A/N: Anybody else need some Charah? Yeah ... me too.
Enjoy.
Disclaimer: I don't own CHUCK. I'm not making money. At all. From anything. Let alone this story. On that note ...
Chuck Bartowski was in full vacation mode when he woke up.
His spirits were high, the weather was too beautiful to be real…
But it was real.
This whole place was real and he had to pinch himself to make sure he wasn't dreaming. He actually did it, too. He pinched himself. And then he laughed at himself for being a cheesy idiot.
The two women sitting at the patio table nearby had looked at him strangely from under their sun hats, and he saluted them with a lift of his mimosa because he was on vacation and he simply didn't care.
It helped that the date the night before had been hands down the best date of his life. Which was funny because he'd thought that about the date the night before, yet somehow last night still managed to eclipse it.
He'd never picnicked at the beach for a date—not at night, at least, and certainly not on a Hawaiian beach.
And in spite of Mother Nature's attempts to interrupt earlier on in the night, after they packed up their food and trash, Sarah took his hand and led him further down to the water. They walked together for a while, the waves trickling over their toes, and eventually her hand fell into his. He didn't remember exactly what the catalyst was, but they ended up play wrestling again, and he'd stepped on a slippery rock, crashing down into the receding water. His entire right side was soaked as she stood there laughing with her hands over her face, swearing she didn't mean to. And when she reached down to help him up, he did the age-old trick of tugging her down with him. As she squealed, splashing him, he laughed out an, "I can't believe you fell for that! …Literally," and ended up with his face pushed into the wet sand.
Blinking wet sand out of his eyes wasn't fun, but it was worth it. Because Sarah helping him to pick wet clumps of sand out of his hair, which then led to a kiss, and that kiss didn't stop for a long, long time. There was no urgency as they made out in the sand, no desperation, none of the equal parts need and nervous adrenaline that had been there the night before when she'd come up to his hotel suite. It was slow and delicious, and just as hot as anything he'd ever experienced, if not more so. But eventually the breeze had picked up, and they were both wet enough that they'd opted to call it a night.
Chuck sat up a bit in his chair now, the morning after, finishing his mimosa, trying to decide if he wanted another one or if he should stick to water.
The fact of the matter was that he'd silently thought up a handful of ways he might manage to stay the night as they'd walked through the neighborhood and up the hill towards her house. Maybe he'd come onto her by saying something about how he didn't have clothes to change into, but maybe he didn't need them. Wink wink. Or he could ask to use her shower while his clothes dried and just walk around in a towel. They could have coffee or something and stay up the rest of the night again. And when his clothes dried, she could take him home. Or maybe he'd use her washer and dryer and in the meantime, they'd find some way to pass the time. Wink wink again.
But he ended up not doing any of that. Instead, he cleaned up in her kitchen while she rinsed off and changed, and then she drove him back to his hotel.
Sure, he thought now as he took out his wallet, deciding not bother with another mimosa, he could have invited her up again. But there was a soul deep contentment inside of him that made him decide to go in alone. Maybe he had her phone number now so he felt like he didn't have to make the date last longer this time. He could end it on his terms. Or maybe this was on their terms, the both of them. Because she didn't seem put out at all when he thanked her and finally climbed out of the car.
Chuck put a twenty down and felt good about it, in spite of the bill only being $9.57, because he was a firm believer in making other people's days when he was feeling this good.
Taking one more sip of water, he plunked the glass back down and made to climb to his feet, but was startled by a voice right behind him.
"Well, it looks like I timed my arrival perfectly."
He saw legs first—long, tone legs under short shorts that had frayed hems—and his eyes slid down first, taking in her strapped brown sandals, before he forced himself to look up at her face. "Sarah!"
The immaturity in him chastised him for not keeping his surprise on the inside and instead saying something suave and flirtatious. But he honestly and truly wasn't prepared for her to appear out of thin air like this.
"What—How'd you even find me?" he asked, blinking. And then he widened his eyes, gasping and looking down at his watch. "Did you put a tracker on my watch? I knew you were too good to be true!" He faux glared up at her as she laughed.
"You freakin' geek, your hotel is right there," she said, gesturing with a flick of her wrist over his shoulder. "Those windows are so massive, I could practically see you from the lobby when I walked in."
Chuck beamed and sank back into his chair with a sigh. "So what you're saying is you came here looking for me." With one finger he slowly slid his sunglasses back up the bridge of his nose cheekily.
The scuba instructor crossed her arms and rolled her eyes, leaning back against the wooden railing his table was pushed against. "You think you're so special, but I'm off work today which means the rest of the gang are all tied up with customers, and I have no one else to go out on the water with." She shrugged. "You're my guy."
