The Spark Between Us by Stacy Travis

Chapter Thirty-Five

Sarah

There weren’tenough mojitos in the world to erase the pain I felt every waking hour since I’d gotten back to Berkeley.

I know. Because I tried.

Fortunately for my health and my sanity, Finn had redirected me away from the rum bottle and dragged my sorry self out onto the San Francisco Bay, where we currently sat in a kayak for two.

He was doing most of the paddling.

I was dead weight and an occasional hindrance whose only function seemed to be dousing him with water when I remembered to use my paddle.

After the third time I splashed him, he stopped paddling and turned around to glare at me. “Do you mind? You’re soaking me every time you do that.”

“Sorry. I’m not focused,” I said, slumping against the back rest that I hadn’t noticed for the half hour we’d been out on the water. “Ooh, that’s comfortable.” When we’d rented the kayak, Finn insisted on paying extra for the backrests, which were sort of like our life vests, only shaped like a small chair that fit into each of our kayak seats.

I’d been leaning forward over my paddle the entire time, lost in my head and not enjoying a single moment of our time on the still waters that were the whole reason he’d forced me up at seven in the morning.

That, and the fact that I hadn’t been sleeping since I moved back to Berkeley. Finn was the master of persuasion, so what was the point of arguing?

“I know you’re not. Do you even know what day it is? Or where you are?” He was smiling at me, but I saw the concern in his eyes.

I let out a long exhale and finally took in the scenery around me. “I’m on the bay in a kayak at the ass crack of dawn, thanks to someone who’s even more of an irritating morning person than I am.” I glared at him.

He deserved worse for dragging me out here and trying to force me to enjoy myself. There was still far too much wallowing to do before I could be expected to embrace things like pretty views of the Marin headlands.

“And you’re enjoying yourself. You forgot that part,” he chuckled, assessing me from beneath the brim of a vintage San Francisco Giants baseball cap as he paddled gently.

“I like your hat,” I told him.

“What?”

“The retro thing. It’s cool.”

His hand went to the brim. “Oh. Thanks. I can tell you where to get one. Isn’t retail therapy good after a breakup?”

“It isn’t a breakup. We were never in a relationship.” I figured if I said it enough times, it would finally sink in. Braden and I were never a couple. We were a sex marathon that was destined to run its course.

Finn slid his paddle into the kayak and turned around in his seat, so we were face to face. “Not what I saw. Not what he told me.”

I vaguely recalled that Braden and Finn had slipped away the night my family came to dinner, but things went sideways right after that, so we hadn’t talked about their conversation. What did it matter? He’d stuck to our rules—rules I laid out—and it wasn’t his fault I’d fallen for him anyway.

Doing my best to block the memory of him—something that required a daily battle with my heart—I focused on a layer of moss that seemed to be growing on the bottom of the kayak. “D’you think they ever clean these things?” I asked, scraping at the moss with my paddle. It didn’t budge.

“I try not to go there. I figure the kayaks spend their days in water, so how dirty could they be? There’s probably a non-zero probability it’s toxic.”

“God, you’re such a nerd.”

“Takes one to know one.” We were still twelve.

Finn looked out over the water and I followed his gaze. For the first time, I took in the scenery around us. We’d paddled pretty far from the Berkeley marina and our orange kayak bobbed on the surface of the bay near Angel Island, where I could see a few mountain bikers on the rutted trails.

It was a gorgeous morning for anyone who could see past the cloud of doom hanging over her head. In the distance, a few snowy white seagulls sat on the surface of the water, riding the gentle current beneath them and lazily waiting for something worthy of breakfast.

The spires of both the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate soared into the sky above the bay, framing San Francisco’s peninsula of land with twin feats of engineering. Normally, sitting out here would bring me peace and a sense of well-being. Today, it just made me feel depressed. The world around me was shimmering and gorgeous, and I couldn’t see past my own mood.

Finn nudged me with his paddle. “You know he’s crazy about you, right? He didn’t want you to leave.”

“Not the impression I got.” My words landed with an angry thud. I reached for a scrap of plastic floating on the water.

He laughed, actually laughed in my face. “Oh. Okay.”

“You’re laughing at my misery? Nice.” There wasn’t anything funny about what I’d said. I didn’t need to be ridiculed by my older brother, especially if I wasn’t in on the joke.

But the look on his face was pure concern. “I’m only laughing because you’re an idiot if you think the man isn’t in love with you. I could see it the second I walked in the door. And that guy doesn’t do love.”

“Exactly. He made that pretty clear. So I don’t know where you’re getting your ideas.”

