Page 34 of On Dry Land

“Soften your knees,” I murmur to him before ducking under the standing shelter and starting the engine. The Maiden tilts so gently with the water, I don’t even notice it. After a moment, Spencer comes to stand next to me, comfortable enough to walk around.

“What’re you guys doing? Are you going to go check your traps?” he asks, gloved hand holding on to the doorway.

“No.” I point at one of the screens mounted to the wall. “Wind is thirty-seven miles per hour. We try not to go out when it’s above thirty-five. But we can prep her for tomorrow, or the next day, or the next. One morning, the weather will cooperate.”

“Right,” he agrees. “Do you mind if I⁠—”

“You can watch and ask questions and film, Spencer. Stop asking me. I already told you it was fine.”

The rest of the morning, Spencer moves around the Maiden, trying to catch everything that’s happening between Cody and me. He prompts dialogue with questions and occasionally props his little tripod somewhere and jumps in to help. He laughs in a way that twists my stomach into a knot when Cody begins reciting O Captain! My Captain! Incorrectly, glancing at me with a smirk on his face, checking to see that I’ve noticed. He does this, sometimes, and looks pleased when I call him out and prove I’d paid attention in my college English courses. Cody’s two favorite hobbies are poetry and annoying me.

“I like your friend,” Spencer says to me later.

“He is not my friend. He is my employee. Former employee, soon enough.”

Cody laughs, and Spencer just smiles. He doesn’t seem bothered by the cold, even though the day hasn’t warmed up any with the sun fully in the sky. His cheeks are rosy and his nose red. He hasn’t complained once. Perhaps I should fire Cody, who sometimes seems to think it’s his life’s purpose to aggravate me. I’ll train Spencer to take his place and finally enjoy some peace on this boat.

At one point, I overhear Cody asking Spencer how it is to live up on Count Dracula’s property.

“Great. There’s a pool,” Spencer says enthusiastically.

“Dude, it’s twenty degrees out here,” is Cody’s incredulous reply, which gets a huff of laughter from both Spencer and me. He grins at me, and I return it, the expression feeling strange on my face.

By the time we’re climbing back into the Porsche, Spencer’s smile has become pasted on, and I’m having a hard time looking away from that chipped tooth. I don’t think I’ve ever spent time with someone so happy with mundane tasks like performing safety checks and diagnostics on a lobster boat.

“Your job is so cool,” he comments, clicking his seat belt into place and adjusting the strap. Without waiting for me to do it for him, he turns on his heated seat before doing the same to mine. I stare at his fingers and wonder if he’ll go for a swim tonight; if he’d mind if I joined him.

“My job is exhausting and backbreaking,” I correct before conceding. “But also cool, yes.”

“Do you like it?”

I frown out the windshield, one hand on the wheel and the other resting on the gear shift, fingers tapping. Nobody has ever asked me that.

“Yes and no. I don’t particularly enjoy the early mornings.”

“But everything else?” he pushes.

I think back to my first weeks in Siren’s Point, adrift in more ways than one. I was fresh off a traumatic, two-year divorce and realizing that lobster fishing wasn’t going to be the kind of job I could self-teach nor do solo. I had a boat and all the equipment and no way to use it. I’d felt like a piece of flotsam washed up on the beach, wrung out and unwanted. Discarded. I’d gone to the local bar and locked eyes with Shiloh Lepage.

“Everything else I enjoy,” I say quietly, remembering Shiloh’s careful tutoring on knots and tides and weather patterns, the long hours we spent on my boat in the dark, stretching the day into the night as he showed me the Maiden’s secrets. I remember hating myself, and him, sometimes, and I remember wishing that kissing him would make me feel something.

Chapter Thirteen

SPENCER

Ijump at the sharp bark, my brain immediately identifying a large-sized dog. Cognizant of that reaction, I take deep breaths in through my nose and let them out through my mouth, spraying more cleaner on the bottom of the cage and scrubbing. Behind me, the door leading to the exam room hallway opens, and I peek over my shoulder to see Rudy step into the kennel room. He smiles at me.

“You take your lunch break yet, Spencer?” he asks, and I wonder for a moment if that’s a polite way of telling me to do so now, of getting me out of the clinic while a dog is here. Embarrassment and something a little too close to relief burns through me.

“Not yet. I was going to finish this first.” I gesture toward the last two kennels that need cleaning.

“All right,” he agrees amiably. “But don’t leave it too late. I don’t want you passing out from hunger.”

I smile in acknowledgment. I can go weeks without food. There is absolutely no chance of me passing out from hunger. Passing out from fear, maybe, but hunger? No.

Rudy whistles to himself, taking a seat and badging into the computer sitting on an old desk in the corner. Turning, I get back to work, the task so mindless that I barely pay attention and instead spend the time thinking about the editing I’m going to do later. I posted the long-form content of my first few days in Siren’s Point this morning, and I’m eager to log in and see how it’s doing.

Sometimes the process of filming and editing and just finding interesting things to film can be a drag. A lot of the time, it doesn’t feel like a fun hobby, but rather a job I’m required to clock in and put in hours for. But sometimes, like right now, my enthusiasm recharges, and I feel motivated. Really motivated. The tedious bits suddenly seem exciting, and the fun bits feel like the best kind of adventure. I’m hoping some of that emotion comes through in the vlogs and my subscribers are just as invested as I am. I really don’t see how they couldn’t be, with Dryden’s pretty face and smirking mouth and nimble fingers stealing the show. If that video doesn’t have a thousand views by tonight, I’ll lose all remaining faith in humanity.