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I watched her go and tried not to gawk as she took off her sweatshirt and I got a beautiful glimpse of her red string bikini before she slipped the rest of her wetsuit on and zipped it up. A sound caught my attention and I turned to see Rick looking with almost as much admiration. I didn’t like him looking at her like that, even if I was doing the same and shot him a look. He lifted his shoulder as if to say “What do you expect?”
The boat slowed down and the crew dropped anchor as I finished getting ready. When I was, I walked over to my gear and did a final check of everything and watched Natalie do the same.
“Want me to check it?” I asked when I was finished.
“Sure,” she said and stepped away from her gear and walked over to check on mine.
“Looks good,” she said after a moment and I nodded my agreement.
“You ready?” Rick asked with his gear on, masks around his neck and his fins in his hands.
“As I’ll ever be,” I went and helped Natalie put on her gear. She did the same to me and then we went to the edge of the boat, put our fins on, and jumped into the water. Even knowing the water would be cold, it was still a shock to the system to feel the water fill my wetsuit.
“Never gets old,” Natalie said with a smile on her face when we were all in the water.
“Freezing your ass off and having your breath literally being taken away?” I asked as I adjusted my mask and moved towards her.
“Yes, nothing like it.”
“That is true,” I said and smiled at her. She smiled back and we held each other’s gaze. I felt like the minute she jumped in the water her foul mood was gone and something shifted between us. I didn’t know how or why but I was glad to see it and welcomed it.
“We good?” Rick asked as he joined us.
“Let’s do this,” Natalie said.
“See you at the bottom,” Rick said and deflated his buoyancy compensator and then descended. I put my regulator in my mouth, deflated my buoyancy compensator, gave Natalie a thumbs down sign, and went underwater. I cleared my ears and slowly moved down to the bottom, keeping an eye on Natalie as she did the same with me. As soon as she was completely underwater, she turned so she was face down and started kicking to the bottom. Rick was a few feet below us and when he got to the bottom, he hovered over it and waited for us. When we were both there, he gave the okay sign, one that was used both as a statement and question to us. We flashed it back to him and with a nod he turned and swam away.
We followed him along the rocky bottom with ridges that ran north and south. There were a few sandy spots but most of it was covered with rock and debris from the ships. It was a beautiful site as the reef was full of vibrant yellow, blue, and orange sponges. A few spiny urchins moved their way along the bottom. I thought I saw an octopus but I couldn’t be sure, but I did see plenty of strawberry anemones and huge sea cucumbers.
Rick led us and I stayed close to Natalie. She seemed happy with the arrangement as she pointed out a lingcod as it swam by and a rockfish that was hiding in the kelp. There was an ease with us that had never been there before. The sexual chemistry was definitely still there but it was like while we couldn’t speak to each other underwater, we had to communicate other ways.
Natalie would touch my shoulder or bank on her tank to get my attention when she saw something that she wanted to share with me. I did the same and was rewarded with her smiling at me or at least that was what I thought she was. It was hard to see through the regulator and the mask.
I wasn’t sure what we were going to find or if we were supposed to find anything during the dive. It is illegal to take anything from a shipwreck and I couldn’t see my father putting anything on the site for us to find. As the dive got closer to being done, I wondered if the whole point of us doing this was so that Natalie and I would do it together. There was something satisfying about life changing that occurs when you see such an incredible place with someone else. The fact that it was my father who had directed us to the spot only added to the importance and joy.
Natalie seemed to be enjoying herself and even did a few flips in the water and swam on her back. She seemed freer and more relaxed than I had ever seen her and I again wondered if that was the point of the dive, not to find some clue.
About forty minutes into the dive, Rick came up to us and we checked out how much air we had. He signaled he wanted us to head back to the boat and do our safety stop. We hung out on the anchor line for three minutes, off gassing any nitrogen we had from the dive. The chances of us having any effects from it on such a short and shallow dive were slim, but I still liked that Rick did the stop to be safe.
Almost every dive I had ever done had a safety stop at the end. It was a boring three minutes but still one that was necessary. Usually, I just hung out both literally and figuratively waiting for the time to pass. But Natalie had other ideas and as soon as we got situated she put her hand out and started playing Rochambeau, or paper, scissor, rock. I smiled at her and played along as I remember this was what my father did with me too. It was a great way to have a little fun and pass the time. It felt a little bit like Dad was with us on the end of the dive and as I looked at Natalie I could tell she felt the same way.
“That was incredible,” Natalie said as we surfaced.
“It’s a great spot, Kevin knew what he was doing when he picked it for you,” Rick said.
“I knew you were in on this,” I said with a laugh.
“It explains how we were able to get the boat so easily and at the last minute.” Natalie said.
“I thought fate was on our side, or Dad was looking down on us,” I replied.
“He most certainly did that with this weather and the visibility, it was incredible,” Natalie said.
We chatted about the dive as we headed back to the boat, handing our fins to the captain before getting out of the water. The crew was waiting for us with warm towels and even hot chocolate as they stowed our gear and we headed back to the pier. I kept close to Natalie as we got out of our wetsuits and was thankful that Rick and the rest of the crew kept their distance and didn’t ogle Natalie as she changed. However, I had to keep my own eyes from wandering over her body as she dried herself off and showed off her muscular legs, flat stomach, and perfect breasts.
I immediately thought about what it would be like to go over and help her with drying off. What it would be like if my hands could roam over her body as I had thought about countless times and then see her smile up at me like she did at the end of the dive. I wanted Natalie, the more I was around her the more it grew. I thought things were changing between us for the better and as she slipped on her sweats and looked over at me, she gave me a look that told me she was feeling the same thing. Suddenly, I was looking forward to our next stop even more than I was before, and the evening that was to come.
Chapter 13
