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Rafael had never been on a sailboat.
He had been on a boat. That boat had been in the water, technically. Okay, it was a yacht, and a fairly large one at that. Not exactly sailing over the bounding main or anything.
The idea of boating was, to a Jerome Avenue teen, absolutely laughable. It wasn’t until his L2 summer at Harvard that a fellow student had invited him onto his father’s yacht out of Boston Harbor. Rafael had tracked down the perfect yachting outfit: pinstriped button up (sleeves rolled casually of course), salmon-pink shorts, brown leather braided belt, and Official Sperry Topsiders. He wanted to see the open seas, to bob about on the ocean waves, to ideally develop the allusive “sea legs”. They arrived at the yacht club and began drinking early, draining the built-in kegerator in the yacht’s kitchen. By the time the student’s father (and ostensible ship’s captain) finally showed up, it was too late to leave harbor, so after a few hours of partying, Rafael ended up passing out in a bunk below deck. Hardly the nautical experience he had hoped for.
Since then, he had been on a generous handful of yachts, but the experience had continued to disappoint. The looming Goliaths of the Upper Bay, veritable floating duplexes, commandeered by red-faced judges and tanned defense attorneys, seemed to rarely leave harbor. When they did, their magnitude prevented the microscopic dips and bobs from being noticed, so one hardly knew one was afloat. Rafael had largely given up on the enterprise, only embarking when the moment was professionally opportune, and even then was all too happy to be called back to work.
Sonny, on the other hand, had grown up sailing. This little factoid had surfaced one night a few months into their relationship at dinner, at their preferred late-night ramen joint one frigid January night, when a young man in a group of teens had caught Sonny’s attention.
“Rafi! Look at that kid’s t-shirt,” Sonny stage-whispered, eyes wide and chopsticks hovering, noodle-laden, over his bowl. Rafael’s eyes tightened, but he waited a beat before looking over his right shoulder to catch the back of the shirt. It was a white t-shirt, and the back featured a monochrome blue sailboat, with the letters RCYC emblazoned across the hull in red. His steely green gaze snapped back to Sonny with confusion.
“What information should I be gleaning from back panel of this poor child’s sailing t-shirt, if you don’t mind?” he said with a smirk, returning to his noodles.
“Richmond County Yacht Club,” Sonny said quietly, “is on Staten Island, coupla miles from my parent’s house. I grew up sailing there, ‘cuz my uncle is a member. You know Great Kills Bay?”
“I may have heard that unfortunately-chosen name at some point. Wait, what do you mean you ‘grew up’ there?” Rafael had set his chopsticks across the edge of his bowl, and had pushed it away, leaning back in his chair, drinking in the lanky detective. Sonny used his utensils to lengthen his gestures as he dove into his history, tie tossed unceremoniously over his shoulder so as not to splatter it with ramen broth, shirt sleeves rolled up past the elbow for the same reason.
“Every summer, my parents sent me to sailing camp, which I know, sounds super bougie, but they got a huge discount because my uncle belonged to the club. Anyway, I could never get to most of the travel regattas, but I still got pretty good at it. Had my own little boat and everything.” His eyes were bright and faraway with nostalgia, and he spoke through a perma-grin, waving arms and sticks with abandon.
“Regattas? Your own boat?” Rafael was incredulous. He smoothed his vest subconsciously, unnecessarily re-tucking his tie. He had shed his jacked immediately upon being seated, but maintained a pressed and polished look otherwise.
“Oh yeah, a regatta is a series of races, usually over two days. And I had a one-man boat, my uncle lent me my cousin Marty’s once he was too big for it.” He trailed off as the wheels almost visibly turned in his head. Rafael groaned internally, recognizing this expression as the harbinger of an idea that would cause him discomfort or possibly injury. He sipped his sake patiently, and Sonny quickly snapped out of his reverie. “Say, Rafi, we really oughta go sailing one of these days!”
“Are you driving the boat? When is the last time you were even on one of those things?” Rafael protested dryly.