Finn dipped a paddle in the water and swirled it around, making our kayak rock gently from side to side. “Did he tell you about his ex?”

“Yes. I asked about her. Sounds like a bitch.”

He laughed. “Yeah, that was the takeaway. Anyway, it messed with him. I mean, severely. He went into such a downward spiral of self-loathing when she left, convinced he wasn’t good enough for her. I spent a couple weeks living on his couch until he was fit to get back to work again, and he swore he’d never put himself in a position to be left behind again.”

A pang of awareness shot through me. “But I didn’t want to leave him. I wanted to stay. I told him I loved him and he pushed me away. I don’t see how it’s the same.” Heartbroken for Braden despite my own hurt, I pressed my fists to my cheeks.

“Sar, you have a life here. And a job that you’ve worked hard for. Don’t you think he wanted that for you?”

Realization dawned on me. “I know he did.”

“Exactly. He isn’t the kind of guy to be selfish by letting you give up your dream for him. Think about it. The guy’s a living hero. It probably felt like the right thing to let you go.”

In all the wallowing I’d done and questioning how I’d misunderstood what Braden seemed to feel, it never occurred to me that he was pushing me away because he thought it was best for me. It only made me love him more.

Neither one of us spoke for a while, and eventually, the gentle lap of water against the kayak seemed louder than my thoughts. “He has the biggest heart of anyone I know, but he protects it fiercely,” Finn said, finally. “When Ellie left, it proved all the worst things he thought about himself, and he loves you even more. Probably felt like you could hurt him even worse.”

“Knowing that doesn’t help anything if he’s determined to push me away.” Angrily, I chucked a floating stick as far as it would fly.

“I guess not, but I thought you should at least understand where it was coming from.” He sized me up from his perch in the boat. “You’re a wreck, by the way.”

“Thanks. I’m aware.”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

“There’s nothing to do. Eventually, I’m going to be distracted enough by work and hobbies and whatever else that I’ll stop thinking about Braden for every minute of every goddamned day, and I’ll start to feel like a normal human again. Until then . . .” I had no idea. “I guess I’ll just be a wreck. Is it hurting anyone? No. Have I missed a deadline or a day of work? No. So just let me wallow until I’m done wallowing.”

“I don’t accept that as a solution.” Finn shook his head and started poking me again with the paddle. It was starting to piss me off.

“Quit it. Seriously, Finn. Stop.” But he didn’t stop. His paddle was wet, and he was hitting me right in the stomach, which both tickled and hurt from the jabs. I tried to scoot away to escape the onslaught, but the kayak didn’t allow for much wiggling. “I’m serious. Cut it out.”

“No.” He only poked harder.

“Fine, you want to get into it? Someone’s gonna end up in the water, and it isn’t going to be me.”

“So you say.” He jabbed my armpit. I picked up my paddle and splashed him first, then went in for a jab under his ribs.

The second Finn stood up in the kayak, there was no turning back. “Finn, no, we’re gonna—” I didn’t have time to get any more words out before the kayak listed to one side, dumping both of us overboard. He howled. I cursed. We both ended up plunging into the water, but the buoyancy of our life vests popped us to the surface almost immediately.

“Fuck, that’s cold!” he yelled.

“Whose bright idea was it to come out here?” I yelled. I don’t care how many people occasionally swim out here—the waters of the San Francisco Bay are an ice plunge. There was a reason most escapees from Alcatraz never made it out alive.

“I think it was mine.” He laughed. “Kind of feels good once you get used to it.”

“It feels horrible. It hate you!” I screamed. But I didn’t. I could never hate him.

“You love me.”

“And I also love you. But I can’t believe you capsized us in this frigid water.”

Inexplicably, his hat was still on his head. The brim stood up like a tiara. When he smiled, the sun glinted in his eyes, making them sparkle like tiny stars. He looked like a slightly possessed fairy godmother. “You’ve been puttering around like a zombie for a week. Have you noticed that Tater Tot is still living in your house?”

It made me laugh. “I did notice that. And I’m glad to have the company, so I kind of hope she stays.”

“I heard her say you made her co-owner.”

That didn’t sound like something I would do, but what did I know about myself anymore these days? I never thought I’d be willing to stay in Carolwood for love either, so I was just a surprise a minute.

Finn swam over to my side of the kayak. “Come on, let’s flip this thing and go back.”

“In a minute,” I said, leaning back and letting the life vest float me on the surface of the water with minimal effort. “This is the first time in two weeks that I’ve been able to feel anything besides misery. I want to enjoy that before I continue my wallowing.”

