Archive of Our Own

The sun is shining and the water is calm; what’s meant to be a beautiful Sunday the week before the Fastnet Race has quickly turned around. Kate glances towards the horizon, to the water line, to see if clouds have accompanied Anthony Bridgerton, but nothing ominous gathers that way; just a cumulus and some threads higher up. The bad weather is approaching her on land, in the most fucking obnoxious boat shorts she’s ever seen, aviators, and crocs. Crocs.

“What’re you doing here?” she asks him, hopping from the yacht to the dock. “Where’s Benedict?”

“He’s got mono,” Anthony says, and Kate can’t tell if he’s looking at her or the boat. “I’m replacing him.”

Kate snorts and eyes him skeptically. “You don’t even have a lifejacket.”

“Who designed her?”

“Listen,” Kate says, stepping forward at the same time he does, their distance suddenly next to nothing. But she doesn’t back down, just widens her stance and crosses her arms. “You might be Benedict’s brother, but that doesn’t mean you get to come here and talk shit.”

She can almost see through the tinted lenses of his sunglasses at this proximity, but it’s all rendered pointless when he reaches up to push them onto his head. “It looks solid. Who did the trysail?”

Kate blinks. “I did.” Anthony nods– thoughtfully? As in, not condescendingly? She doesn’t know Anthony well—passing acquaintances is stretching it—but the few times they’ve seen each other over the past six years has given her an understanding of the man in front of her. Arrogant, stuck-up, always certain of himself and that he knows better. He’s always raised an eyebrow whenever they’ve met in passing, and he always riles her up. She hates him: hates the way he will smile like he sees through her, hates when his thumb swipes at his mouth, hates the gold tints in his otherwise dark brown hair.

“I like it. Benedict said it was a Class40?”

“I’m not talking to you about Newton.”

Here it comes: the raised eyebrow. “You haven’t put two and two together. Benedict has mono. He can’t compete.”

The waves continue to lap the shore in southern Great Britain; the scenery is beautiful, the sun perched high, and the ebb and flow of the ocean is soothing. What a shame Anthony Bridgerton is always ruining everything.

“He can’t compete,” she echoes, blinking, completely dissociating from the present. “He can’t compete. He can’t compete?”

Anthony’s eyebrows draw together. “Are you alright?”

She is still blinking, and she takes the sunglasses hanging from the V of her shirt to put them on. “If he can’t compete, I can’t compete.” Kate is proud she delivers the line without a wobble, as she can feel the tears start to gather. Before they can fall and let Anthony know how upset she is, she turns back to Newton and clambers on board. But even the gentle back-and-forth can’t calm her. This competition became a dream for her when her dad died; they used to take dinghies on the local river, and it was him who taught her how to tie the stevedore and half hitch. Newton is meant to bring her closer to her dad, wherever his soul now rests.

“Do you think I’m just here to deliver bad news? I’m here as his substitute.”

Kate shakes her head. “We’re only seven days away. It’s too late. The Club won’t accept a sub.”

The pier creaks, and then Anthony is standing next to her, his crocs on the gleaming surface of Newton. “Benedict said so, but you really don’t know the Bridgerton name, do you?”

She shakes her head, crossing her arms and looking away from him. Tears have tracked down her face, and she would rather die than let him see the evidence. “What does your name have to do with anything?”

He chuckles and walks along the edge, past her, hopping down to the interior. “It’s a nice set-up in here,” he calls out to her. While he’s out of view, she hurriedly wipes at her skin, lifts her sunglasses up to wipe at her eyes, and then she follows him.

“Thanks.”

He hums, turns around the narrow space, and then exits again. They’re both on the deck; a breeze passes through, ruffling her hair, a few strands blowing across her face; she runs a hand through her hair to rearrange, so her hair falls all on one side. Anthony’s eyes track the movement, then away, towards the ocean line. 

“The Bridgerton’s are one of the founders of the Royal Ocean Racing Club, as well as the Royal Yacht Squadron. They won’t say no to my substituting Benedict.”

Her mouth slowly falls open. While not a huge surprise, it’s still a surprise. She’d figured Benedict came from money, as he always wore Patagonia, the nicest sailing boots she’s ever seen, and so much Martha’s Vineyard she teases him about secretly being American. She just thought his family was dumb rich, like they owned a secret company or something, but they were founders of two sailing clubs, including the oldest in the UK? She’d rather they be interested in fencing or dressage.

Anthony’s smirking, and Kate snaps her mouth shut. “So your great- and great-great-great-great-grandfathers liked to piddle on the ocean,” she says, “and while I’m grateful Benedict made you promise to help, he’s not a guidelines person, and you’re not qualified to race.”

Anthony’s smirk intensifies. It’s fucking annoying, since smirks don’t intensify, but the smugness that just radiates off him is growing in volume. “Au contraire, Kate Sharma. I taught Benedict the bowline, Kate. And the square knot, the clover hitch, all of them. I was the first one to take him out on a boat. He was six. He nearly drowned.” He sounds fond and a little nostalgic, but he’s still got the most condescending look on his face, still smirking, smugness permeating the air. Their bodies moving at the same rhythm, swaying with Newton, makes her irrationally angry.

“Being an amateur doesn’t make you qualified.”

He sighs. “Every adult member of my family is qualified. It’s truly insulting to hear you assume otherwise.”

“Maybe, but for offshore?”

“I don’t typically do offshore, but I do ocean. Kate, you assumed right that Benedict asked me to help, and he knows the qualifications needed. I have them. I’m the only one in the family, actually, which is why Benedict asked me.”

“You don’t want to be here, do you?”

Anthony puts his hands in the pockets of his boat shorts. His crocs still irk her. “I want to help Benedict.”

“So you don’t. Thanks for confirming, but no thanks to subbing for Benedict. I’ll just try it alone.”

He snorts, and Kate pushes past him to scramble back down to the pier. The marina she’s currently berthed at is small, somewhere between Portsmouth and Brighton, but has the benefit of few others berthing. Here, it’s just her and Newton and a few other local boats, mostly dinghies. Nothing else the size of Newton, and she’s pushing it a little, as the water is just deep enough to not fuck with the boat’s keel. A few locals walk down the road, one of them obviously staring down their way, a hand shading their eyes to get a clearer view.

“You’ll never make it alone, let alone place. Benedict told me it’s important to you, and therefore important to him. Why are you saying no?”

Anthony lands on the pier, a little too close, and she can feel his heat, the sun-warmed skin, can smell his sunscreen and sweat. She steps away, almost to the edge. “I don’t like you.”

“It’s reciprocal, but is something as petty as your feelings keeping you from accepting my help?” He makes a condescending huff: a snort, a huff, a scoff, all the same to Kate. She narrows her eyes.

“I can’t sail with someone I don’t trust, and I don’t like you because I don’t trust you.”

“I don’t like you either, but I trust your sailing skills. Benedict wouldn’t sail with you otherwise.”

Blinking, Kate takes another step away, because that is quite possibly one of the nicest things anyone could say to her, and it’s so startling that it’s coming from Anthony, she can’t resist the instinct. And then, as she considers what to say to that, her feet are on the edge of the worn pier, the wind smoothed edge of the wood slipping under her feet, and she’s falling backwards; her arms start windmilling, hair getting in her face, and she feels someone’s hand on her arm before they lose grip and she falls.

Falling ass-first into the ocean hurts. The breath is pushed out of her lungs as she pushes herself upwards, towards the surface, and starts treading water as she gasps for air. Her hair is now plastered to her face, around her neck and to her sunglasses, and she regrets not making a tight braid that morning. Above her, she can hear someone call her name, but she’s too busy staying afloat and breathing. Kate has fallen into the water many, many times, but this is the worst, most humiliating time. It’s worse when the local bully pushed her into the pool after mocking her for arm floaties. It’s worse when she was overconfident, didn’t wear her sailing boots on Newton, and immediately slid right off and into the water.

No.

This is much worse, because that voice is Anthony Bridgerton, and she slipped off the edge of the dock in front of him like a fucking amateur.

She scrunches her nose, breathing starting to regulate, and finally gets enough hair out of her face to peer up at Anthony, pushing her sunglasses up to actually see. He actually looks worried. She snorts—a bit of a mistake while treading water in the ocean and when the surface is choppy from a body falling into it only moments ago. 

“I’m fine,” she calls up to him, and then starts making her way to the closest ladder. She pulls herself up, water sluicing off her body, and pulls off her soaked shirt when she’s on the wood. She’d worn cotton too, a real fucking amateur mistake; she needs to wring water out of it before putting it back on, otherwise she’ll be freezing before the shirt dries.

The wood creaks as Anthony approaches. “I’m fine,” she says shortly, ocean water falling onto her boots.

“Oh, I knew that. Wasn’t going to ask.”

