wrong.”
I didn’t even turn around. I just kept swirling the hydrometer sample, watching it bob. “Not unusual. You’ll have to be more specific.”
“The other night,” he rushed on, “when I told you Tessa had nothing to do with the Scripps team? I was just plain wrong. She’s the one running the whole project. She was just in the dive shop—ourdive shop. Here!”
I set the sample down with deliberate, painstaking slowness. I turned and leaned back against the cool steel of the tank, crossing my arms. I let him stand there, vibrating with his big, terrible news.
“Yeah,” I said, my tone flat. “I know.”
The wind went out of his sails so fast it was almost comical. His jaw went slack. The dive slate clattered to the ground. “Wait. What? How could you possibly know?”
“We met. Again. She fell off a dock in front of me this morning. It was a whole thing.”
Eli stared, his brain clearly trying to reboot. “She… you… oh, man.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, panic shifting to genuine concern. “Braden, I’m sorry. I honestly didn’t know it was her project until she was standing in my office ten minutes ago. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I lied as I rubbed a spot on the tank too hard.
“Right.” He didn’t believe me for a second. “What happened?”
I exhaled and gave him a more detailed version, including the mutual mortification and how I’d stalked off in an offended huff.
Eli winced, dragging a hand through his hair. “Ow, that’s rough. So much for easing back into things.” He shifted his weight, his usual breezy confidence replaced by a careful, deliberate tone. “Look, I know the timing is terrible, but... you’re still good to run backup for me, right? Like we talked about?”
I dropped the towel I’d been holding, incredulous. “Are you serious? That was when some sixty-year-old professor named Albright was running the project. That was before I knew Scripps was code for Tessa Donovan.”
“I know, I know.” He held up his hands in a gesture of peace. “But the contract is signed. And... I might have another problem.”
I ground my teeth, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“Tony over at Key Divers just called,” Eli continued, words rushing out. “He thinks he’s coming down with the flu. If so, he might need to shift some classes to me.”
“And what’s that got to do with me?” I kept my voice neutral, but a knot of dread formed in my stomach.
“Everything. I can’t be in two places at once. I can’tteach a class and run surface support for a high-profile research team at the same time. The resort can’t drop the ball on this contract. I only need a boat driver.”
My jaw worked. “You seriously want me to chauffeur my ex-girlfriend and her team of scientists around the reef?”