He had something flirtatious on the tip of his tongue, but instead, he sat up straight and blinked again. "Wait, hold on. You're taking a boat out on your day off? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of the day off?"
She smirked. "Nah. I love it out there. And anyway, it's different when I'm leading a dive for Scuba Shack. We have specific places we take paying customers to for safety reasons. We're more familiar with those places and there's less risk that way. When I take the boat out by myself or with a couple of my friends, we can actually do some legitimate exploration."
Squinting up at her, he smiled a bit. "That makes sense." But then an icy shiver went down his spine as the realization that she wanted him to go on the boat with her sunk in. "Oh, uh…So you want me to…? I mean, I don't…want to impose."
He felt incredibly lame and rolled his eyes at himself with a sigh. That was easily the worst excuse he could've possibly tossed at her. And he was an incredible idiot for it.
Thankfully she was tactful enough to bypass it. "I've gone out alone before, but it's probably not altogether safe. Look at it this way, you'd be protecting me this time." He gave her a flat look and she winced a little, putting one hand out, palm up. "…In a way? Sort of?"
That nose wrinkle she finished with was too damn cute and he nearly whined at how unfair it was for her to use it on him.
When he looked away, knowing he must have appeared unsettled at the very least but not expending the energy to cover it up, Sarah grabbed a nearby chair and set it in front of him, sitting in it and leaning close.
"Chuck, I'll be with you again. We'll go together. And you're going to see amazing things. I've got a picnic all packed up for after the dive. And we'll only stay down there for a bit."
Without really knowing he was doing it, he glanced over her shoulder out at the daunting, gaping ocean that seemed to just go on forever. He lifted his gaze to the sky above it. There were no clouds to speak of, not even the light wispy ones…But still…Mother Nature worked fast all those years ago. It had happened so suddenly. And he knew it could happen again.
"The skies are clear," Sarah said quickly, as though she was reading his mind. "The water is perfect for a dive today."
He rubbed his hands down his shorts nervously. "Oh. Well, that's good but, uh…" Chuck decided to keep asking her questions, prolonging the inevitable perhaps, but he'd do whatever he could to push off stepping foot on a boat again. He felt like a loser, a failure, for being this way when he'd had such a life-changing time on the dive two days earlier, but he kept on anyway. Enough time had passed between then and now that the courage and headiness was gone today. The age-old fear was there instead.
"What exactly are you looking for out there? I-I mean, do you have a particular place in mind?" he deflected.
"Mhm. There's a cove my friend Gina found a few weeks ago while she was out kayaking with her girlfriend. It's hard to get to, she said. If you go on land, there's a lot of rock climbing you'd have to do, so you can only get there by boat. Probably two hours out, two hours back from here."
"H-Here? Did you bring the boat here?"
"Mhm." She shrugged. Then she turned and glanced over her shoulder, putting a hand up to shield her eyes from the sun, then pointing. "Yep, you can see the boat from here."
Chuck climbed to his feet and pushed up against the railing, his gaze following where she pointed. There was a boat there that was significantly smaller than the one he'd been on two days earlier. He narrowed his eyes. "True Love II?" he asked, turning to raise an eyebrow at her.
She shrugged and stood next to him to meet his gaze. "Alexei is a huge fan of The Philadelphia Story."
"I…don't really understand the reference."
Her eyes widened. "Don't ever tell him that. Better yet, I'm making you watch the movie before I put you in front of my boss again."
"Oh, it's a movie? I mean, I like movies. I wouldn't say no." A thought struck him, then. "Heeeey, how 'bout this? We go up to my suite, I download Philadelphia Story onto my laptop, and we have a movie day. Then I can get film education, not get beat up by your boss, and you don't have to deal with my crippling distrust of the ocean and knee-buckling fear of being out on the open water, WE ALL WIN. Let's go!"
But her hand held fast on his wrist, pulling him back to stand next to her. He made a whiney face and let his head hang, his chin falling to his chest.
"Chuck, I know you're still afraid. I sort of figured what happened the other day wasn't going to magically cure you of your fear of the ocean. That isn't usually how that works. But I was hoping it was at least a step in the right direction." She leaned in and knelt a little to catch his eye. "I was hoping you'd take another step with me today."
He didn't know if it was the look she was giving him, or if it was the tone in her voice, but God, he wanted so badly to make her happy. He didn't want to disappoint her. And because he was only human, a large part of him wanted her to be impressed by him, too.
Chuck pulled his bottom lip between his teeth and hummed, wrinkling his nose. "I'm sorry. I know I'm being such a loser right now. Goin' down there with you was—it was amazing, Sarah. And in no way, shape, or form, did the ocean do anything to hurt me. It was beautiful and life-affirming and a thousand other magical things. I just…" How could he even finish that? What could he say?
