Page 64 of Weathering The Storm

“With Seth? It’s... new. But I’ve always been, uh, you know. Gay.”

“Well, now we’redefinitelycoming to visit.” Mom hijacks the phone. “I haven’t even met your Seth.”

MySeth.

Hell. I like the way that sounds.

“Don’t you think we should give him a chance to get settled?” Dad uses his captain voice. As if it’s ever made a difference when it comes to Mom. “He said it was new.”

Mom blows right past that suggestion. “Oh,kullanmuru, I’m so happy for you. All this time, I worried you were too in love with the sea to love anyone on land.”

I find my lips curling into a smile. One that deepens when Dad adds, “He didn’t saylove.”

“He didn’t have to. I know our son.”

Seth shifts again. This time, toward me. His eyelids flutter open, his lips curving into a grin that makes me wonder how much of the conversation he heard.

MySeth.

“Hey,” I interject, “actually, he just woke up. Do you mind if I call you back in a little bit?”

“Of course,” Dad says. I’m pretty sure Mom’s in the background bartering to get Seth on the phone. “And, Nicolas… I’m sorry if I made you feel like you couldn’t tell us sooner. We love you. You know that, right? No matter what.”

“I know. I love you, too.”

Chapter 18

Seth

I’m not sure how long I’m in and out of consciousness. I have vague memories of lying in the lifeboat in Nick’s arms, being tossed around by the ocean.

I have memories of a stranger talking to me.“It’s going to be alright. Can you help me out now? Can you hold on to this?”

Followed by memories of a different sort of undulation. Wind instead of water.

Nick’s arms around me again.

People in blue scrubs wrapping me with blankets and shouting out numbers. My body temperature, I think.

Nick saying,“I’m fine. I want to stay. Please let me stay with him.”

Because in every memory, he’s there. He doesn’t leave my side. He holds me through the pins and needles, through the brain fog, through the sleep between sporadic windows of consciousness.

“I love you,”I remember more vividly than anything. The moment right before the plunge.

His voice is the first thing I hear when I wake up again. It takes a minute to piece together what he’s saying, who he’s talking to. His parents, I gather, though all I hear from their end of the line is muffled speech.

They have more to say than he does. He just sounds… exhausted. Defeated.

I keep my eyes shut for a while, trying to tune out the conversation and give him privacy. They’re talking about the wreck. For Nick, I’m sure it’s the same as if he had to call to break the news of a family member’s passing.

But then he says my name, and I can’t help but pay a little more attention. Because all he calls me is Seth. No qualifier. NoSeth, one of the guys on my crew.NoSeth, my first mate.Not even amy friend, Seth.Just Seth.

He’s talked about me before. And I’m wondering how much, for how long, when Nick says over the phone, “Actually, he’s sort of… more than that.”

He doubles down on it, too. If there was any doubt in my mind that he was telling them about us, it’s gone by the end of their conversation.

I turn over and face him to make sure I’m not hallucinating. And sure enough, he’s there. He’s all bundled up in a way-too-big set of sweats and his cheeks are reddened in blotches from the cold and dryness. His eyes land on mine as he wraps up the phone call with a barely-there smile.