HARLOW SHOWS UP bright and early the next morning, balancing a tray with three Styrofoam cups on one flattened palm, a white paper bag clutched in her other fist.
“Good morning, Sunshine!” she chirps, pushing past me into the living room. “I brought breakfast.”
“It’s seven in the morning, Snap,” I mumble after her, reaching up to scratch my jaw. I haven’t shaved in two days, I’m not wearing a shirt . . . she’s lucky I’m even wearing pants. “What are you doing here?”
“We’re going to brainstorm.” She walks into the kitchen and turns to whisper-hiss, “Is Oliver still home?”
The old house is still chilly. The floorboards are cold beneath my bare feet as I lag behind her.
“He’s in the shower.”
At least, I think he is. At home I’m up before sunrise, down at the docks. But this beach life has spoiled me and indulges my natural night owl tendencies. I don’t think I’ve slept until seven in nearly twenty years. But I’m waiting until Oliver leaves to call my brothers and fill them in on my meeting with the producers.
Any thought of my brothers at all is wiped from my head when I turn the corner and get an eyeful of Harlow bent over the dishwasher, her perfect ass wrapped in a pair of skintight yoga pants.
Oblivious to my ogling, she straightens, and begins opening cupboard doors. “Plates?”
I cross the room and stop just behind her, reaching over her head to retrieve a stack of yellow plates from the shelf. Harlow freezes, fingers gripping the edge of the countertop before she seems to relax, and leans back against my chest.
“Here you go,” I tell her, bending to say the words against her hair.
She smells so good and her ass is pressed against my dick, I have to step away before she can feel that I’m already half hard, worked up like a seventeen-year-old boy. Pushing back, I take a seat at the small island and weave my bare feet around the legs of the bar stool.
It takes a moment for her to collect herself, too, and I grin as she clumsily sets down the plates and opens the paper sack.
“You look a little breathless there, Snap.”
She looks up, shoots daggers.
“So what is it we’re brainstorming?” I ask, rolling an orange along the counter. My stomach growls on instinct when I see her reach inside the bag and pull out some of the biggest, gooiest, most frosting-coated cinnamon rolls I’ve ever seen.
“Your situation,” she stage-whispers, and slaps my hand away when I try to sneak a fingertip of icing.
“My situation . . . ?”
“Dreamboats on the Pacific? Try to keep up, Finneus.”
I roll my eyes. “You know that’s not what it’s called.”
“Only because they never asked me for ideas.”
“As much I love that you brought me food, couldn’t we have talked later? You know, after the sun was up?”
“The sun is up.”
“Barely.”
Ignoring me, Harlow pulls one of the coffees from the tray and sets it and a cinnamon roll down in front of me. “I do my best thinking when I run,” she says, and dishes up one for herself. “I have a million ideas for you.”
I lean forward and take a bite of the warm, gooey pastry, and swear to God my eyes roll back in my head. “Jesus fuck, this is the best thing I’ve ever tasted.” Without thinking, I stand and round the corner, placing a hand on either side of her face, before kissing her full on the mouth.
It’s meant to be quick. It’s meant to be a funny, dramatic little thank-you between friends. But Harlow’s surprised gasp is quickly cut off by a soft moan, her palms moving up to rest on my bare stomach. Heat surges through my veins and I feel every point of contact between us: where her breasts press against my chest, her hands on my skin, her lips moving against mine.
I pull away with a shaky breath and Harlow clears her throat. “You taste like cinnamon,” she murmurs, licking her lips.
“Well, g’day you, too.”
Our heads snap to where Oliver leans against the doorway, arms folded across his chest. He scratches his cheek, giving me the smuggest fucking look I’ve ever seen.
I drop my hands to my sides and take a step back. “Just thanking Miss Harlow for breakfast.”
“I’m offended, Finn. I made you dinner the other day and would’ve appreciated at the very least a sharp pat on the ass. I see how you are.”
“Ha, yeah,” I say, returning to my seat.
