Page 65 of Ruining His Smirk
“Thirty-five meters. We’re clear beneath the hull.”
Through the acrylic above us, the ship had become a broad dark shape against the brighter water near the surface. Its underside stretched overhead for another moment before the descent carried us beyond it.
“Copy,” the communications officer replied. “Continue descent and report at fifty.”
Nate switched the microphone off. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. When he faced me again, he looked much more composed.
“All right, Garrett. You have me.”
I felt relief wash over me at his use of my first name.
“But first, I want to check. Are you all right? I know this is your first dive, and I lost my temper there. Sorry about that. I want to make sure you’re comfortable. Whatever else is happening between us, you are my responsibility down here.”
I let out a long breath. It felt as though I had been holding it since Nate’s face had hardened against me. His hand was stillpressed to my chest beneath both of mine, and although nothing between us had been fixed yet, he had not pulled away.
He had not shut me out. He was instead showing kindness and grace. I respected the shit out of that.
“Thank you.” The words felt inadequate, two plain syllables unable to contain the magnitude of what I wanted to convey. “I’m okay.”
“Good. Look around you,” he said quietly. “I don’t want you to miss this.”
I loosened my hold enough to let him move, though I did not release his hand completely. Only then did I look.
The ship was no longer visible above us. In every direction, darkness extended. The submersible’s flood lamps were the only thing illuminating the space around us.
The lights cut two bright paths under us. Below my boots, I could see a portion of the water beneath us, but beyond that there was nothing. No seafloor. No distant shape. No suggestion that the ocean ended anywhere beneath us.
Inside the submersible, it was dark as well. The faint lights from the various instruments cast a glow on our faces. It was eerie and beautiful at the same time. It was like we were at some candlelit dinner in an underworld dimension.
Tiny living things drifted around the sphere. Some were no more than pale flecks suspended in the water. Others flashed silver or translucent as the submersible’s lights caught them, their small bodies appearing for an instant before vanishing beyond the beams. They moved above us, beside us, beneath my feet, making it impossible to think of the ocean as an empty stretch of water anymore.
I glanced up at Nate.
“Holy shit.”
His mouth curved into a genuine smile. The sight of it struck me nearly as hard as the sight of the ocean outside. That softwarmth had returned to his face, tentative but real, and some tight place inside me eased in answer.
“We’re entering the twilight zone now,” he said.
I looked down again. Everything I needed to exist was inside this one transparent bubble.
Oxygen. Warmth. Light.
And… the man I was falling for.
18
Garrett
Nate continued sharing scientific facts. “The water outside is just below minus one degree Celsius. It can remain liquid below zero because of the salt. Seawater here does not freeze until approximately minus one point nine.”
I hadn’t been thinking about freezing water, just drowning, but now I was thinking of both. A pale shimmer appeared at the edge of the lights. At first, I thought it was another trick of the moving water. Then the shimmer spread. Hundreds of tiny bodies poured into view, followed by thousands more, until the beams were crowded with them.
My mouth opened in awe as they streamed around the submersible in a vast living cloud. Small translucent bodies caught the light and glowed amber, pink, and silver before turning dark again. They filled the water above us and below us, flowing around the metal frame and across the clear sphere in numbers too large to count.
“Look at them.” Wonder had changed his voice. “Krill.”
I craned my neck, looking up. The swarm thickened until it seemed the entire ocean was moving. It was like being inside a krill tornado.