"You're scared," she said, and there wasn't even an ounce of judgment or accusation or even teasing. It was matter-of-fact. "It's okay, Chuck. I get it. You went through something horrific. You're afraid it'll happen again, and that's nothing to be ashamed of."
"Thank you, but I am ashamed. Every single part of me knows I shouldn't be letting my fear of the ocean hold me back anymore, especially after you took me down there the other day, but…" He huffed and shrugged, pushing a hand through his hair in embarrassment. "This is actually kind of…uh, embarrassing, actually. I'll go. I'll go, I'll go, I'm just—"
"Hey, hey…" She chuckled kindly and grabbed at his arm, pulling him back next to her as he pushed away from the railing. "Listen. We're not on the boat yet. You really don't want to go, I'm not going to make you, Chuck. I can't make you do anything. I'm just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to…go out on a dive in a shallow cove and maybe spot some sea turtles."
Powers above help him, he laughed. And in that moment, he was supremely certain that this woman he'd only met two days earlier would never leave his memory. No matter who he met in the next sixty years or so of his life, she would always be there, an ever-present warmth deep in his mind.
That thought floated away then as he shook his head at her and pointed. "I understood that reference."
"Oh, good. One out of two isn't half bad."
"It's literally the definition of half bad."
This time, she laughed. "Touché, Curls. Touché."
"You said sea turtles?" He pressed his lips together and screwed his face up, rocking to the side. "They're so cool, gaaaah. If you'd said something less cool like…I don't know, what's a non-cool fish?"
"Ummmm, I can't really help you with that one."
"No?"
"Mmm no. Sorry." She giggled.
"Well, bottom line, sea turtles are legit."
"They are legit. That's why I'm about to go take a boat two hours east to a small cove a friend of mine told me about. She apparently saw dozens of them there. Leatherbacks, no less."
Chuck widened his eyes. "Oooh, leatherbacks, huh? I have no idea what that means, but I'm just going to assume they're the cool turtles in turtle school."
She giggled and shook her head, her blue eyes sparkling a little. He felt a stab of pride in his chest that he'd put that sparkle there. "You're right. They're singularly radical. But also, they lay their eggs around this time of the year so that's why there might be more of them in particular."
"Oh. That makes sense."
There was a long pause, and she gave him an equally long look, tilting her her chin down a bit. "So? What do ya say, Bartowski? Wanna come with me? Otherwise I'll be…all by myself." She pouted a bit and looked out at the boat. "And I packed more fried chicken and pasta salad than one person can eat, that's for sure. Not to mention…" She paused, giving him a flirtatious side-eye. "…I'm not sure it's altogether safe for me to finish that bottle of champagne all by my lonesome and try to get the boat back in one piece…"
"You drink and drive? Steer? Pilot?"
"I've never gotten wasted and piloted a boat."
"So it is pilot." She gave him a look. "Sorry."
"You'll never know if you don't go with me."
He took a deep breath, squeezing his hands on the railing hard, willing himself to be brave, to have courage, if only to spend an entire day with the magnificent woman who'd brought her boat to the dock in front of his hotel and purposely sought him out to ask him.
"I just …" He sighed. "I can't."
}o{
"I said can't, didn't I? With the apostrophe and the 't' at the end? Cannnn'tttt," he emphasized.
She laughed from her place at the wheel, poking her head out of the small fiberglass enclosed area inside of which were the controls. She was beaming at him. "Well, that was the first thing you said. But then I flashed my baby blues and you were like putty in my hands."
Her grin turned cheeky as he made a teasingly begrudging face in her direction. "It's just rude," he said over the motor. "Incredibly rude."
She laughed again and ducked back inside.
After he told her he couldn't do it, she accepted it. Then she moved up on her tiptoes and gave him a kiss on his cheek, squeezing his hand before walking away. She got to the edge of the steps that led down to the street below and the dock beyond that before he leapt into action and raced after her, telling her to wait.
He felt like such a predictable sap, but he couldn't really make himself feel all that bad about it in spite of the nerves in his stomach.
"Hey, you! Tall guy!"
He turned from where he was staring out at the water and narrowed his eyes at her, smirking all the same. She smirked back with a "C'mere."
Crossing the deck, he positioned himself at the entrance to the wheelhouse, placing his hands on either side of the opening and leaning in close. "Hey, so listen. Not to toot my own boat horn," he started, earning a snort and a flash of her blue eyes in his direction, "but I'm pretty proud of myself right now. Like, I'm semi-okay out here."
"I'm proud of you, too," she said, sincerity in her tone and features. "I'm keeping closer to the shore where you can see it for that very reason."
"Sweet of you, Scuba Sarah."
She grinned, shaking her head at the nickname. "I have my moments."
"So what's this thingy called, by the way? That you're in. Can I call it the bridge?"
