I Saw You First by Darien Cox

Author:Darien Cox [Cox, Darien]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dusk Notes
Published: 2019-01-16T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

Frisky Friday

Damarcus, Walt, and I finally tied the small motorboat to the dock, then untied the kayaks behind it, and carried them up to the boathouse. It was the end of the day, and after that escapade, we were all beat.

Sometimes guests didn’t pull their kayaks and canoes far enough up onto the beach as instructed when returning from an outing, and the boats would thereafter be taken by a wave and pulled off the sand, drifting back out onto the water. It happened more often when we were busy, like today, the boats escaping before anyone realized it.

This time it was three kayaks taken out by children of a family staying at the motel, and they drifted way the hell offshore before either Gil or Damarcus noticed. Fridays were always busy, since a lot of people boxed the weekend for a getaway, and staff was running around trying to keep up. Thankfully—though I hated to admit it—Walt’s new logging and tracking system alerted us to the missing boats pretty quick. Once we had assurance that the kids who’d taken them out were safe and back on the property, we headed out in my small motorboat, searching the salt pond to locate and drag them back to shore. It took a while, and everyone got very wet. We found two of them caught up in shrubs in shallow water edging the shore on the other side of the lagoon.

“I think you might want to start bringing a pair of swim shorts to work with you from now on,” I said to Walt, chuckling. “Just in case.”

“Not a bad idea,” he said.

Walt and I had fallen into a new comfort level the past few days, which was odd considering my ever-present confusion and sexual tension around him. But he’d been playful and chatty, which took the pressure off of me. I didn’t have to wonder what to say, or how to act, because he took the lead, and made it comfortable for both of us. He taunted and tormented me still, but in between he made me laugh a lot, and was just…friendly. He was actually beginning to feel like a friend, and that was weird, but I saw it as a positive thing. This shift between us, this new comfort, would eventually drown out the other feelings I had for him. This is what I told myself. It was what needed to happen, so I embraced the camaraderie, letting my guard down, allowing myself to fully enjoy his company.

I didn’t mention the Peppermint Pattie, or what it might mean, and he didn’t either. With some mental gymnastics, I convinced myself that this too had been a mere token of renewed friendship. A token that just happened to date back to a middle school ritual we had in the days before all the bad things happened…back in the days when I was still practically in love with him.

We left Damarcus to log the boats, and I walked with Walt toward the motel.

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