Oliver beelines toward the food and Harlow hands him his coffee, along with the now-closed white sack.
“I have to apologize up front, because no way could a man hope to follow up that,” he says, nodding to me. “But thank you, pet.” He bends and kisses Harlow’s cheek.
“There’s one in there for Not-Joe,” she says, and I don’t know what it is about watching the two of them like this, but it makes me feel like I’m being slowly, carefully uncoiled, like this is how my morning should be every damn day. “Tell him I expect a lap dance at Fred’s later.”
I groan, but Oliver only laughs. “Will do. Be good, kids.”
We both watch Oliver disappear from the kitchen and sit in silence, listening as the front door closes, followed moments later by the sound of his Nissan roaring to life and heading down the street.
Harlow carries her own plate and coffee to the counter, sitting on the stool next to me, her foot tangling with mine. “You look like crap,” she says, looking at my mouth like she wants to lick it.
“So do you.” I look at her perfect tits, all perky and fuckable in her little running tank. “I’m almost embarrassed for you.”
She tilts her head, exposing her long, tanned neck. “Hideous?”
“Revolting.” I reach forward, wiping a tiny smear of frosting from her lower lip.
She stares as I stick my thumb in my mouth, sucking the frosting off, and I blink away, working to get my shit together. This isn’t how we keep our clothes on and stay friends-only. This is how she ends up ass-up on the couch, getting spanked and fucked until dinnertime.
It’s so strange being with her like this: eating in companionable silence and having it feel so . . . normal. This is what I have to remember: Sex with Harlow is amazing, but being friends with her isn’t so bad, either.
“Thanks for breakfast,” I say, wiping my mouth with a napkin.
“No problem. Like I said, I think better when I run, and unfortunately for my half-Latina ass, the bakery is right at the end of the best running trail in La Jolla. Now let’s get back to the reason behind my visit: fixing your problem.”
“I appreciate the thought, but I don’t need you to—”
“Shut up. I have ideas.”
It’s obvious Harlow has made up her mind, so I decide to humor her. Instead of telling her not to bother, that I’ve probably thought of it all already, I reach over and tear off a chunk of the center of her cinnamon roll, popping it in my mouth.
She scowls at me. “That was the best bite. You’re a menace.”
“Mmm hmm,” I hum around it.
She turns on her stool to face me. “What about tourists? Taking people out on your boat?”
I swallow, washing the bite down with a gulp of coffee. “No way.”
“Why?”
“Commercial fishing boats are dangerous places, Snap. Things fall, lines get tangled, people trip. No way am I having a bunch of paying idiots wandering around my boats.”
“Okay,” she says. “What about investors?”
“You think I haven’t thought about that?”
“There has to be someone who—”
“The only reason people loan money is to make money. The fishing industry isn’t just going to recover overnight,” I tell her. “Development, climate change, disease, it’s all had an impact and as far as I can see, it won’t get better anytime soon. I can’t borrow money if I don’t have the hope of paying it back.”
I feel the truth of this reality sink like a weight in my chest. It will never be the way it was. My brothers and I will never know the life my dad knew, and his dad before him. There’s something so utterly defeating in that. A smart man would walk away; he’d sell everything he could, split the money and make a new life somewhere else. But it’s all the fucking history—what my family has fought for, sacrificed for, what Dad worked to keep after he lost Mom—that keeps me from just walking away.
“Right,” she says. “I guess that makes sense. What about fishing other things, then?”
“We already do that. We do sockeye, pink and chum salmon, roe herring, halibut, invertebrates,” I say, and then pause, seeing her face fall. I feel sort of guilty, she’s clearly put some time into this and I’m just shooting down her ideas, one after another.
But in typical Harlow fashion, she seems undeterred. “So maybe we need to think outside the box.”
“Outside the box, huh?”
“Yeah, let’s see . . .” She leans forward, knees pressed to mine, her hand ghosting along the top of my thigh. I’m still shirtless, and swear I can feel the heat from her body, an awareness of having her near me. And I wonder if she has any idea how it feels, or if I’m the only one of the two of us who gets so wrapped up that I could accurately estimate the distance between us in millimeters.
