The Long and Winding Road (The Seafare Chronicles 4)

“Hey, yourself,” he says, looking down, picking on the frayed edge of the towel.

“Okay?” Otter asks.

He shrugs. “Think so.”

“Make room, then,” I tell him. “I’m wearing a goddamn suit at the beach, of all things, so that towel better have a spot for me too.”

It does. For all of us. He stands and spreads it out before he sits back down.

Otter and I sit on either side of him, crowding in close, and he breathes a sigh of relief, like this is all he wants at the moment.

I don’t say a word when he takes my hand and starts tugging on my fingers.

Otter and I wait, because it’s the right thing to do.

Eventually, Ty says, “I got scared.”

“You’re allowed to be,” Otter says lightly.

Ty nods. “I know. Nervous too. Dom told me everything was going to be okay, but I almost had to get into the bathtub this morning.”

That makes my heart clench in my chest, because it’s been years since that’s occurred. “Almost?” I ask evenly.

He shrugs, looking down at his hand in mine. “It didn’t get that far.”

“The earthquake.”

“Yeah.”

“What stopped it?”

“Dom,” he says. “He breathed with me. And it was—I don’t know. It helped. Then I got to thinking about stuff, and I kind of got stuck in my head a little.”

“What about?”

“Everything, I guess. Hey, Bear?”

“Hey, Kid.”

“Do you think there’s such a thing as good earthquakes? Like if your heart is so full it causes everything to shake?”

“I think so,” I say carefully. “I’ve had moments like that before.”

He nods, like that’s what he expected to hear. “I guess we’ll always be a little crazy, won’t we.”

Otter snorts. “That’s not a bad thing,” he says. “Trust me on that. And I know for a fact that Dom feels the same way.”

“They’re the weird ones,” I whisper loudly to Ty. “Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

He laughs, and it’s a good sound. A strong sound. He’s got this. I know he does.

He says, “I just—I got stuck. I started thinking about everything. These moments, you know? Everything that has brought me here, now. It’s strange. I didn’t—we shouldn’t have made it. We shouldn’t have survived. But we did. We made it here.” He glances at the worn and weathered cross. “Well. Almost all of us.” He shakes his head. “I got stuck and I needed to be by her. For a little bit. She—”

“I told Otter earlier that I wished she was here,” I say.

He looks up at me sharply. “You did?”

I nod. “She’d love this. All of this. All of us.”