Swearing under his breath, Marcos circled around the car and opened the door for his passenger. He hated that their date had to end like this. He'd wanted to drive around the island, maybe find a spot where they could sit and talk. Instead, some moron ran out of fuel about a mile offshore and needed a tow. Oh, and it looked like a storm was rolling in.

He held out a hand for Raphael, fully expecting the omega to ignore it and climb out on his own. To his surprise, that wasn't what actually happened. Raphael took his hand and accepted his help without comment. Maybe they were making progress after all.

Marcos caught himself grinning from ear to ear as he escorted Raphael to the front door of his house.

"I uh, I had a nice time tonight." Raphael met Marcos' gaze without flinching.

"Yeah, I did too. I'm sorry about this." Marcos exhaled forcefully and shook his head in apology. "Unfortunately that's yet another reason why most omegas aren't really content to stay with me. The coast guard takes priority a lot of times."

"I understand. There are lives at stake." Raphael shrugged as he dug his house keys out of his pocket.

"You say that now. You'll probably be saying something different if I get a call in the middle of sex or something." Marcos tried to laugh, but it wasn't really a joke. He really had been in that situation once before. It hadn't been a pleasant conversation he'd come home to.

"You should probably get going," Raphael said as he reached out and gave Marcos a gentle push. "Lives on the line and all that."

Marcos felt a little disappointed. He'd told himself that a goodbye kiss was too much to hope for but he couldn't help it. "Fine, but I want to take you out to breakfast in the morning."

"Aren't you worried I'll get bored of you?" teased Raphael. He half turned and pushed open his front door.

"All I know is I don't think I could ever get bored of you." Marcos felt his heart tighten as he spoke. Somehow he knew those words to be completely true. He would never be bored being around the willowy omega.

Sighing to himself, he turned back to the car. If he hurried he could probably get back to his apartment, change clothes, then jog over to the marina in little more than five minutes. Hopefully the others were already fueling up the tugboat and getting everything ready to go.

"If you make it back in one piece tonight," Raphael called out to him. "You should stop by."

Before Marcos could look back at him, Raphael had disappeared inside the house.

Had he heard that right? Marcos' heart pounded in his chest as he climbed into the car. Had he really been invited back to Raphael's house? Tonight? His brain immediately issued forth a series of rejections and reasons why this couldn't possibly be true. Yet those words had echoed clearly through the night air.

Maybe he would get that kiss after all.

* * *

The old tugboat had seen better days, but it was sturdy and well cared for. It braved the growing ocean swells with an ease that smaller vessels might not have managed. Its large spotlights swept along the water's surface, looking for any sign of the fishing boat that had radioed for help.

Marcos stood at the helm inside the enclosed wheelhouse. Rain had begun to patter against the front windows. The wind tore at the small Catalejo Island flag that was mounted just outside on the bow. As much as he loved the ocean, this was not the sort of weather to be out on open waters. If the weather reports were to be believed then it was only going to get worse as the night wore on.

The stranded vessel had drifted quite a bit before they managed to locate it. It was a medium sized boat, only slightly larger than the one Marcos used, but it was being batted around like a toy in a bathtub. The shouts of relief from the crew were all but lost over the crashing of the waves and the howls of the wind.

Despite the growing fury of the storm, Marcos and his crew quickly hooked up the tugboat. They worked well together and had practiced this very routine many times in the past. Now in the middle of a crisis their training shined through. As soon as everything was secure, Marcos turned the tugboat back towards the island, and safety.

And the tall, shy, omega that had left him with such tantalizing parting words.

He shook those thoughts away. Now was not the time to let himself be distracted. He needed to be alert, vigilant, and focused on what was going on around him. The lives of his crew, and the crew of the fishing boat, relied on him being able to get them back home.

The waves had grown more violent during the short time it took them to hook up the other boat. The tugboat's powerful engine churned through the water, but its pace was slow and the boat they were towing was making it difficult to steer.

"We need to cut it loose!" Teddy's voice crackled over the radio. "Bring the crew over, leave the boat, we'll never make it back like this."

Marcos tightened his grip on the wheel and clenched his jaw. He knew the crew of that boat. They weren't very well off. The boat was all they had and fishing was their livelihood. If they lost it, they would have nothing. He glanced at the navigational equipment and tried to gauge the remaining distance to the safety of the island.

"Marcos! We need to cut it loose." Teddy sounded desperate as he shouted over the radio. He was afraid. Afraid that the fishing boat was going to take on too much water and start sinking. That it would act like an anchor and drag them down with it. His fears weren't unfounded.

"No," Marcos said as he grabbed the radio. "We're almost there. Just hold tight and don't lose hope."

"You're going to get us all killed," Teddy shouted.

Marcos wanted to swear and tell Teddy to shove it. He slammed down the radio, took hold of the wheel, and hit the throttle. They would make it and they would get that boat back safely. There was no doubt in his mind that he was going to find himself back at Raphael's side tonight.

Wave after wave assaulted the pair of boats. The rain became an unceasing torrent that obscured his vision and forced him to rely more and more heavily on instinct and the navigational equipment. A lesser captain might have panicked. Especially now that other crew members were shouting at him over the radio.

This wasn't Marcos' first storm and it wouldn't be his last.

He swung the boat wide, circumventing the island by a wide margin. Getting too close to the shore with visibility so poor would've been a good way to run aground. As soon as they passed into the island's shadow, the violence of the storm died down. The waves became smaller, the wind less intense. Even the rain had lessened in its downpour.

The shouts of protest from the crew had stopped.

Marcos pointed the tugboat towards the marina and they made the rest of the journey in relative peace. Once the crew of the fishing boat had safely moored their vessel at the marina dock, the volunteer coast guard was officially off duty.