Chuck couldn't tell if she was charmed, but he liked to think the closed mouth smile she gave him, that sparkle in her eyes, meant she was. "You got on the boat with me, so you can call it whatever you want."
He chuckled. "Well, thanks for that, but what's it called? Really? I wanna know. If I'm ever on a boat again with Mr. Volkoff—uh, your boss—I want to know at least a little bit about the boat I'm on. So I don't sound insanely stupid. Like, for instance, what kind of boat is this? I mean, obviously, it isn't a sailboat. It has no sails."
She giggled. "Uhh, no, not a sailboat. I guess it's technically a trawler, but a small one. We don't use it for serious fishing expeditions or anything like that." She wrinkled her forehead and pursed her lips in thought. "Come to think of it, I don't even think Alexei Volkoff owns a fishing rod, let alone a net, so there's that."
"And this is?" he asked, gesturing again to the fiberglass box she stood inside, lording over the controls like a bad ass captain who also happened to be unfairly attractive.
"Wheelhouse, I guess. I still have a lot to learn about boating, probably. I never took an actual test or anything."
His jaw dropped. "What? Isn't it like driving a car? Don't you need a license or a card or something?"
She shook her head. "People get it sometimes, if they want cheaper insurance or whatever. But it isn't required."
"Ah, I see. Well, you pilot fantastically, for the record. Very attentive to, uh, what you're doing. As someone who has, um, issues with the ocean and boats—to put it nicely—I very much appreciate that." She giggled again but didn't say anything. He cleared his throat, stepping a little further into the wheelhouse. "So…how'd you get into this anyway? Diving, I mean. And I guess, by extension, becoming an instructor. I assume Alexei's the one who hired you."
"He is," she nodded. "I went diving a few times in Buenos Aires with a, um, friend, and I really liked it. So when I moved to Kauai, I'd been working at that restaurant I took you to for about a month or so. One of my coworkers invited me with some of his friends out on a diving trip and I was like, hell yes. In Hawaii? Like, I honestly don't know what I was thinking not going on a dive in Hawaii of all places before that moment." She shook her head and smirked, continuing to face forward as she held the wheel.
"Anyway, Scuba Shack has a group deal for five or more and we were a party of six, so we got our own boat and Alexei was our instructor slash guide. He and I hit it off really well and he kind of took me under his wing. One of his instructors was leaving for med school that next week, so he made me a proposition. I started work the next week."
"Just like that?" Chuck asked, lifting an eyebrow. He wasn't going to say it out loud, but it seemed almost crazy that Alexei would trust Sarah to take care of his customers and keep them safe after only one dive with her.
"I know. Pretty trusting," she said, and he hoped what he'd been thinking hadn't shown in his face. "I mean, he and Kai, his sort of partner—I'll explain in a sec—" she added when he gave her a curious look, "took me out for dives nearly every day for a couple of weeks. The training was intense and I thought 'What the hell did I get myself into?' at least a dozen times, but six and a half months later, I'm here and I'm good with it." She paused. "And Kai and Alexei are kind of a complicated subject. Not in a bad way," she rushed, holding a hand up. "There isn't drama or anything, but Kai had the idea for Scuba Shack and Alexei had the money, so they're only kind of partners. Alexei is the only official owner. On paper."
"Ah, got it. Like if I'd started BarTech with a rich person's money and my ideas, instead of…what I ended up doing."
"Right." Then she eyed him and it went on long enough that he blushed a bit. "Though, what you did is a lot more impressive. For the record.""Still doing," he said, trying to deflect a bit.
Chuck wondered where Alexei Volkoff had gotten the money Sarah spoke of, but he thought it'd be bad form to ask her when it was none of his business. He couldn't help imagining up crazy scenarios, though, while a comfortable silence settled over them both as the boat cut through the Pacific towards their destination. The owner of Scuba Shack was British, clearly. Namely English. And it was a crisp, highbrow accent. Maybe he had royal blood or something. The money might've been in his family, and he felt oppressed and restricted in that atmosphere so he split to Hawaii to have a career as a scuba instructor.
And then his mind went somewhere a little more dangerous, and a lot cooler. Alexei Volkoff wasn't his real name and the accent was fake. He was actually in a witness protection program and the government or something shipped him off to Hawaii with a bunch of money to escape the criminal mastermind he informed on. Maybe the scuba instructor used to be a criminal mastermind himself.
Rad.
"Hey, I hate to ask you, but can you do me a favor?" Chuck shook himself and met her eye, nodding. "Can you go below and grab me a water from the fridge? When you go down there, it's the door at the end of the hall."
Chuck leaned in and squinted one eye at her. "Yarrrrr! Be that in the galley?" he growled in his best pirate accent.