She rolls her eyes and finishes wringing her shirt out; she’s down to a bikini top and sailing leggings tucked into the boots, and she smirks when she looks up and sees Anthony’s eyes move along her body, one of his hands going up to rub at his lip. Kate cocks a hip out, places a hand on it. “Aw, you must be lonely if you’re looking at little old me like that.”

His eyes jerk up to her face and— is that a blush? No, can’t be, because now he’s rolling his eyes. “You have a scar. On your side.”

Her eyes drift to her hip, where there is indeed a scar, an ugly one that Kate barely notices anymore. “Ah, that.”

“Yes. That.”

“We’re all dumb kids one point or another, yeah?”

“Some more so than others,” he says with a raised eyebrow.

She sighs and starts gathering her hair together, twisting water and strands together into a hasty braid. Anthony stands and watches her, crossing his arms, legs slightly widening. She finishes the braid, pulls a hair tie from her wrist, secures the ends, and tosses it over her shoulder. “Well? What are you still doing here?” Only now does she remember her sunglasses are still up and that she’d braided without taking them off. Sighing, she carefully loosens them, feeling hairs pull loose.

“If we’re sailing together next week, we’ll need to practice.”

She purses her lips, finishes getting the sunglasses out, and then perches them right back on her head. “I’m not sailing with you.”

“Because you don’t like me.”

“Because I don’t trust you.”

“And why don’t you trust me?”

Kate opens her mouth, but then shuts it. Why doesn’t she trust him? It’s—it’s a good question, painful though it is to admit it. She frowns, then finally says, “I don’t need to tell you anything.”

Anthony sighs, sounding so terribly aggrieved, like she’s a recalcitrant child, or one of the younger Bridgerton children needing behavioral correction. “Then tell me this: are you comfortable handling the weather changes? I know you relied on Benedict for that.”

Her mouth opens, closes. Again. “You don’t need to know that.”

“You are not leaving Cowes in a week without someone good with the barometer. I won’t allow it.”

“You’re not my mother,” she snipes. “You can’t decide anything for me.”

“You think the club will listen to you over me when I say that without your partner, you can’t participate? It’ll be easy enough to persuade them.”

She is seething. She is furious. She can feel it boil inside her, at his high-handedness, but Kate is sensible and knows that he’s making a good point. The Fastnet is notorious for quick weather changes, and she had been relying on Benedict for reading the barometer and other tools. She can smell a storm coming, recognize clouds on horizons, knows instinctively how to turn the boat, and engineered the boat herself. But air pressure? She vaguely understands what pressure dropping means, but not to the degree Benedict does.

Kate jams the shirt over her head, sticking her arms through the sleeves. “Fine,” she says. “I have a new skipper.”

Anthony’s posture slackens, as though relief floods his body and tension dissipates, but he’s moving back towards the end of the dock, towards Newton. “I’m no one’s skipper.”

“Well, you can’t be captain,” Kate says, trotting after him. “No one captains Newton but me. My boat, my rules.”

He pauses, and she nearly runs into him as he half-turns towards her. She jerks back, but they’re still close. She can see flecks of gold in his eyes, a few light freckles across his nose, spots from his sunglasses on the bridge of his nose not yet faded. “Why would you name your boat Newton?”

If Anthony won’t shift away, neither will she. “I like physics,” she says.

“Why can’t you read a barometer then?”

“I don’t need to—”

“Explain yourself to me, yes, I know.” He sighs. Once more, he sounds like he’s dealing with one of the children in his family, instead of another adult.

“I designed that boat,” she tells him. “I painted her. I made the figurehead. I am capable of racing single-handed next week, but I want to win more than prove a point to you. You need to start treating me with more respect.”

Surprise flickers across his face. He nods, and then steps away. “I apologize,” he says stiffly, and then continues walking back to Newton.

Kate stares after him for another moment. He still looks fucking dumb in his crocs, but his shoulders are broader than Benedict’s, more golden tints in his hair, and he knows how to apologize. She’s heard a lot about the Bridgerton family over the years, like Daphne’s love of rowing, Eloise shaving her head a couple years ago, and about Anthony’s pride.

Anthony Bridgerton just apologized to her. It is an admittance he was wrong. She very much feels like she’s won, albeit not a trophy. She can’t help but smile as she follows Anthony back to Newton.

They have their first practice the next day.

Monday does not dawn as beautifully as Sunday did, but the faint mist rolling over the English Channel at 7am is beautiful in its own way. The sun is rising; even behind clouds, there will be enough light to burn the mist away. A drawstring bag contains Kate’s essentials: phone in a waterproof bag, three kinds of sunscreen, two water bottles, and dried fruit and nuts. She’s all geared up and ready, wearing the same pair of sailing leggings as yesterday, same sailing boots, with a sports tank and zip-up sweater on top.

Kate slept well, and she’s feeling good.

The whole…situation with Benedict and Anthony is less than desirable, but she had done some online searching last night, and Anthony does have the credentials he boasted of. He won the Mini Transtat a few seasons ago; he competed in the most recent race, but ended up not placing. In articles, he said, “The whole crew tried, but there were personal concerns that kept me from performing my best. I’ll be back in two years, with my team, aiming for first.” There’s another article where he discusses doing an around-the-world race. While Kate’s not interested in races that long, she’s looked at the entry requirements for ocean races. She might even—heaven forbid—learn something from Anthony.

Kate reaches the dock Newton’s berthed at and is walking down the planks when she sees Anthony already there, still in crocs, still in ugly boat shorts. He’s already clambering over Newton, tugging on knots, scrutinizing the sails. “Morning,” she says to him, and he barely gives her a look over his shoulder.

“You’re late.”

“As we never set a time, I’m afraid that’s quite impossible.” She checks her watch as she says this and reads the time as 7:03am.

“I said we’d start at seven, and you agreed.”

She grabs a railing and pulls herself onto Newton, dropping her bag on the deck. “I said ‘we’ll see’, which is missing the letters ‘y’ ‘e’ and ‘s’ in the crucial order to make that an agreement.”

“You are—”

He cuts himself off, and Kate takes a carabiner to attach her bag to the inner deck. She hears him move towards him, and she eyes his crocs as they approach. They don’t have any grip. She can’t understand why an experienced sailor like Anthony would wear them on a boat.

“We need to lay some rules down.”

“Yeah,” she says, staring at the crocs. “Sure. No crocs allowed.”

“The crocs stay,” Anthony says, dismissing the rule with a wave of his hand. “We start at 7am, and we start on time.”

Her eyes drift up from the shoes to his face. He’s in a power pose, usually good for intimidating his siblings, and is using the ‘don’t mess with me’ tone Benedict has told her about. “Are we scheduling tea-time so precisely as well?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he says, arms flexing in their crossed position. “There won’t be tea-time.”

For a moment, Kate just stares at him, and then she bursts out laughing, bending over with the force of it, hands resting on her knees. “Jesus Christ,” she says, still bent at the waist, “you are the stupidest man I’ve ever met.” When she straightens, Anthony’s mouth is a hard line, eyebrows furrowed, and jaw clenched tightly.

“Rich to hear you say that after asking for respect yesterday,” he says, back and tone stiff.

“Does no one tease you?” she asks. “Is Benedict not sarcastic with you the way he is with me? I was making a joke, Anthony, and you took me seriously.”

The clenching stops, and the mouth softens. Almost imperceptibly, the corners turn up. “I could say the same for you.”

“Oh, no, you can’t play me like that. I know you were being serious right now.”

And then the small uplift turns into a full-blown smile, including a small chuckle, head dipping forward, a small flash of teeth. “You’re annoying.”

“And you’re stuck-up.”

He’s still smiling, posture straight again, arms still crossed. She notices he has a dimple, distantly, because she doesn’t want to notice that he’s attractive, that he’s only a little taller than her, and that she finds that crease in his forehead adorable. For a moment, he ducks his head, but then he’s looking at her, meeting her eyes; her breath catches, and she has to remind herself that she hates him. Because she does hate him, for the stories she’s heard from Benedict, from their brief encounters in the past, the eyes that seem to see through her and dismiss her.

“I was here only a few minutes after seven,” she finally says, “and I don’t consider that late enough for you to be upset.” She grabs her lifejacket by the till and slides her arms through.

“A few minutes is plenty late. On the water, a few minutes can drastically change your circumstances. One second, calm waters, and the next waves tipping you over.”

“You are so dramatic. You and Benedict both. Can the both of you learn to relax a little?”

“Sailing is not about relaxing. If you relax, you lose. And are we losers?”

She stares at him, and then turns away as she buckles up her life jacket. “Your family is so neurotic. I don’t mean that in a negative way,” she reassures him, glancing back, to see the smile gone, mouth frowning again. Good, she thinks, because a smiling Anthony is too distracting. “Just that, from the Bridgertons I’ve met, you’ve all got these… things, and it makes me worry.”

“Who else have you met?”

“Colin,” she says, taking her seat by the tiller, stretching her legs in front of her. “Eloise. Gregory, I think? Benedict wanted to take him out for his tenth birthday.”

