Bright Midnight

“And who is this?” Dag says to Shay as he glances at her appreciatively. She’s standing by the cabin door, giving him a shy smile.

“Shay,” she says, holding out her hand. “I’m Anders’ friend.”

Dag swipes his palm across his grease-stained pants before shaking her hand. “Dag. Sorry. I was messing with the engine.”

Shay just nods and when he lets her hand go, she subtly wipes it on her jeans.

I look to Dag. “Espen told me you’re having engine troubles.”

He sighs, blowing smoke away from us. “Seems that way. Was just about to go out but I think I need a new alternator. Hate to miss this opportunity.” He looks at Shay. “Cod isn’t what it used to be. When you find a good spot, you have to get out there. You never know if it will be your last.”

“Anders just told us to take the boat out,” Espen says to him.

“Is that so?” Dag says, raising a brow at me. “And the girl is coming?”

I shake my head adamantly. “No. Shay is staying here. On land. With me. I just think since I’m not going to go out, that you both should take it. Go get the fish.”

Dag frowns. “You sure?”

“I know you’re good for it,” I tell him, reaching over to slap him on the back. “Just bring her back in one piece. Oh, and save me ten percent of your paychecks.”

“I knew there was a catch,” Dag mumbles under his breath, but he looks pleased nonetheless.

With Dag and Epsen now getting ready to go, I bring Shay off the boat. They need to go find some crew, but that shouldn’t be a problem on a day like today.

We say goodbye and I lead Shay back to the car, wanting to get her alone. The hotel is still a bit of a drive.

“You’re okay with them taking the boat?” she asks as we walk toward the Datsun, occasionally looking over her shoulder at the boat where Dag and Epsen scramble to get things ready.

“They’re the best you can have,” I tell her. “Better than me. They’ll be fine. That’s how it is here. If you don’t help each other out, then the community suffers as a whole.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to go with them?”

I knew she’d say that.

I stop and grab her hands in mine, holding on tight. I peer down at her.

“You couldn’t pay me to go out there right now. You’re the only thing that’s important to me right now, Shay. It’s you. Only you.”

She averts her eyes, her cheeks going red. I love it when I make her blush.

“Come on, let’s go,” I tell her, kissing her softly before leading her toward the car.

I need to make her blush some more.

16

Shay

Happy.

That’s the sensation flooding through me as the crisp ocean air sweeps in through the open window, brushing back my hair, making me feel invigorated from head to toe.

I’m happy.

Just here, just now, in this moment.

Sitting in the passenger seat beside Anders in his sexy vintage car, cruising down the Norwegian coast, a place I’d been dying to see. The sun is peeking through the clouds, lighting up my face. Every now and then Anders will reach over and hold my hand and I’ve stopped trying to fight the memories it brings up—the ones of us together in his stepfather’s car, cruising to Echo Lake, no cares in the world. Instead, I welcome that memory in and then I concentrate on making a new one.

This is a new us, after all.

I bite my lip at the thought. At the word. Us. It does seem like too much and yet not enough. We’re this undefinable entity, maybe we were from the start, and I have no idea where it’s going or what’s going to happen next. I know neither of us want to talk about the future, about the after. What happens after this trip? What happens to us then? Will there be an us in the way there is right now?

It’s a lesson in staying in the moment. In appreciating this for what it is. Two people coming together for a second chance. It doesn’t mean that we get another go at our relationship. We’ve both changed too much for that to continue, for us to pick up where we left off. It also doesn’t mean that this is going somewhere again.

It’s just for now.

As Anders said, we’re taking it one day at a time.

It’s too bad I can’t bottle this feeling, though. Of feeling both free as a bird, as a sparrow, and tethered at the same time. Tethered to him, wanting to fly but always coming back around, because I want to. Because his pull is too strong, too magnetic for me to resist.

We had a late lunch right after we left Kristiansund, at a small restaurant overlooking the wild sea. I had klipfisk soup, which is this dried salted cod that they’re famous for up here (actually very similar to bacalhau I had in Portugal) and a beer, and we just sat beside each other and watched the waves come in. Anders was mostly silent, but content, holding my hand the entire time as I asked him question after question about his boat and fishing.