“It’s like riding a bike,” he insisted, “and I usually get out there once or twice a summer with Marty if he can’t find anyone to crew for the weekly races.” Rafael was practically saturated with brand-new, unexpected information at this point, and was more sluggish than usual to respond. Sonny used this to power onward. “We could go on a Saturday, there aren’t any races then, and after this last case, Liv owes me a day off. We can take Uncle Jim’s lightning, that’s better for two, and we’ll just cruise around.” Rafael was shaking his head slowly, but he figured that either Sonny would forget faster if he just went along with it, or else it wasn’t as tragic an idea as he thought and he might actually (gulp) enjoy himself.
“Fine, but I will require at least one lifejacket and possibly have the coast guard on call,” he snarked, managing only to press his huge grin into a terse smile. Sonny, on the other hand, grinned widely enough to break open his face, dimples like canyons, eyes sparkling pools of Pacific blue.
“You can have three lifejackets and I’ll get us a National Guard detail,” he promised, solemnity compromised by bursting joy. Rafael allowed a half smile at that, and drained the rest of his sake.
~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~
Sunlight streamed in through the window, and Rafael buried his head under his pillow. Sonny had gotten up moments ago, and could barely be heard talking quietly on the phone while making coffee. It was a Saturday morning, the heat of July steeping in as the sun climbed in the sky, and there was nothing they had to do that day, so Rafael hoped sincerely that Liv was not calling with a case. Please, for the love of all that is sacred, do not call Sonny in today. He dozed off with this silent prayer echoing into the universe.
When he woke up again, he smelled coffee, very close by. Dragging open one eye, he spotted a steaming mug on his bedside table. What had he done to deserve his own personal caffeine angel?
A few sips emboldened him to get up, toss on paper-thin pajama pants, and pad into the kitchen, where Sonny was whizzing about, pulling containers out of the fridge and consulting the pantry intermittently. He was dressed already, in Intense Saturday Casual – a coral polo, khaki shorts, and Topsiders. He spotted Rafael and grinned, kissing him in greeting.
“Good morning. Exactly what kind of breakfast requires this many ingredients? Even if it is a Saturday?” Rafael intoned before taking a long draw from his coffee. Sonny gave a look of utter mischief, subconsciously glancing at a small duffel bag with a pair of sporty-looking sandals Rafael did not recognize sitting on top.
“Breakfast is in the oven,” he gestured, returning to his countertop full of food, “I’m making sandwiches for lunch.” A smile quirked on his lips as he glanced up at Rafael, cryptically not elaborating on that vague distinction. Rafael’s brow furrowed, and he bent down to poke around in the duffel bag. Another polo and shorts set, a pair of swim trunks, a beach towel-
“Oh my god, oh no, Sonny, what is going on?” Rafael groaned, realizing exactly what was going on. Sonny burst out laughing at that, and Rafael straightened back up with an utterly horrified expression, made comical by his hair sticking out in every direction from sleep.
“We’re going sailing!” Sonny practically shouted, shaking with laughter, his irritating happiness souring Rafael’s face even further.
“Sonny, no way, I have not had any time to prepare! Did you just come up with this today?” he asked accusingly. Sonny blushed guiltily.
“Well, I kinda thought of it earlier this week, but forgot until late last night. I called Jim this morning to see if the boat was free today, and it is! It’s the perfect thing, it’s hot out, there’s wind on the Lower Bay, we just have to!” he insisted, ticking off the reasons on his long fingers. Rafael rubbed his forehead, whispering curses in Spanish, swirling his cooling coffee.
“Ay, cariño,” he mumbled, “There’s no talking you out of this?”
“Nope,” Sonny said, popping a slice of pickle into his mouth, “and you don’t want to, because it’s going to be great.” A timer went off, and Sonny whirled around to retrieve potholders, fishing a fluffy frittata from the oven. Rafael slumped onto a barstool and perched his muscled arms on the counter, cradling his mug between both hands. The frittata looked amazing, and the coffee was going a long way to warming him to the idea of this day, and Sonny was just absolutely glowing with excitement… fine.
“Fine,” he sighed, resignedly, “What do I wear? What should I bring?”
~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~
As they boarded the ferry, Rafael felt his stomach begin to revolt as the reality of the day set in, tossing the prosciutto, asparagus and goat cheese frittata around his stomach carelessly. He shivered in the breeze, and decided to get his bearings.
