I always picture Thomas as Tristan and Isolde Henry Cavill. With the hair.
Thomas's POV. Set post White Night.
"We're lost."
"We're not—"
"We are lost as hell," said Harry, who was slightly sunburnt. He had to duck a little to fit into the Water Beetle's wheelhouse, but was rocking the Hawaiian shirt I had given him; blue and printed with Bigfoot surfing at Hanalei Bay.
The trip had been my suggestion – it was my boat, after all. After handling that mess with my extended family, and acting as my gigantic, dorky gay cover story, I felt I kind of owed my brother a reprieve; a few drinks, a couple of hours away from it all. It had taken some convincing to get him to agree, and he still probably would have preferred a gift card to Borders or something equally nerdy.
As it happened, his apprentice had overheard some of the conversation and invited herself along for some unrestrained end-of-summer fun. And to be polite, I invited his partner, who had brought a cooler and a barbecue grill because she actually knows how to have a good time.
"It's a lake," said Murphy, with a shrug.
Harry was unconvinced, and not the biggest fan of how being out in deep water tends to mess with magic users. "A huge lake—"
"What kind of dumbass gets lost in a lake—"
"I could," I interrupted their argument, bumping her with an elbow. "If it was as blue as your eyes."
Murphy snorted, unimpressed. One time, I had actually made her giggle. The cheesier the line, the better the reaction: behind her, Harry made The Face, and the overhead light flickered, almost imperceptibly.
The electronic nav equipment had given up the ghost at the same time Dude, She's Not My Freaking Girlfriend had shucked her flannel shirt and denim shorts to catch some rays in one of the deck chairs. Coincidentally, it had been right around the same time I'd had to introduce my little brother to the wonderful world of polarized sunglasses.
I couldn't really blame him. The Baywatch red two-piece and the blonde ponytail and the tight, toned everything was a force to be reckoned with, especially when combined with the fact that she grilled a mean cheeseburger and, you know, could kill a man with a single kick.
Poor Harry didn't stand a chance.
"Can't you just use the stars for steering or something?" asked Molly. "Isn't that something you do on a boat?"
… Though he seemed oddly immune to the bouncy, tattooed charms of Off Limits and I Shouldn't Have to Tell You That. The whole Suicide Girl aesthetic was more my scene, anyway, and just because you're on a diet doesn't mean you're not allowed to look at the dessert cart. She had been blissfully bikini-clad since setting foot on the Beetle, but was now huddled into one of the blankets from below deck, shivering.
"Well." My answer was punctuated by a soft rumble of thunder. "Sometimes." The storm had swept out of the north, the first autumn squall of the season. It was almost over, though; the rain had faded to intermittent drizzle. "Molly, there's stuff for hot chocolate in the cabin if you want to—"
The young woman was on her feet and headed inside before I finished the sentence, with a grateful look in my direction. The other two had lapsed back into their Much Ado bickering as I dug through the box of stuff beneath the controls, slinging jibes at one another and pretending they weren't enjoying it, though flushed faces and climbing heart rates begged to differ.
"We're three hour tour lost—"
"I don't know, Dresden. If the radio was made of coconuts, it might actually still work—"
I ignored them. I had been sailing since I was old enough to tie a proper knot, my sister had made sure of that. I could have gotten us safely back to town, blindfolded in a rowboat. I sorted through the old-school navigation equipment, got out a battered waterproof hydrographic map and an army-surplus compass.
As soon as the rain let up, my brother stomped back out onto the deck. After a moment, his partner followed. When I looked up from my map, they were standing towards the bow, having a conversation that was less snark and more shy smiles and hesitant eye-contact. The clouds had started to clear a little and the late-summer stars were bright overhead. I started whistling the Titanic theme as I plotted our course back to shore.
When I looked out again, Harry was glaring at me through the window as he leaned against the gunwale. I grinned and gave him a thumbs-up. His apprentice stepped out of the cabin and put a styrofoam cup in my hand.
"They argue like my parents." Molly took a sip from her own cup and grimaced. "Thank God they don't make up like my parents. Although, I dunno, maybe that might help."
"We could always accidentally lock them in the hold together for a couple hours," I suggested. "Put some R-and-B slow jams on, let them sort out some of that tension."
"Nah." The girl shook her head. "Murphy would figure it out like that—" she snapped her fingers.
"And then she'd kill us."
"And then she'd kill us," Molly agreed, nodding sagely. "And Harry would make popcorn and sell tickets."
"And they would bond over our gruesome murders while disposing of the bodies," I mused. "And then they'd bone. After we're too dead to say 'I told you so,' or collect on any bets—"
"Wait, what bets?" asked Molly, as we looked at each other, and then at Harry, who was staring daggers at us through the Plexiglas.
"Can he… can he hear what we're saying? Is that some kind of wizard thing?" I turned to Molly, but she was gone, the cabin door was swinging shut behind her.
Harry narrowed his eyes at me. He leaned down and muttered something to the itty bitty blonde. Whatever he said made her laugh brightly and smack him on the shoulder, and then she feigned a stumble, taking his arm when the Beetle plowed through a tall wave.
He grinned at me over her head, smug and wolfish and so brief I almost missed it.
Maybe my little brother didn't need my help, after all.
Next: Forest