The ship has flung me off a thousand times in the night and still I crawl back onboard only to be tossed into the darkened sea on the next invisible wave. This time he plucks me out of the salt and ash and pulls me back, keeping me in his arms tightly even though we are both soaked to the bone, ice-cold but growing warmer by the minute.
Lochlan holds up his hand and lights his fingers aflame one by one, a birthday cake we only celebrate in this one place where he is a pirate and I am a mermaid and he melts my ice with his fire but it never seems to be enough.
Oh, it's enough, Circus Peanut.
I laugh shakily, my teeth chattering against the cold slicked down flannel covering his heart. Is it? What if it kills us?
Then we'll go out knowing this was the greatest love and the best birthday of all time.
Now I know you're lying.
I never ever lie, though.
Yes, you do. You told me everything was going to be okay.
And it is because you're here with me. It's the happiest birthday I have ever had, Bridget, and you're never ever going to top it.
I'll top it next year. I'm going to buy us lifejackets so this stops happening all the damn time.
If you don't want to go out on the boat we don't have to.
Maybe we'll just wear the lifejackets on land too. Then we'll be extra-safe.
That's a very good plan.
***
For Lochlan's birthday I got him a sailboat so my waking-dream was themed perfectly. It's not large, it's just a fifteen-footer, basic Marlowe with an open hull but he's always wanted to learn to sail and I get to be the one to teach him. It might hold three of us if one of us greases up but it's small and safe and gleaming and he absolutely loves it.