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Grant tested out a few life jackets on her, knowing far more on the subject than she would have given him credit for. After browsing through the canoes on one of the racks outside, he handed her two big wooden paddles.
“How are you going to get that thing down to the water?”
“I’m going to carry it.”
“By yourself? Do you even know how?”
“I know how. They showed us at summer camp, but I was too scrawny to do it alone. I always wanted to try this but I stopped going before I got big enough to do it.”
“Did you go to some sort of summer camp designed by survivalists?”
“No, the last summer camp I got sent to was designed for troubled boys. They were tough on us, but decent.”
He hefted the canoe out of the rack and almost overbalanced but then caught himself. She had to admit that this may not have seemed like a good idea initially, but having seen him, biceps flexed and abs showing where his T-shirt rode up, she pulled out her phone and snapped a few pictures. Drooling, she trailed after him, admiring the figure he cut in such an outdoorsy environment. His jeans hugged his ass and muscular legs in all the right ways, and the sun made his hair a burnished copper.
The dock shifted under their feet as they walked along it, and Dex had a disconcerting moment where she thought she’d fall in. It wasn’t deep off the dock here, but the idea of getting another dunking while fully clothed didn’t appeal to her.
Grant held the canoe steady while she got in, and she was proud she only squealed once when she’d thought the whole boat was going to tip over with her in it, and once when her aching ass settled against the seat. Without any help from her, Grant got in, agile as a cat, barely even rocking the narrow craft. He reached onto the dock, grabbed the paddles, and handed one to her.
“So what exactly qualified you as a troubled boy?”
“This may surprise you, but I had a bit of an attitude problem in my early teens. Earlier than that even. My father sent me away for the summer so that I wouldn’t be underfoot, and I think it was the best part of my childhood. I’ve never felt like the kind of man who belonged in the city.”
“Really? That’s so weird. Up until the point that you bought this place I had no idea you even liked the outdoors. Why don’t you ever talk about camp?”
“Have you ever heard me talk about my childhood?”
“We’ve known each other for a few years. I remember all sorts of stories about scrapes you and Will got into.”
From her position at the front of the canoe she couldn’t see his face. He was just a disembodied voice floating from behind her. The lake was clear and as smooth as glass, the only ripples made by the canoe as it slid across the expanse.
It was beautiful here in a way she’d never realized was missing from her life. It was so quiet, and yet not. The sounds were just different. Less demanding. A breeze ruffled her hair and she turned her face toward the sun, closing her eyes and drinking it in. Between work, the club, and the house, sometimes she forgot what it was like to be outside if she wasn’t just running to her car.
“Those stories all came from Will, not me.”
Two gulls circled high overhead, their cries the perfect match to the sound of water lapping the sides of the canoe. She’d never actually been in a canoe before, and it was strange to be so close to the water and yet not in it. If she reached out a hand, she could skim her hand across the surface of the lake.
For a few minutes Grant explained simple paddling techniques and soon she was able to help him move the small vessel rather than simply sitting at the front like a prow maiden.
“So your brother talks about your childhood and you don’t?” she asked, bringing the subject back around to him. “I know you had a falling-out with your family—fair enough. That’s not my business. Some of the stories Will has told me make it pretty clear you guys had money growing up.”
He grunted noncommittally, so she went on.
“It doesn’t sound like your father was very involved, but I just can’t figure out why you’d walk away from stability and put yourself in the position you were in.”
“It wasn’t really a choice,” he said slowly. Could he tell she was hanging on every word? “Will got kicked out. He was the only person in our family who gave a shit about me, so when he left I went with him. We were partying a lot by then. You know how it is. Bored, privileged white boys with more money than we knew what to do with, angry at the world.”
She really wanted to ask him why Will had gotten kicked out. Will was always so levelheaded it seemed strange that it was his fault instead of Grant’s.
“We didn’t even get in trouble for the drugs, the booze, or the steady stream of girls. It was the kink that got him tossed out. I couldn’t let him go alone.”
“That was noble of you.”
“No. It was more that I couldn’t let him go and leave me alone. I didn’t have anyone else.”
Grant was steering them toward the distant shoreline of the mainland, where there was nothing but water and rocks and trees as far as the eye could see. Hopefully Mr. Outdoorsman would know how to get back to their island.
When had his island become their island? No, it was definitely his. Just because he’d brought her there first didn’t mean she had any claim to it.
