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Initially he’d had some notion of lifting her across while he stood on the steps, but the steps were narrow, and the current eager to tug the boat along. It’d stopped raining, so that was something.
“Hand me the oar, and I’ll paddle round to the driver’s door, so you can step down from there.”
“What makes you think it’s going to open?”
“There’s a window.”
“What makes you think that is going to open? Is it manual? Because from where I’m standing, it sure doesn’t look like it.” She climbed into the driver’s bay and started fumbling about, seeking a winding mechanism he knew for a fact didn’t exist.
“They’re electric,” he confessed.
“So I have to wade.” Except she was considerably shorter than him. She’d need to get down all four steps to reach the dingy, and that would submerge her up to her armpits.
“There’s one other option. You might not like it, but it’d mean you get to stay dry.”
She sighed heavily. “Tell me.”
“If you go into the section where the bunks are, and climb up to the top one, you can get through the skylight onto the roof. There’s a ladder at the back. I mean, it’s not an actual ladder, but you can use it like one.”
“The roof! You do realise this heap of metal is sailing?”
“More like wallowing, and in any case, she’s stuck on a mud bank. I’ll loan you my phone so you can at least see to get up there.”
“Sure you’re not afraid I’ll run off with it?”
“There’s nowhere for you to run to. Go on. I’ll go ’round.”
He lost sight of her as she entered the bunk compartment, so he paddled the dingy around to Bertha’s rear. Then it took longer for the skylight to open than he’d expected. They’d modified it to work like an escape hatch after Elspeth had a series of nightmares about the bus being overturned in a crash and them all being unable to get out. Also, sometimes he liked to chill up there of an evening if they were somewhere warm and he needed a break from the claustrophobic interior and generalized bickering that was inevitable when you had that many adults living on top of one another.
Jodi’s head appeared over Bertha’s back end. She peeped down at him from an all-fours position lit by moonlight. “Where are these alleged handholds? Also, catch.”
She dropped the phone, which he fumbled to catch, then bitched at her soundly over.
“No pockets, and I can’t climb with it in my hands. It was bad enough scaling the bunks.”
Yeah, all right, he’d concede that point. Paul nodded her towards the rear left.
“Handholds, my arse,” she swore, but nevertheless turned herself about and lowered her luscious rear over the edge. Paul positioned the dingy directly beneath her. “Speed it up, Castle.” Holding the boat coat steady wasn’t easy.
“I’m not a fucking rock climber!”
“This is more like bouldering.”
“It’s fucking insane. I do not have the upper body strength. And stop staring at my arse. I don’t need it on my mind right now that you’re thinking, ‘Shit, this chick has the biggest butt in Christendom.’”
It was far from the biggest, but it was fucking glorious.
“It’s not—”
She scowled at him over her shoulder.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, not sorry in the slightest. “It’s kind of hard to avoid. If I don’t look up, I can’t be ready to catch you if you fall.” Should she actually slip, she’d topple them both straight into the river, but he figured it best not to mention that.
“Fine, you can look. Just don’t ogle.”
What sort of instruction was that? It was essentially saying, it’s okay to look at my arse, just don’t acknowledge it. The lady was frickin’ nuts. She was flashing him a delightful amount of thigh and bum cheek as she descended. It was totally making his not quite Christmas. “Come on, it’s only another few feet,” he encouraged. “You’re nearly there. That’s it, gently does it, and… you’re… in.” The craft wobbled alarmingly as she stepped aboard, prompting her to crash down into a jelly-like heap. Thankfully, he had them braced with the oar against Bertha’s bumper, so after a moment of turbulence, they settled on the water.
“No more fucking buses,” she muttered, lip trembling as he pushed them away from Bertha. “From now on, it’s cars only.”
