No Tan Lines

"Oh God," I said, my head spinning, and it was a good thirty seconds before I figured out where I was. Lying on that couch in his boat, except now there was a pillow under my head and a thick blanket over me, and I'd been dribbling in my sleep. Gross! "Did I go to sleep."

"Did you ever," he said. "I was gonna wake you at three but you just did it yourself. You really looked like you needed it."

"Jesus," I said. "I didn't realize I was that tired. I'm so sorry."

I'd come here to look, and instead I'd been asleep for almost four hours, and on his boat. Some guest. All I'd seen was this part of the boat, for about two minutes before I closed my eyes, and yeah, it was seriously gorgeous. That blue leather L-shaped couch I was lying on, the dinette up front, and that kitchen with the teak bar seats along the counter, those huge tinted wraparound windows up front.

Best of all, the air conditioning, and that lovely cool dry air that made me feel alive. More alive than I'd been since I got here, and I could breathe.

"Hey, you don't need to apologize," he said as I sat up, and I really did feel a lot better after that nap. "Come up front and have some jasmine tea. I made you a sandwich five minutes ago."

"You're spoiling me," I said, struggling to my feet, walking to that dinette, and it was just as comfortable as it looked. The sandwich he'd made was even better. Ham, cheese, lettuce and slices of tomato with a thin spreading of mayo on some kind of fresh artisan bread, really fresh, and I didn't quite wolf it down, but it was close, and it was the hungriest I'd been in months, and I actually enjoyed it. I was licking my fingers when it was done, it was that good.

"When 're your Aunt and Uncle expecting you back?" he asked as I sipped on the jasmine tea, and he was still eating. He'd made two for himself.

"Jesus," I said. "I usually go back for lunch, and then I take a nap. She'll be worried." When I checked, I had half a dozen text messages and two voicemails. "I better call her."

"Want to come for a ride after you talk to her?" he asked. "I was going to take her for a short run, just changed the oil and tuned the engines, and I want to make sure they're running okay." He glanced at his watch. "It's just after three, we can go out, come back around five and I'll give you a ride back to your Aunt and Uncle's. Only if you'd like to?"

"I'd love to," I said. "I've never been on a boat in my life."

"Cool," he said. "You call your Aunt and let her know where you are and what you're doing while I get her ready to go."

He'd untied her, gotten all the lines in, and he was back up on the flybridge by the time I'd got off the phone with Aunt Suzy and climbed up to join him.

"Good to go?" he asked.

"Yeah, but I have to call her in a couple of hours," I said. "She was really worried I didn't call her back before, and she's worried about me going off on a boat with some guy I just met. I told her you'd lived here for a couple of years and you'd been to her restaurant and you knew her and Uncle Wayne but she was still worried."

"I can take you back now, if you like," he said.

"It's okay," I said. "She saw your driver's license when I told her to look at her emails, and she remembers you from the restaurant, and Uncle Wayne laughed at her. Told her you were the guy who brought fish in for him now and then, and she remembered you after that. 'Oh, the Fish Guy,' that's what she calls you. She told me to bring you back for dinner. You go there a lot?"

"Pretty much every Friday with Ant, and a couple of the other guys that live on boats here," he said, grinning. "...and Wayne likes fresh fish. I bring in fresh fish, he feeds me for free."

"Text her and tell her I'll bring you back after we get back," he added. He grinned again. "And if you enjoy it, I can ask her if it's okay to take you out on her tomorrow for the day. Maybe do some fishing with me."

"Really?" Okay, I squealed.

"Really." He grinned. "Do you always get that excited?"

I giggled, I really did, and I hadn't done that since before, either.

"Sometimes." This was the first time I'd felt like this since I'd gone into hospital back in late June. Jesus, five, six months of my life, just gone, lying in a hospital bed for most of it, and my mood changed, instantly, the way it did all the time now.

"What's wrong, Jenny?"

"Nothing," I said, a bit too flatly.

"Tell me," he said, very gently, one finger under my chin, tilting my face up to look at his.

Something inside me responded to his touch, to his words, but there were no words for how I felt. Depressed? Sad? Angry? Exhausted? Helpless? All of those and more, and the tears trickled down my cheeks and I couldn't stop them. I'd cried like this before, since I'd gotten out of hospital, and I had no idea why, and I never talked to anyone about it. No-one knew, and I didn't tell anyone, because really, who cared?