Anthony joins her on the deck and frowns down at her. “Why are you at the till?”

Kate shades her eyes as she looks up at him. “My boat, my rules. I’m captain.”

He shifts from one foot to the other. “I should be steering.”

“My boat. My rules. I’m accepting your help as a substitute for Benedict, and he barely touches the tiller. This is my spot,” she says, patting the edge of the boat and then the tiller, “and my tiller. Now, move your ass, and get us water-ready”

He sighs, head going to the sky for a moment, and she sure hopes that he’s wishing her to hell; he moves away, then, and unhooks them from the dock and lets out the sails, then returns to the deck. In moments, Kate is steering them into the open water. The wind is against them today, so it’s a number of zig-zags until they’re out and able to catch a good breeze.

Kate grins. The mist is just about gone; the water glints and glistens. The sun is partially peeking out from behind the clouds, and Kate thinks this is why. There are other reasons why she loves this, loves being out on the water and the adrenaline when catching a wind, can see others ahead and behind her, but this is it. The open water, the salty air, the sense of freedom and belonging. The water just has a hold over her. She cannot resist it; her dad took her out on a dinghy once, and that was it. She wants to be out here, always.

Her hair is in a tight french braid today, but tendrils blow loose at her temple, and tickle her. Her grin grows wider, and she catches sight of Anthony, also smiling. He’s more reserved than her; she can see he’s enjoying being out here, from the looser lines of his body, the way his body moves with the bumps of waves, crouching on the deck, peering out over the water. Then he stands, perches opposite her, and frowns at her.

“We’re going the wrong way.”

Her grin drops. “Oh, I’m so sorry, your highness, I wasn’t aware there was a proper direction for us this morn.”

“Why are we going east? We won’t be traversing this way at all, so coming this way is pointless.”

“There’s the return,” Kate protests.

“Even during the return, we won’t be out here. It’s pointless.”

Her grip tightens on the till, and she thinks very carefully. There’s only one chance, and if Kate’s really going to do it, she’ll need to time it perfectly. “So you want to go… west?” she says, playing dumb, tilting her head quizzically, and then lets a small frown grace her forehead. “Which is…”

He sticks an arm out to point out the end behind them, and Kate exaggerates her frown. She can feel the wind moving, senses the rhythm of the chops and, right when they crest a small wave, yanks the tiller her way. It’s hard for her to keep her balance as Newton makes the tight port-wards turn. Anthony, she sees with pleasure, hadn’t kept his hands on the edge and his crocs are slipping to gain purchase, arms in the water already as he tries to grip onto the edge.

And then, at last, he’s fallen. Kate immediately steers so she’s facing into the wind and the sails die down.

“You alright?” she calls out to him, seeing his head bob a number of meters behind her. 

He doesn’t say anything as he freestrokes towards her and Newton, and she steadies herself as he hauls himself on board, water shedding and flooding the deck. She purses her lips in disapproval, but refrains from saying anything. He pulls his shirt off, presumably for the same reason she had yesterday, and her eyes unwillingly linger on his chest, the curly hair, on the solid muscle with faint definition that tells her more than washboard abs would be. She swallows and slowly brings her gaze up.

He’s glaring at her. “What the fuck,” he spits out, wringing his shirt.

“You wanted me to turn,” she says, weakly.

“Yes, I wanted you to turn, but you wanted to knock me off the boat.”

“Well,” she says, “I wouldn’t say it like that.”

“Oh?” Anthony says, acid in his tone. “How would you say it, then?”

She presses her lips together. Water is running down his chest, getting lost for a few moments in his chest hair, and she can see it slide down the side of his face from his hair. “I would say I made a tight turn that wasn’t in your favor.”

Kate knows she was in the wrong. She knows she shouldn’t have done that, and she knows that it was small and childish of her. But—there’s something about Anthony Bridgerton that brings the worst out in her. He can just look at her, a side-glance only noticeable to her, a raised eyebrow, and it burns her. He burns her. She despises his effect.

Kate also just hates admitting her own errors.

“Kate,” Anthony growls, and she sighs.

“While I don’t regret it,” she says, because she absolutely needs Anthony to know that, “I admit it was on purpose. I apologize.”

The divot in his forehead changes shape, as though he wasn’t expecting an actual apology from her. The crease then smooths out, and he takes the seat opposite her once more. “Thank you for the apology.

“Don’t regret it, though,” she reminds him, and moves the tiller to catch the wind and move west-wards. “I would do it again.”

“Kate,” he says, “do it one more time and I will retaliate.”

She bites her lip; she doesn’t bite her lip to keep herself from smiling, though, she bites it because he’s… because he’s Anthony, and he makes her do things.

They sail in silence. Anthony grabs his pack, sitting in a corner and previously unnoticed by Kate, to grab a sip of water. There’s just the chop of waves, the calls of seagulls, and then the roar of an airplane above them. She squints up and watches it for a moment or two, before returning her gaze to the water, eyeing the distance between Newton and the coast.

“It was a good turn,” Anthony says, tucking his water bottle away. “I will give you that.” Kate’s mouth slackens. He doesn’t look her way, just pulls sunglasses out of some pocket of his pack, and puts them on. It starts small, but a huge grin makes its way onto her face. A good turn, huh. Praise from Anthony. Rare indeed.

The night before the race, Kate and Anthony sit at a Cowes pub. The sun is setting outside the window, and the inside is loud and noisy with other competitors; they sit at the back, each with their own pint, not talking. The beer is frothy, a little warm, and hoppy. Usually not a fan of hoppy beers, Kate is pleasantly surprised to be enjoying it as much as she is.

Typically, she doesn’t enjoy the company of Anthony Bridgerton, but he’s surprisingly tolerable when quiet. The quiet sits companionably between them; it’s not quite a silence, as a silence seems more intentional than this. The two of them are just sitting. They are sitting, together, comfortable after a week of constantly being in each other’s presence and space.

It was awful, at first. Kate will never admit it, but by the end of the week, she might even think she enjoyed his company, sly digs, awful jokes, and how he starts to hold his hand out to assist her disembarkment. He’s so… gentlemanly. She never knew that she found that attractive.

Not that she finds him attractive. She does not. She does not stare at his shoulders, watch his fingers as he ties knots, notice his dimple, and most definitely does not think his smile is the most elusive, beautiful smile she’s ever seen. None of these things happen. None of them are true.

“A red sky,” Anthony says.

Kate glances out the distant front windows. “Are you superstitious?”

He shifts, as though uncomfortable, a tight look passing his face. “No.”

She smiles gleefully. “You totally are. Do you avoid black cats, never open an umbrella inside?”

“I’m not superstitious.”

She doesn’t respond, but continues smiling at him, taking a sip of her beer and licks a little froth off her lip. Is it her, or do his eyes—? Do they watch her mouth, her tongue, and is that swallow because of her? A thrill runs down her spine; she is so sure that whatever attraction she is not feeling is one-sided, but the way his gaze is lingering on her mouth makes her reconsider. To test the theory, she bites her bottom lip and sees him reciprocate the gesture.

Her stomach grows warm. She isn’t imagining it. He’s watching her, like the way she watches him. She is attracted to him, fuck her past opinion of him. She swallows, and his gaze flickers up, back to her eyes, and their eyes lock on each other. Her stomach grows warmer as they stare at each other. Off the water, inside a pub with two warm beers between them, the tension is different. On the boat, there is something to do. Knots to check, air pressure to read, wind to navigate. Here, in this Cowes pub, there is less to do, so this tension can only grow and grow, filling up the space between them.

Anthony breaks the moment. He looks down, chugs the rest of his beer, and stands up. Kate is disoriented and stands up without finishing her own. “We should get to bed early,” he says roughly, not looking her way. “We have an early start.”

“Our start time is 11,” she says as they stand by their booth. “And it’s only eight pm.”

His head swings her way, and there’s terror in his expression. She frowns and reaches out to him, but he slips away and through the pub before she can make contact; Kate is left alone, hand outstretched, dumbstruck, and one empty and one half-full beer on the table. She slumps back down in her seat. It takes her an hour and a half to finish the rest of her beer.

Sunday morning, Kate and Anthony meet on the Cowes dock at nine-thirty. They had agreed to it earlier the night before; she is on the dot, but Anthony is already there, perpetually early. He’s got a bag slung over his shoulder, phone in his hand, fingers quickly tapping the screen.

“Morning,” Kate says, shifting her shoulders, the drawstrings feeling unusually heavy today. Her pack is heavier, filled with more rations and more water due to the length the race will take versus their practice hours, but that’s not the weight she seems to feel.

“Morning,” he replies absently, still tapping on his phone. She leans forward to sneak a look at his screen, but Anthony hits send and exits out of his messages before she can see who he is texting or what he says. When he looks up at her, one corner of his mouth curls up, it’s as though whatever happened last night didn’t happen. As though he never said, we have an early start, and then left. No tension, no nothing between them.

