As the afternoon turned to evening, the lakeside breeze cooled the air, and I pulled on an olive green jacket to keep my arms warm enough for a boat ride. It had been way too long since the last time I was on a boat, but that was just about to be fixed.

I took in a deep breath. There was a little bit of a dead leaf smell to the air, but it didn't matter. My eyes were on the prize, and that was the red sailboat that Mason had just gotten into the water.

The view of the rest of the marina was not nearly as colorful as us, but that was more than okay with me. Everything was more special when it was just us.

Mason held out his hand to help me into the boat, and as the boat wobbled underneath my foot, it was like I was getting ready to set sail on a new path in life.

Well, Marigold, you did it. You achieved your dream.

I smiled to myself, even though I knew a silly boat was never my dream. It was a little distraction from the fact that I was nowhere close to achieving my dream of being a full-time craft shop owner.

Well, Marigold, that wasn't the kind of fun-loving thinking we were going for.

Although the red sail was the main draw of the boat for me, it also had a motor for less windy days and better control, and even though using it was against the spirit of the sailboat, the purr of it starting up filled my stomach with butterflies all over again.

I looked up at Mason. He always looked like he was trapped against his will when he was at the piano in the Lakeside Daisy, but on the lake, the tension was gone from his shoulders. Out here, just like me, he was free.

"So," he half-shouted over the engine, "you like it?"

I nodded. "It's literally the most aesthetic thing I've ever done. I know you don't do Insta, but can I add this to my story?"

"You can do whatever you want, Marigold."

I smiled and snapped a picture of my view, and as I scrolled through options for a filter, I took a quick glance back up at Mason. I wasn't sure why he brought me here in the first place under the guise of cheering me up, especially because he didn't want much to do with me at all for a while, and I didn't really do anything to change his mind about me. What he saw was what he got. There wasn't much depth to someone like me, which was completely different from someone like him, who kept life a secret off the internet. Odd.

But before I could consider that, Mason spoke up again. "You like music?"

"I think everyone likes music, Mason," I said.

He rolled his eyes a little. "Well, there's a Bluetooth speaker, so if you want to listen to something, you can."

"I can pick anything I want?"

He nodded.

Well, my filter was just going to have to wait. I opened Spotify, and before he could change his mind, I put on the Jonas Brothers. It probably wasn't his type of music, especially since he knew better than to enjoy pop. But if I squinted a little, Mason could have passed as a Jonas cousin, which justified it enough in my mind.

"So do you take your friends out in this boat a lot?" I asked before he could bitch about my choice of a soundtrack.

"Well, my friends don't live around here, so no," he replied.

"Where are they, then?"

"The Seattle area, mostly," he said.

I nodded. I knew he wasn't from Marblehead like me, but I didn't think he was from the other side of the country in Washington either. "That far?"

"Yep." He didn't elaborate any further, and I wasn't sure if I was supposed to ask or not.

But I did anyway. "Then how'd you end up in the Midwest? No offense, but I really think the city is a much better place for chasing your dreams."

"Nothing is permanent, Marigold. You can follow your dreams anywhere, but you never know where they're going to take you."

Was that an answer to the question I asked? It certainly didn't seem like it.

But before I could ask anything else, he changed the subject. "And where are your dreams going to take you?"

Pressing him for further information probably wasn't the best idea, so I answered his question. "Well, hopefully it gets me out of here. My dream isn't a place or anything, but it's hard to run your own business in a city with high prices, so I guess I'm stuck here for now. Same place I was born, same place I graduated, same place I—" I thought for a moment. "Well, I guess I really haven't done much else with my life."

As that thought sank into my brain, Mason replied to me, "Then maybe you should stick to firing people for your boss."

As the song turned to Burnin' Up, I nodded. "Maybe I should."

Of course, the reason I was on the boat was to forget about that, so I bobbed up and down with the beat of the music and let the Jonas Brothers take me to a happier place.

Neither one of us spoke for a moment, but it certainly wasn't silent as I moved to a seat closer to Mason and went back to my phone to finally post the picture to my story.

"Not to be judgmental, but it really is weird that you don't do social media to brag about this boat. I would literally never stop posting about it," I said.

He smiled and shook his head. "It's not that weird."

It was definitely weird for someone who wasn't born before 1990, but I let it go. It was far too gorgeous of a day on the lake to waste it arguing. It was even too pretty outside to spend any time thinking about the work I had left back at the Lakeside Daisy. I had accomplished the difficult task of the day, so that was good enough.

The life of a manager was a luxurious one.

Of course, I still hadn't gotten any sort of answer to how Mason felt or even thought about me, but being on a boat had to be a good sign, right? He obviously thought I was at least a little cute, since he had given me his number, but that was just about all I could put together.

Maybe he was just old-fashioned. He certainly didn't seem as willing to jump in as I was.

As the water bobbed the boat up and down and with the thought of jumping fresh in my mind, I looked at Mason, who was only an arm's length away from me. It was a little too intimidating to get any closer without any words.

"How cold do you think the water is?" I asked. I was a social genius.

"Probably pretty cold since the sun isn't directly overhead anymore," he said.

"How deep?"

He thought for a moment. "Maybe thirty feet."

"Would you ever jump in?"

"Now?"

I nodded.

"Uh, no."

I smiled. "Never? You're not that type?"

"No."

I found that a little hard to believe for someone who was flying halfway across the country by the seat of his pants.

"Well, will you get mad at me if I do?" I asked.

"Why?"

I shrugged. "Just to feel something, even if it's freezing."

He shook his head. "Go ahead, then."

Before I could think myself out of it, I unbuttoned my shirt and hung it on the seat behind me, and when I looked up at Mason, he shifted his gaze away from me. I held the smirk off of my face. Men were so easy.

"I didn't know I was signing up for this," he said softly, and I could only barely hear it over the motor of the boat and the wind.

"I don't know what you thought you were signing up for, then. I'm not getting my work clothes all lake water-y," I said, and I would have been lying if I said that the attention wasn't helping me feel much, much better.

I was a classy girl, but I wasn't patient. And as I took off my pants, he didn't pretend he wasn't watching this time.

There were other boats out on the water, but nobody was close enough to see me or hit me when I actually jumped in.

"You feeling better yet?" he asked as he shifted in his seat.

I nodded. "Much better."

He let out a long breath. "Good."

He didn't say anything else, and I didn't need him to. I had his attention, and what more could I have wanted from a day that started so shitty?

Should I try to get him to kiss me? I thought for a moment. Nah. That would ruin the fun.

"Well, Mason, this has been exactly what I needed," I said, and with that, I pulled away and jumped off the side of the boat before he could say anything. As the cold water splashed up all around me, I floated back up to the surface of the water, rubbed the water from my eyes, and swam back to the boat that Mason had shut off so he could help me back up.

Maybe I hadn't done a whole lot with my life, but that was a crazy new thing I didn't know I had inside of me.

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Hello, and thank you so much for reading!

So for today's question, if you could ask the universe a question and receive a complete, entirely accurate answer, what would you ask?

I would probably ask what happens after you die. For me, that's the scariest part of aging. I get closer to death, and I have no idea what that's going to be like. I think I'd rather know for sure.