She lifted her eyebrows at him. "It's a room that has a table, two chairs, a sink, and a fridge. You doofus."
"Oh." He leaned back again and made a disappointed face. "I'll go grab you one."
"Thanks," she chuckled.
Chuck swung himself out of the wheelhouse and went to the hatch that led below. He made quick work of the ladder and jumped the last few feet to land with a thump against the wood floor, then he turned, blinking a few times to let his eyes adjust. There was a panel on the wooden wall nearby that had a switch, however. He flicked it, wincing for fear it was something else that might suck him out of the bottom of the boat, but all it did was turn on the hallway light. "Oh."
He wandered down the hall, pushing open the first door. It was an incredibly small room, maybe four feet by four, that included only a toilet and a vanity with a sink. "Cozy," he mumbled to himself, ducking out of the bathroom and going to the next door.
She'd said the fridge was behind the last door at the end of the hallway, and he'd heard her clear enough, but he'd never been on any boats with multiple rooms belowdecks. And she wouldn't mind if he explored a bit, would she? He wrinkled his nose and squinted, realizing how unethical this was, snooping around one of Scuba Shack's boats unattended. He was just curious enough to risk it.
As he pushed open the next door and turned on the light, he was met with a surprise. It was a cabin, and it was pretty big, considering the True Love II was considered a smallish trawler. Apparently. At least, that was how Sarah described it. There was a bed that was about the same size as his bed in his first dorm room at Stanford—twin extra long. And still his feet had poked off the end just a bit. He imagined his feet would do the same on this one. But there was a small desk and a chair, a small closet with some drawers installed in it at the bottom, and a porthole that let natural sunlight flood in, and a makeshift curtain they must have hung up themselves for if whoever stayed here felt like sleeping in.
It was rather homey. And it made him smile a little.
He flicked off the light and walked down the hall to the last door. He pushed it open and turned on the light, realizing Sarah hadn't been lying. It really was just a room with a table, two chairs, a stove with a small counter, a sink, and a fridge. As well as a bunch of junk piled up. They must have used it as a kitchen and as their official storage area. There were wetsuits hanging up, fins, goggles, air tanks, snorkels, and, he couldn't help but notice, an array of sharp-looking diving knives.
"Niiicccce," he drawled to himself, moving in close and carefully running his fingers along the flat part of one of the knife blades.
Deciding he'd already taken too long, he went to the fridge and popped it open. Their food was there, all laid out and ready to eat on the bottom shelves of the fridge. It made his stomach growl a little, but he grabbed a water and denied himself the pleasure of popping one of the green grapes into his mouth.
Thinking twice, he reached in and grabbed a second bottle, then shut the fridge and made his way back down the hallway. He stuffed the waters in the pockets of his trunks and climbed back up to the top deck.
"Oh, good!" Sarah chirped, hanging her head out of the wheelhouse. "I thought maybe you'd accidentally fallen into the toilet and flushed yourself out to sea."
He narrowed his eyes at her as he walked back to the wheelhouse, charmed by the cheeky grin she flashed him, her tongue poking out from between her teeth. "I got a little lost in how cool it is down there, to be honest with you. I, uh, maybe…poked around a little." He winced.
Sarah smiled and shook her head as he ducked in with her. "Don't worry about it. I moved the dead body before I left to pick you up."
He pointed at her and leaned back a little. "Good move."
"Thank you," she responded with a flirtatious eyebrow raise. And then she took the water he offered her. "And thank you."
"No sweat." He opened his bottle and took a long drink, emptying almost half of it in mere seconds. "So there's, like, a bedroom down there, by the way."
"Yes, I know."
"I—I mean, of course you know. You'd know that. I just mean, that's cool. Do you guys ever stay in the boats? I mean, sleeping there and stuff? Like a little boat house. There were a lot of those in the harbor in Seattle. Or do they call it the sound?" He shrugged.
Sarah shrugged back. "Alexei has before, when he didn't want to go home between dives and needed a nap or something. His house is a good forty-five minute drive away, worse in traffic. I'd just as soon go home to my own bed, though."
"I get that. It's a nice little room, though."
"Mhm."
Chuck let the silence overtake them again, leaning against the fiberglass and just looking out at the ocean beyond, unable to help himself from looking up at the sky. It was perfectly clear, and he knew Sarah was right. They wouldn't have to fear bad weather today. But he still checked anyway.
"Hey, so…I have a seriously important question for you," he finally said after a good ten minutes, the intermittent silence relatively comfortable.
He was met with a curious look. But there was something a bit cautionary in her blue eyes as well. He stored that away in the back of his mind for later, and reminded himself that Sarah Walker was still very much unknown to him; her inner workings, the things that existed deep inside of her. And he sensed there might be a reason why she was guarded after an introduction like the one he'd just tossed at her. Was she guarded about a lot of things, he wondered? Or, perhaps, everything?
