With a prayer of gratitude, he grabbed it.
Seconds later, the entire boat fell below the water’s surface, and with painful dismay, Ajax realized he’d lost the chance to get life vests, water, a flare gun. He’d never had a chance as long as he had to keep Dmytro’s inert body above water. Still….
As he’d been trained to do, he got his arms beneath Dmytro’s shoulders and dragged his upper body onto the buoy between them, which placed Dmytro’s head above water. In that position, the device took some of Dmytro’s weight, and Ajax was able to maneuver better. He could also see the furrow Peter’s bullet—had it been Peter? Or Chet, the sniper? He could see a furrow in Dmytro’s skin, plowed by someone’s bullet. Thank God, the bullet had only grazed him. But also….
Ajax was no stranger to these waters, and he didn’t ever want to bleed in them. Not with global warming bringing sharks closer to the West Coast every year.
Now that the ship was gone, he searched the litter it left behind. He tried to come up with a plan. First things first, he made a sweep of the debris, looking for useful items. A bit of rag, washed as well as he could in sea water, was useful to put pressure on Dmytro’s wound. Bits of paper came in handy as makeshift sunblock to protect his skin. He found a few water bottles with small amounts of water still in them. They might contain enough precious liquid to stave off dehydration for a few hours.
How long would it take to be found? They had to be near the coast among the Channel Islands. Surely someone would find them. Didn’t the Coast Guard, the DEA, and ICE make sweeps looking for smugglers and drug traffickers and illegal entries all the time?
Ajax tried to be positive. He was still going. He could keep going for a long time, given the alternative. Dmytro shifted, pressing his face into Ajax’s neck—probably an unconscious effort to avoid the bright light and biting wind. His touch made Ajax more determined than ever.
Dmytro’s girls needed their father.
Dmytro needed him.
An orange speck in the distance drew his eye. He towed Dmytro toward it, delighted to discover it was a life vest. It must have floated free from the bridge as the vessel sank. He looked around, but if there had been others, he couldn’t see them.
Holding Dmytro on the buoy with one hand, Ajax slipped the life vest around his body and secured the fasteners with the other. Relief poured through him.
A vest like this could buy him time, help him stay afloat a whole lot longer, even if he had to keep Dmytro with him. Thank Christ, thank Christ something was going his way for a change.
He held the damp pad of fabric to Dmytro’s wound and kicked as economically as he could, relishing the soft warm puffs of breath against his neck as proof Dmytro was still among the living. Maybe they could come out of this alive yet.
But already the few minutes he’d been forced to spend in the water felt like hours. The heat from the sun was merciless, the light blinding wherever it hit the waves.
He took his own counsel and covered his head and face with paper debris. He did the same for Dmytro, who had yet to come to.
Every time he thought he was near the end in the past few hours, he’d thought of Mackenzie Detweiler. Each time, he’d been thrown out of one nightmare only to be blasted into another, more serious, more dangerous one.
Was this the end at last?
If it was, he’d run an awesome race. He’d told his parents he loved them. That he was proud to be their son. He hadn’t told Dmytro how he felt about him, but surely, if there was someone up there looking out for him, he’d get the chance.
At least he knew. At least he had the opportunity to take his love and transform it into action. To hold Dmytro close and keep him safe, even if it was his final hour on the earth.
Absurdly, he lifted his arm to check the time on his expensive dive watch. Stupid thing—it had cost a fortune and it wasn’t even working. There was no way to tell the time or where he was. No GPS function, no compass, even. Thank God he had the good old sun. He could make his way east, toward the coast, if the currents would take him that way… but there was the wreck to consider. The field of debris from the sunken boat made him think he’d be better off staying put. It would be hard to miss that during a flyover. Hard not to extrapolate that a boat had gone down.
Would they look for survivors?
Of course they would. And with his life vest and Dmytro in his arms, it would be difficult to miss them. He kicked around, collecting anything with bright colors—bits of paper, rags, empty aluminum cans. Anything that might shine or glitter or show well against the backdrop of the sea. He placed what he could on Dmytro’s chest without sinking him, and waited.
