Cody patted the doorway between the mates’ quarters and the blubber room. “This opening didn’t exist on the ship when it was still a working whaler. The officers’ quarters were physically separated from the working part of the ship.”
“You know a lot about the ship. Did you help with the restoration?”
“As unskilled volunteer labor, yeah.” He grinned at Aaron over his shoulder. “I scraped part of the hull. They let me paint a bit too.” He stood aside to let a trio of other visitors exit from the room at the bow. “The ordinary seamen bunked in there, in the fo’c’sle. You’ve heard the term ‘before the mast’? This is the place.”
Aaron ducked through the doorway into the cramped area. The foremast descended through the middle of the room, bunks stacked two deep like a rat’s maze around it.
Sweat broke out on Aaron’s forehead. So close to the water. Only a few inches of wood to separate them from breathing and drowning.
His hands started to shake.
“I…. Can we go topside again? Please?”
“Sure.” Cody was there immediately, leading Aaron to the stairs outside the forecastle and up onto the deck. “Is this okay, or do you need to go ashore?”
“Ashore, please. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” He kept his hand in the small of Aaron’s back all the way down the gangway, leading him to a bench a safe distance from the ship. “The fo’c’sle is a little claustrophobia-inducing.”
“It’s not that. It’s—Can you imagine trusting your life to something this small, this fragile? How could anything like this survive the fury of the ocean?”
“But it did. For eighty years. In fact, she was considered a lucky ship.”
“Lucky?” Aaron’s voice rose on the word.
“Sure. She survived storms, Arctic ice, hostile natives, a ton of trips around Cape Horn over thirty-seven voyages, and still made it back here so we could sail her again.”
“But the risks…. Years-long voyages without the advantages of modern navigation or meteorological data.” He clamped his hands between his knees. “And what if those sailors didn’t come back? What were the survival chances of families, wives, children?”
Cody rubbed Aaron’s back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know this would freak you out so much.”
Aaron shook his head. “It’s not your fault. Sometimes it just hits me, you know? The incredible fragility of life. All the people who perished in wars, from disease, in childbirth for God’s sake. I’m constantly stunned that humanity has made it this far.” He ran a hand through his hair, glancing sidelong at Cody. “Sorry. Like I told you, I’m not a very exciting person.”
“You know, I don’t think that’s true. It’s not that you’re not exciting, it’s that you’ve got two things that a lot of other people don’t have.” Cody held up two fingers. “A deep knowledge of the past, and an imagination.”
Aaron choked on a half laugh. “You make those sound like desirable traits.”
“Well, I think they are. I mean, who wants to talk to an ignorant person? And imagination? Heck yeah. If you’ve got an imagination, you can take trips, go on journeys, adventures, without ever leaving home, if that’s what you want.”
Home. Except he didn’t have one now. But maybe…. He glanced at Cody again, who was gazing at the Morgan, a smile curving his generous mouth. Maybe finding a new home wouldn’t be such a bad thing, not if it had people like Cody in it.
“You love that boat, don’t you?”
He turned to Aaron, a glint of mischief in his eyes. “Don’t let anyone hear you call it a ‘boat.’ It’s a ship. There’s a difference.”
“Really? What?”
“You want the easy answer?” When Aaron nodded, Cody pointed to the whaleboat suspended above the Morgan’s rails. “Size. A ship can carry a boat, but a boat can’t carry a ship.”
Aaron’s breathing started to even out. He gestured to the side of the Morgan. “Where’s the spot you scraped and painted?”
Cody studied the ship, his head tilted to one side. “It’s on the port side, so you can’t see it, but it’s in line with the mizzenmast. My one square yard of the Charles W. Morgan.” His face took on a dreamy, unfocused expression. “The day they launched her, after the restoration was complete, was the most amazing day. I’d have given anything to have sailed on the thirty-eighth voyage.”
Chills chased down Aaron’s spine. “You wanted to go on the ocean? In that?” The thought of such a precious cargo at the mercy of the elements nearly sent Aaron into tachycardia.