"…Are we there yet?"
Her loud, sudden laugh and amused "Shut up" powered him through the last half hour of their journey, a shot of happiness surging through his veins.
}o{
Chuck broke the surface first, pulling his mouthpiece out from between his lips and taking a few deep breaths. Unlike the stupidly large amount of movies that had been made in which people came up after a dive only to find their boat had drifted away while they were below, the True Love II bobbed about in front of him.
He had half a mind to wave at it, he was so relieved to see it.
But then Sarah's head popped up next to him and she removed her own mouthpiece, her blue eyes shining in the sunlight behind the goggles she wore over them. "Hungry?" she asked, grinning and a little breathless.
"Absolutely," he responded, moving his goggles up to rest on his curls and splashing his face with water. It felt amazing. They waded back to the boat and Sarah had Chuck climb up first. He ditched his tank as Sarah made her way up the rope ladder and then he hastened over to grab her hand and help her hop down from the railing with the loud slap of her flippers smacking the wooden deck.
"So how was it?" Sarah asked, getting rid of her own tank and dropping her goggles on the bench as she sat to yank her flippers off of her feet.
"Okay, first of all, that was unbelievable. Sea turtles are legitimately the coolest. But I also have to say, they were so much bigger than I thought they'd be and part of me was intimidated. Just being honest." He nearly toppled as he tried to step out of his flippers, and as he caught himself on the nearby railing, Sarah's eyes widened. She didn't do a great job at hiding her amusement, and he didn't do a great job at hiding his blush as a result.
"I appreciate your honesty," she teased. And then she halted a bit, twisting her lips to the side and pushing her wet hair back from her face. "But um, I mean…you were underwater. And we had to swim through the rocks to get into the cave. I kind of had to force you. And I had some misgivings about it. Your whole…thing with the ocean. Are you okay? I feel a little bad for pressuring you. But there's no other way to get into that cove, you know?" She squinted at him and held a hand up to shield her eyes from the sun since it was positioned directly behind his shoulder.
"Oh. That." He ran his hands over his curls and ruffled them, sending water cascading everywhere and earning a sweet little smile from the scuba instructor, one that he thought meant she found what he'd just done cute. He hoped. He started unzipping his wetsuit then. "Yeah. I mean, I don't know if the nerves will ever go away. And that tunnel was dark enough that you had to use a flashlight so I…I'm not gonna lie, the tunnel had me panicking, but I breathed like you taught me and just held your hand as tight as I possibly could without crushing your fingers." The water was much shallower in the cove where they'd just explored, however, and being able to see the bottom floor and the surface so close together had eased that horrific open sea phobia of his quite a bit. Once they got through that hellish tunnel. "But this was better," was the only explanation he gave her. "Much, much better. I mean, I feel like I did better. Do you feel like I did better?"
Sarah grinned at him. Hard. "I do. And I'm glad. Though I wish I'd brought my GoPro with me so that I could capture the look on your face when that turtle floated up to you."
He made a pained face. "I wanted to high five her so bad. Her cool little flipper."
Sarah rocked to the side with laughter. "Well, I'm glad you didn't because that's illegal."
Chuck gaped. "Really?" She nodded. "I suppose that's a good thing. Deters people from harassing the marine life."
"Exactly why there's a law." She giggled again as he struggled to untangle the goggles from his hair. And then she closed the distance and reached up to carefully free his locks from the rubber strap. Their eyes met and she smirked. "Deja vu, huh?"
He chuckled. "Heeeey, it iiiiiis."
"Don't get too excited. All that means is you never learn your lesson."
She laughed as she darted away from him, out of reach as he made to grab her. "Messed up," he said, shaking his head. "Just ruined a perfectly romantic moment."
Chuck couldn't help but watch closely as she peeled the wetsuit down her body, giving him a sincerely salacious look over her shoulder as she wiggled her hips and stepped out of the suit. "Did I?"
With a gulp, he shook his head no, then nodded yes, then shook his head again…of the cobwebs, it had to be said. "Wha—?"
She let out a one syllable giggle, a soft hum through her nose, and shook her head. "God, you're so cute. Put on something more comfortable and meet me down in the galley," she said with a teasing emphasis on the word.
He watched her walk away from him in nothing but her green bikini and his mouth moved without him realizing what it was doing. "Are you, uh, gonna put on other things? I mean, on top of that? Over your bikini? I mean, to cover up the…bikini…" He only got a supremely amused and charmed look sent at him as she opened the hatch to below. "Is that a…yes? Or…?" She wordlessly lowered herself in and climbed out of sight. "Or no? Right." He made a popping sound with his lips and turned away, hurriedly stripping down to his trunks.