“What does this boat look like?” he asked over the roar of the engines, breaking a several-minutes-long silence. Sonny glanced up at him before withdrawing his phone. He clicked around, pulling up an image of a two-sail boat, with boards and ropes sticking out all over.
“It’s almost twenty feet long, and has this main sail,” he gestured at the larger, more uniformly triangular sail, “and the jib sail,” indicating the smaller, curved one. “That tall pole is the mast, that pole attached to it is called the boom-”
“Excuse me? Did you just say ‘the boom’?” Rafael asked in alarm. Sonny just chuckled.
“Yeah, because if you aren’t paying attention when the sails switch, it’ll hit your head and go ‘boom’!” he explained, clapping his hands to punctuate the onomatopoeia. Rafael was aghast. “Don’t worry, I will call any maneuvers continuously until I’m sure you’ve ducked your head enough. It’s not fun sailing with someone who’s unconscious.”
“Oddly, that does absolutely nothing to comfort me,” Rafael remarked snappily.
“Rafi, babe, please trust me. It’s going to be great,” Sonny pleaded, his lesson momentarily forgotten as he gripped Rafael’s hand in his free one, rubbing his thumb against his wrist reassuringly. “Look, we won’t even leave the harbor if you don’t want to, it only gets to like, twenty feet deep. We’d get the mast stuck if we flipped,” he said in what was surely meant to be an encouraging tone.
“Sonny,” Rafael snarled through his teeth. Sonny’s face fell as he realized he wasn’t much helping matters.
“Look, we’re going to sit out by the marina and I’ll give you a whole lesson, that way you’ll know exactly what is happening, and when. I promise you, on my firstborn child, this is going to be a blast,” he said with a grin. Rafael softened at their long-running joke about an immaculately-produced child, but did not quite smile.
~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~
“Tomato and mozzarella, or ham and swiss?” Sonny asked, holding one and then another nearly-identical parchment-wrapped sandwich. Rafael reached for the one indicated as ham, but Sonny pulled it back an inch. “You sure? I put home-made pesto on the tomato one.”
“Tomato it is,” Rafael relented, always a sucker for Sonny’s hand-crafted sauces.
“Alright,” Sonny began, peeling back parchment, “so where do you think the wind is coming from today?” Rafael looked quizzical as he chewed on a (delicious) bite of sandwich, but glanced around good-naturedly for some indication of wind direction.
They had arrived just after one at a modest ranch-style clubhouse down the street from about three more ostentatious clubs. Sonny insisted that Richmond County Yacht Club was the only one on the island that took sailing seriously despite its name, and didn’t get all wrapped up in the ‘hoity-toity’ yacht-owning fanfare. The Lyft driver dropped them off just outside the gates, and Sonny had carried their picnic basket and cooler while Rafael shouldered their shared duffel down the winding drive to the shoreline. There were a handful of families picnicking on the lawn, and a small group of kids huddled around a whiteboard on the clubhouse wall as an instructor swept red and green lines across it, deftly fixing arrows on the ends. A narrow concrete path led straight down from the main clubhouse door to the beginning of the dock, which jutted out in a glistening white double-crossed T. Boats of all sizes lined the crosses of the T, masts triumphantly jutting skyward. At the far end of the sweeping lawn were racks of smaller boats and boards, which looked to Rafael utterly unsafe for ocean travel. He looked up now at the American flag on a pole at the edge of the shore, and pointed in the opposite direction of the flapping cloth.
“From there?” he guessed tentatively. Sonny nodded, reaching into the duffel and withdrawing a book, titled simply, Learning to Sail. Rafael rolled his eyes, because of course Sonny not only owned a sailing manual but had remembered to pack it. The younger man flipped open to a circular diagram, at the center of which was a top-down silhouette of a boat pointed at a block arrow, the twenty-or-so degrees on either side of the indicated wind direction shaded with cross-hatched lines.
