I dreamt about him last night.

Which was made even more ironic seeing as how he was literally sleeping next to me, sharing a mattress and blanket and breathing air. In all the months I'd been caught up in Hurricane Reid, he'd never invaded my dreams like that. But it wasn't steamy or even sensual. We were slow dancing to Boats and Birds by Gregory & The Hawk underneath a big oak tree as Spanish moss and little string lights swayed in a gentle breeze, his hands on my hips and my arms draped around his neck. It almost felt real.

Until I woke up and realized he wasn't there at all. The spot on the bed where he'd slept was still warm, but just barely. I glanced at the digital clock on his bedside table, groaning at the sight of 7:42 AM blinking back at me.

"Oh good, you're up."

My gaze snapped to him as he was shutting his bedroom door behind him. He had a towel draped around his shoulders, freshly showered and clean smelling as droplets of water fell from damp locks of his hair and onto his bare chest. Of course.

"What's going on?" I asked, thankfully sounding more groggy than I actually felt. Unfortunately, I was wide awake after that dream. 

"Taking the boat out," he responded as he dug through one of his dresser drawers. "Just a little cousin tradition we do every Thanksgiving day morning. My cousin Nicky and his girlfriend will be here soon, you'll like them. Aside from the fact that she's also named Nikki, just spelled differently."

"God, really?" I asked with a chuckle. "How do you differentiate them in conversation then?"

"Uh, point at the one you're talking to."

I laughed again, and he flopped down onto the bed beside me.

"I'm glad you're here, Jo."

The soft sincerity in his voice still took me by surprise, even though at this point maybe it shouldn't have. He'd made it clear how comfortable he was around me - and even though in theory I reciprocated that, it didn't change the fact that the way his forearm brushed against mine made my heart want to explode. Despite whatever civil war was being raged inside me, I reached over and put my hand on his forearm. "Me too. Aside from the whole waking up before 8 AM thing. Isn't it supposed to be a holiday?"

He chuckled as he sat back up and got off the bed. "This is worth it, I promise."

Was it worth it to be forced into even closer proximity to him than usual, on a boat with no way of escaping? To be determined.

"I didn't bring a bathing suit," I groaned again, putting a hand to my forehead.

"We're not going in," he replied. "The water's freezing. In fact..." He pulled a gray pullover sweatshirt out of the drawer he had been digging through. "You'll need that."

Great, now I was going to smell like him too.

Anna and Frank were already up and ready, since they had apparently actually slept inside the blanket fort last night while Aunt Eva took the Donahue's only guest room. Reid had gone outside with Frank to hook his truck up to the boat trailer.

"Mimosa or bloody?" Anna asked me as we walked into the kitchen. There was an array of tumblers on the kitchen counter, where Anna was pouring a mimosa mixture from a pitcher into one.

"Mimosa, please," I replied. "I appreciate the commitment to the roadies. Usually at school we just slum it in an empty Dasani water bottle."

"We're classy here." She handed me a Clemson orange plastic tumbler with a grin.

"Bloody me," another voice called from the foyer, as if there weren't like five other people in the house asleep. A dark-haired girl came storming into the kitchen like a hurricane, fanning her face. "Make it a double, actually. Nicky's already on my nerves."

Anna shook her head with a sigh before handing the girl - who I had to assume was the other Nikki - one of the tumblers. She turned to me suddenly, startled as if I hadn't been standing there the whole time. "Oh my god, I'm sorry. You must be Jo, we've heard all about you."

"Oh my god Nikki," Anna groaned. "You can't say that to her face."

I sputtered out a laugh, and I felt myself unwind just a little. "It's okay. Actually, can you make mine a double too, please?"

Something told me I was going to need it.

"I knew I'd like her." Nikki bumped my hip with hers, and Anna smirked before taking my tumbler and topping it off. I wondered if it was just a Donahue family trait - to make people they barely knew feel so at ease, as if instead they'd know them their whole lives.

