Page 34 of Free for Adventure
Kayak started touching her back, and she looked back at him. “You break it, you buy it.”
He grinned. “Usually, it is the locals getting paid for what I have in mind.”
“Oh, the cuff thing? I don’t have one of those.” She smiled. “Too bad.”
Skaay called out, “That can be fixed.”
“No, dudes, I don’t have an expense account that covers that kind of thing. This is cute, and I am glad to know what the mark referred to, but I have a job on the mainland.”
Orc was staring at her. “You are serious.”
“Yeah, probably not a great idea, to be honest, right before I hit the water, but I am not one for extended subterfuge.”
Kayak was still caressing her back. “We have tanks for you. If we don’t have to pretend otherwise, we are all freedivers.”
“I am out of practice. I’ll take the tanks.” She went to her pack and pulled out her suit, smiling sadly. “Well, how many large sharks are in the area?”
“A few, but they avoid divers.” Kayak smiled.
“Uh-huh.” She opened her suit and looked at him. “What if I look like a baby orca? Dad always watched out for me, but considering that Orc still looks like I slapped him, I will just keep my eyes open. I only need one tank’s worth of footage.”
Kayak nodded. “We will keep an eye out for you. You don’t have another suit?”
“Not one that fits. When Dad found a designer who would customize them like this, he ordered one in every size for me. I haven’t ever needed a different one.” She slid her trousers off and began to pull on her dive suit while the boat rocked and rolled.
She fitted the mask and checked the microphone. “Test, one, two, three pairs of irritated eyes looking at me.”
She heard her voice coming from the receiver near the wheel, and Skaay said, “Loud and clear.”
She nodded, got her camera out of the case, and made sure that it was functioning. Thera watched and felt the familiarity of the location. She had been here before.
The guys did rock, paper, scissors, and Orc insisted he come with her. The anchor was set, Skaay was on watch, and Kayak kept an eye on the other side.
Orc was just in swim trunks and was still staring at her as she put on the tank, strapped it in place, tested it one final time, and then glanced behind her and dropped into the ocean.
She turned the camera on and slowly moved her fins to get her about two feet from the surface of the coral and anemone.
Thera could see Orc just out of the corner of her eye and knew things were calm as she accumulated footage.
She had ten minutes of air when she turned and saw the enormous orca staring at her. She let out a yelp, and he moved with a happy wiggle. With focus, she headed back toward the boat just fast enough to make it back with air to spare.
She handed her camera up before Kayak reached to pull her up as Orc’s nose pushed her skyward. It was scary to be manhandled by a whale she didn’t know.
Kayak laughed. “He wants you to come back in. We will all join you, and then we can actually do what we have always wanted to do.”
“Eat a naïve idiot?”
He got a fresh set of tanks for her and replaced hers. “No, swim with a mate. It’s the kind of thing our pod dreams of.”
“You have weird dreams.”
She heard a laugh from Skaay.
Kayak fussed around her and then said, “Check your gauges?”
She nodded; she had been topped up. “Efficient.”
He grinned. “We do this a lot. The diving, not luring ladies into the deep.”