Kate is hurt.

“Ready?” he asks

She shrugs. She’s wearing her same old sailing boots, the trustiest and most beloved pair she owns, the usual sailing leggings, thermal undershirt, fleece zip-up with a windbreaker attached, and sunglasses ready and perched on her head. The past week, she only saw Anthony in obnoxious patterned boat shorts and crocs, but today he’s wearing a nearly identical outfit to her: real sailing boots, sailing leggings, and his own windbreaker. The colors even match: rust red.

“Did you do this on purpose?”

“Hm?” he says and then looks up. “Do what?”

“We match,” she says. His eyes flicker down, back up. 

“So we do.”

She squints at him suspiciously. “Is this on purpose?” she asks again.

The one corner turns into a full-smile, a flash of his teeth, and Kate swallows. She tells herself: I am not attracted to him. I do not find him devastating. I do not love his smile.

“Couldn’t say.”

And she can’t help the smile that teases out of her. It is on purpose. He got a jacket to match hers—she’d only worn it once the past week, on a chillier day, and somehow he knew she would wear it today and produced his own rust red jacket to wear. So they could match. So they could look like a team.

One week, and Kate thinks of him as her partner. It took almost a full year with Benedict to get really comfortable sailing with him, accustomed as she was with single-handed racing in mostly shorter regattas. Seven days with Anthony, and she thinks she can spend the rest of her life racing with him.

No. No, she can’t. Not the rest of her life. Her smile drops. He’s here because of Benedict, she tells herself. Not for her.

“Are you ready?”

He shrugs. “I think we’ll be fine. I got us checked in.”

“Fine?” she echoes. He tucks his phone away. “You don’t think we have a chance of placing, do you?”

He shrugs while crossing his arms. His forearms are covered by his sleeves, but Kate knows the shape and look of them, how his muscles tense and lengthen as he moves. “We’ve only had a week together. Some of these crews have been together for years.”

Anthony is right, but that does not mean she agrees with him.

“Some of them, yes,” she says, “Some of them have a combined experience of more years than I’ve been alive. That doesn’t mean we can’t win.”

“I’m always surprised by what an optimist you are.”

Her eyes narrow, because that comment is not about their sailing chances. There’s something more there. Something about last night, she knows it. She knows it. She did see terror on his face last night—what is Anthony so scared of?

“We should make sure Newton is prepped,” he says, and then he walks away. Newton is already prepped; there’s nothing else to do until closer to the start time.

Before returning to the hotel last night, Kate lay on the front of the boat, staring up at the stars. Cowes has a clearer night sky than London, and she had reached an arm out to sketch out the different constellations: Cygnus the Swan, the W of Cassiopeia, and the easy pickings of Ursa Minor. Her dad taught them to her, years ago, on a rowboat in a river. There is nothing more comforting than floating in water, staring up at the sky. Newton rocks gently, and Kate closes her eyes, thinks of Anthony’s eyes, his mouth, his ears, hair curling at his nape, and she wants. She aches with the want. It is unfamiliar, and she shies away from it at first, but Anthony stares at her lips, and she nurtures the ache. She wants, and he doesn’t want her to. She hates him for it, like she hates his high-handedness, the way he had threatened her one week ago with disqualifying her, hates his ass as he walks away.

Eleven o’clock, and they’re off. Newton is in the middle of the pack of the rest of the crews at the eleven start-time, and Kate’s comfortable with that. Anthony keeps an eye on the others around them as Kate sits at the tiller, carefully catching the wind, both of them silent. A few hours pass, some of the boats lagging due to poor steering or plain bad luck, and they’ve passed through some of the Class40 crowd. They’ve been in the ocean for a while, that tract of water between France and England, almost inland enough to be considered separate, and now the English shore is a distant smudge on the horizon.

They pass some of the landmarks: first up are the Needles, close to Cowes on the Isle of Wight— Kate likes the sharp edges of them and the small lighthouse at the very end; then the Portland Bill lighthouse; the Devon lighthouse; and then the southernmost tip of the English isle of Land’s End and the rocky shoreline and rockier cliffs. After that, they’re in open seas, out of the English Channel and on the Atlantic. They have the distance all the way to Fastnet rock, round it, and then the route down to Cherbourg to finish. The boats have now spread out more, putting distance between each other as they all try to catch a better wind. Kate continues keeping an eye on them; Anthony checks on the barometer often. As it usually does, her wrist starts to ache, and she ignores the ache as she usually does.

The two are more tense than usual. Kate knows it’s different for two-fold reasons: last night, and the fact that they’re actually racing today. The past week was all practice; they’d done their best to try and imitate some of the racing conditions, but they only had so much time, and they hadn’t wanted to attempt a full run to Fastnet and back when so unfamiliar with each other.

Kate is traversing a choppier section of water, trying to find a smoother path that still catches the wind, when Anthony calls out from the barometer. “Pressure is dropping,” he tells her. “It won’t be huge, but the weather is about to take a bad turn.”

She nods, hand tightening on the tiller. When Anthony shoots her a second look, she gives him a tight smile. He resumes his barometer readings, the crease in his forehead growing more and more pronounced. That’s not a good sign, she thinks, and then all she can see are the low clouds gathering directly ahead of them and can feel the wind picking up. A prickle runs up and down her arms, and she swallows. She hasn’t told Anthony, but she dislikes storms.

“Anthony,” she abruptly calls out, right before a far distant rumble reaches them

He glances up from the barometer, crease in his forehead, and his eyes widen when they lock with hers. She can only vaguely imagine what she looks like, but he is soon sitting across from her, holding the tiller, and she lets go the moment Anthony has hold of it. Her hands shake as they lift away, and she quickly ties herself to Newton. Her hands shake the whole while, but she somehow gets it done.

‘Dislike’ is a mild way of putting her feelings towards storms. They terrify her, petrify her, can cause her to lose sense of time and place. Most of the time, Kate is fine. Most of the time. But sometimes, when thunder booms directly overhead, Kate can feel herself lock in place. When lightning comes down, Kate’s breathing becomes short.

Benedict knows this, by virtue of sailing together for years. Kate never tells him, so he just picks it up from experience. After the first time they sailed through a minor squall, he starts carrying earplugs with him, good quality ones, to help her block the cracks of electricity. It doesn’t help with the bright streaks or the shock waves that reverberate through Newton and her body, but the earplugs remind her she’s not alone.

And Anthony doesn’t know this. He doesn’t have earplugs handy for her, because Kate kept it secret from him. He’ll be furious when he finds out, and Kate is going to do her very best to keep it from him.

He guides them through the increasingly choppy waves. Newton crests and dips, crests and dip, and Kate anxiously watches as the clouds ahead darken and darken.

She jumps at the first forking and tenses in preparation for the following boom. Kate breathes in, and out. In, and out, she tells herself. She imagines herself at home, her dad still alive and her a small child, crawling into bed with him and Mary, crying from fear. In, and out, her dad said. Count to ten. Good. Now count to twenty. Fifty. One-hundred. Do knots in your head, or maths. You like maths, don’t you?

Another spark of lightning, another boom. Her hands are tight on the edge, so tight that if the boat tipped to either side, Kate’s nervous she might fall. Her life-vest is on, of course, but—it’s a storm, and Anthony is steering, and what if he loses sight of her in the waves? What if she just floats and floats for hours and hours and hours, waiting for a rescue team, not sure if one will ever come? They are out of sight of most of the other boats, the others probably taking more circuitous routes to avoid the squall.

Lightning, then thunder a heartbeat later. Lightning and thunder at the same time. She can’t hear her heartbeat over the sound of water, some of it spilling onto the deck, can’t hear it over the sound of her breathing harshly.

A hand, on her thigh. She looks and stupidly wonders whose hand that is. Isn’t she alone, in this storm? Isn’t she alone, as she always is?

“Kate.”

Over the sound of waves, over the sound of her breathing and the terror in her ears, Kate hears Anthony.

“Kate, look at me.”

Her eyes drag from the hand, up the arm, to lock with Anthony’s. He is staring at her, one hand still holding the tiller in a firm grip; the one on her leg tightens in approval when she looks at him.

“Good girl,” he says to her. His voice is so quiet; his voice is so loud. “Do you want to hold the tiller so I can look at the barometer? I can find out how much longer we have.”

It takes long moments for the words to register, but then she nods jerkily and grabs hold of the tiller, right beside his hand, sliding up to the end when he lets go. In, and out. In, and out. Anthony left her in charge, and that means Anthony trusts her. Kate cannot let his trust down. He is a multi-race sailing champion in various sailing sports, and she wants his approval, craves it. She watches the waves, the sails, carefully navigating, flinching every time lightning strikes and thunder follows. They come and go three times before Anthony is next to her, hand over hers on the tiller, guiding them.

His bulk is a comfort. Her free hand reaches out and holds onto his leg, not caring where, just wanting to make that contact. “Pressure is still low,” he tells her, leaning towards her to whisper into her ear. “But I don’t think we have much longer.”

