Sailor Proof by Annabeth Albert

Chapter Nineteen

Derrick

I should have stayed in bed with Arthur. But no, I’d had to have a fit of conscience and drag him hiking instead of letting him fake a minor ailment. And now he had an actual injury, which was in part my fault, because I’d talked him into going, but also I hadn’t talked him out of the bet with Calder. Or told Calder to stop acting like he was fourteen and Arthur some pesky nine-year-old. They were both adults, and neither had had any business racing up that muddy slope.

But it wasn’t Calder who had made me gasp.

Wasn’t Calder who had me call out.

Wasn’t Calder who had me racing down the hill to make sure he was okay.

I didn’t do panic. Like, seriously, any tendency to panic had been trained out of me in sub school, and the fact that I didn’t panic in tense moments was in large part why I had been chosen. But then I’d seen Arthur tumble and I’d...

Panicked. And even now, a few hours later, I still couldn’t decide who I was most upset with—Calder, Arthur, or myself.

“You take as long as you want in the tub. Use all the hot water,” I commanded Arthur as we disembarked from the bus back at the camp.

“Okay.” That he readily agreed only underscored how miserable and hurting he likely was. He looked a wreck—mud caked in his hair and smeared across his face and limbs along with multiple minor scrapes and bruises. He was so messy that it was a wonder they’d let him back on the bus. And a wonder he hadn’t been more seriously injured.

“I’m going to find you an iced coffee if it means making it myself,” I promised him as I steered him in the direction of our cabin. “You go relax. I’ll handle this.”

“On a mission for coffee?” the bus driver asked after Arthur had lurched off down the path.

“Yup.” My attention was still largely on Arthur’s retreating form.

“There’s a place back off the highway, closer to Port Angeles. That’s probably your closest option. The kitchen just closed after lunch and won’t reopen until dinner unless you want me to hunt down the dregs of what we have in the staff room.”

“No, no dregs.” I’d likely had way worse over my years in the military and also before then, with plenty of bad retirement center coffee too, but Arthur was worth way more than some leftovers. “I’ll go into town for the coffee.”

“You’re going for coffee?” Stacey, Oliver’s wife, eyed me with an intent that made me shuffle my feet. “Could you bring me back something?”

“Oh, hey, me too.” Looking more like his father every year, Roger had a twin under each of his beefy arms. As the oldest, he’d probably been born with a chief’s bearing.

Before I could reply, Taylor stepped in front of his mother. “Can I ride with you? I can hold the drinks.”

“Well...”

“Dad showed me your car in the parking area. It’s sweet.”

“It is,” I had to agree.

“We’re coming too.” The twins escaped their father to flank Taylor, three identical pleading expressions. “We’ve never ridden in a real hot rod.”

“Do you have seat belts?” Stacey eyed me more critically.

“Yes, ma’am,” I assured her, realizing too late that a lack of seat belts would have saved me the three eager copilots.

“His driving record is even cleaner than his room,” Calder chipped in.

“Good.” Roger nodded like everything was all settled, and maybe it was because somehow I ended up in short order with a fist full of cash, a ripped notebook page with coffee orders, and my pint-sized passengers racing ahead to my car.

“Hey, can I add something to your list?” Calder jogged up next to me as I headed after the kids.

“How about a reminder that you’re thirty and not nineteen?” I shot back. “Quit antagonizing your brother.”

“Whoa. Way to stand up for your man, but the audience is gone now. You can’t tell me you’re actually enjoying this boyfriend gig?”

“I don’t hate it,” I said evenly as I stalked toward the car. “He’s a good guy.”

“He is. Big heart, like Mom always says.” Calder chuckled fondly. “But it sure was funny, him covered in mud.”

“For you, maybe.”

“Wow. You really can be such a—”

“Little ears,” I took great delight in reminding him as we reached the car, where the boys were running in circles around it.

“There’s volleyball later. You better not be too busy with nursemaid duties to play.”

“We’ll see.” Honestly, the chance to serve a ball into my friend’s thick skull sounded pretty darn amazing. But I didn’t want to keep the fight going either. I’d said what I wanted to say. “Add your order to my list quickly while I load up the boys.”

After I unlocked the car, I double-checked the backseat seat belts. “Everyone gets buckled up and no one messes with the windows or doors.”

“I’ve never seen windows with a crank before,” Taylor marveled.

“Look at you, the honorary cool uncle,” Calder teased as he finished scrawling his order on the piece of paper.

“Thought that was your role.”

“Nah. Arthur’s got cool uncle on lockdown. Me, I’ve got no clue what to do with kids.”

“Better watch it or the universe will send you ten.” After I took the paper back from him, I pocketed it and the cash.

