Jamison

IT’S ONLY A LITTLE PAST FIVE, SO when the front door opens I expect it to be one of the other guys who live with us, but Andrew walks through the kitchen entryway. I stand a little straighter, awkwardness filling my gut.

“Hey,” he says. There’s a friendly tone to his voice but it sounds forced. Instead of coming around the counter to give me a hug or kiss, he sits on a stool at the other side.

At least he didn’t go right upstairs.

“Hey.” I’m about to offer him something to eat—expecting him to say he ate with the kids and the other caretakers—but then remember that he couldn’t have. The social is tonight.

“How was your day?” he asks.

My chest tightens. Seeing him almost made me forget about Blanca’s radio transmission. “Oh! Did you hear anything from Daphne yet?” I don’t want to tell him the story again if he already knows and is just asking me sarcastically.

After the transmission, Hickey and Daria left again to tell the Committee what they heard. If Cuba got hit by a hurricane, there’s a small chance we might get hit, too—or at the very least a few days’ worth of bad wind and rain, possibly enough to delay the boat voyage north another week. Especially if the storm is moving up the coast.

“Just the usual town gossip,” Andrew says. “Nothing super salacious. Why?”

“We might be delaying the trip,” I say.

Andrew’s face clouds and the sad excuse for a smile drops. “Why?”

He’s probably going to blame me again. To jump down my throat and call me selfish or say I don’t care about Henri.

“The Cuban colony is getting hit by a hurricane. Radio Blanca broadcasted it late this afternoon. Hickey and Daria are talking to the Committee and figuring out the best course of action. They’re worried that we could get some severe weather in the next couple days or that the storm might head up the coast. But it depends on what the Committee says.”

He nods, his face softening a bit. “That’s probably for the best, then.”

“Yeah.”

And that’s it.

“You have to work at the social tonight?” I try. But I already know the answer. He does because he wants to. Though he’ll make an excuse and say it’s because Kelly was supervisor at the last social or he swapped with Daphne so she could have the holiday social.

But he shakes his head. “No, it’s Kelly’s turn.”

I nod. “Cool.”

“I should go wash up.”

“Okay.”

He stands and gets as far as the kitchen doorway, then stops and turns back. “You should, too. You smell like diesel.”

I know he’s only teasing me—though, yes, I do smell like diesel from the boat—but without the context of normal conversation it still feels like a dig. He must think the same thing because I see his mouth flatten.

“Do you want to come with?” he asks.

The idea of keeping this stilted conversation going all the way to the showers isn’t at all appealing, but I also don’t want to undo any of the progress we’ve made talking. And he is coming to the social tonight, so maybe having the buffer of other people will help us, too.

“I’ll meet you there,” I say. “I have to check with Cara to see if she heard anything else from Hickey or Daria.”

He says okay and goes upstairs to get his shower caddy and towels. When he comes back down he has mine, too. He places it on the kitchen island.

“Don’t take too long. There’s bound to be a bunch of last-minute stinkers in line.”

I frown. “Stinkers?”

He groans. “I’ve been hanging out with kids for too long.”

I laugh as he leaves.

That was good—it almost felt normal. Or at least the most normal that things have felt since he got kicked off the boat.

It was Admiral Hickey’s decision. He came to the Keys around the end of October, and the Committee figured who better to be on the boat than a formal navy admiral. The crew didn’t realize that meant one of us would be kicked off. There are only two bedrooms—berths—on the sailboat and the dining area converts into a bed as well. So with just Cara, Daria, Andrew, Trevor, and me, it all would have worked fine. Andrew and I could share a bed. Cara and Daria could figure out which other bed they wanted, and there would always be someone awake to sail the boat by night, which we’d make a schedule for. Sailing the forty-two-foot boat alone was difficult, but not impossible. And whoever was sleeping in the dining area would be on call in case of emergency.

With Hickey’s arrival, things got more complicated. It also didn’t help that Andrew jokes around all the time and Hickey is a no-nonsense naval officer. It would work perfectly in a Daphne De Silva novel, but in real life they butted heads nonstop. Andrew put a target on his own back.

I told him over and over to be careful, but he said he already knew he’d be booted off, it was just a matter of time.

Which is when I told him that if he didn’t go, I wouldn’t go either. Cara, Daria, Trevor, and Hickey could go on their own to bring Henri down here. Besides, Andrew and I had been talking about leaving and heading back to the cabin my mother had in Pennsylvania. Fort Caroline had sent people as far as northern Florida to hunt me down, all because one of their leader’s sons tried to kill us. Of course, they didn’t care about that part, just that I killed him to save ourselves. So for weeks we talked about running back to the cabin. Alone, in the woods—just the two of us—it’d be harder for them to find us again. And maybe we should just go already before winter really hit.

That’s when we started fighting. He argued with me in front of everyone and stormed off. When I chased him we kept arguing. Back and forth for over three hours. At the time I thought he was just pissed at Hickey and taking it out on me, but the longer we argued the more I wondered if it was something else. Something that had been brewing between us but had never been said out loud.

The next day when he avoided me, it only cemented that feeling.

And now I’m too afraid to ask him what it is.