Hello, Sunshine

“Henry doesn’t fish here. He takes a fancy charter out with his corporate buddies and pays someone to take a photo of him with a marlin. That’s not fishing. That’s a photo op. With a marlin.”

“Okay.”

“Do you not see the irony? Sammy, by herself, could reach into the ocean and catch a marlin.” He shook his head. “This guy pisses me off.”

“The man whose wife you’re sleeping with pisses you off? That’s who you’re talking about, right?”

“He thinks he fishes here. He thinks he can say something that stupid. If he really fished here, he would never say something that stupid.” He paused. “He might just think it.”

I took a deep breath in, the shoreline moving farther away. “Why are you still talking?”

“Hey! You wanted to come out on the water today. Hell, I don’t know why I agreed to it,” he said.

“Because you have a soft spot for Sammy,” I said.

He smiled. “I guess so,” he said.

He looked out at the water, navigated us farther north.

“So how’s the job going? I’m impressed you’ve lasted this long.”

“I haven’t.”

“What happened?”

“Spilled a plate of peaches on someone.” I paused. “Dropped. I should say that I dropped the peaches on purpose.”

He laughed, a little impressed. “Did she deserve it?”

“Don’t think that’s the question Chef Z is going to be interested in. I ran out of there too fast to find out.”

Ethan killed the engine. “Well, I’m interested.”

“It was Amber Rucci, the woman who hacked me. She took my cookbook deals and my Food Network show. She can’t even cook.”

“Either.”

I looked at him, confused.

“I’m just saying, you should probably say, She can’t cook either.”

“She makes toast, Ethan.”

“I like toast.” He shrugged. “But I’m not much of a recipe guy. I like to wing it. Put the toast in the toaster oven. Turn it on high. See what happens.”

I laughed. “I don’t know what I was thinking. She was just sitting in the restaurant, and I snapped.”

He pulled a joint from his pocket. “Sounds like she deserved it.”

It should have made me feel better, Ethan justifying my feelings about Amber. But it didn’t. I thought of Amber destroying my life to better her own. I’d been angry before, but thinking of the kid I was carrying, I was more than angry. I was heartbroken.

Ethan lit up the joint, and I gave him a look. “What? It’s legal.”

“I’m not sure it is while operating a boat.”

“So, it’s a good thing we are sitting still.”

Then he handed me the joint.