Page 35 of Rhodes

"Oh, you brought company," she says, standing up once she realizes it's not just the two of us.

"Morning. I'm Rhodes. Put me to work," he says, reaching his hand out to her.

"Josette. Nice to finally put a face to a name."

With the early hour and the rush to get out, I completely forgot to text her to let her know we were off the hook for doing it by ourselves.

"Hand me that line, Tallulah," he says, reaching across the bow to help slide the boat into the water.

Jo's head comes up. "Tallulah?"

My face goes hot. "For some ungodly reason, he's called me that since the dawn of time."

Rhodes coils the rope as if nothing happened. "It's her name."

"It is not the name anyone uses."

"I use it."

Jo grins at me over the crate, and I hand him the line before she can say another thing.

We load the last of it, boots slipping on the ramp, breath fogging in the launch lights. Then we push off into the gray, the three of us and the water and all that work waiting downriver.

The boat noses into the marsh edge, and I cut the motor before we ground out. Jo lowers the trolling motor so we can ease along the shallow water. The brown churns under us, spartina leaning gold-green off the bank where it's washing back to nothing.

"Here." I point to the raw seam where the marsh is losing ground. "We build the sill parallel, about a boat-length out, so it breaks the wave energy before it hits the grass. First bag anchors the low end. Everything else steps off it."

Rhodes already has a bag. He’s got both arms hooked under it, water sheeting off the mesh onto his pants. "Where?"

"Two feet left. Seat it into the mud, don't drop it. If it slides, you're chasing it."

He lowers it slowly, feeling for the bottom with the weight. Then he wedges it down until it stops rocking. He doesn't ask if that's good with words. Instead, he looks back at me, waiting for my approval.

"Good," I tell him. "Next one keys off that shoulder."

Jo passes me a bag off the bow, and my gloves fill with the cold wet grit of it, shell scraping through the mesh into my palms. Forty pounds fights me the whole way over the gunwale. I get it seated, breath already ragged, and the two of us fall into a rhythm.

Rhodes doesn't make us slow down for him. He watches one cycle, then he's in it, taking bags off Jo, walking them down the line, setting them where I point. He never argues the spot and moves the load like he's done this every day, knees under it, back flat, no grunting theater about how heavy it is.

"You're stronger than you look, Stone," Jo says, handing him another.

"You're bossier than you look."

"You have no idea."

Brackish water climbs to my thighs, cold enough to steal the air out of me. The mud grabs my boots every step, so I have to rip each foot loose as I move along.

The sun's up now, warming the back of my neck through my shirt, and the whole flat smells like salt and rot and green things growing. It's the best smell there is.

A double bag comes up, too heavy for one. Rhodes takes the far end, I take mine, and we lift together. His shirt pulls tight across his shoulders, forearms corded around the mesh. We shift grips at the same time to reseat it, and for a brief moment, his eyes come up and hold on mine over the wet shell.

His hand shifts and the heel of it comes down on my wrist, above the glove. He's warm through all that cold water. Everything low in me pulls in. I push the bag down harder.

"Left side, drop it," Jo calls.

We move, not acknowledging anything.

The sill grows bag by bag, a gray-brown line rising out of the water exactly where I drew it. We set the last run just as the tide starts its slow turn. All three of us stop after the last bag, filthy and spent and grinning at the wall we built.