“Are you saying that because it’s true, or to comfort me?”

“A little of both.” She is not looking at him, but she knows, naturally knows by knowing Anthony, that he is smiling, smirking. “And if I’m wrong, I will still be here, with you, so you will not be alone.”

How does he know? How does he know that she’s afraid of being alone? It feels—it feels like he knows this, like she knows he was smiling. It feels like he’s not saying she won’t be alone for this storm, but for every future storm. She won’t be alone ever again.

“This would be prime time for revenge,” she says tightly.

“To a lesser man, maybe,” he says, easily, “but tipping you here would hurt rather than soothe.”

Kate nods, and they sail. She doesn’t count each lightning strike, though she does flinch at each one. His hand is still on hers, helping her move the tiller, guide the waves, and the other is holding her hand in his lap. It’s not as steady as holding the edge, but she feels more secure, like there’s no way to tip over with Anthony holding onto her. It’s a logical fallacy, she knows, but she also knows it to be true.

At this moment, sailing through a sudden squall in the sea between England and Ireland, Kate trusts Anthony implicitly.

And then the rain lessens, the waves calm, and the two are left with gray clouds free of lightning. Her breath comes more easily now, and Anthony lets go of the tiller, of her hands, and passes her a water bottle. She eagerly guzzles some, parched after the tension of the storm. He drinks from his own water bottle, but only after he’s moved to the other side of the boat, and then his eyes are sharp on her.

“You didn’t tell me storms scare you.”

She drops the water bottle, and it hits the toe of her boots. “Fuck,” she says, the metal bottle rolling to almost out of her reach. Anthony holds the tiller without prompting as she ducks down to grab it.

“I didn’t think it necessary to share.”

“One week ago, you said sailing is about trust and that you don’t trust me. So be it. But you deliberately withheld important information from me, and that—that hurts, Kate. I’m—”

He cuts himself off and completely relinquishes the tiller to her.

“I didn’t want you to know,” she mumbles.

“What was that?”

She sighs and speaks up. “I didn’t want you to know. It’s embarrassing, to be this age and still get scared by a little storm.”

Anthony snorts. “That’s not embarrassing,” he says, “what’s embarrassing is how bad you are at hiding your dislike of crocs.”

“I wasn’t hiding it.”

“What’s embarrassing,” he continues ignoring her, “is that Benedict refuses to wear a matching pair of socks. He’s got to mismatch. What’s embarrassing is having a phobia of bees, to the point that hearing them can give you a panic attack.”

Kate tilts her head while frowning. “Disliking bees isn’t embarrassing.”

“It was when I had a panic attack on a date because I heard them buzzing. It’s not a ‘dislike’, but a phobia.”

Her mouth opens slightly. “You’re scared of bees?”

“I am.” Anthony says it so easily, so freely. She wishes she could admit her own fears as easily. “Among other things, but chiefly bees.”

“I can’t—” She shakes her head, unable to finish the sentence.

“I know, bees, it’s awfully embarrassing, I’ve—”

“No, not that, I can’t believe that you’re scared of anything.”

Silence. The waves beat against Newton, and the boat moves at a steady pace. Kate should figure out their location, or maybe Anthony can, double-check their heading. She should move away, head off the honesty of the open water, how wind blowing in hair and the smell of salt and sunscreen reveals who a person is.

“I’m only human,” Anthony says. “I’m scared of Benedict’s mono getting serious while I’m not around. I’m scared every time I’m on open water, of capsizing and losing my life vest. I’m scared of—” He shakes his head and cuts himself off. “I don’t know who you think I am, but I’m not him.”

“I know,” she whispers. “I know that now.”

After a beat, where they simply look at each other, Anthony says, “Good.”

“I’m checking on the sails,” Kate says, standing abruptly, and Newton rocks. Anthony lurches forward to grab the tiller, as Newtons starts to misdirect in the moments between their steering. Without waiting for him, she scrambles forward, sliding to the prow, tugging on ropes and knots, boots keeping her steady.

She stays there longer than needed. She needs to calm down, from the storm, from Anthony, from this wanting she is only starting to recognize. She wants him. She wants him, more than just physically, and they have at least another five hundred miles to go.

Three hours later, they round Fastnet Rock. Other boats have reappeared, and Kate and Anthony lift hands in greeting when they pass or are passed. She stares at the lighthouse as they circle the islet, at the growth up the side of the pale edifice from high waves. They sail on; now going against the wind that had led them to Fastnet Rock so quickly, their timing starts to slip and fatigue starts to show. With the weather this calm, Anthony insists Kate take the first break, to eat and drink, grab some sleep. She wakes up after nearly three hours of restless sleep, and Anthony refuses to take his break.

“It’s been too choppy,” he says, though she can see that his jaw is tight, and right after he says that he suppresses a yawn.

“And you’re tired enough that you’ll be no good.”

“I don’t want you to be sailing alone when the water’s this rough.”

“Anthony, take a goddamn break. Yes, it’s dark, yes, the water’s bumpy. I’m not alone— you said that to me, earlier. You will still be here.”

He looks startled, either surprised she remembered, or surprised he said such a thing. Whichever it is, Kate soon watches him bolt some trail mix down, some electrolytes, and then he loops himself in below-deck, and she hopes he really is asleep.

The water rocks and rolls; Newton crests waves and comes down hard. The wind is in their favor once more, and Kate checks their headings again and again, in disbelief of their timing. The fastest time for this course is thirty-three hours; they are a little past halfway and they are at twenty-four hours. They won’t beat the fastest time; that crew had a pricier boat, with better tech and more crew to help smooth issues over. Kate’s not sure if the storm helped or hindered them; she doesn’t recall if they’d even had the wind, she knows she looked at some point when she had the tiller, but she couldn’t tell anyone what had happened.

Anthony awakes when the sun is a distant light, starting to come over the horizon. She’s glad he’s awake for it; sunrises on the water are her favorite sight. There’s nothing like it. Wide, open skies, clouds catching the rising rays, and the ocean reflecting some of the colors. It’s indescribable, and she watches, a hand on the tiller, an eye on the sun. She basks in the light as it comes over the horizon, light directly on her face, sunglasses protecting her eyes.

“Are you paying attention to direction?”

“Yes,” she says dreamily. “I am.”

“Because we’re going the wrong way.”

Eyes closed, Kate rolls her eyes. “By how much?”

“Seven degrees.”

“We’re just a little off course then, not completely the wrong way. Easy enough to fix.”

Anthony makes a grunting noise, but Kate moves the tiller so they’re a little more eastwards and not southwards.

Newton and crew pass the Isles of Scilly and enter the homestretch. There are no more landmarks to see between the Isles of Scilly and the endpoint of Cherbourg; Kate and Anthony take another break each between the two points. Exhaustion creeps in. She can feel a headache growing behind her eyes from lack of sleep and the fatigue that builds up from so much time on the water, but she rests poorly that afternoon. They hit thirty-three hours, and Kate thinks she might be sick from the anticipation.

One hundred miles.

Fifty.

Twenty-two.

They are close enough to see France’s shore, a darker smudge in the distance with twinkling lights here and there, and then they are close enough to see Cherbourg’s docks. There aren’t too many other boats present with anchors dropped that she can see, and Kate relinquishes the tiller to Anthony because she really thinks she might vomit over Newton’s side. She sits next to Anthony, clutching his arm as they approach, and he slides his arm out to hold her hand, to lace their fingers together.

Newton berths, and they grab their packs and jump out. It all feels unreal. Over a decade ago, Kate promised her dad she would sail competitions, and now she has. She can go to his grave, pour a bottle of ocean water, and tell him I did it.

An official sets their time: thirty-eight hours, forty-three minutes. So far, only one other Class40 has beat them. She’s not sure if she’ll beat the other boat types, but she keeps her excitement under wraps as she thanks the official, and she and Anthony walk down the docks to Cherbourg.

They’re still holding hands; somehow, through disembarkment and talking with the official, their hands never left each other. On French land, they look at each other, and Kate gives his hand a squeeze, gives him a small smile.

“I had faith,” she says. “I knew we could do it.”

He squeezes her hand back and just looks at her. She cannot read his face; she doesn’t know what he’s going to do next. He has no discernible expression, mouth still, eyes roving her face.

“Anthony?”

He pulls her closer by her hand; his hands move up to cup her face. His thumbs run over her cheekbones as Kate blinks at him. He leans closer, but doesn’t kiss her. He rests his forehead against hers, closes his eyes, and breathes deeply. She does not close her eyes, and, instead, drinks her fill of him. The smudges under his eyes are deep, and she thinks she might see salt crusted onto his eyelashes. This close, she can see fine lines at the corners of his eyes and the corner of his mouth. It’s a mix of worry and smile lines, and Kate smiles up at him, though he doesn’t witness it.

He heaves a deep breath as Kate brings her arms up and around his neck, and then makes to pull away.