Control yourself, a voice in his head chastised as he nearly fell again. But that was a tall order with someone like Sarah the scuba instructor around. And in a bikini, no less. He sincerely hoped he went down there and she was in a robe that covered everything but her neck and head. Otherwise, he might eventually combust and Sarah would no longer be teasing about that dead body on her boat.
Willing himself to stop being so weirdly dark with his thoughts, and chalking it up to his could've-maybe-almost-been-death in the dark passageway of doom to the magical cove, he wrapped a towel around his waist, peeled his trunks down his legs, and stepped out of them, shrugging on his T-shirt and grabbing his trunks and backpack.
Once he carefully eased himself down below, he followed the sound of Sarah rummaging around to room at the end of the hall. He discovered with a conflicting bit of relief and also disappointment that she donned her shorts and camisole over her suit, wetting the material of both and not seeming to care much as she straightened from where she leaned into the refrigerator. "Hope you like chicken, pasta, and fruit. Uh… Oh! And champagne. Can you open that, actually? While I get everything laid out?"
"I love all of the above, and yes, of course. Gimme, I got it." He snagged the bottle from her and braced his hand on the bottle, the other starting to unscrew the safety lid over the cork. Then he stopped and looked around. "Uh…hmm. I'll be back, gonna go up top to pop this cork."
She made a face and scurried around the table, taking the bottle back from him. "Hey, wait, wait…hold on. You can do it here."
"Oh. I, uh…I don't want to break anything in here, send the cork shooting off and popping one of us in the eye or something."
Smirking, she shook her head and grabbed a dishtowel from the table. "Do you normally let the cork just shoot off when you open champagne?"
Chuck watched as she unscrewed the safety top and covered the cork with the towel, pulling the cork out safely and setting both on the table again.
"Mhm. Preferably in the direction of my cranky neighbor, yes."
She laughed and went to take the chicken and pasta out of the bag. "Sorry I don't really have a way of warming this up. Hope cold chicken is okay."
"You kiddin' me? Sounds great. This nerd," he said, pointing at himself with both thumbs, "is a cold chicken fiend. I could eat it all day, every day—especially fried."
She smiled at him.
Eventually, they both sat down at the table, the food spread in front of them. It was a small enough table that Sarah's knees regularly brushed against his as they ate. And he noticed every single time. He felt it acutely. Everywhere. And he really should grab some boxers out of his backpack and put those on.
But then it'd be so obvious. Why the hell hadn't he put them on up on deck? He was still a little damp down there, that was why, but…damn it. Damn it!
That was so stupid.
"So okay, I've been wondering something," she said, interrupting him as she chewed some chicken, licking her lips. "You've called yourself nerdy and geeky and dweeby and…whatever else…a couple of times now, and I guess I'm just curious…why?" She leaned closer and propped her chin on her elbow. "You seem like you aren't any of those things. I mean, you have the tech career and I guess people always talk about 'computer geeks'," she said, throwing up the bunny ears, "but that is kind of antiquated. If you don't know how to work a computer or a phone in the twenty-first century, you're going to be left behind."
Chuck smirked and took a bite out of his drumstick, chewing thoughtfully. "Well, it's any number of things. You just aren't getting a real feel for me yet."
"On the contrary, I've gotten quite the feel…if you catch my drift."
He caught her drift, and was it hot and stuffy down here in this room, or was it just him? He pulled at the front of the shirt he'd shrugged into after their dive, letting a bit of air in at the collar, but it didn't help much. And, again, he wished he'd put on more than the freaking towel he was still wearing.
"Well, uh…" He cleared his throat. "I, uh, I do. Catch your drift, that is. Um. But if you spend enough time with me, you'll figure out exactly what it is that makes me such a nerd."
"So…you aren't going to tell me, is that it?" she asked, her voice deep as she lowered her chin and looked at him through her long eyelashes, a slow smirk growing on her face.
He inwardly smirked back. "No," he said with a shrug. "You're just going to have to find out organically."
She widened her eyes, amused. "Why? Think I'm gonna kick you into the cove if what you tell me sounds bad enough?"
"No," he chuckled. "For as bad of a nerd as I am…I mean, it can get intense if I'm around the right people…I don't tend to have much shame about it."
"You can't be that bad," she said, beaming. He made a doubtful sound and tilted his head, making her laugh. "Oh, come on, what?"
"Nope."
"Tell me!"
"No."
"You can tell me." Then she stopped and her eyes widened. "Oh God, wait. Please don't tell me you're one of those grown men who like that Pony show. What is it, My Little Pony? I know there's a whole thing with some men and that show."
