He Had Me Drowned, Then Wept at My Grave novel · Chapter 22 of 24
Chapter 22: The Pilot Boat
The pilot boat rode the swell off Astoria with its engines idling and its lights out.
I stood in the wheelhouse with both hands flat on the cold glass and his mouth on the back of my neck.
"Tell me again whose boat this is," I said.
"The Association's."
"And what are you doing on it?"
"Taking a friend out to look at the bar lights," Anders said, against my skin.
"After hours.
"With the captain's permission."
"Does the captain know what the friend is doing?"
"The captain," he said, "is asleep in the galley, with his headphones on, and he's seventy-one."
I laughed, low.
It was the first week of November.
The rain had cleared for one night.
The mouth of the Columbia lay black and glittering below us, with the buoys blinking red and green.
A mile out, the bar broke white along its whole length.
A freighter lay at anchor in the roads with every deck light burning.
I could feel the swell through the soles of my boots.
I could feel him against my back, his hands at my waist and his chin on my shoulder.
"You said I could pick," I said.
"I did."
"Then pick up your hands."
He lifted them away from me.
I turned around in the narrow space between the wheel and the chart table.
I looked up at him in the green glow of the radar.
He had come straight from the station in his oilskin jacket, with his sandy hair standing up in the wind.
He was looking at me the way he always did.
I put my palm flat on his chest and pushed.
He went back a step, against the chart table, and I followed.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of He Had Me Drowned, Then Wept at My Grave are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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