The sadness came, the depression, the helplessness. All those months of my life, lying in that bed, hooked up to tubes, feeling like crap, aching and hurting and half the time I'd been either delirious or sedated, or both, and I'd been so alone. My boyfriend had stopped coming to visit me after a few weeks, and in the end, I'd heard he'd started dating someone else. My friends' visits trailed away, and when I got out, hardly any of them had come to see me at home, and when they did, they didn't stay for long. Alone, I'd been so alone, and I couldn't even go back to school until March maybe, and what would be the point then?

"Not well enough," the Doctor had said to me and Mom. "She needs to take it easy. Take a few months off to recover fully. She can go back for the next school year." An entire year of my life, vanished.

"Jenny," Dave said, and his arms folded me into his embrace, held me close, offering me security and protection and comfort and I clung to him, crying into his shoulder as one of his hands held my head, stroked my hair, and he didn't ask what was wrong, he didn't ask useless questions like my Dad or my Mom or my brothers had. All he did was hold me. Hold me, and say my name like he cared, and that was enough.

"It's okay," I said, a couple of minutes later, not letting him go, and he didn't let me go either. He continued to hold me, and somehow I knew that was what I needed from him. "I'm okay now."

"You're not really," he said, stroking my hair, and I breathed in his scent. Sweat, him, salt from the sea, oil from working on No Tan Lines engines, and that scent comforted me. His strength and gentle confidence comforted me even more, gave me security. Gave me strength, and that was what I needed. Security and comfort and strength and someone who understood.

"You were in hospital for months, you were really ill, if you were in intensive care it was pretty bad, and there's a lot of stress, a lot of anxiety, right?"

"Yeah," I said, resting my head against him, not at all sure why I was so trusting with someone I'd just met. Some guy way older than me, and I didn't know anything much about him. Just that he smelt right, and he felt right, and I felt safe in his arms.

"I know," he said. "It's hard to fall asleep at night, you get irritable, you're scared, you're not interested in some of the things you used to love, it's hard to feel positive about things, you have flashbacks to being in hospital, stuff like that."

"Yeah," I said, thinking about it. "Pretty much all of that. Especially the hospital, I can't stop thinking about that, about how close I was to dying. I remember them looking down at me and talking, like I was some kind of experiment or something." I was crying again without realizing it. "How come you know?"

He shrugged. "I was in the military for a few years," he said. "I know all about post-traumatic stress, believe me. Been there, done that and I know, I really do, Jenny."

His arms held me close.

"What do you do now?" I asked at last, not crying anymore, trembling in his arms, welcoming his arms holding me, and I felt safe there, and I didn't feel alone, but I did want to change the subject. I wanted to know more about him, too.

He chuckled. "It's a cliché, I know, but I got out of the Navy, got a job down here, and six months in, my Dad had a heart attack and passed away, turned out he had a load of life insurance, guess it was for my Mom but she passed away a couple of years ago, and I got it instead. Only me, no other kids in our family, and after I sold the house, and Dad's business and everything else, he had some investments and things as well, it was a crapload of money, so I invested it all, kept working for a while, then I bought 'No Tan Lines' last year from some dentist who'd bought her new and never taken her out once, moved onto her and decided to take a break while I figured out what I really wanted to do. Right now I do a bit of work on peoples' boats for them, work on mine, help out Ant and a couple of the other guys with theirs, go fishing whenever I feel like it, fill in at the Marina now and then when they need someone. Biggest expense is the docking fees the Marina charges, and diesel for the engines."

He grinned. "That's why I'm here. The Marina fees here are way cheaper than up around Miami and Fort Lauderdale, or down around Islamorada or Marathon, and I like the climate. That, and its quiet here."

"Sounds really relaxing," I said, drying my eyes with the tissues he gave me.

"It is," he said. "And right now, you're gonna relax with me, okay?"

"Okay," I said.

"Good," he said. "You sit in that one, and I'll start us up and take her out."

"I'm sorry," I said, feeling No Tan Lines bump into something. The dock? "You untied her before I started going all drama queen on you."