“Shut your trap. You know damn well that I’m married to the navy, same as you. No one’s thinking of either of us as daddy material.”

“True,” I agreed, waving Calder on his way before starting the car. However, my brain wandered back to my conversation with Arthur the night before. Now there was someone with serious fatherhood potential. Neither Calder nor I were cut out to be family men, not in the same way that Arthur was, no matter how he grumbled about his big family. He was a natural with kids and had the sort of life where I could absolutely see him and some future husband with a house full of musically inclined kids. I hated the future husband dude already.

And undoubtedly Arthur would have done a better job than me at answering all the kid questions they peppered me with as we got underway.

“How fast does this thing go?” Taylor asked, but before I could answer, the other questions started piling on from the twins.

“Will you show us?”

“We won’t tell Mom if you burn rubber.” Vince, the wilder twin, motioned toward my odometer like I might actually take him up on it. “Pinky promise.”

“What’s it like being on a submarine?” Seth asked as I achieved a nice, sedate highway speed. No way was I risking a ticket with a back seat full of kids.

“Yeah, what happens when someone farts on a sub?” Taylor added.

“And how do you know whether it’s night when you’re underwater?” Vince threw in his questions before I could answer the first two. “Is it true they put you in a dunk tank in school?”

“Slow down,” I ordered after about ten minutes of the question artillery. “First, I’m not going to speed, so you can stop asking that. And I’ll tell you all about life on a sub if you let me talk.”

“Talk,” Taylor parroted like I was the one holding up the conversation.

“I wanna know everything.” Seth stretched like he was settling in for a story, so I gave them one, talking about air filtration systems on the sub, clocks and shifts, lighting and more.

“Why’d you want to be on a sub anyway?” Taylor asked as I finished explaining sleeping arrangements. “My dad says you couldn’t pay him to be on a sub.”

“That’s ’cause your dad is army. My dad says your dad is a crap swimmer.” Vince was rather gleeful in delivering this insult.

“Is not.”

“Is—”

“Enough.” I silenced the backseat battle with the same tone our chief of the boat used with unruly new recruits. “I like being on a sub because we’re all a team and everyone plays a key part. It’s not like the big ships where you can get lost in the crowd. I know the name of every single person on my sub. I like that. And I like what we do in the sonar department as well—finding patterns, looking for discrepancies.”

“Nerd work,” Vince scoffed.

“Hey,” Taylor protested. “Derrick’s not a nerd.”

“Thanks—”

“That’s Arthur. Now he’s a nerd.”

“Hold up. There’s nothing wrong with being a nerd. Or liking data and science. Being smart is a good thing.” I smiled as I thought about Arthur and his impressive brain with its library of musical knowledge and trivia.

“Yeah, Vince, you should try it sometime.” In the rearview mirror, Seth was glaring at Vince. Gamer kid had clearly taken the nerd crack personally, not that I blamed him.

“I’d rather be fast,” Vince shot back.

“Or blow something up.” Taylor sounded way too eager to create damage.

“Oh! Or kick it down!”

“I’m gonna make more money than both of you,” Seth said firmly. And he probably wasn’t wrong there either.

“Stay in school, all of you. You might change your minds about your career choices.” I slowed as we neared the outskirts of Port Angeles.

“You sound like my mom.” Taylor wrinkled his nose when I glanced back.

“Maybe she knows a thing or two.” I laughed then pointed at my dashboard. “Now let the GPS tell us which way to go.”

The first place we tried was closed already, but the second had a cheerful open sign in the window.

“Do we get drinks too?” Vince asked.

“No coffee.” The last thing these kids needed was caffeine, but when they all made sad noises and puppy-dog faces, I quickly added, “How about smoothies?”

“Thanks, Uncle Derrick.” Taylor followed the twins out of the car.

“He’s not our uncle,” Vince reminded him.

“Might as well be.” Taylor shrugged.

I wasn’t about to touch that comment, so I herded them into the little coffeehouse. To my surprise, I liked having them along. There was something reassuring about their chatter, kind of like being around my crew on the boat. Perhaps a family was simply a different sort of team.

Maybe...

No. I shut that line of thinking down. Luckily, I had the mile-long drink list to worry about. Three drink carriers later and we were back on the road, where they peppered me with even more questions, but I didn’t mind.

Much.

“That was so cool,” Taylor raved as we arrived back at the camp. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, thanks.” All three of them gave me big grins, and yeah, as it turned out, I didn’t mind having them along nearly as much as I’d feared.

I nabbed the drink and platter-sized brownie I’d bought for Arthur before letting my helper crew distribute the rest of the drinks. Heading back to the cabin, my brain shifted gears from the endless kid questions to thoughts about whether Arthur would be waiting in a towel. Or maybe still be in the tub, all slippery and soapy.

Even better.