His smile melts into a grimace, and Wilder’s eyebrows furrow as a mood as dark as the clouds in the winter sky above moves in. I slide my hand across the back of his neck and say, “I know. It’s okay.”
He takes my hand and kisses the inside of my palm, and the sun breaks through the veil. “Are you sure you want to do this? It’s fucking cold outside.”
“Definitely. Who knows when we’ll have another chance.”
We walk hand-in-hand through the parking lot, until that doesn’t feel close enough and Wilder drapes his arm across my shoulders, tucking me into his side. The scent of saltwater and gasoline swirls in the ocean breeze, and seagulls squawk, circling fishing boats on their way out to sea. There are momentary pauses in the cloud cover, and streams of light reflect off the water like pockets of diamonds.
“The water looks calm today,” I say, tightening my arm around his waist.
“We’ll stay in the bay,” he replies, leading me toward the docks. “Just to be safe.”
Just to be safe.
Dawn should put that on a coffee mug for us.
I’ve been in Grand Haven for over a year, and in my entire time here, I’ve yet to step foot on a boat. When Wilder and I discussed plans for our day off, he was full of ideas that required little to no clothing, but I wanted to experience the ocean offshore. And I wanted to do it with him. His boat had already been pulled from the water and stored for the winter, but he made a phone call to have it serviced, stocked with essentials, and returned to his slip in the marina.
“There she is,” he says, nodding toward the end of the dock.
My love story is different than the movies. And it’s clear that I can’t relate to the simple romances where the gentleman rows a tin boat out to the middle of the lake with his lady and they discuss small everythings until someone falls in. There’s a soaking wet kiss, and maybe a love scene, and that’s all.
I prefer this love affair.
Lakes have leeches.
And this boat has a bed.
“This is a yacht,” I say, admiring the massive vessel.
Wilder smiles, offering his hand to help me climb aboard. “It’s a very small yacht.”
“Small to who?” I ask, dropping my bag onto a table. “I’m pretty sure this boat is bigger than the house I grew up in.”
Climbing in behind me, Wilder inspects the craft’s communication equipment, the weather forecast, lights, gauges, and safety gear before departure. I wander from stern to bow, checking out the expansive deck and sun pad. The cabin has a small kitchenette, a bathroom, and a bedroom. I sit on the edge of the bed and bounce on the mattress before opening the mini-fridge, happy to see a jar of Nutella on the top shelf.
When I return to the main deck with a blanket I pulled from the bed, Wilder’s untied the boat from the dock and is pulling the last line on board. He wipes his hands dry on his jeans, leaning in to kiss me. It’s a sweet kiss that turns deep, rich with lips, tongues, and why didn’t we just go to his place?
“I have to get up there before we drift away,” he says breathlessly. He presses his lips to my forehead and rushes to the captain’s chair. “Sit up front. You’ll see everything.”
Wrapping myself in the throw, I sit at the farthest point of the bow and lean against the railing to watch the water break. We’re slow coming out of the no-wake zone, making mere ripples in the calm ocean. A colony of seals lounge on the jetty, barking at the passing vessels, and the biggest pelican I’ve ever seen rests peacefully on a buoy that’s covered in barnacles, bobbing up and down with the movement of the water.
Hundreds or maybe thousands of seagulls litter the skies, gliding on the slow breeze. Others float on the surface of the water, perch on cliffs, or chase the boat. They scatter as Wilder picks up speed, and the bow lifts from the water, turning ripples into waves. The salty air moves through my hair and sticks to my skin, burning my eyes in the best way possible.
I look back at Wilder, unable to hold back a joyous laugh that erupts straight from my belly. He watches me with a soft smile on his lips and wonder in his gray eyes, like he’s seeing me for the first time. When he points port side, I almost don’t want to look away, but I turn to see a dolphin leap out of the water. Three more follow the boat, swimming as fast as the propellers carry us, diving in and out of the sea in unison.
The blanket comes loose around my body and floats from my shoulders like a cape, and I hold my arms up to let it flap in the wind. Grand Haven passes in a blur to our right, and the open ocean goes on and on and on at our left. And I’m a girl who escaped captivity to sail the ocean with dolphins, and I know God is at work.
Hope feels like fire.
Faith feels like love.
And this is grace.
When the city is a blurred line along the horizon, Wilder slows down and turns the boat toward a small cove. The last before the ocean becomes endless, and we come to a stop three hundred feet from shore. He jumps down from the cockpit and says, “We’ll anchor here for a while.”
I lean over the edge of the railing and ask, “How deep is it here?”
“About twenty feet,” he answers, lowering the first anchor.
