But that had been a long time ago, another lifetime ago. The Millers worked out of the next harbor over, and one of Boon’s brothers was tight with Keith, but I hadn’t had any dealings with them. For the most part, we stayed out of each other’s way.
Now, he cleared his throat and watched me. He was one of those guys who went bald before he was out of high school. I don’t think I’d ever seen him without a hat on. Today it was a brown knit cap, pulled low on his forehead. He had a goatee and a tattoo on the side of his neck of an ornate shield. The Miller crest. I knew I was walking a line talking about his brother, but I didn’t care. The noise in my head was deafening.
He walked close enough to the rail that he could have reached out and touched me. His eyes flicked over me, came back to my face.
“Kelly,” he said, his voice even, controlled. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”
I leaned forward. “All I’m asking is that you deliver a message. So there’s no confusion over who did what.”
“Look. We’ve got a mutual friend, and I heard you’ve had a shit year, so I’m going to cut you some slack. You’re not thinking straight.”
“How’s that?” I asked, but it came out more like a shout than a question, and his eyes locked on mine.
He put his hand on the rail of my boat. “First of all, you’re going to back up. You might have a problem with whoever owns those traps, but that problem isn’t me, and I’ve got about this much patience left in me.” He held his thumb and forefinger out in front of me, the space between them so small, only the tiniest sliver of light seeped through.
Even through the noise in my head, I got it. I held up my hands and stepped back, gave him a nod to show I’d heard him.
“Now,” he said. “Let’s start over. I don’t give a shit whose traps those are. And I don’t give a shit if you cut ’em. I do give a shit that you’re telling me about it. A guy got shot on the island last month over who knew what and who didn’t.”
He wasn’t exaggerating. Two families who’d argued for decades over territory got into an argument out on the water about some traps that had been cut. Someone pulled a gun, and a stern man was shot in the neck. He lived, but barely.
“Either cut ’em and shut up or cut ’em and make it known. But either way, keep me out of it. You start dragging people into it, you’re going to start something you don’t want to start.”
Keith walked back to the wheelhouse and turned on the engine, a thick rattle filling the air. He throttled in reverse. When he was across from me, he gestured for me to lean in.
“Take some advice,” he said loudly over the noise of the engine. “You’ve got a good reputation out here. You know better than this. Get off the water until your head’s straight, or you’re going to get hurt.”
He was right and I knew it. But the buzzing in my head was making it hard to concentrate. I blinked, trying to make sense of what was happening.
I stuck out my hand for him to shake. “Sorry I slowed you down. That was out of line.”
After we shook, he looked in the direction of my traps. “Finn’s on the booze again. If you’re looking for him, check out the Rat. But you didn’t get that from me.”
He slapped the rail, spun the wheel starboard, and rumbled away, the Go Deep’s engines spinning the water into a blanket of white. There was an eerie silence then, only the water lapping against the hull. There was no feeling left in me, the anger I’d felt before faded and gone, leaving only a heaviness in my limbs. I couldn’t remember a time I’d felt so tired.
But there were still traps to haul, bait bags to fill, lobsters to crate, a string of traps to cut loose, free to tumble across the ocean floor.
I motored over, gaffed the purple-and-white buoy, grabbed the knife from its mounted sheath next to my leg, and held it to the warp line, the seaweed wrapped around it thick and slippery.
It took me less than a minute to cut Finn’s traps.
It was against the law to cut them. Trap molesting was a civil violation. If I got caught, there’d be a mandatory three-year loss of my fishing license.
I looked down at the knife, and the sun lit up the steel blade in a flash of light, blinding me. Dots of silver popped like fireworks in front of my eyes.
There was no air to breathe, the pain in my chest searing.
I slid down to the deck and pressed the heel of my hand into my eye socket, trying to regain my vision.
Keith’s words played in my head, over and over, on a loop. Get off the water until your head’s straight, or you’re going to get hurt. Get off the water until your head’s straight, or you’re going to get hurt. Get off the water until your head’s straight, or you’re going to get hurt.
And then Boon’s voice chimed in. You’re not a one-man show calling the shots.
When I opened my eyes, I was on my back, flat on the deck. The sky had grown dark, a large cloud blocking the sun.
I glanced down at a flash of light and saw the knife on my chest where I’d dropped it. The blade rising and falling with my breath, the tip of the jagged teeth resting inches from my neck.
?10
Jess
The breeze off the water fluttered the curtain in the bathroom window at the shop. I was supposed to be up at the counter, stocking the glass case with today’s fish. Instead, I was looking out the window at the pier below, where dozens of boats bobbed on the water. It wasn’t the view I was looking at. It was Alex, who was down on the dock, loading crates onto the stern of a boat.
I hadn’t seen him since I’d called his father a jerk. Remembering it made my cheeks hot.
When he’d told me he was Mr. Finn’s son, I’d been speechless, mortified. He’d brushed it off, though. And hadn’t said anything about it for the rest of the ride home.
After he’d pulled away in his truck, I’d stood on the sidewalk in front of my house, my head spinning. Had I even said I was sorry for what I’d said about his father? He’d wrapped my foot, given me a ride home. And what had I done? I’d called his father a jerk. A total jerk, is what I’d said.
Now it seemed like I had two choices: hide in here and pretend the whole thing never happened or apologize. I looked in the bathroom mirror. Looking for what I didn’t know. Maybe not to see so much brown. Eyes, hair, freckles. Even my shirt was the color of dirt. The yellow fish shop logo on my chest was the only bright thing looking back at me. I stuck out my tongue. I was just some girl who ended up on Alex’s street. He wasn’t going to care if my hair was brown or green or pink.
I left the bathroom, opened the back door, and stepped out onto the dock. He was still on the pier, holding a cup in his hand, his back to me. I headed in his direction before I lost my nerve.
When I was almost next to him, he turned suddenly. Then his cup was in the air, tossed like a basketball, his T-shirt rising up his middle and uncovering a flash of brown skin. He saw me then, as the cup flew over me, the bottom of it just missing the top of my head.