As time passed, he found himself talking to Dmytro. “You have to wake up. I’m doing everything I can, but I can’t do it alone…. Your daughters need you, Dmytro. If you don’t come home, who will read them stories? Who will protect them from bad boyfriends and bullies at school? Who will sing that ridiculous lullaby?”
He found it helped, talking out loud. And God knew he could keep going for hours.
“It’s my superpower, you know,” he offered. “I can keep talking forever. Don’t think you’re going to get me to shut up by refusing to answer. Many have tried. No one has ever prevailed….”
He changed arms and kicked, treading water as best he could.
“I hate a conversational vacuum,” he admitted when he assumed Dmytro couldn’t hear. “I guess that’s what it is. My parents are the quiet type, plus they weren’t around. When they got home at the end of the day, they spent their time reading or going through mail. They put on soft music. That’s when I learned I had to engage them, to entertain them, to get their attention.
“One of my exes called me a gaping black hole of emotional need. And before you ask, yeah, I threw him out. I like attention, but I have standards.
“I’ve also had a lot of boyfriends.” Ajax worried Dmytro would think it was too many. “Boyfriends and hookups. I’ve had lots and lots of those. But I’m safe. I’m negative.”
Dmytro seemed like the kind of guy who found someone and stayed with them. Maybe he went for both women and men, but Ajax doubted he’d strayed as long as Yulia had been alive.
“Just so you know, I’m perfectly capable of monogamy. In fact, I’ve always wanted to fall in love. And God. I fell so hard for you. No one else could take your place, Dmytro.
“I am so in love with you. I’ve never felt anything like this in my life. Not for anyone. Please, please come back to me so I can tell you how much I love you.”
He kicked his way around an oil slick as best he could. It saturated their clothes, though, made him feel filthy from the inside out.
His arm burned, so he switched again, hoisting the inert Dmytro back onto the ring to keep him from slipping in the greasy water. Despite the device, the weight of Dmytro’s body, his clothes, and his saturated boots were a constant drag on Ajax, pulling him down, threatening their safety with each swell of waves in the sea that cradled them.
“My parents sent me on a special course where I learned to be a lifeguard, hands-on. But I worked in a lake, Dmytro. You would pull this out on the ocean. You are such a goddamn pest.”
“Me?” At the junction of his neck, he felt a burst of laughter. “I’m a pest?”
Ajax pushed away to look at Dmytro’s face. “Are you…. You’re…. My God, Dmytro. I thought you were in a coma or something. Jesus, you scared me. Oh my God.”
“What happened?” Dmytro lifted pale fingers to his face and felt the paper Ajax had pasted there. “And what is this all over my face?”
Ajax brushed his hand away. “Improvised sunblock. What do you remember?”
“It was Peter. All along it was Peter driving us into a trap. Peter and that sick bastard Chet. Zhenya is going to combust.” Dmytro slurred his words but held on to the ring. He started moving his legs, which gave Ajax some much-needed relief from treading water for both of them.
“Yes! They tied us to the rail
ing of the Charioteer and sank it. Oh, also, they grazed your head with a bullet. How do you feel?”
“Like I was shot in the head. How do you think? I’ve got a blinding headache. Also, I need to puke.”
“Go ahead.”
“I’ll wait until it’s impossible to avoid it, thank you.”
“Maybe we can find aspirin floating around somewhere. You won’t believe what’s drifted by.”
Dmytro paled. “I can imagine.”
Heat crept up Ajax’s neck. “Um. How much did you just hear?”
“Some.” Dmytro’s voice still sounded weak. “Well. All of it. I hope you told that ex of yours to fuck off and die.”
“I did. But, er. Do you have anything you want to tell me?”
Dmytro gave him a sloppy smile. “We’ve got a lifetime to talk about love, little mink. Even if now is all we have.”
Ajax wrapped both arms around him. Given their respective flotation devices, the kiss only drowned him in sensation. Desire. Tenderness. A kind of happiness he never thought he’d find.