“Yeah, we’ve got a north easterly wind today, blowing pretty good too by the looks of the waves,” he said, pressing on despite Rafael’s dramatic shudder, “and so when you’re sailing, obviously you’re trying to harness the wind for power. You just can’t sail directly at the wind, because it will blow by your sails, but you can sail anything about thirty degrees off the wind,” he indicated the rest of the circle outside the shaded pie pieces. “Now, depending upon where you want to sail, you have your sails adjusted more or less, so the curve basically cradles and then releases the wind off the back of the boat, propelling the boat forward. The closer to the wind, the closer the sails are trimmed.”
“Okay,” Rafael nodded, “but what if the destination is into the wind?”
“You sail a zig-zag, go aways in this direction, then switch to the other way,” Sonny used a flat hand to mimic the movement of the imaginary vessel, “until you get there.”
“That makes sense, I suppose,” Rafael allowed, crossing his arms. He was honestly very impressed with Sonny’s command of instruction on the subject, and said so. Sonny shrugged, but a pleased half-smiled snuck onto his face.
“I used to instruct, for about four summers after high school,” he admitted, “always really liked it. Most kids love this stuff, and it’s so gratifying because they learn so fast. Really develop a natural feel, ya know? But you wouldn’t believe how many wanted to go out there and didn’t know how to swim.” Rafael’s stomach dropped.
“Good thing I have those three lifejackets,” he said pathetically, “as I’m not much of a swimmer myself.”
“Well, we used to put these kids on boats alone, so they were always flipping and falling off the first week. We’re going to stay firmly inside the boat, so it’s not an issue. Plus, we have that National Guard detail,” he finished, pursing his lips hard against the grin that threatened to emerge. Rafael rolled his eyes, but his smirk bore no bite. Sonny grabbed their empty sandwich wrappers and stood confidently, looking out onto the harbor. “Well, Marty should be here any minute with the key to the hoist, so I’m going to get changed into my suit.”
Rafael took a long glug of water from a canteen before following Sonny to the locker room, where they both changed and Sonny hung the bag in a locker marked J. Carisi. After planting a quick kiss on Rafael’s cheek, he headed out to check on the arrival of his cousin, while the other man hung back to check a few final emails.
“Sonny!”
Sonny turned toward the drive to see his cousin stepping out of his car, waving brightly. The detective returned the smile and the wave, other hand on his hip. Marty approached, holding out a key on a palm-sized yellow foam floatie.
“What’s up, Marty?” Sonny greeted him, pulling him into a hug. He accepted the key and clapped his cousin on the back.
“Aw, not much Son, just enjoying this beautiful Saturday with Donna and the kids. Headed to the beach with some friends from church,” he said, beaming. The man was definitely a Carisi, glinting blue eyes, fair skin, and dimples for days, but had a rounder face than Sonny, and light brown hair that curled tighter than the Dominick Carisi clan, rather than his cousin’s now grey-accented ash blonde. His father Jim had married Nia, a woman of Greek descent, and their children were swarthier and stockier than Dominick and Valerie’s. “You said you’re sailing with Rafael?”
As if summoned, the man himself walked down the path to where the cousins stood, arched toward the shorefront, taking in the views. “Hello, Marty,” he said from behind them. They turned with identical expressions of surprise, but Marty’s transitioned easily to delight.
“Rafael! Great to see you,” he said brightly, clasping the older man’s hand. “Ready to get out on the water?”
“That’s one way of putting it,” Rafael snarked with a smile. Sonny rolled his eyes.
“He’s, let’s say, a little concerned for his safety,” the blonde offered.
“That’s a better way of putting it,” his partner confirmed. Marty laughed.
“Trust me, my friend, you are in good hands. Sonny’s a great sailor, certainly a better tactician than me. He’s got a natural feel for the needs of the boat. Wish I could get him down here for more races, we haven’t been looking great this year,” he acknowledged.
“Is that because your third crew is usually your twelve year old son?” Sonny teased.
“Kid’s gonna be better than me,” Marty retorted, “just three years in and they want him on the race team next year!”
“That’s great news!” Sonny beamed, and Rafael nodded with a smile.
“We’re pretty excited about it,” Marty admitted, his smile less than a mile away with his family. “Well, I’d better get back to the house so we can head out. And Son, just lock it in the locker when you’re done. We’ll be here in the morning to race, so I’ll just grab it then.”