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I'd never been on a boat before, which in and of itself wasn't that big of a deal. For some reason, it didn't fill me with the sense of dread that getting on a plane did. Maybe it was just because me and my control freakiness knew that Reid was driving the boat, and that made me feel safer.

What I was not prepared for was the absolute highwire circus act of getting the boat off the trailer and into the water. It was a short ride over the landing, which was public river access where anyone could put their boat in and then park their truck or SUV and its empty trailer up on the hill to the side, then come back to the landing and put their boat back on the trailer when they were done. Watching the truck in front of us do it gave me weird secondhand anxiety, but they all had it expectedly down to a science. Nikki and I stood on the small dock as Reid, Frank and Anna prepped the boat, and Nicky handled Reid's truck.

"They make it look harder than it is," Nikki leaned over to me and muttered with a chuckle.

"Then why don't you contribute?" Reid shot her a stony glare behind the lenses of his sunglasses.

"I literally just got my nails done, I can't risk breaking them." Nikki held her hands up for display, her glittery pink nails glistening in the morning sun.

I had to put my hand over my mouth to stifle my laughter, but Reid had clearly heard me, sending an amused smirk my way.

"M'lady," Reid grinned as he offered me his hand.

"Why thank you, sir," I grinned back as I took his hand, and he helped me down onto the boat. The floor of the boat swayed underneath my feet, the churning of the waves lurching me forward right into Reid's arms.

"Sorry," I sighed with a shake of my head. "Wasn't prepared for that."

He put his hands on my shoulders, keeping me steady as he walked me over to the white cushioned captain's bench behind the steering mechanisms. "You better stick with me until you get your sea legs."

"Great," I grumbled to myself as I dropped into the bench. Thankfully Reid stood as he drove, leaving me in charge of the music. My cheeks flushed as Amber by 311 came on my shuffle, remembering all too well the things I was feeling last time I put this song on. It would be too awkward if I abruptly switched the song now, so I had to grit my teeth and bear it.

Anna and Frank and the two Nicky's sat on built-in couches on either side of the front of the boat, meaning nobody could see the way I clutched the sides of the bench as the waves rolled us around. We pulled away from the landing slowly at first, and I hyper-fixated on the way Reid's shoulder muscles flexed through the thin fabric of his long-sleeve fishing shirt. It was more attractive than it had any right being, as usual.

"You ready to go?" he leaned back a little to ask me. He twisted his hat backwards, and locks of his chocolate brown hair fell gracefully through the snap closure.

"Go where?"

"Faster."

"Oh," I grimmaced. "I mean, yeah, sure."

Before I could brace myself further, Reid took my arm and gently brought me up to my feet. He wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me into his side. I knew what he was doing now as he began to rev the engines up  - he could have braced me better than I would have on my own.

That being said, I still nearly toppled backwards when he picked up to full speed now that we were in open water, but he kept me steady. Instinctively I returned the gesture, wrapping my arms around his torso. No matter what kinds of feelings Lily Lou was having me question, there was no matching the level of comfort I felt with him. I felt so safe and so cared for, and maybe the root of all those feelings was as simple as that.

"So, where are we going?" I asked him over the roar of the engines.

"Towards downtown Charleston," he replied, lowering his face close to mine so I could hear him. "There's an area by the harbor where we can post up. There's a really cool bridge, and you can see all the big historic houses on the Battery from the water."

"Sounds perfect."

It took us about 40 minutes at full speed to get out there, and nearly the entire time was spent listening to music and breathing in the ocean air. Thankfully it seemed Anna, Frank, Nicky and Nikki were in their own little world, and whatever dramatic conversation they were having couldn't really be heard over the engines from where we were.

It seemed we weren't the only people with the whole brunch on the water idea as a collective of boats were posted up along the harbor's edge, each rocking back and forth in the wake of other passing boats. The warmth of the morning sun had finally arrived when we'd slowed to a stop, and Frank crawled onto the front of the boat to drop the anchor in. I felt steadier than I had when we first left, and I took a moment to look around.