Dmytro placed a dozen tiny kisses over Ajax’s forehead, temples, cheeks, and jaw. “I don’t know when it happened. One minute you were a thorn in my side, and the next you’d dug your way into my heart.”
“Oh, Dmytro.” The hopelessness of their situation receded behind the brilliant ice blue of his eyes. Evident at last was everything Dmytro had always tried to hide from him: his raw emotions, the things he yearned for, and all the things he didn’t want to say.
They probably didn’t stand a chance, but everything might still be all right.
Things had to be all right.
They must, if only because now he and Dmytro had each other.
Chapter 26
DMYTRO RESTED his eyes. He floated lazily now, free of his boots, free of the jeans that pulled him down, all the while waiting for something to happen. Though there were clouds on the horizon, the sea seemed calm and the water passed them by in swells, not chop.
He clung to Ajax. Sometimes only his hand. Sometimes Ajax wrapped him in his arms, like when he’d been unconscious, using the ring-shaped float to save his energy.
Cold water sapped his strength. The brilliant sun baked them both dry. The few bottles they found with trace amounts of water in them would not hold them. They were being brined, literally salted from the outside in.
“Did you ever go swimming in the ocean so long you got pruned?” Ajax’s thoughts must have run along the same lines. “My fingers look mummified.”
He lifted Ajax’s hand, and indeed, his fingers were wrinkled like raisins. “Someone will find us.”
“You don’t know that.” Ajax’s mood had begun to swing between optimism and defeat.
One minute Ajax was sure he heard a plane fly overhead, and the next he said how grateful he was to have had the chance to say goodbye to his parents.
Dmytro kissed him often. In his heart, he pined for his girls, but he knew Liv would be there for them. With Zhenya’s help, with insurance money and his pension, she would be able to give them the best of everything. And she loved them. That was important. She wasn’t their mother or father, but she loved them as much as he and Yulia had, and that was enough. She was always there for them, which was more than Dmytro had been.
Now his place was here with Ajax.
“What? What’s that look for?” Ajax swiveled like an otter, turning his back on swells that threatened to come over his head. Dmytro swam like a rock—as Ajax accused soon after he’d come to. “You’re getting a look on your face.”
Hard to shrug in the water. Hard to speak without slurring his words. His head hurt so badly. “Thinking about Sasha and Pen.”
“You think ghosts might be real?” Ajax asked morbidly. “Like, maybe we can hang around our families still, even after we’re gone?”
“I doubt it.” If ghosts were real, the men Dmytro had killed would have driven him out of his mind long ago. “I believe… this is all we get.”
“I’ll bet you regret taking this job. I’m so sorry, Dmytro. I—”
“I don’t.” Dmytro bicycled his feet as much as he needed to cup Ajax’s jaw one-handed and kiss his red, chapped lips. “I will regret not seeing my girls grow up.”
“But you wouldn’t be in this—”
“I wouldn’t change a thing.” He kissed Ajax’s nose tenderly, then his lips again, speaking between kisses. “Except I’d kill Peter. Throw Chet to the sharks.”
“Shh….” Ajax’s laughter warmed Dmytro’s cheek. “Don’t say the S word.”
“I regret trusting them.” Dmytro let his smile grow against Ajax’s ear. It made him dizzy, talking this much, but Ajax needed it. “But I’d never change us, little mink. I thought my heart was buried with Yulia. I thought I’d live the rest of my life for Sasha and Pen’s sake.”
“But that’s—”
“I would have been satisfied with that. But now, how could I?” He shook his head. “We could make a life together, Ajax. You are the heart I believed was lost. I know my girls would love you. Liv would love you.”
Ajax shook his head. “I doubt that.”
“She’d welcome you, if only because….” He dragged wet hair off his face. “She says I never smile anymore.”
“She’s got that right.”
“I’ll plan to smile more, then.”
He felt something brush past his leg and didn’t mention it. If it didn’t touch Ajax, he certainly didn’t need to know.
Perhaps it was only a school of little fish.