“Thank you so much Marty, I think,” Rafael joked, but his smile was warm.
“Hey, anytime Rafael, and really, have fun. Just watch your head.” Marty smiled, shaking both men’s hands, and turned to leave.
“Thanks for the advice!” Rafael called after him, only slightly sarcastically. Sonny glanced at the lawyer.
“Well! Ready to go?”
“As I’ll ever be,” Rafael sighed, and followed Sonny to the dock.
~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~
Rafael watched Sonny buzz around the boat, which was much smaller than the older man had pictured, taking off the cover, uncleating this rope or that one, snapping sails and clicking boards into place. Despite having been aboard other vessels, this one seemed so complicated for its size. He counted at least twelve individual ropes that he could see, at least that many cleats, a half dozen pulleys, and did they really need two sails? Sonny babbled on the entire time, pointing out various parts of the boat, and demonstrating their function, reminding Rafael of the basics they had discussed that afternoon. Rafael tried to retain as much as possible, but many of the terms repeated themselves. He had heard “main halyard” and “jib halyard”, but sometime later “jib sheet” and “spinnaker sheet”, and apparently none of those were connected to each other? This was going to be a mess. To make matters worse, the wind seemed to be picking up, causing his stomach to re-commence churning its contents in anxiety. He huffed out a breath as Sonny rejoined him on the dock.
“Are you sure about this? It’s so damned windy, I’m worried we’ll end up in Jersey,” he fretted. Sonny looked on in mock-horror.
“Jersey?! Never. Not on my watch,” he proclaimed, fingertips flying to his sternum dramatically. “And I think it feels great, I’m so hot from running all over that boat.” Rafael observed him, noting the glimmer of sweat beading up on his forehead, and the semi-circle of his chest that was visible gleamed in the beating sun. Despite having applied sunscreen twice since their arrival, he was, frankly, pink. Rafael thought he had never looked so gorgeous, hair wind-swept, eyes flashing as he glanced around the harbor, gratitude eminating from him in waves. His good mood calmed Rafael, who leaned up on his tip-toes to kiss a sweaty temple. Sonny grinned, and pulled the man in for a quick smooch.
“I suppose we ought to go out, since you toiled to put together this vessel of death,” Rafael acknowledged dryly, shrugging on the lifejacket his little sailor had procured for him.
“Let’s go sailing!” Sonny shouted, pumping his fist like a Spartan headed into battle. He scooped the cooler and marched onto the slip dock, Rafael trailing reluctantly behind him.
After no small amount of trouble, the pair got the boat off the hoist, pulled it around the slipdock to the end of the T dock, and Rafael held on for dear life to the metal cables running from the deck to the top of the mast while Sonny leapt aboard and raised the sails. With an “Okay babe! Hop in!”, they were off. Rafael’s job was to trim the jib, which he now understood to mean moving the back of that sail from one side to the other, using ropes Sonny had identified to him anytime he said, “Here we go, Rafi! Switch!” Sonny was darling in his delight, and he hadn’t been lying when he said he could sail. He bounced from one side of the boat to the other, holding that steering device the entire time, deftly snapping this rope or that into and out of clips and cleats. They cruised around the harbor, and while it took a while for Rafael to get used to the constant lean of the boat, he had stopped grasping the edge of the deck in panic no more than twenty minutes in. Rafael caught Sonny beaming at him every time he looked back at the younger man, absurdly proud that his reluctant crewmember could follow basic instructions in an unfamiliar environment.
They sailed on a longer stretch, following the eastern shoreline of the harbor. It was bizarre to imagine that they were still in New York, technically, because aside from marina after marina, the narrow penninsula was uninhabited, featuring stretches of now-summer scorched grass and a few empty streets. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and the sun hung heavy, warming the stiff breeze that whistled along. Sonny dug into the cooler and produced two lemonade shandies, the only beer Rafael would tolerate, and only when it was very cold. He accepted this one gratefully, wondering why he hadn’t thought of alcohol sooner in this expedition.