Sure enough, just beyond the shallows of the harbor and behind a stone seawall was a park, with sprawling oak trees like the Donahue's yard had, and a big white gazebo in the middle. Surrounding the park were the kinds of houses I saw in Southern Home magazines, painted in white or pale pastel colors with big, two-story porches and cobblestone driveways. In the distance was a massive, modern-looking suspension bridge with big silver towers that glistened in the morning sunlight. 

Reid and I finally separated when we realized other eyes would be on us, and I joined Anna and Nikki at the front of the boat while the boys messed around with their fishing gear at the back.

"So, Anna said you do the football team's social media," Nikki began, brushing off an excess of poppy seeds off the top of her bagel and into the wrapper in her lap. "That's pretty legit."

I nodded, taking a bite of my scallion cream cheese bagel. "It's fun. Sometimes I feel like my head's not attached, but the Headless Horseman in Sleepy Hollow didn't have a head either, and I think he had plenty of fun terrorizing people. It feels kind of like that."

"And she's funny, too," Nikki laughed.

"Well, I grew up right by the actual Sleepy Hollow, so those references come pretty easily," I admitted with a faint smirk. "There's even a middle school named after Ichabod Crane in the area."

"Oh," Nikki wrinkled her nose up. "Wasn't that an old Disney movie?"

"Yes!" I threw my hands up in excitement. "Most people think of that weird Johnny Depp movie, but the original Disney cartoon version was a classic. I knew you were a woman of taste."

"Have I mentioned that I love you?" Nikki beamed as she leaned over and threw her arms around me.

"You know, Jo's been doing those articles on Reid too," Anna chimed in casually.

"Oh right," Nikki nodded. "They were good! Makes Reid sound so much cooler than he is."

I tried to force a smile as I shifted in the cushioned seat. I was confident in my skills and my work, but wasn't used to being talked about like this, especially to my face. It wasn't that my family wasn't proud of me, but it always seemed like there were other achievements and accolades that took priority. My sisters delivered babies and managed hedge funds.

But Anna and Nikki didn't know that. To them, it seemed like I had the coolest job in the world, and god damn it I had to remember that.

"Honestly, I owe Reid big time," I chuckled. "Because if he hadn't agreed to do it, my project probably would have been pickleball related or something."

The two girls cackled.

"It's still crazy to me that he even agreed to it in the first place," Nikki said as a glob of cream cheese splattered into the paper wrapping on her lap, narrowly avoiding her leggings.

"Oh it was a walk in the park, really." I heaped on the sarcasm.

"You gotta understand, we all grew up with Reid," Anna told me, flicking her wrist. "Up until high school, he was such a little dork, and he was so shy. You must have been pretty damn convincing to get him to do it at all."

I smiled to myself as we glanced back towards the boys, who were fussing over fishing lines and god knows what else. It could have been easy for all the cousins and girlfriends and boyfriends to glom onto Reid's fame. Instead, they gave him the one thing he'd wanted from the very beginning - maybe without even realizing they did. They treated him like a regular person. His gaze caught mine, and when he smiled at me it felt as warm and bright as the sun.

At that moment, I truly began to understand. It was one thing when his touch would linger on me long after we'd separated or the sight of his smile was enough to send me into orbit, but it was deeper than that. It was the understanding that I could be open and exposed like a nerve around him, and yet feel more at ease than I'd ever been with anyone else.

I'd never been in love before, but I knew now this was exactly what it should feel like, and I was so royally fucked.

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once again, this chapter was supposed to have more to it but i realized it needed to be split up AGAIN. i'm not sorry, it means more chapters. NOW there are 10 left to go - i know i said this like, 2 chapters ago (oops) but this time i mean it.

i made an announcement about this, but i figured it was important to note here too: i will no longer be sticking to an update schedule for the remainder of BIG SHOT. i'd rather just update when i can with quality chapters deserving of the conclusion of this story instead of forcing myself to stick to posting on a specific day. thank you for understanding <3