Page 43 of The Sailor

Zach saw Marit take a deep breath before counting down.

“Three, two, one!” She dashed toward the crates. She stepped on the first . . .

And it sank under her weight.

She almost went down right then and there. Instead, she managed to regain her balance and was able to step on two more, before she finally fell with a loud screech.

Zach stepped toward the water, hoping she wasn’t hurt, but she popped up immediately, laughing hysterically.

“Okay, that was terrible. I want another shot!”

And thus began the start of an hour full of laughing, falling into the water, and cheering for Kash when he ran all the way to the end of the crates and dove into the cove time after time. Zach even took a turn at running the crates. But he was much heavier than when he’d won as a kid, and he wasn’t able to make it past more than five or six before falling into the water.

Marit improved enough that she eventually made it to the end of the fifteen crates Linc had scrounged up, and she and Kash whooped and hollered enough that someone would’ve thought they’d just won the Olympics or something.

His mom got hot in the sun, so she wandered back up to the deck to sit in the shade and drink some water while she watched . . . but not before putting a hand on Kash’s shoulder and saying, “You’ve got what it takes to win, Kash. Mark my words.”

Even more confidence bloomed across the young boy’s face.

When Kash finally got bored—or probably more accurately, tired—he asked Marit if she wanted to see Fort Bad Assery in the woods. She said of course she wanted to see this amazing fort. Zach and Linc both tagged along, content to let Marit and Kash talk among themselves.

When Kash started talking about asterisms, binary stars, and nebulas, Zach tuned him out. Honestly, the information was over his head. But it didn’t matter whether or not Marit understood a word the boy was saying. She nodded and listened carefully, encouraging him to keep talking. It seemed as if the kid didn’t get nearly enough chances to talk about his greatest passions. Space and stars.

He proudly showed Marit the fort he’d fixed up in the woods, near the property line between Lobster Cove and his granddad’s place. Zach and Linc stayed outside, because there wasn’t nearly enough room for either of them inside the tiny little structure made out of sticks and random pieces of lumber Kash had used to strengthen the old fort.

“He’s a good kid,” Linc said softly.

“Yeah. You really think he has a chance at the crate race?” Zach asked his brother.

“I do. You saw him, he’s good. Better than we were.”

“True.”

“I don’t like that Victor seems to be as much a judgmental asshole toward his grandson as he is toward everyone else, though,” Linc said with a frown. “Why can’t he accept Kash the way he is? And why isn’t Harper sticking up for her son?”

Harper was Kash’s mom . . . and someone Linc had a not-so-great history with. They were in the same grade in school growing up, and apparently she was a typical “mean girl,” especially toward Linc. And he’d never forgotten.

Harper moved away right after high school, vowing never to return to the “hick town” of Rockville . . . but now here she was. Living back next door with her grump of a father, with a twelve-year-old kid in tow. No one knew her current story, or even saw much of her at all, for that matter.

Kash continued to babble on and on to Marit about his books and how dark it was out here at night and how well he could see the stars through his telescope.

“Maybe because she’s not around much. You know, because she’s working,” Zach suggested with a shrug.

“Maybe. But it sucks that Kash doesn’t think his grandfather approves of anything he does.”

Zach couldn’t disagree.

“Kash? Are you out here?”

The sound of a woman’s voice calling for the boy rang out through the trees.

Kash reacted immediately. His head popped out of the fort, and he had a panicked look on his face. His red hair was sticking up all over the place, still damp from swimming in the cove.

“Oh no! That’s my mom! She doesn’t know about Fort Bad Assery. If she knows I’m playing on Lobster Cove, she’ll be upset!” he fretted.

“I’ll pack everything up for you nice and tight. You go on home,” Marit told him calmly from inside the fort.

Kash didn’t hesitate. He nodded, then scrambled out of the fort on his hands and knees before standing and turning to run toward the property line.