Her thoughts were spinning through everything he said—Beckett loved her, Luna Saturniiddae, and her thoughts kept coming back to this one thing, Beckett was on a boat in the ocean. He had done that for her. He had jumped.

He had done what had been impossible for him to do.

She nodded, and quietly said, “Yes.”

“Yes, Yes? You will?”

Luna raised up, tearstained and red-eyed.

“Me and you?”

Luna nodded.

“And I can’t tell you how it works, maybe you’ll hate it at my mountain house, but we can figure it out, okay?”

“We can figure it out.”

“We?”

“Yes, we.”

Beckett looked into her eyes nodding, they paused for a minute like that, staring into each other’s eyes, nodding.

Then Luna threw her arms around his shoulders, setting her paddleboard lopsided. It dumped her on top of him, pushing him down into the water, both submerged. When Luna resurfaced she said, “Your pants are down.”

He smiled sheepishly, “They came down when I was swimming, and there’s literally nothing I can do about it.” He held up his sopping, wet, gauze-hands. “It’s making it hard to tread water having my pants at my knees.” He looked over his shoulder at the ship where the crew stood at the railing watching.

Dan yelled down, “Quite the full moon out today, Beckett!”

Beckett called over his shoulder. “I’ve got other things on my mind, Dan!”

Luna swam down and tugged his pants to his waist. She surfaced, climbed onto her board, and dangled her feet over the side.

Beckett tried to climb up beside her, but his hands were useless, the board shifted crazily, and his pants were coming down again. “Well, I’ll just lean here.” He propped one elbow across the board his other arm on her knee.

“What happened to your hands?”

“There was a whale. God, it was so magnificent. Truly. And I helped the crew cut a rope that was tied around its tail, but I got a rope burn on this hand and a clean slice, fifteen stitches, on this hand. And you aren’t going to believe it, I was in the water with it, touching a whale!”

Luna nodded, “I believe it, I wouldn’t expect anything less of you.”

He smiled, “I had the crew thinking I was pretty heroic, but now they’ve seen that belly flop earlier...”

“It was the most heroic bellyflop ever seen, in the history of the world there has never been a more heroic bellyflop.”

He said, “I missed you.”

She said, “I missed you too.”

“So you can come on the boat. You can bring your paddleboard. When the ship docks, we can go to my mountain house and we can figure everything out later.”

Luna smiled down at him. She stroked down the side of his face and leaned down and kissed him on the lips. “I can’t Beckett. See all these people? They found me and I convinced them to trust me and I got all these packs from your Outpost—”

“I see that.”

“—and they can’t carry them all. I made a commitment, I have to follow through and get the packs to the—”

Beckett said, “I understand, I get it, and then you’ll come?”

“Then I’ll come. I’ll come along the coastline, with due haste.” She grinned.

“I love you. Come, come fast, be safe, okay?”

“It will take us the rest of the day to get the packs back to their group. Tomorrow I’ll leave, it should take me about five days. I’ll be there in six days.”

Beckett shook his head. “I won’t be there, I have twelve days still before the ship goes back to dock, but don’t slow down, please. Be there when I get there and I’ll come and get you from the settlements.”

“I’ll go fast. I promise.”

“Good. Thank you.” He sat treading water for a minute staring in her eyes. “I have to say goodbye again?”

“This isn’t like last time, but yes. I have a lot of paddling to get these packs to the group.”

Beckett smiled. “Okay Luna, yes.”

He started back-floating and flutter-kicking away.

“I’ll see you soon Beckett, I will.”

He laughed, flashing his full dimpled smile. “I know you will.”

“Really?” She stood and projected her voice as he kicked farther and farther away. “Because overconfidence isn’t usually your style!”

He tapped the side of his temple. “You said we.”

She smiled, picked up her paddle, and soft-paddled against the current that was twisting her away.

He called across the expanse, “I also know you have to come, you have a responsibility, a commitment, and it’s too big to shirk.”

“A what? What are you talking about?”

“You have to bring me my great-grandfather’s watch!”

Luna looked down at her wrist and then smiled broadly across the deep ocean between them. The sun was bright, the visibility clear.

“I love you!” she said.

“I love you too.”