Page 36 of 32 Days in May

Nerves gone. He rolls his eyes. “I think I got it.”

Before I have time to panic about what the hell we may have gotten ourselves into, a flock of moms descends on us. Forget about the Green Berets, we need to think about militarizing moms. These ladies are on me in minutes with wet wipes, a teeny-tiny bottle of mouthwash, ice water, a cold compress, hand sanitizer, a ginger candy for Emmett to suck on once he’s stopped full-body sobbing. As I hold him steady in my lap, wrapped in my gray cardigan with a hive of mothers around us, I find myself drifting out of the chaos and staring at Marco. He’s on the other side of the deck, pacing back and forth, pulling anxiously at his bottom lip while he talks to Emmett’s mom on the phone. I can hear him, faintly.

“They’re all taking good care of him. No, I promise. I promise. Hey, Jen. Listen.” Jen. I’m not sure how I hadn’t gotten her name before. He’s better at this stuff, isn’t he?

“You poor thing,” a blond woman with kind eyes and one million freckles says as she rubs my back gently, pulling my attention back. “Your little guy’s all worked up. You probably thought you were just having a nice afternoon at the beach!”

“Oh, no—he’s not—”

“Oh, Daddy’s back,” she announces suddenly, eyes doubling as they settle behind me. Who the fuck is Daddy?

“Hey, baby,” Marco interjects. Oh, got it. Marco’s Daddy and Emmett’s our son. Everyone on this boat is insane. The cabal of women around me parts immediately as Marco sits down beside me. “You okay? How about you, champ?” Emmett’s resting his head against my shoulder, no doubt with cartoonishly big tears in his doe eyes. Marco thumbs his button nose. Champ. Baby.

“My stomach hurt,” Emmett murmurs.

“It sure did, buddy. All you have to do now is keep an eye on the horizon for dolphins, okay?”

Emmett nods, sucking noisily at his special ginger candy.

The woman looks back and forth between Marco and me. She begins to mouth, Is he the guy from . . . ?

I shrug playfully. “Maybe,” I mouth back.

“Well.” The blond woman sighs loudly, looking at us with the most ooey-gooey, honey-covered, sickly sweet smile I’ve ever seen. “Ain’t that a good man? We’ll leave you three to your family time.”

Marco gets to his feet, as if she’s a guest in our home that needs to be walked out. “Thanks so much . . .”

“Katie,” she demurs. “I loved Dude’s Ranch, by the way,” she adds with a shyness I know Marco appreciates.

“Ah.” He smiles sheepishly, extracting a hand from his pocket to rest gently on her back as he expertly guides her away from us. “You’re too kind.”

I pivot Emmett and myself toward the ocean, letting Marco and the woman have their private conversation about the healing properties of Vinny Baldacco learning to ride a horse.

“Hey,” I whisper to Emmett. “Knock, knock.”

“Who’s there?” he asks, mimicking my soft tone.

“Heave.”

“Heave who?” I wait a beat and then he lets out a stream of giggles. “That’s not a real joke.”

“You’re right. I made it up just for you.”

We’ve de-anchored, and we’re on the move. Bill’s promise to us is that we will see at least one dolphin, guaranteed. If not, we can come back tomorrow for another sunset cruise, on the house. We bob in place, in an uninterrupted stretch of blue identical to everywhere else we’ve been today, for a good forty minutes before Bill announces he has a foolproof spot. The subtext being: no way in hell am I hauling you all out again tomorrow night.

“Why the eff did you call me baby?” I demand as soon as Marco returns from the snack bar with two Diet Cokes and an apple juice.

He shrugs a shoulder, popping the tab on my drink before handing the can over. “You’re my girlfriend.”

My jaw tightens. “Why did I think I’d get a real answer out of you?”

He takes a noisy sip before crossing his foot over his knee, draping an arm over the boat ledge. “You’re easy to rile up.” I can’t see his eyes behind the mirrored lenses of his sunglasses, but I know he’s looking right at me. I can feel it, the way his eyes work over me. “I like it.”

“Ugh.” I roll my eyes. “Am not. You just wanted to call me baby.”

He shrugs. “You’re right. I wanted to call you baby. I want to call you baby again, right now, actually.”

“Please don’t. This is all too wholesome. I’m gonna hurl.”