“Sure. It survived its whaling voyages with way less technology and support. And it didn’t exactly cross the briny deep, you know. All the ports of call were along the eastern seaboard.”
“That doesn’t always mean anything. Margaret Fuller drowned less than a hundred yards from shore, lost along with her husband, her baby, and the only copy of her book on the Italian revolution.”
A smile quivered on Cody’s lips. “I’m not laughing at you, I promise. But did you specialize in the history of death and untold destruction? Surely there must be some cheerful history tales.”
Aaron scrubbed his face with both hands. “God. There are. I even used to know some of them.” With all the upheaval in his life, he’d apparently gone completely over to the dark side.
“Then tell me something good. Some historical event that makes you smile.”
Of course, as soon as Cody said that, all Aaron could think of were more depressing stories. Richard the Third at Bosworth. Joan of Arc at the stake. The Spanish Inquisition. The Salem witch trials. The purposeful decimation of the indigenous North and South American populations by the invading Europeans.
Maybe happy people were too busy being happy to advertise their fates. Maybe humans were hardwired for drama, as if focusing on the misfortunes of others made your own life look better by comparison.
Or maybe we’re just a race of ghouls.
“Having trouble coming up with something?”
“Sadly, yes. Give me a while to think about it, though, and I’ll get back to you.”
Cody grinned. “I’ll hold you to that.” He gazed at the Morgan again. “You know, the Morgan is a pretty sizable vessel, when it comes down to it. My round-the-world sail was on a ship more like that.” He pointed to a passing boat no longer than Aaron’s living room.
“You sailed around the world? On something that small?”
“Sure. It was awesome.”
“How old were you?”
“Twenty. Twenty-one. I celebrated my twenty-first birthday at sea.”
“Why on earth would you want to do that?” Just the thought of being adrift on the ocean, no sight of land, with who knew what kind of dangers lurking below—assuming the water didn’t kill you first—made Aaron’s belly attempt a reverse swan dive onto his shoes.
Cody gave Aaron that sly sideways glance again. “Blame it on Crosby, Stills & Nash.”
“Crosby, Stills, and—oh. ‘Southern Cross.’”
“Yep. I’m telling you, my whole life is like an oldies station.”
“And mine is like the aftermath of every disaster movie ever made,” Aaron said, his tone laced with disgust.
Cody laughed and stood up, offering Aaron his hand. “Come on. If you’re not up for the shipboard tours, let’s check out the planetarium.”
“Indoors, surrounded by actual walls? I think I can probably handle that without breathing into a paper bag.”
“Is it the presence of walls, or just the absence of ocean?”
“I’ll let you know.”
CODY HELD the planetarium door for Aaron to emerge, both of them blinking in the westering sun. “Yeah, the projector is from the sixties. Nowadays, a lot of planetariums use digital options, but the stars end up looking pixilated if they’re not done right. But this one—”
“It was like we were away from light contamination, looking up at the stars in the middle of the night.”
“Awesome, yeah?” C
ody tucked his thumbs in the pockets of his waistcoat. “It was like that at sea sometimes. Crosby, Stills, and Nash got it right.”
Aaron’s shoulder brushed his as they strolled down the path. “Did that make the risk worth it?”
“I didn’t really think of it as a risk. Maybe because I practically grew up on the water. Being out there… every day was a gift.” He allowed himself to lean into Aaron’s shoulder just a little. The path was crowded. Could be accidental, right? “Even when the other guys drove me crazy.”
“So you weren’t alone?”
“Nope. There were four of us. The boat belonged to a friend of my sister’s. He needed another guy on the crew, and I jumped at the chance.”
Aaron’s expression turned pensive. “I don’t know if I’ve ever jumped at a chance in my life.”
“Scrutinizing before you leap.”
He smiled crookedly. “Exactly.”
Something about the sadness of that smile made Cody want to kiss it better. But although Cody had been accused all his life of being too impetuous, he knew better than to let his urges run away with him now. For one thing, this was the Seaport—practically his own personal church. For another, a guy as cautious as Aaron wouldn’t appreciate it.