Time passed with only the sound of the wind and the rising and falling ocean swells between them. They were definitely too far out for seabirds.
“If you got back and could have anything in the world, change anything in your life,” Ajax asked, “what would you do?”
“Stay-at-home dad? Local soccer coach?” Dmytro smiled. “No. Kidding. I’d take a job training Iphicles men in hand-to-hand combat and weapons so I wouldn’t have to go out in the field anymore.”
“Why didn’t you do that before?” Ajax bumped his leg. He hoped it was Ajax, anyway.
“When I’m in the field, pay is astronomical.” Dmytro blinked away a splash of water. “If I’m killed on the job, the insurance pays triple my income, plus they get my pension. They’ll never want for anything. That’s the trade-off.”
Ajax nodded. “I’m going to do something totally different from now on.”
“Different than ‘whatever I want,’ do you mean?” Dmytro asked with a laugh.
“It’s not like that. People always think you can do whatever if you’ve got money. That money means freedom. It’s really kind of the opposite, if you ask me.”
“How so?” Dmytro couldn’t wait to hear this.
“This is the perfect example, don’t you think? I doubt we’d be floating out here in the middle of nowhere if my dad worked at Taco Bell.”
“Guess not.” He held Ajax’s hand in his. Laced his fingers with Ajax’s longer, slender ones and noticed Ajax’s nails were turning blue.
“There’s the lack of anonymity, for one thing.” Was Ajax’s voice getting thready? “That goes straight away when your mom and dad send you to school in a town car with a bodyguard.”
“When did you ever seek anonymity?”
Ajax smiled and rearranged the papers on his face. The idea was ingenious, but they kept drying and blowing away, leaving salt crystals that looked like drying tears in their wake. Maybe those were drying tears.
“We’ll get out of this.” Dmytro offered vain hope and little else. There was always a chance. He’d done everything humanly possible. Ajax still wore his watch, although tampering with the case like he’d done had destroyed its water-resistance, and probably the tracker inside.
Plus, Bartosz was the only one who knew about the tracker. Since he was at the bottom of the sea, likely they would end up there as well.
Best not to offer that bit of information.
Best not to get Ajax’s h
opes up too high, because nothing good could come from realizing that’s all they were. Just hopes.
“There’s always a small chance.”
“Who’re you trying to convince?” A smile flickered on Ajax’s lips, then died.
Dmytro wiped water out of his burning eyes. “What are you going to do differently when we get back? No more Ajax Freedom, I presume.”
“I’ve been thinking about that. I never needed to call myself Freedom or do stupid shit to liberate myself. I just had to make different choices. Why does my life seem so simple from here where I can’t do a damn thing about it?”
Dmytro pulled him in for a gentle kiss. He couldn’t help himself. He’d fallen so deeply, deeply in love with this man, and now he couldn’t bear the thought of losing him.
Ajax broke away first. “I’m going to be Ajax Fairchild again. Instead of vlogging, I’ll start some kind of story-hour podcast for kids. Read books. Play music. Keep kids company whose families are forced to leave them home alone after school. I’ve given it lots of thought out here.”
“Sounds like a good idea.”
“What if I can leverage some of the money I got being Ajax Freedom to persuade large corporations to create on-site day care centers?” Ajax drifted, and Dmytro pulled him back.
“Lobby Congress to create better tax breaks for corporations that promote job sharing and off-site employment opportunities so families can be with their kids? Use encrypted technology to create safe shared spaces where whole families can check in with each other, even if they can’t afford smartphones, or—”
“You want the children of working parents to feel—”
“Connected to their families. Stimulated, educated, loved, whether their working parents can be on hand to deliver that love in person or remotely.” Ajax sighed. “Hey. That sounds like a mission statement to me. Got a pen?”
Dmytro wanted to cry. “How would you do it?”
“First off, I’d rope Mom in. She can get anything done. I have the technical know-how to podcast and stream. I can probably find a ton of like-minded people who would contribute content—” Ajax’s effort to keep talking had cost him.
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