“Not so fast,” she murmurs, and uses her arms to pull him even closer and press her lips against his. He freezes, and for one, very long moment, Kate thinks he’ll pull away, but then his mouth moves against hers, a long, sinuous movement. Kate’s knees start to buckle as he kisses her, because he’s devouring her, his hands sliding from her face, to her neck, then one sliding down her back to grab her ass through her salty leggings. She wants to return his attentions, but his mouth is moving too fast, sliding down her jaw; she’s sure he can only taste the ocean air on her, salt and sweat, but apparently this is what he likes; she can tell as he presses closer to her.

The mood disappears when she yawns; Kate regrets it immediately, but she can’t help it. Her eyes start fluttering shut, and Anthony lurches away, one hand sliding up from her ass to her waist, the other flowing down her arm to hold her outstretched forearm.

“Don’t,” she says quickly as his mouth opens, because she’s got a bad feeling about whatever he’s thinking, because she can still remember that look of terror on his face at the pub Saturday night. Now it’s early Tuesday morning, and while they just spent nearly two whole days together, she’s not sure if that’s enough to alleviate that terror. “Don’t say anything, please. Let’s just— let’s just get checked into the hotel for tonight.”

For a moment, Anthony looks like he wants to argue. His mouth is still open, but she quickly moves one hand to cover his lips and keep him quiet. Because the man is daft, that makes him smile, eyes crinkling, and his smile lines become more pronounced. She’s still close enough to see them clearly, even in the dark, early morning light.

“You know the lodging arrangements,” he says through her hand, tenor voice muffled. “Lead the way.”

He agrees suspiciously easily. She squints at him, hand still over his mouth. “Really?”

His smile grows bigger. She can feel every muscle move. “You’re so distrusting.”

“With good reason!”

He shakes his head; her arm moves with him. “I’m innocent.”

She snorts, mumbles, “innocent my ass,” as she pulls her hand away. “Let me figure out where the hotel is.”

He’s still grinning as he follows her get lost in Cherbourg. “You should ask for directions,” he tells her when she ends up going in full circle, returning to the docks.

“You can ask for directions,” she tells him, zooming in on the maps app on her phone. She can’t figure out how they missed the entrance, and she’s not usually this terrible with directions. “Where the hell is this place,” she says to herself, and then feels Anthony stand right behind her and peer over her shoulder. In the chil three am air, his body feels a furnace so close to her. His hands were exploring her body minutes ago, and she wants that moment back.

But her eyes are drooping on their own as she stares at her bright screen.

“Let me,” Anthony says, arm curving around her to pluck the phone from her grasp. She wants to complain, but he looks at her phone, fingers swiping to do something, and then he leads them to the hotel without a single wrong turn.

“This is unfair,” she tells him as they enter the building. “I could’ve figured it out.”

“Yes, you could, were you not so completely exhausted.”

“You’re exhausted too,” she tells him as they walk to the front residence. Their belongings should already be in their room, as she’d had them sent ahead of them when they left Cowes. “Room for Sharma,” she tells the front desk clerk, and they soon receive keys to the room Kate booked months ago. They trudge up two flights of stairs, and she fumbles with the key to unlock the door and swings the door open, but doesn’t enter.

“What’s wrong?” Anthony asks, shifting to get a better glimpse into the room. There’s only one queen bed. She’s positive she booked a double twin room, because the room was originally for her and Benedict, so something is wrong here. This has to be the wrong room. 

“Ah,” Anthony says behind her. “I didn’t know you and Benedict were like that.”

She whirls around, heart rate dangerously increasing, “we’re not—”

He’s grinning. “Do you have something against sharing a bed with me?” he asks her, leaning closer to her, his forehead against hers again. She blinks stupidly at him.

“No,” she says slowly, the ‘o’ drawing out.

“Then there’s no issue.”

He’s setting a trap; she’s sure of it. But as they stand, half in the hotel hallway and half in the room, Kate realizes she doesn’t mind this trap, and that she is most willing to be caught in it.

“That’s right,” she says. “No issue whatsoever.”

She backs into the room, Anthony following her, and his arms dart out to either side of her waits to keep her from running into the chest at the end of the bed. “Careful,” he murmurs, frowning at the chest. “Don’t hurt yourself.”

“You are too much,” she murmurs, tosses her pack to a corner of the room, and falls backwards onto the bed. His pack follows the direction of hers, and he falls next to her. For a moment, she hopes and believes he’ll shift, either to kiss her or touch her or something. When he doesn’t move for a full minute, she shifts to see his face. His eyes are shut, mouth open slightly: fast asleep.

She giggles as she watches him sleep. How can Kate blame him? Though their clothes might be uncomfortable, stiff from all the salt water and salt spray, the mattress is soft and their bodies exhausted. She twists so she’s facing him, so she can hear his breathing more clearly, as she follows suit. Kate is asleep within moments.

Kate wakes up before Anthony. They’re on top of the covers, and she feels her clothes crackle as she sits up, scooting out from underneath Anthony. They never closed the curtains, either, so the sun is fully shining into their room. The digital clock sitting on the bedside table reads just after eleven am; it’s been a full two days since they left Cowes.

She stands and immediately pitches forward, legs aching, used to balancing atop a boat. She does some stretches, just to start the limbering of her body, before she grabs clothes from her suitcase and toiletries for a shower.

Kate brushes her teeth in the shower, spitting into the tub drain, and then scrubs her hair and body vigorously. She pulls on leggings and a sports tank; on top goes a hoodie, and she grabs her phone, wallet, and key card, stuffing them into the front pocket. She scrunches her hair with the towel as she exits the bathroom, and a quick look shows that Anthony remains dead to the world.

She watches him sleep for a few moments and debates waking him up, but exits instead, locking the door behind her. What happened at 3am this morning, stays at 3am this morning for now. Kate was delirious with exhaustion; she knows she wants Anthony, physically and maybe a little more, because she knows herself well enough to be sure of that. She knows she will carry ‘you will not be alone’ with her for the rest of her life.

Their hotel doesn’t offer breakfast, so Kate wanders around until she comes across a little market; she purchases a black coffee, some croissants, and a little pot of local jam. She carries the food in a little plastic bag as she walks to the waterfront. In the sun, her hair starts to dry, and she finds a little bench facing the water to sit on. She dips a croissant into her coffee and nibbles at it. Some crumbs fall, and she absently brushes them off herself and onto the ground. The seagulls high in the air caw to each other, and Kate wants to get back on the water. It is irresistible to her. She cannot imagine doing anything else but sail and sail, to find that spark of joy that comes with a knot secured and the bumps of waves.

Kate checks her phone when she finishes her breakfast; a promotion email, about an upcoming sale, and one for a twitter notification, but no new text messages. Nothing from Anthony. Her lips twist; he must be awake by now, right? It’s past noon.

Is she upset because he hasn’t texted her, or is she upset that she wants him to text her?

Brushing more crumbs off, she tucks the jam pot into a pocket, and throws away her empty coffee cup and plastic bag into a nearby can. Time to return to the hotel. There’s one more night booked, because she’d been confident she wouldn’t take more than forty-eight hours to complete the course. She’ll go back, have a talk with Anthony, and then see how everything plays out.

No one’s in the hotel foyer when Kate returns, a second coffee for her and another for Anthony. She ascends the stairs, fishes the key out while juggling the paper cups, and finds the door unlocked already. She frowns at the handle as she pushes the door open, and it’s annoyingly cliche how slow motion the next few moments play. 

Her gaze rises from the door and finds the bed unoccupied. 

She takes a couple steps into the room and finds Anthony’s belongings gone. 

She puts the coffees on the dresser and finds her hand is shaking.

Kate all but collapses on the bed.

He left, circles inside her brain, over and over again, and she can’t parse what it means. His suitcase isn’t here; his sailing pack isn’t here; there are no signs he slept here beyond her own memories. He left without saying goodbye. There are two used towels in the bathroom, so he took a shower. He took a shower and left. Kate returns to the bed, picks up a pillow, and screams and screams into it, until her lungs burn for oxygen.

“I fucking hate him,” she announces to the room.

Well, without Anthony around, there’s no reason to linger in this fucking room, so Kate leaves, locking up behind her. She traipses down the stairs, determined to have a good day, because her legs are moving through spite and spite alone.

As she goes to push the door open, a voice calls behind her.

“Mademoiselle!”

The hotel clerk is back, and she goes to his desk. “Oui?”

He speaks, but his English isn’t good, and Kate shakes her head and responds in French. “Pardon, but can you say that again?”

He is visibly relieved. “Your friend left earlier and left a message for you. He only spoke English, but he said…” The clerk pauses and frowns; he scratches at his temple as he thinks. “He said good job.”

“He said that? Good job?”

The clerk nods eagerly.

“So nothing else?”

The clerk shrugs in that French way, making Kate’s blood begin to boil, but then stops part-way and sinks back into thought; it is comical when he brightens with recollection. “He also said goodbye.”