Chuck rocked forward laughing. Shaking his head, he pushed his fingers through his hair, waiting for his laughter to die down at least a little before he answered. "No. You don't have to worry about that. Though I do on occasion watch cartoons—I can't lie to you about that—I don't watch that particular program, no." She merely smiled, and he could tell she'd been teasing him in the first place, so he pointed at her and narrowed his eyes. "N'ahhhh. You're really good at that."
She shrugged one shoulder in faux modesty. "I'm okay."
"Give me time, and I'm going to start picking up on when you're pulling my leg."
Chuck noticed that Sarah didn't answer, merely smiling again and looking down at her food, stabbing a couple of elbow noodles and lifting them to her mouth.
They ate in comfortable silence, then, and he began to notice her doing a little more than just brushing her knees against his. Like her bare feet pressing against his on the wood floor. Her eyes would slowly drift up from her food to meet his gaze, she'd smirk, and then she'd look back down again while her toe rubbed against his ankle.
It took another few minutes but it eventually got to the point where he felt compelled to say something. So he put his plastic utensil down and sat up straighter, looking her right in the face as she lifted her wide, curious eyes to his face.
"Sarah, are you playing footsie with me?"
The scuba instructor looked amused, casting her gaze to the side as she tried to suppress it. She swallowed the food she'd been chewing and raised her eyebrows. "Well, sort of. It's a little one-sided at the moment."
His jaw nearly fell, but he just caught it in time. "W—uh, what?"
"I said it's a little one-sided at the moment. I'm doing all the work."
Chuck was sincerely at a loss. He had no idea how to respond to that, so he just stared, his mouth gaping, eyebrows furrowed as he struggled to come up with something to say.
"Honestly, how do the people who're around you all the time even handle how adorable you are? I'm so serious." A smile was growing on her features as she shook her head, and then she gently draped her foot over the top of his, curling her toes. Again, he was speechless. His mind was boggled, his heart thumping in his chest so hard he could hear it in his ears and that was really distracting; he wished it would stop.
"Uh…" He cleared his throat. "They're around me all the time. So what you call adorable, they'd probably call annoying." It was a stupid thing to say, he knew, but she just smirked and gave him a dubious look in response.
"I wouldn't mind the opportunity to test that theory." Her eyes flicked away and she twisted her mouth to the side. He thought maybe she hadn't meant to say it. But he was so glad she had. The implication was clear. She liked being around him.
And even though he wanted to return the sentiment, he thought maybe she'd appreciate it more if he pretended she hadn't said it at all. So he sought to ease her discomfort instead.
"You know, I'm gonna be real with you, Scuba Sarah. I don't entirely understand the concept of footsie when you aren't in public." He lifted an eyebrow and tilted his head with a shrug. "I get it if, say, you're in a restaurant and you're surrounded by other people, and you're coming onto your date under the table where no one can see it, you know? But, like, when there's no one around, just us in here? I dunno, might as well skip the footsie and go straight to the 'Chuck, I want your bod' part."
He grinned, sticking his tongue through his teeth, wrinkling his nose. He thought she understood that he was teasing, being a dork, when her jaw fell open and she laughed, kicking him in the shin lightly with her foot that had just been draped over his.
But then he wondered if she took his words seriously when she leaned over the table and looked him right in the eye, a soft smirk on her face, her voice low. "Fine, then. Chuck, I want your bod." She shrugged one shoulder. "How's that? Besides the fact that 'bod' is not something I would ever actually say in seriousness."
"Uh…" He blinked.
"Now, would you prefer I crawl over the table? Or are you coming over here to me?"
"Wait, wait…Are we—Is this for real?"
She merely raised her eyebrows.
"Are you pullin' my leg?" he asked, looking for even a smidgeon of clarification. Because this whole thing was affecting him in a way that was all too clear. He squirmed a little in his chair as a result.
"What if I wasn't? Would that be maybe a little too brazen for you?" There was a slight tinge of pink on her cheeks, but her blue eyes met his brown ones in complete sincerity.
"Full disclosure?" She nodded at his question immediately. "No."
She paused. "No…it…wouldn't be too brazen?"
Chuck shook himself and cleared his throat, putting his hand down in the middle of the table and looking straight into her questioning eyes. "We're talking in circles now, so I'm just going to ask you if you want to have sex right now. Do you want to have sex right now?"
"I absolutely do."
A thrill went through him and he let the desire he'd been trying to suppress show on his face in all its glory. "There's a bedroom with a bed down the hall, as you know.
"I do know."
"It's a little short for me, maybe, but I have no problem making do."
"Neither do I."
"Great."
"Good."
The small bit of food remaining in the containers on the table was left there in the makeshift kitchen of the small boat, and the door to the hallway was left swinging on its hinges as the scuba instructor and computer genius disappeared into the bedroom where they made the too-short bed do just fine.
A/N: Let me know what you think. Hit that review button. Thanks, all. :)
-SC