“What about T-shirts?”
I blink. “T-shirts?”
“Yeah, like, your own clothing line. Imagine a glossy ad with you and your studly brothers. You’re standing in the middle and wrapped in a tight T-shirt—”
“You’re messing with me now, aren’t you?”
“Maybe a little,” she says, tapping my nose with her index finger. “Because you’re so cute in the morning.” Sitting up straighter, she continues, “So imagine this: you, muscles, and an arrow pointing straight down with the words ROBERTS BAIT AND TACKLE printed on the shirt.”
“Pointing straight down,” I clarify.
“Yes.”
“To my cock.”
“Yes.”
I close my eyes and take a deep breath, counting to ten. “Ginger Snap. Honey,” I say, and close the distance between us even more. “I promise I’ve spent more time on this than you can possibly imagine. I’ve considered everything.”
“Everything?”
Nodding, I lift my coffee to my lips.
“How about selling sperm?”
Coughing, I splutter, “Pardon me?”
“Sperm. Jizz. Semen. Protein shakes. Love juice. Pecker spit. Face crea—”
“Harlow.”
“What? You said everything.”
“Why . . .” I start, and shake my head. “Wait, were you starting to say face cream?”
She nods.
Shaking my head, I decide to move on from that visual. “Why on God’s earth would I donate sperm?”
“I can’t believe you have to ask that. Have you looked in a mirror lately? Have you seen your brothers? That is one hell of a gene pool. Hell, if I was a spinster living in an old Victorian on Golden Hill, I’d buy—”
And I kiss her. Again.
I don’t mean to . . . actually, that’s a lie. I do. But I don’t mean for it to go on as long as it does. Harlow’s words are lost in my mouth when I slide my lips across hers and her eyes close, the breath leaving her lungs in a soft sigh.
I slide off my stool and lean over her, one hand in her hair and the other on her jaw as I open my mouth, lick her tongue with mine. I hold her close, tight, in just the way I know she wants. My thumb moves down to press against her throat, not with intent, but just enough to let her know I have her.
Harlow’s hands grip my hips and she stands, pressing herself fully along the length of my body. My skin is fiery where her fingertips brush over it, nails scratching and tracing the top of my pants. It’s like the blood leaves my brain and surges downward, every thought suddenly of Harlow: where I can touch, what I can taste, if she’d mind if I laid her out right here on this counter, fucked her until neither of us could think anymore.
But I don’t. And though I’m sure I’ll hate myself later, when I’m alone and jacking off and wondering what the fuck I was thinking to pull away, I do. I take a step back and try to ignore the way she’s invaded every one of my goddamn senses, how I can still feel the press of her body even though there’s a few inches of space between us now.
“You still taste like cinnamon,” she says, dragging in a rough breath.
“You taste perfect.” I know I’m tempting fate, but I lean in the slightest bit, punctuating my words with another small kiss against the corner of her mouth, her jaw.
“I thought we weren’t doing this anymore?” It comes out as a question, and I know it’s because she’s as confused about what the fuck we’re doing as I am.
“We aren’t.” I confirm this with a short nod.
“Then why did you kiss me?”
“Had to,” I say, and follow it up with another kiss to the tip of her nose. “Only way to get you to stop talking about my brothers as objects. It was offensive.” I smile.
She bursts out laughing, closing the distance between us to rest her head on my shoulder. “Okay, no more Finn’s-hot-brothers talk. I promise.”
We stand there for a moment—her lips against my bare shoulder, my face in her hair—before Harlow seems to remember herself. She straightens and I feel the absence of her immediately. My arms fall to my sides and I watch as she turns back to the counter and gathers up our plates.
“So, I guess we’re back to square one?”
I shove my hands in my pockets and rock back on my heels. “I guess so.”
Harlow cleans the rest of the mess up before reaching for her keys.
