I Discharged Two Shrimper Brothers, Then Took Them Both Home novel · Chapter 15 of 24
Chapter 15: The Bunk
Octavia's POV
Boone asked me to tie him.
He said it at the bottom of the hatch ladder, in the forward bunk of Miss Lorraine, with a coil of soft cotton line in his hand and the lantern swinging over his head.
It was Tuesday night, and the boat was tied up in the dark under the bridge.
He had come down the steel rungs by himself, one at a time, and I had watched him do it and not said a word.
"I don't want my hands loose on this boat, ma'am," he said.
"Boone."
"Please."
I looked at Rhett, who sat on the floor against the hull with his knees drawn up, because there was nowhere else for a man his size.
He said nothing.
He only nodded once, slowly, and his eyes were wet.
I took the line.
The bunk had a steel grab rail bolted above the pillow end.
Gran had raised me on a creek, and I knew a clove hitch and a bowline from the age of six.
"On your back," I said.
Boone lay down along the thin mattress with his boots hanging off the end.
I took his wrists one at a time and laid them over his head against the rail.
I wound the cotton twice around, and drew it snug, and made the knot.
"Too tight?"
"No, ma'am," he said.
"Pull."
He pulled.
The rail rang, and the knot held, and his big forearms strained against the line.
His chest rose and fell.
"Good," I said. "Now you can't reach anything."
He closed his eyes.
The lines went out of his forehead, and his jaw unlocked for the first time since the dock.
I stripped for him slowly in the lamplight, with the low steel ceiling an arm's length over my head.
It would have scraped the crown of either brother if he had knelt up.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of I Discharged Two Shrimper Brothers, Then Took Them Both Home are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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