But Cody had seen the look of joy and wonder on Aaron’s face by the light of the artificial planetarium stars, and he wanted to see it again. Wanted to give Aaron that again.
“I know you’re not a fan of big wooden ships in general,” Cody said, nudging Aaron to take a left past the Children’s Museum, “but our Shipyard is working on restoring the Mayflower II now.”
Aaron gave him some serious side-eye. “I think I can handle a boat—excuse me, a ship—that’s not even in the water. I should have been able to handle the Morgan, but—”
“Hey. No judgments here. We can’t board the Mayflower II anyway, but they’ve got viewing areas set up at the bow and stern, and it’s pretty cool to see the shipwrights work. Plus, it might make you feel better about the Morgan if you can see just how engineered and sturdy these vessels are.”
And as they watched the shipwrights hammering spikes with sledgehammers and shaving wooden beams with hand adzes, the tension seemed to drain out of Aaron’s shoulders. When they left the viewing area, he wore the bemused, slightly preoccupied expression of a man whose mind was working overtime. God, I love smart men.
“That was… extraordinary.” Aaron paused for a moment, shading his eyes against the setting sun as he scanned the Village shops, the river, the green. “This whole place is remarkable.” He smiled at Cody then, with real enjoyment and gratitude, and a zing traveled straight down Cody’s spine. “I can see why you’re so devoted to it. What do you plan to wow me with next?”
Cody swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry, because God, I really, really want to kiss him now. If he had someone like Aaron around, someone to share these hometown adventures with, maybe he wouldn’t be tempted to wander. Because why search when I have what I’ve been looking for right here at home, surrounded by everything else I love?
Cody opened his mouth, on the verge of asking for Aaron’s phone number, but snapped his jaw shut. Because what was the point? Aaron was a visitor, a tourist. This was a one-day thing. He’d finish his vacation or business trip or whatever this was, then head home and straight out of Cody’s life. Meanwhile, Cody would be off to—
He slapped his forehead. “Shoot! I almost forgot. I promised my sister that I’d be over for dinner tonight, so I really have to go now.”
“Ah. Of course.” The light dimmed in Aaron’s eyes. “I’ve taken up too much of your time as it is. I appreciate you taking pity on me.”
“There was no pity involved. If I’d let a newbie escape without at least one awe-inspiring experience, I’d have to turn in my volunteer badge.”
“Awe-inspiring, eh?” Aaron grinned sheepishly. “Charitable of you to call it that and not what it was—a flat-out panic attack.”
“Hey, everybody has their buttons. You should see my sister and snakes.” He faked a shiver. “Brrr. Not pretty.”
“Can’t say I blame her. There’s a reason I became a historian and not a herpetologist.”
“Another phobia?”
“No. Just a judicious avoidance of animals who have their own agenda, possibly fatal venom, and a highly effective delivery system.”
Cody laughed. “When you put it that way, it sounds perfectly logical.”
Aaron raised both eyebrows this time, a double arch over the rim of his glasses. “That’s because it is.” He held out his hand. “Thank you again, Cody. This started out as one of the worst afternoons of my life, and you turned it into one of the best.”
Cody was tempted—seriously tempted—to forgo the handshake and dive into a hug. Or a kiss. Kissing would be really good. Aaron’s lips were made for kissing. But instead he settled for gripping that square hand, holding on maybe an instant longer than was technically proper. Then he waved as Aaron strolled away down the path, “The Boys of Summer” back on his internal playlist.
Damn it.
As Cody drove home and cleaned up for dinner, though, he couldn’t get Aaron out of his mind. Oddly, instead of being off-putting, Aaron’s innate caution somehow counterbalanced Cody’s headlong rush at life. Aaron was open to discovery and new experiences—the look on his face at the Shipyard was proof of that.
He’s just methodical. He needs to be introduced to new things slowly. Wouldn’t it be great to introduce him to a new adventure and watch his expression morph from suspicious to intrigued to joyous?
