The hot, homeless-looking surfer and professional caddie I agreed to a date with gives me a lopsided smile that turns my legs to jelly, while I stand here leaning my back against the railing on the upper deck of the Summersweet Island ferry, just blinking at him.
“I know, you’re still shocked about the short hair thing, aren’t you? It’s hard to imagine me without a head of glorious, shaggy golden locks.”
He runs a hand through those glorious, shaggy golden locks, and I just shake my head at him.
“I’m actually shocked our first date started literally ten minutes ago down on the ferry dock, and I already know your entire life story,” I reply. A blast of the ferry horn signaling we’re getting ready to leave the dock punctuates my point as I continue to shake my head at him. “That’s really what you want to lead with on a first date, huh?”
It’s actually pretty genius he led with that damn Christmas Eve story. Even though I’m still in shock that we no more than got our tickets and walked up here to the top deck before he started word-vomiting, I just want to wrap my arms around him and hug the hell out of him for what a shitty father and miserable earlier existence he had. And I’m not a fucking hugger. Gross.
Bodhi turns around to rest his arms on the railing and look out at the ocean as the ferry’s engine revs, and it slowly starts to pull away from the dock. I turn and do the same, refusing to acknowledge the goose bumps that pop up all over my body, when Bodhi slides his arms down the railing a few inches to close the distance between us, until the side of our arms are pressed together.
“I figure it’s best to begin a date by dumping all your baggage out right away, instead of carrying that heavy shit around with you for months.” He shrugs, his arm rubbing up and down against mine with the motion and making the back of my damn neck tingle this time.
“So, what’s the plan for tonight exactly, now that I know everything about you? We’re just going to… ride the ferry?”
Bodhi shrugs again. “I don’t know. But I do know I’ve only gotten to ride the ferry once so far, it was fun as hell, and I wanted to do it again with the hottest girl ever. We can play the rest of the night by ear and do whatever.”
“That sounds awful,” I complain, ignoring the butterflies in my stomach when he calls me the hottest girl ever. Pushing away from the railing to reach into my black crossbody canvas bag that says I don’t put out with a picture of a fire extinguisher that has a big X through it, I grab my spiral planner, flipping it open to today’s date. “No offense, but you didn’t strike me as the type of person who would plan a date, so I put together a schedule. We already missed our allotted time to have coffee at Island Brew, so we can just skip to the dinner reservation I made for us at this really good Italian place on the mainland, and then at 8:27, I have us down for—Hey!”
Bodhi snatches the planner out of my hands, holding it high above his head when I repeatedly try to grab it back, until I look like an idiot for jumping up and down, because he’s at least six inches taller than me.
“You seriously planned out our entire date, down to the minute?” he asks with an amused smile on his face. Since he doesn’t seem to be making fun of me at the moment and just looks curious, I decide against lighting his shirt on fire. “Are we now at your baggage part of the evening, or is this just another cute little quirk you have?”
“I don’t have cute little quirks,” I mutter, punching him as hard as I can in the arm and making him chuckle when he still doesn’t give me my planner. “Or baggage.”
Liar, liar, let’s set this whole ferry on fire!
When my murderous stare just makes Bodhi’s smile brighter, I finally give up trying to get my planner back, and he finally stops trying to hold it out of my reach. But he still doesn’t give it to me and moves it behind his back, the hot, annoying bastard.
Bodhi just keeps staring at me with one of his eyebrows quirked until I can’t handle the silence any longer, and I finally throw my hands up in irritation.
“I just like having a plan, okay? Punctuality is important. And I never forget anything because of that planner. Not a birthday, or an anniversary, or a milestone, or an event, or my work schedule, or to go back and pick up something I dropped off when I said I would be right back from….” I trail off, not even realizing I was getting worked up and my voice started getting louder and louder.
Bodhi slowly pulls his arm out from behind his back and hands my planner to me without a word, and I snatch it from his hand and hug it to my chest.
“It’s stupid.” I roll my eyes, looking out at the water and the sun setting in the distance.
“Let me be the judge of that,” Bodhi says quietly, his gentle voice and just this… comforting presence he has about him making me feel like I can tell him anything and he won’t judge me.
I look back at him as he pulls a vape pen out of the front pocket of his shorts and starts to bring it up to his mouth, pausing for a second and holding my stare.
“Does this bother you? I won’t do it if it bothers you,” he asks, wiggling the pen in his fingers that I know damn well, even after just meeting the guy a few hours ago, does not have a flavored nicotine cartridge in it.
I glance around the completely empty top deck of the ferry while everyone else is down on the lower deck, where the snack bar and the actual bar is located.
“Your body, your choice.” I shrug, looking back at him. “Doesn’t bother me at all.”
“You’re a pretty awesome chick, Tess Powell.” Bodhi smiles at me before taking a hit of his pen, making me return his smile and shake my head at him.
“When I was six, my parents dropped me off at my great-grandmother’s house here on Summersweet to go to the store, and I’m still waiting for them to come back and get me,” I speak quickly and with a sarcastic smile, because it’s easier that way, making Bodhi choke a little on the smoke he just inhaled. “I guess that’s why I’m such a freak about using a planner and organizing my life down to the minute. I don’t want to forget anything, ever. No matter how big and no matter how small. I like having a plan and sticking to it, because that’s the mature and responsible thing to do when you’re an adult. And don’t go feeling sorry for me or anything, because I had a good childhood after that. My grandma was pretty awesome up until she died a month before my eighteenth birthday, leaving behind her credit card debt and her cottage that has been refinanced so many times I will probably be seventy before everything is paid off. But I love my job, and I have awesome friends that are my family by choice, which is a lot better than having stupid blood relatives anyway. So there you have it; there’s my baggage. Would you like to jump overboard now, or should I push you?”
Bodhi just keeps smiling at me as he closes the distance between us, making my heart beat faster in my chest when he reaches up and cups my cheek in his palm, gently rubbing his thumb back and forth while he stares down into my eyes until I just want to grab onto his shirt and yank his mouth down to mine.
“My dad left in the middle of my high school graduation, while I was giving my valedictorian speech, to go to the dance recital of one of his clients’ daughters.” He smiles down at me even as he tells me this shitty story.