“A whale,” Max confirmed. “You ever seen a whale before?” They lived in California now. Philly wasn’t exactly far from the Atlantic. He’d had opportunities.
But Grady shook his head. “Dolphins in LA and Hawaii, once. Does that count?”
Something told Max whales would go over a lot better than halibut. “Kind of, but no. Don’t worry, we’re not going to eat it.” He parked his butt next to Grady’s on the padded bench and settled in for the ride.
And then he started thinking.
Because fishing was fun, but not really romantic. It was smelly and occasionally gruesome. Fishing was not a great activity during which to drop a bombshell likeI think we should get married.
Whale-watching, though. Whales were huge and majestic and cool and kind of magical. Whales were special. Whale-watching wasdefinitelyromantic, at least if the weather was passable and no one was seasick and you got to see an actual whale.
Seeing a whale for the first time was, like, extra levels of romance, right? And Bob was doing a great job staying out of their hair. He would totally pretend nothing was happening if Max tried to coerce Grady into marrying him on his boat.
Now there was a thought—could boat captains still perform marriages? Was that a thing that only happened onPirates of the Caribbean? Fuck, it would be amazing if they got back into port and Max could waggle his eyebrows and say,Guess who caught a big one?
Of course, that was all predicated onseeingan actual whale. They might not. Sure, summer was nursery time in the Bay of Fundy, but that wasn’t a guarantee. It was still kind of early in the season. August would’ve been better. Max shouldn’t get his hopes up—
Bob cut the engine, and Max’s senses snapped to alertness. By law, boats had to keep a certain distance from whales, but they could stop and wait to see if whales would approachthem.
If Bob had stopped the engine, that meant….
In the distance, a cloud of water billowed up from the surface. Max squinted and just made out a sleek black body sliding beneath the waves.
Grady’s hand found Max’s on the bench.
“Humpbacks,” Bob called from the cabin.
Grady’s fingers tightened. “Two of them?”
Max waited with bated breath. After a moment, a second spout sent a little rainbow shimmering over the bay.
Now if that wasn’t a fucking sign.
“Second one’s probably a calf.” Max’s voice was hardly more than a whisper. His heart beat in his throat.
“That’s ababy?”
They watched together as the second whale’s hump breached the water before it disappeared again. Max wasn’t exactly an expert, but he’d seen his share. “Well, its mom is longer than a school bus, so yeah. That’s a baby.”
This was his chance to make his move. He felt like Mother Nature herself had granted approval for this plan when the whales fluked up one after the other and slid into the depths.
But Grady was holding his breath, eyes fixed on the spot where the whales had disappeared, like he was desperate for another glimpse.
Great. Now Max was being upstaged by a cetacean.
But no, fuck it. He wouldnothave his proposal spotlight stolen by a whale. He was going to ask Grady to marry him and Grady was going to say yes and then maybe they’d get one more glimpse of the spouting before the whales swam off toward the horizon, because—well, because Max had watched too many romantic movies, probably.
He took a deep breath and turned his body toward Grady’s. Tradition called for kneeling, but Max had enough fish guts on him already.
Grady was beaming—not smiling, really, nor grinning either, but practically glowing with enthusiasm for the wonder of nature, so points for Max, because he totally nailed it with the whale watching. But then he opened his mouth, and no, no, no, he couldn’t start talking before Max proposed to him, because Max didn’t want to get engaged by basically interrupting him.
So “Hey,” Max said quickly, “do you,” and it was probably a good thing that the whale spoutedright off the port sideand soaked them both, because he also didn’t really want the text of his proposal to beHey, do you want to get married?
Thanks for that one, Mother Nature, Max thought ruefully and raised his free hand to wipe possible whale snot from his face.
He wasn’t going to top the whale-snotting, he realized abruptly. That was okay, though; Grady was already getting up to look over the railing. The calf rolled onto one side, lifting its giant-baby flipper into the air like it wanted a high five, and watched them with one enormous eye.
Grady was going to get another tattoo, Max thought. And probably start looking into charitable organizations that cleaned the oceans. Grady had been a soft-hearted, eco-conscious hippiebeforea baby whale blew its wad all over him. He was practically having a religious experience.
