"I know you will."
My hand finds his good shoulder, and the contact is brief and firm. He is another name on the living side of the ledger, the side I get to keep.
The Sandbar at 1900 holds the full complement.
Mack has the bar running with his usual efficiency, the jukebox is playing something with a bass line that Sullivan is pretending to sing along to, and the corner booth has been expanded to accommodate the growing population of people who have survived Tidewater's worst and found each other on the other side. Holden and Fallon are at one end, his arm across the back of her chair, her hand on his knee under the table in a gesture she thinks is subtle and is not.
Thatcher and Gwen are beside them, and Gwen is telling a story about a surgical resident that has Thatcher pressing his forehead against her shoulder to muffle the laughter.
Griff and Nox are at the other end, Nox's laptop closed for once, Griff's hand resting on the nape of her neck in the absentminded possessiveness of a man who has stopped pretending he isn't completely destroyed by this woman.
Sullivan is holding court at the center, and the volume of his voice is directly proportional to the number of beers he has consumed, which by the evidence of the empties is approaching the threshold where his commentary becomes both louder and less accurate.
"Aldridge." Sullivan leans across the table with the conspiratorial energy of a man who believes himself to be charming. "I have a question."
"You always have a question."
"This is a good question. This is the question. What exactly do you two do on that deck every night? Because I drove past your house at 2100 last week and you were both just sitting there. In the dark. Looking at the water. Like a pair of extremely quiet lawn ornaments."
The table goes quiet with the anticipation of people who have been waiting for Sullivan to land on this topic and are now watching to see how it detonates.
"We sit," I say. "We look at the water."
"That's it? No conversation? No entertainment? Just sitting?"
"The deck has bourbon. The deck has the ocean. The deck has a woman who doesn't require me to narrate the experience. That's a complete evening."
"You are the most aggressively low-maintenance couple I have ever met. What if I want to come sit on the deck?"
"The admission criteria are rigorous."
"What are the criteria?"
"Tolerance for silence. Willingness to bring good bourbon and leave before 2000."
"What if I bring excellent bourbon?"
"Excellent bourbon raises you to audit status. You can sit on the deck. You cannot speak."
Ireland's laugh cuts through the table noise, and the sound of it hits me the way it always does, low in the gut.
"Sullivan," Ireland says, leaning forward with her elbows on the table and the grin that means someone is about to receive the full weight of her precision, "the deck is not open enrollment, and if you show up uninvited, I will reassign your physical therapy sessions to the six a.m. slot for the rest of your recovery."
"You don't handle my PT."
"I know people who do. And they owe me favors."
Sullivan looks from Ireland to me and back again. "She's scarier than you."
"Significantly."
"You seem fine with that."
"I'm exceptional with that."
Nox catches Ireland's eye across the table and raises her glass with the dry, minimal gesture of a woman who does not do sentiment but has found a way to express it that costs her nothing and communicates everything.
Ireland raises hers in return, and the exchange between them is brief and complete, a friendship built on shared danger and mutual respect, where loyalty, once earned, is permanent.
