Georgie, All Along (51)

It isn’t that I’m regretting the offer I made to Georgie as she sat across from me in my boat, sopping wet and struggling hard against her own vulnerability. The truth is, I’d make that same offer ten thousand times over if I could see her smile at me that way again. It’s more that without getting started on it—without making that offer to do her list, to go back, into a solid reality—I’ve instead been thinking about the reason I made it.

It’d started simple, or at least as simple as anything gets when it comes to the way I feel about Georgie Mulcahy. There I’d been in my boat, only Hank for company, thinking for a second I was seeing the sort of mirage that made my chest ache with longing. Then the mirage—Georgie, real-life Georgie—stumbled and fell into the water, and fuck the ache.

I’d thought my whole entire heart had stopped.

Maybe I’d done too much, pulling her out of the water as if she were a rag doll, as if she couldn’t swim herself, but I panicked at the thought of her under there, too close to that old dock, and all I could think about was getting her out. As soon as I had her across from me, as soon as I’d had a good look at her—eyelashes all tangled together, drops of water magnifying the freckles on her cheeks, her soaked hair so dark it almost looked burgundy—my heart had gotten going again, and it started beating out one word to me.

Mine, mine, mine.

I yank at a board I’ve loosened, grunting with the effort. Hank looks over at me like I’ve lost the plot, and that’s fair enough.

See, I maybe could’ve handled that mine if it’d stayed that simple—me wanting her, me giving in to wanting her. But then Georgie mentioned my father offering her a job at The Shoreline, and I thought I might grab on to the gunwales and tear apart my own boat with my bare hands. If I’d thought that mine was the beat of my heart before, it suddenly became my whole entire brain.

Don’t take her from me, I’d thought, a fire kicking up in my belly, which is pretty much how I feel when anything about my family comes up.

It’s fucked up, and I know it is.

But I sure didn’t stop it.

Instead I’d asked her if I could do her list with her. If I could do more than the list with her.

I pull off the rotted board and toss it on the pile I’ve been making the last couple of nights. Eventually I’ll add it to the stack of scrap Paul’s got behind his shed, which is in real desperate need of sorting.

I’ve been kicking around this pebble of guilt ever since I knew Georgie wasn’t coming home on Saturday, but it’s transformed into something heavier, and I know that’s because she’s not over at Annabel’s anymore. In fact, she’s at The Shoreline, working her first official dinner shift, and then—since Annabel’s husband got back this afternoon—she’s coming here. I should be focusing on that second part, the she’s-coming-here part, but instead I’m thinking about her at the inn, probably making friends with Ev and Liv, probably charming the hell out of my parents. Moving around in spaces where I never fit.

So, yeah, I’ve lost the plot. Bad enough I’m halfway to boat-destroying over a woman I barely knew existed before last week. I don’t want to add to the mess by getting Georgie near the old wounds I’ve got from my family, and more than once I’ve thought about packing up my shit and leaving to spare her from it. It’d be all right to do now; the contractor called me today to say I had running water at my place again, that his team would be wrapping up work tomorrow.

But if I think about the way she smiled at me? If I think about how happy she looked when I asked to do the list with her, as if I was the missing piece to this whole thing? I know her first couple of efforts at it haven’t worked out, know they’ve both been as rickety and uneven as that dock, and I—well, that’s what I do these days. I make things sturdy; I make them stable.

So maybe I am the missing piece; maybe I fit right in. And don’t I want that chance with her again, for as long as she’s here?

I’m arguing with myself about this shit, about to hack away at this terrible box again, when Hank stirs from his rooster watching, first raising his head from his paws and then standing and shaking himself out, his tail starting to go. Even after not seeing her for a few days, it’s clear he has a real thing for Georgie, and I guess that’s another way me and this dog are two peas in a pod.

I keep my head down as her car pulls in and shuts off, still struggling with myself. Maybe when she gets out of the car, I’ll know the right thing to do. She’ll probably have a uniform from The Shoreline on, and that’ll as good as destroy me.

But of course it doesn’t go that way; it goes the same as having her across from me all wet inside my boat. She gets out of her car and I don’t notice if she’s got a uniform on or not. I notice how Hank runs to her, and I notice how she says “Hi, buddy!” while she bends to pet him as he huffs and preens under her attention. I notice how it feels to be out here waiting for her, because that’s what I was doing, fussing with the planter boxes. I notice how it’s natural, the kind of homecoming I never pictured for myself.

I want to take it for every single second I can.

I straighten and make my way over to her, brushing my hands off on my jeans as I step beneath the carport. Good thing I wasn’t sweating too much yet, but I probably smell like bug spray, which sucks. I try not to think about it.