He followed Sullivan into a wide room—three times the size of his nook—filled with a table, computers, lamps, long metal pipes and mesh netting, boards with blueprints, a wall with tools latched to it, and a low shelf filled with plastic trash.
Sullivan’s studio.
Reid breathed in, tasting metal, sweat, and salt. He felt the prickle of Sullivan observing him from where he leaned against the table, arms crossed.
Reid studied the blueprints and traced a square-tipped finger around the penciled stern of a ship. He paused at a triangular attachment.
Sullivan cleared his throat. “It’s to filter and collect plastic waste. I’m working on a prototype that can be adjusted to all stern shapes. If private yachts used it . . .”
“They’d be doing an environmental service while cruising for entertainment?”
“That’s the idea.”
This man spent his days designing inventions to protect dolphins, whales, fish . . . crabs. Huh.
Reid peeked at Sullivan from the corner of his eye. “Are you working on this alone?”
“Collaborating with the university.”
Reid investigated the room. Every piece of furniture and equipment felt weighted with importance. “I was expecting your studio to be all nonsensical, but this is . . . very sensical.” He ripped his trailing hand off the shelf of trash. “Ugh, this part is for experimenting, right? You’re not a secret hoarder of trash or whatever?”
“The Cheetos packets and yoghurt containers?” Sullivan moved behind the large table, voice sarcastically dry. “Dear to my heart.”
Reid startled. “Sullivan.”
Sullivan looked over. “What?”
“Was that joke on purpose?”
That earned Reid an unamused look. Sullivan plucked a pillow from a low pull-out bed, partially hidden behind the table.
He tossed it and Reid caught it against his laughing face. “I have to say, I thought I’d follow you into your bedroom to score this.”
Sullivan spoke quickly, voice weary. “My cabin is out of bounds. There will be no following me in there. Okay?”
The strain in his voice twisted sympathy in Reid’s belly. He nodded, eyeing the pull-out bed. How often did Sullivan sleep in here? Did it hurt too much being in his bedroom?
As if reading his mind, Sullivan shook his head. “The stretcher is solely for naps.”
“How old are you?” Reid asked, earning an admonishing look. “Hey, history connoisseur here. Old things make me happy.”
“Creative naps,” Sullivan said. “I’m thirty-seven. Call me old again, you’ll eat dinner on deck with a nice view of the sharks.”
Sharks in the harbor? Sullivan was pulling his leg, right? “That’s young to have a thirteen-year-old.” One should never mess with the possibility of sharks. “Really young.”
“I adopted Joanna when I married ten years ago.”
Oh. Joanna had come from a previous relationship? Did she have other family around? “Cool,” he managed. “I, ah, wondered why you look so different.”
“She’s a spitting image of her grandmother and . . . Riley.”
Did Sullivan see his late wife every time he looked at Joanna?
A lump swelled in Reid’s throat, and he clutched the pillow hard against his chest. God, it smelled of Sullivan. How many tearless naps had he rested on it?
Day one, and the man made Reid want to cry.
So fucking sorry she died. All the hugs, man. All of them. “So Riley was your—”
“Yes.” Sullivan whisked toward his desk, chin tipped. “I need to work. Explore the marina. Introduce yourself to Alanis at the main office.” He paused. “Find your sea legs.”
He moved like a stallion, solid and straight like a proud worshipper of Odin, had a handsome face, a furrowed brow over a sharp nose, and grey eyes like an ocean of unshed tears.
-David
Second Time Around
Chapter Four
Alanis sat behind a messy desk of paperwork, swiveling her chair toward Reid as he entered trailing his life vest beside him like a pet.
Her smile twitched as she took it in.
“You’re Joanna’s nanny, aren’t you?” At Reid’s nod, she stood and shook his hand, “Excellent. She’s excited, and Sullivan—well, he’ll come around to the idea.”
A loud, vibrant laughed escaped her. So big for such a tiny woman. Reid felt like he’d known her forever. Her friendliness echoed into him. She was pretty too, and his age—maybe a few years older. Not his type, though. He’d always gone for women taller and broader than him. Woman who were assertive, possibly a little controlling.
“Have you known Sullivan long?” he asked.
“They moved here at the beginning of summer. Leased their slip for a year. I like what I know of them.”
Reid hoped he could soon say the same.
She showed him around the marina, including the restrooms and showers that boaters preferred to use in the winter months due to plumbing difficulties. The pool bar and snack shack, the onsite store, the fuel dock, and waterfront pavilion. Practical and pretty.
If it weren’t for the whole water part, Reid would call the place perfect.
Back inside the Aquarian, Reid flung himself onto the cushioned table bench and stared at the brass clock above the cockpit staircase. He’d been here less than an hour, but it felt like an eon.
Joanna arrived home exactly fifty-five seconds later, hair a windswept nest around her rosy face.
“Reeeeeid,” she said, trotting into the saloon. “All settled in the nanny nook?”
“For the most part. Where were you?”
She paused at the table. “Oh, um, doing homework in the marina rec room?”
“You were forcing Sullivan and me to bond, weren’t you?”
She grinned. “And? Is he charming? Funny? Think you’ll be a match made in heaven?”
Hilarious, this girl.
“Charming? A Disney prince. Funny? Bring the defibrillator, I might die from all this laughing. Match made in heaven? Rename the ship to Cancaquarian.”
Aquariancer?
She punched him lightly in the arm and bounded toward her room, and he boiled down his core responsibilities for Project Anchor the Storm:
Encourage Sullivan to spend more time participating in home life
Show him awesome places around the area
Encourage him to date
Become his friend and confidant and help him unleash his bottled emotions
All the while, it should appear to Sullivan as though Reid was merely organizing the household and educating Joanna.
He let out a worried groan and stared at gray clouds through the hatch.
A plane passed overhead. Loretta and Natalie’s?
A jolt of loss sliced through him—and right on time, a craving for coffee.
He eyed the kitchen, a good dozen feet away. It’d only taken him a million minutes to climb up here (possibly including some over-reactive clutching of the banister rail).
He could do this . . .
He stood, jabbed his thigh against the table, fell over while hopping in pain, and resumed his seat with a panicked curse.