“Don’t you worry, Finnigan. I’m a genius and I’m not giving up yet. I’ll figure this out.”
“Harlow, I don’t need you to—”
“Again, Finn?” she says sweetly. “Shut up. Stop being so stubborn and let someone else shoulder the worry for a few hours, okay?” I’m not sure how to respond, and so I stand dumbly as she stretches up onto her tiptoes, and presses the briefest kiss to my cheek. “I got you.”
I USED TO think my dad was the most persistent person I knew. When I was eight, he was up and walking hours after major back surgery to fix two ruptured disks. When I was nine, he spent a winter fishing the shores off of Alaska, and lost the tips to three of his fingers when they were crushed between two steel crab pots. He went back again the next year. When we lost Mom, Dad buried himself in work, sometimes spending nearly eighteen hours straight on the boat. And when he had his heart attack the summer I turned nineteen, and the doctors told him to stay the hell off the boats, he insisted on showing up the day he was released from the hospital, just to make sure we weren’t doing anything wrong.
I fear he has nothing on Harlow Vega.
Two days after cinnamon rolls and hearing the words pecker spit come from Harlow’s mouth—I’m not sure I’ll ever become unhorrified—my phone vibrates on the nightstand. It’s hours from sunrise, and the little guest room in Oliver’s house is still completely dark. I reach for my phone—managing to knock over a bottle of water and I have no idea what else in the process—and stare with bleary eyes. What if something’s happened to Dad? Colton or Levi? The boat?
Make yourself pretty. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.
Harlow.
A glance at the clock shows it’s not even 5 a.m., and for a moment I consider texting her back, suggesting where exactly she should put her thirty minutes. I need to go back to sleep. I need to talk to Colton and Levi. I need to figure out what the fuck I’m doing with my life.
I drop my phone to the mattress and stare, blankly, up at the ceiling. My heart is pounding in my chest and I rub a hand over my breastbone, feel the quickened beat just under my palm. My stomach feels both light and heavy at the same time, and even though the idea of shutting off my phone and sleeping for another three hours sounds amazing, I’m kidding myself if I think I might actually do it.
Harlow will be here to pick me up in thirty minutes, and regardless of what I should be doing this morning, something tells me we both know I’ll be standing outside, waiting.
AND LIKE SOME boy with a school yard crush and no real responsibilities, I am. Harlow’s car pulls into the driveway exactly twenty-nine minutes later, and I’m already sitting on the porch, two cups of steaming coffee in hand.
She steps out and crosses the damp grass toward me, dressed in jeans and a faded blue long-sleeved T-shirt, hair in a high ponytail, wearing a bright smile and not a trace of makeup.
I’m pretty sure she’s never looked more beautiful.
“Ready?” she says, stopping just in front of the porch. She looks so much younger right now, innocent, and if the reappearance of that nosedive feeling in my stomach is any indication, I’m in way over my head.
“Not remotely.” I glance down at her outfit again. She’s gone pretty casual today. I lift an eyebrow. “Looks like for once I meet the dress code.”
“You’re perfect.”
Steady, Finn.
I hand Harlow her coffee and she looks at me, brows raised. “Such a gentleman.”
I ignore this, not wanting to obsess any more over the five-minute conversation I had with myself on whether it would be weird, or give Harlow some giant glimpse into my head if I made her a cup of fucking coffee. I am insane.
“So where are we going?” I say instead.
Harlow turns and leads us back to the car. “Fishing,” she says, climbing in and starting the engine.
I look up from where I’m currently trying to wedge all six foot, three inches of me into the front seat of her sports car. “What?”
She checks her mirrors and backs out of the driveway, pulling out onto the street before she answers. “I figured we’re here, and you’ve got to be so fucking tired of doing what everyone else wants to do. Plus I’m sure you miss home,” she says. “So why not give you a little taste of home, here?”
She must misread my stunned silence, because she quickly adds, “I mean, I know it won’t be the same for you, but trust me, Sunshine. It’ll be fun.”