"She can take it," he said, turning a key, pressing buttons on the panel and I felt one engine rumble into life, then, after a long pause, the other. "That's what rub rails are for, and she already had a scratch or two when I bought her." He grinned. "That way I figured I wouldn't feel so bad when I scratched her myself. And it's a dead calm, a little bump or two's not going to harm her."

I sat there looking at all the instruments and levers and things. "How do you read all this stuff?"

"It takes practice," Dave said. "There's radar, that's a GPS with charts, weather system, depth-finder here, anchor, winch, radios, bow and stern thrusters, stuff about the boat and the engines," and he was pointing to each of the screens and buttons. "There's no closed bridge below like you get on some boats, so if you're out in bad weather, it's not too much fun. I kinda like it anyways, myself, had a lot of experience in the Navy, small boats, I got used to it, but on days like today...."

"It's beautiful," I said, sitting back in that seat, and I loved the view forward and all around. We were so high up here.

"Where are we going?" I added, as he eased the engine levers forward and used the bow thruster knob thing to turn us hard right out of the slip, pulling away from the dock, easing us down the lane of water separating the rows of docked boats.

"We're only going for a short run," he said. "I'll take you out into the Atlantic and down the coast a bit, out to sea and then back in. It's pretty sheltered here, Key Largo's out there and that protects us from the worst weather. Would you like to learn a bit about how to handle her?"

"Oh yeah," I said. "But all those controls are beyond me."

"Just like anything else," he said. "You learn bit by bit. You got your driver's license?"

"Yeah," I said. I'd gotten it just before...

"Don't you start crying now, Jenny," he said. "Come here and stand in front of me."

"Okay," said, not crying, standing in front of him. Between him and the wheel, and he was so close his breath was hot against the back of my head, and his arms were reaching around me.

"Hands on the wheel," he said. "Under mine." His hands lifted and then covered mine and his arms were right around me, like he was almost holding me, his chest brushing my back as I held the cool chromed metal of the wheel.

"Keep her straight," he said, his hands moving mine, and I could feel the low thrumming vibration of the engines through the wheel.

"She steers really easily," he said. "Twin rudders. Big, lots of control and the faster you go, the better it gets. Now, she's all yours, just keep her straight and I'll look after everything else."

"Wha..." I squeaked, watching the bow turn, slowly.

"Turn the wheel right, gently," he said. Then, "left a little and keep her straight," and I did, straightening her and wow, she did turn easy, and we were almost out of that lane of boats, swishing softly through the water, and I felt rather than the heard the quiet thrum of the engines.

"We're going to turn right into the main channel in a second," he said. "You're going to turn the wheel hard right when I tell you too, and I'm going to use the bow-thruster at the same time."

"Okay," I said, conscious of how close he was, and somehow liking that closeness, remembering how he'd held me.

"Turn right now," he said, and as I turned the wheel he pressed the bow thruster knob and held it. No Tan Lines bow swung slowly right as we moved into the channel.

"Straighten her now," he said, releasing the knob, and his hands rested on mine as I turned, and now I could see we were heading for the entrance to the Marina, and the river was out there, broad and muddy greenish-brown.

"That's it," he said. "You're doing great. Now keep her pointed at the marina entrance straight ahead there. When we get there, we'll head out to the center of the river and then turn right again and head out to sea through the cut."

His hands released mine, resting on my waist as I steered her out, and I liked his touch, liked his hands on me, enjoyed his closeness, knowing he was there, right behind me, almost but not quite touching. "I'll take over when we get near the cut, it's not slack water, there'll be some waves and current, and maybe some other boats."

"We're in the river," I said nervously, feeling the current move us. "What should I do."

"See those posts with signs on them," he said, pointing to these posts sticking out of the water. A line of them upriver and downriver, both. "See the colors."

"Yeah," I said. "Red. They've got numbers on them too."

"Remember the color. Those channel markers tell us where it's safe to take the boat. Where you see them, it's because we need to follow the channel to stay away from shallow water or rocks and shoals. This boat draws just on five feet, and we want a few more feet than that to be safe, so if we drift out of the channel, we'll run aground and likely damage the props and the rudders. Not good."

"Where am I going?" I asked, steering her straight.

"Look at the marker," Dave said. "It's red, right."

"Yeah," I said. Bright red.

