Page 7 of Endless Depths

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asks against my ear.

“Aside from you being down here? Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Get back to work,” Seb snaps over the intercom.

“What is his problem?” Lawrence asks.

Fuck him. I grip Cole’s jacket and yank him into a brusque kiss. Every kiss keeps feeling like the last one, and it’s messing with my head.

“Watch your back, Sunshine.” I smack his ass gently.

“That’s your job, remember?” He shoots me a sly grin, then saunters to the rail and throws the hook.

The current is so strong, it keeps pulling the buoys under the water before they pop back up, and he can’t get the rope into the block. He reaches over the rail, pulling the rope hand over hand, and I bolt forward, grabbing the strap of his life vest. The boat lurches with another heavy set, and Cole loses his footing on the slippery deck, tumbling forward with a yelp I can only hear because I’ve spent years listening for his voice over the sound of heavy machinery.

I haul him back against me, and drag him away from the rail. “We’re trading positions.”

“Mm. I love it when we take turns.”

“Stop flirting and focus!” Seb yells over the intercom.

“I’m going to kick Seb’s ass,” I mutter to Cole.

“Can I watch?” Lawrence asks.

“Fuck off, Lawless. No one’s kicking my brother’s ass.” Cole smirks. “Unless it’s me.”

“You know I can hear you, right?” Seb says.

“Yep,” Cole answers serenely.

THREE

Morgan

Cole didn’t havethe energy to eat, let alone kick Seb’s ass. He shed his gear and fell into bed without eating, and hasn’t moved since. He’s been up longer than all of us, thanks to his shift at the wheel. Alejo went straight to his room too, so upset about lassoing Javi that even his mustache drooped.

I already polished off the carne asada Javi’s mom meal-prepped, and want to go the fuck to sleep, but Seb is taking his sweet time, even though I arranged for Wes to watch the wheel. Across the dining booth, Lawrence teeters on the brink of sleep with his chin propped on his palm, blond hair curtaining his face, burrito forgotten on the way to his mouth. His eyes close.

On the bench beside him, Javi chugs a Gatorade, and tracks Lawrence’s trajectory from the corner of his eye. A wave slams intoBriar’sside. Lawrence’s chin slides off his palm, but Javi is ready and waiting to guide his head to rest on the table.

“If the roles were reversed, he would have let you face-plant into your burrito,” I say.

Javi laughs. “He totally would have.”

Our sleep debt is so bad, we’ve all fallen asleep in strange places—except for me. I wish I could doze in the gear room on a pile of coiled rope like the rest of them, but Cole is the onlyperson I feel safe enough to sleep next to, and only with the door to our room closed.

Lawrence is the opposite. His doctor says he doesn’t have narcolepsy, but he’s fallen asleep with his dick out standing over the toilet. He’s fallen asleep in the engine room while holding a flashlight for me during a blackout. He even fell asleep in the shower with his toothbrush still in his mouth, then fell out of the stall when the boat took a roll. As long as he doesn’t do it when he’s operating heavy machinery, I don’t care. The flashlight he dropped on my head hurt, though.

The hull groans as it lifts and smacks down on a wave. Lawrence slides off the table and Javi guides him onto his side on the bench.

Finally, wood creaks as Seb descends the narrow staircase.

“You wanted to talk to me?” he asks without preamble.

Javi scoots out of the booth. “I’ll come back for him later.”

Once Javi leaves, Seb leans his back against the galley counter. “Go ahead.”