And then to kiss him senseless until they embarked on a completely different kind of adventure.
Settle down, Cody Brown, his mother’s standard warning repeated in his head. Just because you thought he was hot, doesn’t mean he felt the same about you.
Not that it mattered. Aaron was just a tourist, and now he was gone. Cody rubbed his chest, trying to soothe the pinch of regret.
For him, I bet I could go slow. Real, real slow.
Chapter FOUR
“THANK YOU for a fascinating presentation, Mr. Templeton. You kept our students engaged for the full hour.” Dr. Kensington, the Hillview Head of School, smiled ruefully. “And I have to admit, that’s not always an easy thing to do.”
Aaron shook his offered hand, still a little buzzed from the tour and the presentation and everything he’d learned about the school. “It was my pleasure. The kids seem bright and enthusiastic.”
“Enthusiasm,” Dr. Kensington said dryly, “has never been a problem here.”
“Well, they were delightful. I enjoyed everything about the day.” Everyone had been welcoming, the interviews with the board, faculty, and student committees not as intimidating as Aaron had feared. And the campus, with its mellow brick buildings, towering maples, and meticulously maintained landscaping, was the kind of safe haven that Aaron had always craved. “Your school is remarkable.”
“Thank you. We’re quite proud of it.” Dr. Kensington escorted Aaron to the parking lot behind the administration building. “You’re our last candidate, so we’ll be conferring shortly and making our decision. You may expect to hear from us within the week.”
“I look forward to it.”
Breathing in the crisp fall air, Aaron waited until Dr. Kensington disappeared into the building before stowing his briefcase in the back seat of his rental car and climbing behind the wheel.
This could work. It could really work. Because they’d liked him, he could tell. The two presentations—one for the faculty on his ideas for the library, and a lesson comparing actual Gilded Age technology to its representation in steampunk fiction for a lecture hall full of tenth-grade students—had gone as perfectly as he could have hoped. He might be risk averse and borderline agoraphobic, but he knew and loved his subjects.
He flipped the keys in his hand, the rhythmic chink a counterpoint to his elevated pulse. Whenever he completed a big project, he always had this same reaction, this endorph
in rush. Or was it dopamine? Whatever it was, it made him want to burst out of his everyday cocoon, escape from the habits he normally found so comforting, celebrate until the near-intoxication faded.
Wayne had gone along with it at first, but once he realized that Aaron’s idea of celebration didn’t involve hitting half a dozen clubs, getting sweaty on the dance floor with strangers, or tossing back enough shots to fuel a three-day hangover, he’d grown contemptuous and refused to participate.
But here in Connecticut, he didn’t even have Wayne to douse his buzz with tight-lipped, barely concealed impatience. It dimmed his glee a little. Even if this did work out—and he had a really good feeling about it—he still didn’t know anybody in the town, hell, anybody in the whole freaking state. It’s not like he could invite Dr. Kensington out for a chat and a couple of celebratory beers.
A grinning face haloed with blond hair swam into his mind. I bet Cody would understand.
Aaron sat back in his seat. Cody. A guy he’d met the day before and spent a few hours with. But when Aaron thought about it, even if he had another choice, he’d still pick Cody above anyone, even Wayne—especially Wayne—at this particular moment.
Because Cody understands the pleasure of little triumphs, of giving back.
Unfortunately, Aaron didn’t have Cody’s number. He’d been tempted to ask for it, but then Cody had announced his need to leave, and Aaron hadn’t wanted to presume. After all, Cody was a volunteer at the Seaport. Shepherding clueless tourists around was his job. The time he’d spent with Aaron hadn’t meant anything else to him, regardless of how momentous it had been for Aaron.
For a while, though, it felt like a real connection.
But that hardly mattered since Aaron had no way to contact him anyway. A little more of his postpresentation rush bled away. I guess it’s Netflix and pizza after all.
Wait a minute—Cody said he volunteered at the Seaport three days a week. He might have another shift today. Even if he does, who knows whether it’s at the same time or if he’d want to see you again.
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