"Red, Right, Returning, that's the rule. The red markers should be on your right when you're coming back into port from out at sea."

"So we go past it and then keep the markers on our left?" I said. "Coz we're going out. And we keep them on our right coming in?"

"Yeah, you got it," he said. "You do it. I'll step in if you make a big mistake, but otherwise she's all yours." He chuckled.

I didn't think it was that funny, but I was enjoying steering her.

"Here, show you why on the chart." He leaned forward, adjusted one of the screens to max. "See the contour lines there. This is us, and those lines tells us the depth to either side. 'No Tan Lines' draws nearly five feet, and we need more than that to be safe. See that line, that's two. That's how shallow it can get to either side of the channel. If we drift out of the channel we're in, we're going aground. That's why you have to know which side of the channel marker to follow."

"Okay," I said. "Got it." I was looking up now, trying to match what I was seeing to the display. "So I gotta follow the bend around here, right."

"Yep," he said. "You do it, don't turn too hard, and you can increase the power now, take her up to ten knots."

I pushed the levers for both engines forward a notch, very carefully, slightly increasing the power, watching the needles on the dials flicker upwards. Feeling 'No Tan Lines' pick up speed, and we were moving faster, swishing through the water. A slow turn, following the channel markers around, and then the narrow cut that led out to the Atlantic was straight ahead.

"I'll take her from here," Dave said. "You stay where you are, keep your hands on the wheel, under mine, so you can feel how she handles, and how I'm steering her, okay?" His arms around me, his chest against my back as I leaned back against him, his hands over mine, his voice in my ear, and I was enjoying this, and the smell of the sea on the breeze.

"Okay," I smiled.

"Good," he said, increasing the power. The engines thrummed, the rpms jumped. One thousand. Twelve hundred. Fourteen hundred, and we were doing fifteen knots on the display, and 'No Tan Lines' was surging through the water, leaving a long straight wake behind us when I glanced around Dave and looked back.

"Hold on and brace yourself, keep your knees bent," Dave said in my ear. "When we go through the cut, it'll be a little rough. Three, maybe four-foot waves, bit choppy, nothing dangerous for us this afternoon though, but hold on tight and keep your knees bent, okay."

"Whoooo-hoooooo," I yelled as we bounced, hanging on to the wheel, bracing myself against Dave. Bounced again, and a wave of white sprayed up around the front, blowing back in the wind of our passage and in an instant, I could've been competing in a wet t-shirt competition. We bounced again and again, crashing over the waves, and Dave wasn't easing up at all. His hands controlled the wheel, minute movements, adjusting her direction as we headed out and then we were through, the water almost flat now that we were outside, mere ripples as we headed out to sea.

"I'll take her along the coast," Dave said, turning the wheel as my hair blew out in the breeze, and my tee-shirt was already starting to dry in the warm breeze. 'No Tan Lines' turned, and now we were paralleling the coast that I could barely make out, because we were already that far out. I could see it better on the display though. There was another display too. One showing three red dots and a blue dot that was moving visibly.

"What 're those?" I asked, sliding one hand out from under his and pointing at one of the screens. Raytheon, whatever that was.

"Radar," Dave said. "See those three red dots? One's ahead of us, two off left."

"Yes."

He pointed ahead. "Can you see the boat there, that's the red dot ahead of us. The two to the left, they're further out, out of sight." He pointed to the moving blue dot. "That's an aircraft," he continued. "Could be sight-seers, could be a Coast Guard helicopter."

"Do you use it much?" I asked, looking around. "I mean, you can see . . ."

"Use it more at night or in storms," Dave said. "Boats are supposed to have running lights for use at night, and most do, but I can set this radar to sound an alert if there's something coming up that looks like it might be on a collision course. I'm out here fishing on my own a lot, so if I'm out here and down there with a line out, or grabbing some food or taking a nap, I set the alert for anything close, like a couple of miles or something. That gives me time to get up here and take a look and get out of the way or change course if I need too."

"That's useful."

"Yeah, it is, and if I'm out in a storm, which I have been, I can see what's around even through the storm. See how it shows the landforms?" He pointed to the land visible on the screen. "I mostly use the GPS to navigate, but this gives me a better feel for where I am than the GPS when I'm close to land."