"Why the hell didn't you listen to us? You had the entire damn crew of both damn vessels screaming at you. That's over a hundred years of fishing experience and you just flat out ignored them all," Ruben raged as they all gathered on the deck of the tugboat. The other's seemed to be echoing his opinion.

"Did you know that Don, the captain of that boat, has a young daughter with spina bifida?" Marcos' question was more of a statement. His words were so abrupt that it seemed to catch the angry, terrified, sailors off guard. "She has to go to all sorts of specialists that cost a great deal of money. That boat is his only source of income. If we'd cut it free out there, what would happen to him and his family? Sure, he would be alive but how would he be able to afford treatments for his daughter?"

"You put everyone at risk." Teddy's voice was calmer than it had been while they were out on the water.

"Are you not listening to me?" It was Marcos' turn to get angry now. "We save lives, but that also means we try not to destroy them in the process. I didn't put you at risk. You, all of you, refused to trust me. I knew where we were. I knew how far we had to go before the island would shelter us. I knew how much we could take."

"How could any of us have known that?" Ruben asked. There was still an edge to his voice and he looked around at the others for confirmation. They all nodded in agreement.

"You could have trusted me. I'm supposed to be your captain and yet the moment things get difficult none of you is willing to just trust me for half a damn second." Marcos clenched his fists as he struggled to keep from yelling. They had been scared and probably still were a bit shaken up, he couldn't allow himself to get too angry at them. That didn't mean that their doubt didn't cut deeply.

"You've never given us any reason to." Ruben shrugged and shook his head as if the answer was obvious. "We don't know anything about you. You're an okay boss, but until tonight none of us had ever been with you in a crunch. Except maybe Teddy and he was freaking out like the rest of us. You've never once tried to be sociable with us. You've never tried to get to know us. You know that Don over there has a daughter with spina bifida, but you probably don't know the first thing about me and my family. How are we supposed to put our lives in your hands?"

Marcos felt as if he'd just been stabbed in the gut. He'd avoided getting close to his crew because of the awful results he'd had in the past. Getting to know his crew, building relationships, building trust, that had never been a problem before. He'd put his own desire to avoid difficult emotional entanglements ahead of his crew. He was in the wrong here and, judging by the looks on the faces surrounding him, they all knew that.

"I..." He shook his head slowly as he cut himself off. Emotions were too high right now for this conversation. "It's late. Go home to your families. We can discuss this in the morning. You've given me a lot to think about."

There were a few grumbles as they began to disperse, but for the most part they just seemed thankful to be home in one piece. His only desire now was to get out of here as quickly as possible.

"You know most of them are probably going to leave," said Teddy as he fell into step beside Marcos.

"No thanks to you," Marcos shot a glare at Teddy. "You've been through worse with me in the past. They looked to you for what to expect and now they think I'm either crazy or just don't give a shit."

Teddy reached the marina gate first and pulled it open. "You know me, I panic. It's what I do. If you want someone to stay calm in a crisis, hire someone else."

Marcos rubbed the back of his head in frustration as he followed Teddy through the gate. "We've got a hurricane that's going to hit in mere days. We need this crew to stick together."

"So what are you going to do about it?" Teddy didn't seem all that concerned about the situation.

"I already said we're going to discuss what happened tomorrow morning. But you've got more pull with them than I do. I need you to talk to them. Try to get them on board with sticking around." Marcos couldn't really believe that of all people he was asking Teddy for help, but there was no one else to turn to.

"Nope." Teddy's response sent a chill down Marcos' spine.

“What?” He must’ve heard wrong. He had to have heard wrong.

"I said 'no can do, buddy.'" Teddy turned fully towards Marcos and laid a hand on each of his shoulders. "I'm not ashamed to admit that I was scared. I thought we were going to die out there and it didn't feel like you were listening to us. You could have handled that a dozen different ways, but you didn't. You basically told us to sit down and shut up. I can't do this anymore. My wife has a baby on the way and I've got to stick around for at least the next eighteen years to help her raise it. You're on your own."

Without waiting for a reply, Teddy left.

Marcos stood in the middle of Main Street and watched as his crew went their separate ways. He barely even noticed the rain as it soaked his hair and spattered off his raincoat. There were too many thoughts cramming together in his head for him to notice much of anything.

He began to walk. There was no path or destination in his mind. His only thought was how he was going to crew the volunteer coast guard on such short notice. Pulling together a fresh, untrained crew would be risky. They would have almost no time to learn what they needed to do during the hurricane. They would be more likely to panic and get something wrong than a seasoned crew.

On the other hand, convincing his current crew to stay would be next to impossible. Even if he did, he doubted there was anything he could do to get them to trust him on such short notice. Their unity would be almost non-existent which would almost be worse than a rookie crew.

When he finally looked up, he realized he was standing at the base of the hill leading to Raphael's house. He'd been looking forward to picking up where they had left off at dinner. Now, however, it almost felt wrong to impose on the omega when his thoughts were such a mess. He wouldn't be very good company.

His eyes drifted along the row of houses at the top of the hill. The lights in Raphael's house were still on. If he was waiting up for Marcos then he would probably get worried if the alpha never showed up.

Taking a deep breath, Marcos started up the hill. By the time he finally reached the top, he was gasping for breath and shivering from the rain. His body felt numb, but that might have just been because of how emotionally drained he was. There was less shelter from the wind here and he now found himself subjected to its biting gusts.

Marcos dragged himself the rest of the way to Raphael's front door and stood hesitantly on the front porch for several long moments. Finally, he knocked.

The door opened almost immediately. Raphael had changed into pajama pants and a t-shirt with some witty saying scrawled across it. There was a broad smile on his face that quickly faded when he saw the state Marcos was in. Without a word, he pushed the door open and coaxed the alpha inside where it was warm and dry.