“Good job and bye,” she repeats flatly, then smiles sweetly at the clerk. “Thank you so much for your help.” The clerk blushes and bobs his head as Kate walks away.

“I’m going to murder him,” she says once she’s on the street. “I’m going to fucking kill him.”

Two weeks later, Kate is back in her London flat. Newton is berthed at a Portsmouth marina, and she took the train up north. Her flat has that dusty, unused smell to it, and she turns on her scent diffuser when she passes through her living room. Her suitcase gets dropped off in her bedroom, and then she goes to stand in her kitchen, in front of her open fridge.

A month ago, she had gone through and tossed anything that would be bad before she returned, so there’s nothing to eat. She closes the fridge and opens the freezer. There are some frozen meals from Aldi’s, frozen veg, and a couple tubs of ice cream: chocolate chip cookie dough for her, and double chocolate for when Edwina visits. At first Kate debates serving herself, like an adult and rational person, but instead she grabs a spoon and camps on her couch and turns on the TV.

Kate allows herself to watch mindless TV for two hours, the ice cream partially eaten and now a soppy mess on the table, before she makes herself get up to be productive. The nonsense she just watched has helped center her mind by emptying it. She changes out of her travel gear, peeling off her sports gear and sports bra; Kate takes a quick shower, and she emerges from her building after forty-one minutes dressed to kill: blue and white stripe themed, in a bralette, midi skirt, matching jacket, and strappy sandals that go up her calves.

A seventeen minute tube ride and seven minute walk has her in front of Benedict’s place. He, the poor, witless fool, gave her a key months and years ago; in the past, Kate has been judicious in its use, recognizing the trust with which Benedict gave it to her.

But fuck that today. He fucked her over, so she doesn’t care.

She takes the elevator in his posh building to the eighth floor. As a courtesy to their long-standing friendship, she rings the doorbell before unlocking his front door. “Benedict!” she yells, striding into his place. Her voice echoes.

Kate finds him in his bed, alone, thank God.

“You’re going to tell me where your brother lives,” she tells him as he sits up, rubbing at his face, bleary. She guesses he was out late last night, clearly not learning anything from his bout of mono.

“What?” he says.

“Anthony’s address. Who were you even kissing to get mono?”

“Kate,” Benedict says through a groan. “Why are you here?”

“I am here,” she says, crossing her arms, “because your older brother is a little bitch and I need to talk to him.”

He stares at her, sheets pooled around his waist, and heaves a deep sigh she believes to be unnecessarily dramatic. “I don’t deserve this.”

“After you get mono a week before the Fastnet, you do. You completely deserve this.”

“Kate,” he says, drawing her name out, groaning in exasperation. Sometimes he likes to treat her like a little sister, even though she’s older. “You—”

“Just give me the address, Benedict, and I’m gone. You can continue fucking whoever’s in the bathroom right now.”

He gasps while pulling the sheet up, and Kate rolls her eyes. “How’d you—”

“There are sneakers at the door—sneakers, when I know you’ve never owned a pair in your life, you Martha's Vineyard bastard. You’ve also got some fresh hickeys on your neck. I’m just glad that whoever it is isn't in here right now.”

He groans, just straight up sounding tortured. Kate is delighted. She can’t wait to irritate Anthony like this—before she kills him, of course. “I’ll text it to you if you leave right now.”

“Oh, I’m not leaving until after I have the address. I can see your phone from here. Get on it and send it over.”

Benedict groans, again, and Kate starts tapping her foot. The toilet flushes and that gets him moving, scrambling for his phone. Not even a minute later, her phone dings, and she smiles. “Thanks so much,” she chirps, turns, and leaves.

She just hears the creaks of someone else entering Benedict’s room as she reaches his entryway; she locks up on her way out and practically skips out the front door. Anthony lives all the way out in Kensington, because of course he does, so she gets on the tube again. Forty-three minutes later, Kate is standing in front of a cul-de-sac, looking for number thirteen.

First, Kate rings the doorbell. 

No response.

She bangs on the door; no response.

She presses the doorbell again and again and again; she can hear it out on the street, the first note cutting itself on repeat. Still, no one. That must mean he’s out, because there’s no way someone as neurotic as Anthony wouldn’t have told her to shut it by now. Looking up and down the cul-de-sac, one of his neighbors is standing on a second-floor balcony, staring down at her. She smiles cheerfully, gives a half-wave, and exits back to the street. There must be a cafe nearby for her to hang and keep an eye on the area—and there it is, a little hole-in-the-wall style place, a little surprisingly run-down looking for Kensington.

Kate gets tea and a raisin studded scone and takes a seat out front. She is on her third cup of tea and getting desperate for a toilet when she sees him. Panic filling her at the sight of him, hair wind-tousled and wearing a suit—a fucking suit,  she chugs the rest of her lukewarm tea and drops it off at the counter before sprinting back to the cul-de-sac. She trips on the one-step into the area, skinning a knee, but scrambles up.

“I’m going to kill you,” she yells at Anthony as he opens his door. He looks up, at first confused, but then terror fills his face and he hurriedly tries to get his keys out the front lock, and Kate is there before he can shut the door in her face, a sandaled foot between the door and closing.

“I’m going to kill you,” she says again, panting, feeling the sting of her knee now that she’s not moving. Their faces are close, and all the work she did to have her hair settle nicely undone, the lipstick long gone on the teacup from the cafe. He still looks terrified, eyes wide, mouth open just enough for her to glimpse his front teeth.

“You left,” she says. “You left me all alone, after you—” Kate has to cut herself off as she feels her voice wobble, as her eyes start to smart. His mouth opens further, as though to speak, but she speaks before he can. “I’m going to kill you.”

He lets go of the door, and her hand has it swinging wide-open and hitting something on the inside of his house. “I didn’t think you’d come.”

Kate pushes him further into his own house and closes the door behind her. She crosses her arms, pulling the same pose with Anthony that she had pulled with Benedict. “And why is that? Didn’t think I’d be so petty?”

He shakes his head, sticking his hands in the pockets of his dress pants. She is trying really, really hard to not notice the details of his suit right now, and that gesture is not helping. “No—well, sort of. I don’t understand why you’re here.”

“I went out for breakfast and returned to find you and all your things going. All I got was a message saying ‘good job’ and ‘bye’ after a week spent entirely in each other’s company. We sailed the Fastnet together, finished the race—yeah, bet you didn't know that, did you? Half the Class40’s didn’t even make it, citing technical issues. So we—”

“Wait,” he interrupts, frowning, that small divot in his forehead; she wants to smooth it out, but keeps her arms crossed, hands clenched. “That’s not— that’s not the message I left behind.”

She arches an eyebrow. “That’s all he got. Did you not notice his English was shit?”

He closes his eyes briefly, face blank for a moment. “That’s not the message I left.”

“Enlighten me then,” she says. “Why the hell would you leave after kissing me like that?”

“I gave the guy a written message,” he says. “I wrote my address down and asked him to pass it to you.”

“There was no paper.”

“I said if you want to be more, come find me. I didn’t think you would.” He pauses, then eyebrows go up, a small smile gracing his lips. “I didn’t think you would find me with threats of murder.”

“There was no paper.” Anthony shrugs, hands still in his pocket. Her arms drop, and defeat fills her. What were the past two weeks for? The anger and insecurity, the way she’d tilted her head back and forth in mirrors, touched her cheek, ran her fingers down her sides, wondered if there was something about her he found distasteful enough he left.

 “I thought you left because you realized you didn’t want me, that you didn’t even like me.”

Anthony licks his lips; she echoes the movement when her eyes drop to his mouth.

“I disliked you at first,” he says, “because I didn’t like your influence on Benedict.”

Her arms go up again, defensive and protective.

“But it’s been a long time since I’ve come to realize how much I… how much I care for you.”

Her mouth drops open. “How much you care for me? Anthony, what the fuck does that mean? How much you care for me? Oh, Jesus Christ, I want to throttle you.”

“You are insufferable,” he says, “you are a menace. You want to throttle me? Go ahead and try.”

She swallows, eyes dipping to his neck and getting inconveniently distracted by his nose, mouth, chin, the way his collar bones are showing. “No,” she says, tossing her head back, forcing her eyes back to his. “I want to hear you try and explain what you mean.”

“Fuck’s sake,” he mumbles, more to himself than her, she’ll assume for his sake. “Come in properly, then, if we’re going to have it out.”

“I just want to know what happened,” Kate says, shaking her head. “I don’t need to come in to figure that out, do I?”

His hands come out of his pocket, one to rest on his hip, the other to run through his hair. “I’m not good at this sort of thing,” he says, hand falling from his hair. “Can you please just come in?”

She stares at him a moment, before nodding. Her three cups of tea are all caught up with her, and she should get her knee cleaned up. “But I need the toilet first.”

A small smile flits at his mouth, a sort of twitch, before he nods back at her. “Of course.”

