Mitch reached the boat where Matt was stranded. He helped the shivering young lifeguard onto the Baywatch patrol cruiser and then secured the disabled Scarab to a tow line so that they could bring it back to shore. Matt helped himself to some coffee and wrapped himself up in a thermal blanket. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d spent many nights on the open sea before, but it was no fun if you weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t prepared for it.<\/p>\n
\tAs soon as Matt told Mitch the entire story of what had happened, Mitch started laughing.
\n\t“What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so funny, Mitch?” he demanded.
\n\t“I know you were afraid to live up to your claim that you could ride a long board but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the worst made-up excuse I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ever heard, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got a 15-year-old at home,” Mitch said between guffaws.
\n\t“Ha ha, Mitch,” said Matt, very annoyed. “It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all true except for the part where I said I was making out with Summer Quinn when I heard the stolen boat. I made that part up.”
\n\t“Oh yeah? That was the one part I did believe. What were you doing then?”
\n\t“Uhh\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Watching television,” Matt lied.
\n\t“So you went, alone, in the middle of the night, after a stolen boat, made an unauthorized dive, fought a giant squid and didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t catch your man?”
\n\t“That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right,” Matt said ruefully.
\n\t“That has got to be, single-handedly, hands down, without a doubt, unquestionably, the king of the hill, top of the heap, cream of the crop, A-1, acme, superstar, all-time\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.” Mitch paused for breath.
\n\t“Do go on,” said Matt.
\n\t“\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6dumbest thing you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ever done!” finished Mitch.
\n\tThey reached the shore where various nameless and faceless Baywatch lackeys were waiting to deal with both boats.
\n\t“I know. I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t thinking,” admitted Matt.
\n\t“I should say you weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t!” Mitch shouted. “Next time, you call for backup. Next time you do not go running off by yourself. Next time\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.” Mitch trailed off.
\n\t“Next time what, Mitch?”
\n\tMitch started sobbing uncontrollably. “What if something had happened to you? What would I do without you?”
\n\t“Oh Mitch!” Matt embraced his friend. “Nothing happened! I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m okay! And I promise I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be more careful in the future. Okay? There there.”
\n\tMitch\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s cries quieted and his heavy breaths slowed. Soon, he was recomposed. “Do you promise?” he asked.
\n\t“I promise, Mitch,” Matt said. “Now are you going to be okay? I need to take a shower. I feel gross.”
\n\t“I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be fine,” Mitch sniffed. “Go on ahead.”
\n\tMitch watched as Matt walked off towards the shower room. He sure could use a few more Matt Brodys around Baywatch. He grabbed a passing lackey.
\n\t“See to it that that man gets put in for a commendation,” Mitch told it. “I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll sign the paperwork myself.”
\n\t“Um, which man are you talking about, sir?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mitch reached the boat where Matt was stranded. He helped the shivering young lifeguard onto the Baywatch patrol cruiser and then secured the disabled Scarab to a tow line so that they could bring it back to shore. Matt helped himself to some coffee and wrapped himself up in a thermal blanket. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d spent many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}