Loathe to Love You by Ali Hazelwood

            “No, I heard you the first time, but . . . seriously?”

            “Yup.”

            I frown. “Are you . . . Are you okay? Is that even . . . Is that a thing, smuggling weed on boats?”

            He’s tinkering with something, giving me his back, but he turns just enough for me to catch the curve of his smile. “Yeah. Illegal, but a thing.”

            “And your father would take you?”

            “Sometimes.” He turns around, holding a small tray. He always looks big, but hunched in the too-low deck he feels like the Great Barrier Reef. “It would drive my mom crazy.”

            I laugh. “She didn’t like her son being part of the family criminal enterprise?”

            “Go figure.” His dimple disappears. “They’d yell about it for hours. No wonder Mars began sounding so attractive.”

            I cock my head and study his expression. “Is that why you grew up not knowing Mara?”

            “Who is M— Oh. Yeah. For the most part. Mom isn’t very fond of the Floyd side of the family. Though I’m sure he’s the black sheep by their standards, too. I wasn’t really allowed to spend time with him, so . . .” He shakes his head, as if to change the topic. “Here. It’s not much, but you should eat.”

            I have to force myself to look away from his face, but when I notice the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches he made, my stomach cramps with happiness. I wiggle in the bunk until I’m sitting straighter, take off my jacket, and then immediately attack the food. My relationship with eating is much less complicated than the one with Ian Floyd, after all, and I lose myself in the straightforward, soothing act of chewing for . . . for a long time, probably.

            When I swallow the last bite, I remember that I’m not alone and notice him staring at me with an amused expression.

            “Sorry.” My cheeks warm. I brush the crumbs from my thermal shirt and lick some jam off the corner of my mouth. “I’m a fan of peanut butter.”

            “I know.”

            He does? “You do?”

            “Wasn’t your graduation cake just a giant Reese’s cup?”

            I bite the inside of my cheek, taken aback. It was the one Mara and Sadie got me after I defended my thesis. They got tired of me licking frosting and peanut butter filling off the Costco sheet cakes they usually bought and just ordered me a giant cup. But I have no recollection of ever telling Ian. I barely think of it, honestly. I remember about it only when I log into my barely used Instagram, because the picture of the three of us digging in is the last thing I ever posted—

            “You should rest while you can,” Ian tells me. “The storm should ease up by early tomorrow morning and we’ll sail out. I’ll need your help in this shit visibility.”

            “Okay,” I agree. “Yeah. But I still don’t understand how you can be here alone if—”

            “I’ll go check that everything is all right. I’ll be back in a minute.” He disappears before I can ask exactly what he needs to check on. And he’s not back in a minute—or even before I lean back in the bunk, decide to rest my eyes for just a couple of minutes, and fall asleep, dead to the world.



* * *





            The bark of the wind and the rhythmic rocking of the boat rouse me, but what keeps me awake is the chill.

            I look around in the blue glow of the emergency lamp and find Ian a few feet away from me, sleeping on the other bunk. It’s too short, and barely wide enough to accommodate him, but he seems to make do. His hands are folded neatly on his stomach, and the covers are kicked to his feet, which tells me that the cabin is probably not as cold as I currently feel.

            Not that it matters: it’s as if the hours spent outside have seeped into my bones to keep on icing me from the inside. I try to huddle under the covers for a few minutes, but the shivering only gets worse. Perhaps strong enough to dislodge some kind of important cerebral pathway, because without really knowing why, I get out of my bunk, wrap the blanket around myself, and limp across the rolling floor in Ian’s direction.

            When I lie down next to him, he blinks, groggy and mildly startled. And yet his first reaction is not to throw me in the sea but to push toward the bulkhead to make room for me.