Closing my eyes, I let the morning sun hit my face. Even though my teeth were chattering, there was no escaping the beauty of my surroundings and the reality that the new day had unleashed a new chance to pick myself up from the pavement and decide to return to the living.

“Hey.” Finn’s voice called me out of my haze. I opened my eyes. “You okay?”

I nodded. “Not yet, but I will be.”

“You gonna fix this thing and make yourself happy?”

“No comment.”

Together, we launched ourselves onto the bottom of the kayak and pulled the far edge back toward us. In one swift motion, the plastic vessel flipped right side up. Carefully, I held it steady while Finn climbed over the edge and sat on the far side. Then I swam around and collected the paddles we’d strewn into the water and handed them to him.

He leaned back toward the far side, so I wouldn’t dump the whole thing back into the bay when I leaned hard to climb in. When I’d settled back in my seat, Finn handed me a paddle but made no move to pick up the other one.

“C’mon, let’s go back, and I’ll buy you some breakfast,” he said.

I waited for him to pick up the paddle, but he didn’t. “What’s up? Why aren’t you paddling?” I accused.

“I did most of the work on the way out here while you were sulking. I think you’ll feel better about yourself if you do the paddling on the way back.”

Being the oldest, Finn did a lot of bossing around in our house growing up. The only male, he had the deepest and loudest voice. Plus, he was smart. Translation: he could do things like dumping a person into the San Francisco Bay and demanding to be paddled back to shore while he lazed in the sun.

But not today.

“Not doing that, dude. I know I didn’t pull my weight coming out here, but the tide shifted. I can’t get both of us back in this current.”

He folded her arms over his chest. “Sure you can. You still need to burn off some steam. Start paddling, and I’ll jump in when you’re gassed.”

“Fine.” He pissed me off, but he had a point. Since I’d been back home, I’d intentionally tortured myself, which meant I hadn’t been to my pole dancing class, I hadn’t looked for vistas where I could see the sun setting over the bay, I hadn’t ridden my bike, I hadn’t done anything except work myself to the bone.

As I slid my paddle through the water, it didn’t take long before I found my rhythm. After a while, a bead of sweat dripped down my forehead, and I inhaled a deeper breath into my lungs.

Even though a part of me wanted to surrender to the ease of wallowing in sweatpants, the crisp morning air and the proximity to the water had the effect of chilling me out and making me want more than the lowest possible state of human existence.

When my arms started to ache, I pulled the paddle harder. When I felt my breathing get heavier, I leaned into the discomfort. The only way I would get past Braden was by going through all the stages of grief, so I willed myself to move from inertia to claiming my life back.

The only way out is through.

It pained me to hear the echo of his words, but I reasoned that maybe he’d been telling something I wasn’t ready to hear at the time. He had helped me. He’d made me realize I was ready for a relationship, and I didn’t need to compartmentalize my life into neat boxes and stages. Sometimes they overlapped. Sometimes life got sloppy and unmanageable.

I just needed to find someone who wouldn’t freak out at the first sign of a mess.

We hadn’t reached the marina yet, but when I stopped paddling, Finn turned around to look at me. I could see from his satisfied expression that wearing me out had been his intention all along.

“Did you plan to throw me overboard?” I asked quietly. I no longer felt angry, just drained.

His eyes twinkled. “I’m not gonna lie. I thought about it the whole time your lazy ass was making me paddle.” He pressed his lips together. “And I just may have invited you out here with the idea that you needed an ice bath to pull you out of your stupor.”

I nodded and he ducked, maybe afraid I was going to throw the paddle in my hands at him. “Thank you.”

Smug, he picked up his paddle and turned back around. “You’re welcome.” He started paddling, and I joined the rhythm. With the two of us working, we made it back to the marina quickly.

Our clothes had mostly dried by the time we got back and returned the kayak, so we went straight to breakfast at Bette’s Oceanview Diner before going across the street for some Peet’s coffee to take back to my house.

Finn drove and I looked out the window, amazed at how much better I felt than when I’d woken up that morning. For the first time since I left Carolwood with my heart in my throat, I believed I could find a way to be happy with or without Braden. I still had a lot to sort out, especially if what Finn said was true. But either way, I had a sense that something better was on the horizon.

With that slightly adjusted mindset, I nodded to myself. “Okay, I’m ready to get out of my sweatpants.”

Finn laughed. “Good girl.” When we turned on my street, I was looking at him, so I didn’t immediately see the white pickup parked in front of my house. But I saw the questioning look on Finn’s face.

Then I saw Mitch leaning against my front door.