“Me too.” He rubbed his flat stomach.
“You’re joking.” She shook her head. “You have a six-pack. Trust me, I’ve seen and felt it.” She motioned to his stomach area. Even though she couldn’t see it now, since he was wearing a shirt, she remembered how wonderful it was. How sexy it felt under her fingertips. “You’re perfect,” she added.
He turned to her and pulled her into his arms. “So are you.” He kissed her. For a split second, she felt perfect. But then her mind recovered from the kiss and all of her insecurities returned.
They raised anchor and, once the sailboat was out into the Gulf of Mexico and heading south, he showed her how to open the two large sails. The biggest one was white and the smaller one was blue-and-white striped. He took his time and showed her how everything worked, telling her all the names of things. Not that she would remember, but she enjoyed hearing him talk.
The moment the wind caught the sail, the boat started moving at a steady pace. At one point, they were traveling faster than they had using the motor at top speed.
She’d been in a few speed boats that were faster, but there was something magical about the large sails above them filling with wind. The silence of traveling without a motor was inspiring.
“This is… amazing.” She laughed and turned to see Damion watching her. “I can see why you love it.”
He smiled. “It’s the one place I feel that I truly belong.”
She thought about those words. Let them sink in. As much as she had felt like an outsider her entire life, she understood that he had felt the same. Maybe even more so.
The more she thought about it, the more her eyes burned and her heart ached. So, she did what she always had. She began to talk nonstop.
She asked him question after question. How did he get into sailing? Was it hard to learn? When and where did he go on his first solo trip?
He let her steer for a while when he went downstairs to get them drinks and a bag of chips to snack on. They were halfway through the trip, and it felt like they had just left Crab Island.
Damion tied off the wheel with a rope that hung close by and then moved over to sit on the cushioned bench with his arm wrapped around her.
“Don’t you worry you’ll run aground like that?” she asked, trying not to let her own worries show.
“No, I’m right here.” He smiled at her. “I never leave her like this for too long,” he added as he took another chip.
“This is nice,” she admitted after a while. She’d relaxed and pushed the images out of her mind of them hitting the shoreline, which happened to be about a mile from them on the left.
There wasn’t another boat in sight. The only sounds were that of the gulls overhead and the water lapping at the front of the boat. There wasn’t even a cloud in the sky. She couldn’t imagine being out there in a storm.
Lifting her face to the sun, she took a deep breath and felt more at ease than she had in years.
“Tell me about this place we’re staying at. Your family owns it?” she asked him. He’d rested his head back and had his eyes closed. His arm was still around her, and she could tell he was just enjoying the moment like she had was.
“Yeah, they rent it out from time to time. But for the most part, it sits empty. I go down every few weekends to check on things. Do some minor fixes or repairs. My folks pay a cleaning crew to come in after each rental, but I like to check up on things myself every now and then.” He shrugged.
“How long has your family owned it?” she asked.
“Since I was a kid. My uncle and my dad went in on it together. After my uncle Gary died, my dad gave me his share in the property.” He glanced up as a helicopter flew over them. It was one of the tourist services, and they waved at the people waving back down at them.
“We’re off Mexico Beach,” he said as he watched the helicopter disappear. “They’re finally rebuilding after Hurricane Michael wiped the entire town out.”
“I noticed. My parents and I drove down here last month. So much of it is still gone, but they finally have some of the basics back. The store, a hotel, and gas stations. It was terrible how everything was just gone. The camp was lucky to survive the last hurricane,” she added, remembering all the devastation the storm had caused.
“We hightail it to my aunt Gene’s place in South Carolina when it gets bad down here,” he admitted. “Where do you go?”
“Hotels. Wherever we can.” She shrugged. “My mother was an only child. Her parents died shortly after I was born. Both of them were taken by cancer. My dad’s family still lives on the Big Island in Hawaii.”
“Yeah, I remember him talking about it. You have a ton of cousins there, right? I’ve seen some pictures hanging up at your parents’ place.”
She laughed. “Six cousins and more than a hundred aunts, uncles, grandparents, distant cousins… I think I’m related to everyone on the island.”
He smiled. “It must be nice, going back there.”
“It is, but still, this is home.” She sighed and looked off to the land in the distance. There were homes all along the shoreline, most of them clustered together. To the right, there was a massive void, empty of buildings.