When the tide is high and the breeze is up you can smell the ocean and most days that was enough to make Raymond happy, but today wasn’t one of those days.
He hurt more than usual and the rickety wooden bridge to the pier felt like his bones. Stopping halfway to rest, his hollow gaze bobbed with the boats in the moorage basin and he tried to wad his scattered thoughts into a ball of happiness, or at least something he could live with. Something people around him might mistake for happiness. Raymond knew if that didn’t work the bright-eyed young women at the coffee shop would see he was having one of those days and it would worry them.