And, okay. I’m sort of at a loss for words. Just when I think I have Harlow figured out, she does something to obliterate it. “Thanks,” I manage, and quickly busy myself with my coffee.
“And maybe we’ll see some trees you can cut down or something,” she adds, and bites her bottom lip to keep from smiling.
“Do they even have trees by Barbie’s dream yacht?”
With that, we’re back to normal. The heaviness is gone from my chest, and this ever-evolving tension between us has settled back into its place.
“Have you ever been fishing before?” I ask her.
She hums to herself while turning on the blinker, and merges into the next lane. “A few times up north with my dad. River fishing, though, not ocean. I never really caught anything.”
“That’s because it’s called fishing, not catching, Ginger Snap. Sometimes you’re lucky and sometimes you’re not.”
“Right.” She shifts in her seat and rests her elbow on the door, fingers twisting the ends of her ponytail. “Pretty sure this’ll be different than your usual day of fishing, too. I assume you’re not sacked out in lounge chairs while someone brings you sandwiches and beer.”
“Uh, no.”
“So tell me, Finn. What do you guys do? Do you just throw some lines in the water and wait?”
“Some do.”
“But not you guys.”
I shake my head. “Linda is a seiner, so we fish with nets.”
“Nets, right.” She pauses, looking over at me. “Wait, who’s the captain of your boat?”
“That’d be me, Einstein.”
She gives me a cheeky grin. “Can I call you Captain?”
“No.”
“Can I be your first mate? Will you swab my decks?”
I laugh as she wiggles in her seat. “You’ve lost your damn mind.”
“Just trying to speak your language, Huckleberry.” She merges onto the freeway and spares me a tiny glance once we’re settled in the fast lane. “Okay, we have a little drive before we get to Point Loma. It’s time for you to school me in the art of Vancouver Island fishing.”
I look out at the passing scenery: the blur of the freeway, the houses rushing by, the palm trees. The sky is just starting to lighten up at the edges and there’s something so peaceful about being out here like this. And I’m realizing that I sort of do want to tell Harlow about life on the boat. I like talking to her, and the time we spend together is pretty much the only time I’m not worrying myself toward an ulcer.
“So first we have to be on the fish,” I start, my thumb tracing the fancy emblem on the dashboard. “That means we locate a school in the water. Then we drop the nets and circle the school. When the fish are surrounded, we cinch up the bottom and the fish are trapped inside. Basic concept, but there’s a ton to do besides that. When we aren’t actually fishing, someone has to check the float line and floats, the lead lines, make sure there aren’t any holes in the nets, as well as the power skiff and all the other electrical and hydraulic equipment. The skiff used to pull the nets up is run on equipment powered by the auxiliary engine. Which is why we have to have both engines in working order and why it’s so devastating when one goes down.” I pause and look at her again, certain she has to have zoned out. She hasn’t. “You’re still listening? That’s a miracle.”
“Well, it’s not like twittering or shuffling papers at NBC,” she teases. “But I am kind of fascinated by what you do all day. Feel free to add the little details, if you want, like how you guys do all of this with your shirts off and the ocean sprays your muscles so you glisten in the sun. Just to help with the visual a little.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“I assume your days are pretty long, huh?”
“Start working when it’s light, stop when it’s not. Normally I’m up before the sun, without an alarm, but I swear my internal clock is a mess here. Well,” I say, smiling around my coffee cup, “unless you’re on the porch at dawn to wake me up.”
We go on like that for a while as the beautiful scenery zooms past us, and before I realize it Harlow’s pulled into a parking lot and shut off the engine.
“Well, and look, the sun is here to greet us.”
I look out the windshield and point to the forty-three-foot diesel docked in the harbor. “That the one we’re on today?”
“That’s right, Captain.”
I give her a playfully reprimanding look and then say, “You ready to get schooled, Ginger Snap?”
She laughs and drops her keys into her bag. “I’m ready for whatever you’ve got, Sunshine.”
