Chapter Text
It was Stede’s first boat. She was a gorgeous Cape Dory 36, well-loved, with wood trim and a new coat of blue paint. Stede had found her in Casco Bay of all places and intended to sail her home to California. She’d come named Laze About and he hadn’t the foggiest what to change it to.
Stede was staying in Freeport while he got his bearings and fiddled with his new purchase. He was used to full-service marinas out west, all shiny and protected, with a seaside restaurant named The Cliffs or Table By the Sea.
Stede was not used to gruff seamen who eyed him carefully as they ferried him to his mooring every morning for weeks under the gray skies of the early Maine summer. (Who thought moorings were a good idea when docks were a perfectly good way to store a boat?)
Stede adjusted his monogrammed L.L. Bean boat bags and pulled his jacket tighter around his shoulders as he tried to remember the man’s name. Iggy something? Izzy!
“It’s going to rain later,” Izzy said.
Stede nodded absently. It always seemed to rain here. It was blustery and wet even on the nicest days.
“Boats get slick in weather like this.”
Stede looked at Izzy again. Dark hair with a touch of gray, goatee, square glasses. He was dressed in one of those well-loved knit sweaters, probably something created by a long-suffering spouse, and had a beanie on his head like something out of a movie.
Izzy cleared his throat and Stede locked eyes with him. “Oh, you needn’t worry about me,” Stede said.
Izzy gave him a look that said otherwise.
As Stede stepped onto his vessel, he gave Izzy a jaunty wave and promptly lost his footing. Strong arms caught him as Stede narrowly avoided slipping into the drink.
There was a beat of closeness. Stede had braced for pain, for cold, for a tumble. He had not braced for a hint of cologne on the sea air.
And then it was gone.
“Remember: channel five for the return,” Izzy said as he tapped his radio and drove the skiff off.
Stede took a moment to gather his wits and set about unlocking the cabin. The stern wasn’t covered so the seating around the helm was damp and Stede winced as he set down his bags. He intended to spend the night for the first time and had brought a few nibbles as well as his basic toiletries.
After a few hours of scrubbing and surveying his new sailboat, Stede sat down to a lobster roll and a bag of vinegar chips from the marina general store. Casco Bay was a beautiful inlet with dusty evergreen trees that lined a coastline littered with black rocks and bright seaweed. The water was glassy when it was still, which wasn’t often, and the air was infused with the damp saltiness of Maine’s coastal breezes.
As much as Stede kvetched over the gray skies and missed his sunny afternoons, he was growing to love this funny little place.
Night fell and Stede used the battery power built in to turn on his little galley stove and make some pasta. He had memories of his mother making spaghetti during their trips offshore but little functional knowledge and he swore as he burned his thumb on the hot metal of the boiling pot.
As Stede pulled down the table from the bulkhead in the living space for his meal, he realized that the air was still chilly. Perhaps boats were just damp at night?
Having nothing else to do, Stede set up his bed in the bedroom in the bow (V-berth, he mentally corrected himself), and, as he climbed up with his book, he shivered. Best to keep the sweater on.
An hour later, Stede was miserable. It was half past 9 pm, dark, damp, and still frustratingly cold in his cabin. He hopped out of bed and picked up the radio.
“This is Stede Bonnet on Laze About and I need help.”
A few minutes later, a gruff voice responded. “Laze About, that is not how you use the radio.”
Stede frowned. “Well, I’d love to follow protocol but I’m slowly freezing to death out here.”
Silence.
“As a patron of your marina, I would expect that you’d prefer that I not die of hypothermia.”
“Oh for Christ’s sake. I’ll be right there.”
Right there turned out to be half an hour and by the time Stede saw the lights of his rescue vessel, nearly 10 pm. He threw a jacket over his silk pajamas and resolved to drive back first-thing in the morning.
Izzy was more ruffled than the last time Stede had seen him. His tailored jeans had been traded for soft gray sweatpants and he wore a faded navy hoodie under a windbreaker.
“The fuck happened to your heat?”
Stede sat down on the dinghy. “If I knew, do you think I’d have called you?”
No response to that one.
Stede watched as his little boat got smaller and smaller until it was almost difficult to find in the darkness. The dark of a Maine night felt watchful to him, not haunted, not quite at least, but careful. Aware. It made Stede feel small. He clutched his boat bag in his arms and tried not to feel like a fool.
“Bit silly of me to think I could just buy a boat,” Stede muttered into the darkness and damp air.
“A bit, yeah,” Izzy said with a gruff laugh.
They reached the dock, and Stede stood. “Thank you for rescuing me. I’ll be sure to tell the marina owner.”
The man turned off the boat and helped Stede onto the dock. “You just did. Israel Hands, nice to meet you.”