Toy Boy by Lily Harlem Page B

him?
    “Dolphin,” he shouted suddenly. “Look, a whole pod.”
    “Where?”
    I scanned the horizon.
    “No, right there, swimming on our bow wave.”
    I looked down. My breath caught. Several sleek, gray dolphins were swimming with us, one just below my feet.
    “Oh wow,” I said, tipping forward to get a better look. “They’re gorgeous.”
    “Fun, eh?” There was excitement in his voice.
    “Yes, fantastic.”
    I’d never thought in my life I’d be sitting on a boat in Greece, skimming over the water with dolphins. There had been so many dark days and nights after Thomas. Times when blue skies, freedom and exhilaration were not something I wanted to think about. Not something I thought would be in my future.
    Yet, here I was.
    Free, excited and under a bluer than blue sky.
    “Do you think it’s the ones we saw earlier? From the bay?” I called, not taking my gaze from them.
    “Well, they’re common dolphins, so hard to know, but yes, likely to be.”
    “Maybe they followed us.”
    “Hoping for a ride on our waves. They love it.”
    As Sullivan had spoken, the one right beneath me shot forward in the water, leaped in a graceful arc, then slid back under the waves.
    I longed for my camera but didn’t dare risk missing them if I went to get it. Instead, I committed the image to memory. The stunning grace of the dolphins, the denseness of the dark blue sea, the vivid white splashes all around. It was almost an overload of beauty.
    I sat in their company for a few more minutes, then as quickly as they’d appeared, they vanished. But still, I stayed at the front of Dolly Bird, enjoying the wind in my hair, the sun on my shoulders and the random splashes that landed on my feet.
    A contented feeling washed over me. This was just where I’d needed to be, and somehow, Sullivan had known that. Understood that while I’d healed from my loss, I needed more. I needed memories, new experiences. I needed to come out of my comfort zone and be brave.
    For that, I’d always be grateful.
     
    * * * *
     
    As the sun began to dip toward the horizon, Sullivan navigated in the direction of a small island with yet more sheer cliffs.
    We’d pulled the sails in as we’d neared the rocks, and the motor was on, gently pushing us forward. I was sitting in the shade at the stern again.
    “So what did you think of your first day at sea?” he asked, taking a sip from a bottle of water.
    “It was amazing. Thank you. I never thought I’d enjoy it so much or be so close to dolphins.”
    He smiled and slotted his shades on the top of his head so they sat over his bandana.
    His eyes were the same color as the sea at its deepest point—a rich, soulful blue—and seemed to get darker as the sun had lowered.
    “Are you getting hungry?” he asked.
    “Yes, must be all the fresh air.”
    “We’re nearly there. The port is tucked just behind this next outcrop.”
    I turned, lifted my legs up and hugged my knees as we got closer to Spiglia and headed into the bay—our home for the night. What a freeing feeling it was to cross open water, pass ridges of land rising from the sea then find a place to sleep. It made me feel nomadic, youthful, as though the materialism of life in a big, cosmopolitan city was a distant memory. Not just in the physicality, but also in my head.
    As we turned past the headland, I saw that Sullivan had been right—Spiglia was a tiny place. No more than twenty or so houses, all painted white, and only half a dozen boats lined up in the harbor. There appeared to be only one restaurant with chairs and tables lined up against the edge of a small, sloping sandy beach. A handful of diners sat at them, and the squat candles with flickering flames in the center of the tables cast buttery shadows over their faces.
    “Can you throw the fenders over?”
    “The what?”
    “The fenders. Those white and blue, long ball things that stop the boat from bumping hard against anything it might touch in port.”
    “Oh, yes,