Kate follows him into his house, through the front entryway, down a hallway with bright windows to where a half-bath sits; she can see his kitchen around the corner through the hallway and kitchen windows. He pauses in front of the door.

“I’ll be,” he says, jerking a thumb to the kitchen, “over there.”

She nods, steps into the bathroom, and laughs at the nautical theme. He has seashell soaps, an underwater creatures themed wallpaper, and an actually cool mirror with an octopus around the frame. Kate leans closer to get a good look, still smiling. “Ridiculous,” she murmurs to herself. “He’s absolutely ridiculous.”

Moments later, she joins him in the kitchen; he stands from a table as she enters. “I like your bathroom,” she says, fake innocent.

He grimaces. “My sister Daphne chose everything in there. The only part I like is—”

“The mirror,” they say in unison.

Kate clears her throat. “I also like the mirror.”

His smile is soft, so soft and tender, and she tries to summon her anger, but he has an arrangement of biscuits and cookies on a plate. She can hear the kettle on the stove, and the whistle goes off as she takes a seat at the small, round table against the window.

“Tea okay?”

“Do you have mint?”

He nods, and she enjoys watching him move about his kitchen. It’s tasteful, like the hallway is, if not like the half-bath. The counters are mostly clear, with a basket of fruit at one end, and Anthony pulls two teacups and a couple of tea bags from a cupboard. He pours them both a cup, and then returns to the table.

“So,” she says, taking the cup in her hands, “what is it that’s so difficult for you to talk about?”

His teacup looks small next to his hand as he turns the cup around and around on its saucer. “I’m scared of bees,” he says, slowly; Kate leans forward enough that the edge of the table pushes against the skin of her belly. “And intimacy.”

Slowly, her head tilts to the side. “You’re scared of sex?”

“Sex isn’t intimacy.”

“What is?”

He leans forward as well, face close together. Her breath catches to have him so near again. “Intimacy is trusting someone with yourself. It’s knowing you’re safe in their hands.”

She swallows and has to lean back, put her back against the chair. Anthony leans back as well, looking satisfied.

“And you’re scared of that.”

“You could say that, rather than intimacy, it’s that trust. I don’t trust easily.”

“You said you trusted my sailing skills,” Kate blurts out.

He smiles, sweetly, tenderly, and takes the tea bag out of his cup, puts it on his saucer. “I suppose I did.”

“That meant—it meant a lot to me.”

“I’m glad.”

Kate mimics Anthony, pulling the tea bag from her own cup, though mint should steep longer than black tea.

“I still don’t understand what’s going on,” she says, looking at the yellow liquid in her cup. “You left me, alone. I thought— when we got to the hotel, I thought we were on the same page.”

“We were, and then I got scared. Kate—” 

What is it about the way he says her names that makes her feel treasured? What is it about the single syllable that makes her feel like her life is in his hands and she wants nothing more than to leave it there, in his hands, or even at his feet?

“I don’t do relationships, but I want one with you.”

She blinks at him, feeling rather stupid. “You want… a relationship?”

“I want a relationship.”

“You want a relationship, so you ran away?”

He smiles again, takes a sip of his tea. “Have a biscuit,” he says, pushing the plate her way.

“I don’t understand you,” she says and takes one.

“I think you do,” he says, “because sometimes, I look at you, and it’s like looking in a mirror.”

She bites the biscuit; he is awfully, irritatingly, correct. She felt that same way, when he would mention his siblings during their week of practice. She wants to hate him for it, but she can’t. In fact, Kate’s pretty certain she’s falling in love with him because of that similarity, that she sees all the worst and best of herself reflected back at her, how he says her name like she is him and he is her.

“What comes next, then?”

Anthony shrugs with another sip of his tea. She can’t believe he didn’t put any sugar or milk in and that he’s really just drinking his black tea naked. “I’ve never had a proper relationship, so couldn’t say.”

She squints across the table at him. “You’re too attractive for me to believe that.”

His smile is sly, this time, and a little devious; quite possibly, this is her favorite smiles of his. “I’m attractive, am I?”

Her lips press together, and she tries to hide her displeasure and amusement with a sip of her own tea. It’s not quite strong enough; she really should have let it steep longer.

“The next step is dating,” she says after swallowing her under-steeped tea. “Typically relationships start with something akin to dating, and we’ve certainly never been on a date.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. Wasn’t that pub dinner rather date-ish?”

“I’m going to kill you one day.”

Anthony throws his head back and laughs and laughs and laughs. Kate smiles helplessly at the sight, his neck stretched, shoulders shaking. She’s really quite certain she loves him. Is this fast? Is this too fast? As his laughter subsides, she decides no, that there’s no possible way that the tension, admiration, and quips between them could mean this is too fast.

“So I guess we’re dating,” she says. “I’m into that.”

“Boyfriend-girlfriend?” Anthony asks, smiling. “Aren’t we a bit old for that?”

“I don’t know about you, old man,” she says, standing up and moving towards him, “but I’m not yet thirty, which means boyfriend-girlfriend is completely acceptable.”

“Is that so,” he says, eyes lit up, following her, leaning sideways in his chair to face him.

“Yes,” she whispers, placing a hand at his neck and leaning down to kiss him. “For now, at least.”

He returns the kiss, one hand snaking around her waist, bringing her down further, and the other cups her jaw. She can feel his calluses on her skin, along her jawline and spine. She shivers when a finger meanders over the divot of her spine. She leans further into him, but her skirt has other ideas. The fabric is too stiff for her to straddle him, and the waistline is digging into her belly.

“Stand up,” she orders and smiles smugly when he quickly obeys. “Good boy.” He rolls his eyes, but she moves closer to him, putting hands on his neck. She feels the swallow, the bob of his Adam's apple; her eyes are trained on his mouth, and she sure hopes his are on hers.

“Kate, I’m not sure—” he says, one of his hands starting to flirt with her skirt hemline. 

“Not sure what?” she says, pressing a chaste kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Not sure where my zipper is?”

“That’s not—”

She presses another kiss to the other corner of his mouth, and he shifts his head; she recalls standing on French streets, the dark night blanketed around them, and how his hands had felt the contours of her body through ocean-sprayed fabric. He tastes less like salt now, tastes more like black tea and a little vanilla, and he bites her lower lip, making her gasp.

“I’m not sure—” he starts to say, pulling minutely away from her.

“Jesus Christ,” she says, panting into his mouth, shedding her half-jacket, “you talk too much.”

“Kate—”

“Shut up,” she growls, using one hand to pull his head to hers, covering his mouth with hers to stop him from talking. Her other hand sneaks up her back, bypassing the hand he’s starting to inch further and further under the hemline; it takes her a good minute to undo her bralette hooks, but she gets it undone. The fabric falls down, leaving her torso exposed.

“Windows,” he says against her mouth. “Windows, Kate.”

She pauses, moves away enough to meet and see his eyes, blinks. “Anyone in the street can see us,” she says.

“That’s right,” Anthony says, though he’s already maneuvering her deep into the kitchen, hands on her hips, thumbs pressing into her lower back, all to keep her screened from onlookers. “But you were too busy saying I talk too much.”

Their mouths are still so close that when she smiles, his lips follow the movement. His eyes smile, too, the crinkles at the corners of his eyes endearing, showing a life lived with more joy than she thought him capable of a month ago.

“Where’s your bedroom?”

The crinkles start to fade as his smile goes away. “I meant what I said about sex not being about intimacy,” he whispers. “I want to have sex with you, but I don’t want to quite yet.”

His hands tighten on her skin, his thumbs pressing even harder into her muscle. She supposes that being scared of intimacy also means being scared of rejection; it makes sense, since the former requires exposure to the latter.

“That’s fine,” she tells him. “I’ve just thought about sucking your cock quite a bit.”

He licks his lips, pupils blown wide. “Probably no more than I’ve thought about your nipples,” he volleys back, and both their eyes go down to her exposed breasts and where her nipples have puckered. She bites her lip to keep from breaking out in laughter.

“Pass me my top,” she tells him, crossing her arms over her breasts as she steps back. “You maneuvered me too cleverly. I can’t get to it.”

He pouts at her chest, but she sees through him and knows it’s faked. The bralette is back in her hands, and she quickly hooks it back up. His eyes still linger there, something a little like regret lurking in his expression.

“You’ll have another chance,” she tells him. “Just not today.”

Anthony then passes her jacket, and she shrugs into it, righting the shoulders once it’s on.

“You match the bathroom.”

Her lips twist, trying not to grin too widely. “Almost like I’m meant to be here, wouldn’t you say?”

He steps towards her and puts his hands on his waist, expression almost like he’s marveling at touching her, like he never expected to feel her warmth. “God,” he breathes out.

Now she lets herself grin widely. “Not god,” she quips. “Just your girlfriend.” 

As Anthony laughs quietly, head falling against hers, Kate lets herself bask in his joy.