She coughs laughter, but cuts it short, saying, “I’m so sorry about that.”
“What are you sorry for?” I ask. “It’s at least as much my fault as it is yours.”
“No,” she says. “If I hadn’t pushed you over, we’d both still be in the boat, dry,” she breathes, “not exhausted, drenched and lying by the side of the lake like bodies drift ashore.”
“You make pretty mouth words,” I tell her.
This time, she full on laughs, and I laugh with her.
“We both had good intentions,” I tell her, “but something bad happened. What matters is that we’re all right.”
“Yeah, but you’re going to have to pay for that boat,” she says. “The whole thing’s in your name. I’m just down as a passenger.”
“Hopefully the security deposit covers catastrophic loss of boat,” I respond. I kiss her on the lips.
She smiles. “Thanks,” she says.
“For what?” I ask.
“For not being a dick,” she answers. “You helped me snap out of it when I was too freaked to realize what was happening was happening, but you weren’t mean. You said what you needed to say and you were very reassuring, thank you.”
“You taste like lake water,” I tell her. “Gross.”
She smiles, chuckles, shakes her head. This might be the closest we’ve ever been and I only had to sink a boat to do it.
Actually, I’m not going to tell Ash this, but I’m pretty sure the whole thing’s her fault.
Shh…
“Well, I’m glad someone’s having a good time!” a voice comes from toward the shop.
Ash and I look over and there’s the boat rental guy in full scuba gear, holding the hooked end of a rope on a wench.
I feel bad for the guy, I really do, but the sight is just too much and I start laughing. That might have been forgivable, but the fact that I’m in hysterics has caused Ash to start busting a gut, and I think we might be giving boat shop guy the wrong impression.
“I’m—” I laugh.
“We’re so—” Ash cracks up.
I try again with, “We didn’t mean to—” but it doesn’t work. The very fact that we can’t get through what we’re trying to say because we’re laughing is only making us both laugh harder.
“I’m keeping your deposit, Chuckles!” the man shouts before putting his mouthpiece in, his facemask on and walks into the lake, grumbling in muffled grunts as he slowly disappears into the water.
“You know,” I tell Ash, “that might have been the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.”
“I know! He’s like Mr. Underwater Tow Truck, isn’t he?” she chortles.
I kiss her again and then lie back and look at the sky above, making sure my hand finds Ash’s. She scoots over next to me and rests her head on my chest.
“We should probably wait and help him get the boat drained and back wherever it needs to go when he gets out of there,” I say.
“You’re such a Boy Scout,” Ash says, patting me on the chest.
“We did sink his boat and then laugh in his face uncontrollably about it,” I tell her. “It just seems like common courtesy to give the guy a hand.”
When the owner of the boat rental shop surfaces, holding the line between the boat and the wench to make sure the connection stays taut, Ash and I get up and help him. Until that, though, we’re just lying here on the cool grass huddled together both for warmth and affection.
By the time we finish helping the owner of the boat shop, Morris, undo most of the damage that we’d done, he’s offering to give us our deposit back. We turn it down, though. He definitely earned it.