“So, whaddya think?” Sonny asked, masking his uncertainty. Rafael’s half smile turned into a full one as he took a long swig of beer. His bronze skin glowed in the sun, as if drinking it in and letting it emanate from just below the surface. The lifejacket suited him somehow, echoing his usual stiff posture without any excess bulk. He had been pleasantly surprised by this sleek model, expecting to be handed one of those horrid orange boxes one yolks around one’s neck. He looked, despite his expression, at ease; his legs stretched back toward Sonny, crossed comfortably at the ankle.
“I think that we should have gotten into that cooler sooner,” he teased. Sonny rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “And the sailing is pretty good too.”
“Pretty good, eh?” Sonny allowed, “good enough that you want to take the helm?” Rafael’s eyebrows shot into his hairline as Sonny made to offer him the tiller, stiffening anew from his relaxed state.
“That is one of the handful of phrases I do understand out here, and it’s a resounding ‘no’ from me,” he said darkly, panic flashing across his face as he glanced around him, waiting for the boat to flip at the very suggestion that he take over steering.
“You sure? I really think you can do it,” Sonny coaxed. “I’ll be right next to you in case anything goes wrong.” He patted at the stretch of deck right next to his hips, issuing presumably illegal puppy dog eyes at his silently-cursing lover. Rafael sighed heavily.
“As long as you, Dominick Carisi Jr, remain seated no more than an inch away, I will hold onto that stick-” Sonny snorted a laugh- “for no more than five minutes. Capisce?” Rafael looked equally eager as terrified, an incredible feat of facial expression. Sonny was, as always, a ray of literal sunshine, and scooted back on the deck to allow Rafael his spot. Rafael sat tentatively and looked at Sonny expectantly, draining his beer. He tossed the can into the open cooler. “Alright. What do I do?”
“Okay, so the tiller controls the rudder, back here,” he indicated the large white board affixed to the back of the boat, jutting down into the water, “and when you turn the rudder, it steers the boat back and forth. Like with glue, a little dab will do ya – no need to jerk this around,” he demonstrated a gentle, graceful pull and push on the tiller. Rafael nodded, observing the connection between Sonny’s movements and the direction of the boat. He accepted the rubber-gripped metal pole, and glared at it. “Rafi, look forward, right off the bow.”
He tested a few tiny movements, and observed how the nose of the boat shifted from one side to another. Sonny gave him feedback, calling him into the other direction when he got too close to the wind and the sails flapped madly. When they drew close to shore, Sonny talked him through a tack, the sails snapping to the other side of the boat as they turned to the other side of the wind, even deftly managing to switch the jib while keeping one foot right next to Rafael, in keeping with their verbal contract.
After a mere four minutes, Rafael insisted that Sonny retake the helm, as he moved back up toward the cooler to retrieve another beer. Sonny laughed and ran two of his fingers that weren’t holding his beer through his wildly windblown hair.
“I’m so proud of you, babe! You did great.”
“Well, we appear to be upright, so that defied my expectations anyway,” Rafael snarked, but he was quietly pleased.
~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~
The two crawled into bed that night, bone-tired after sailing in, de-rigging the boat, covering it, and making their way via various forms of transportation back to Manhattan, picking up food from the Middle Eastern joint around the corner, and then scarfing it before showering and preparing to sleep. Rafael hit the pillow first, and Sonny snuggled up behind him, wrapping his long arms contentedly around his partner.
“I’m so glad we did this. You did so great,” he said quietly, nuzzling the older man’s hair with his nose. Rafael smiled sleepily into the darkness.
“You did not do yourself justice when you told me you could sail, cariño,” Rafael admitted, “plus, you looked very sexy doing it, and if I wasn’t the most tired I’ve been in ages, I’d be showing you how much I enjoyed watching Skipper Sonny tame the high seas of the Great Kills Harbor.” Sonny snorted at the silly nickname, but pulled Rafael still closer and kissed his head.
“Think you’d ever want to try racing?” he asked after a beat, and it was Rafael’s turn to snort.
“You’re kidding.”
“At least give it a try? You don’t have to steer, just switch the jib.” Rafael sighed.
“Fine.”
“You promise?” Sonny prodded, teasingly.
“I swear on my firstborn child,” he snarked, and Sonny dissolved into sleepy giggles.