Prologue #2
“I shouldn’t have to ask you to do better!
What don’t you get? If I have to beg you to be an active participant in this marriage, I don’t want it!
That’s not who I am! I don’t—and I won’t—beg anyone for their attention!
Your general cluelessness may have been endearing when we started dating, but I should have known there’d be no way you would eventually grow out of it.
My parents were right, I shouldn’t have to fix anyone. ”
It’s all I can do to not bite back at that comment.
Sheldon and Lainey Babcock have always made it clear as crystal—akin to the precious Swarovski that their mansion is abundantly adorned with—that I was never worthy of being with their only little girl.
There was a time, back when Sarah and I first started dating, where she would have to stick up for me all too often—but that was before I stopped attending family functions with them.
There’s only so much one can take when it comes to her parents.
What was it I overheard her father call me once?
Oh, yeah. A blue-collar low-life. One who was clearly only with her to leach off her family’s inheritance.
I’ll have those assholes know, I have worked my blue-collar ass off to keep our family fed, housed, and clothed.
We want for nothing here, and it’s because I fuckin’ hustle for it.
Most days I wake up before the sun even has a chance to.
I’ve taken Dad’s business from mediocre to formidable—Wagner and I, we’re two of the top lobstermen in the Downeast region.
There’s not a captain out there that can keep up with the Ternbay Twosome.
Our boats are two of the top producers in Maine—hell, New England.
Lobstering isn’t big money, no, but it has provided for us well enough.
None of that matters though. I’m just scum-of-the-earth to them. All because I don’t wear an executive suit and have dirt under my nails instead. Now, it appears she’s taken their side in their assumptions of me. I am useless. Pathetic. A low-life lush.
“Sarah,” I say her name, pleading with her to look up at me as she throws clothes haphazardly into her suitcase. I need her to see the genuine hurt in my eyes. “Sarah, please look at me.”
“No,” she replies firmly. “I can’t do that, because I know when I look at you, I’m going to see that hurt puppy expression on your face.
I can’t do this anymore, Gannett. I’ve fallen for that look so many times, and I won’t do it from here on out.
My mind is made up. I’m calling out sick from work tomorrow and Friday.
I'll be gone through Sunday. That gives you four days to find somewhere to go. I suggest, for once in your life, you put in some effort.”
“I have nowhere to go! This is my house!”
“It’s mine too! I work just as hard for this house! Where you go is not my problem! Go stay with your parents!”
“Dad’s turned my old bedroom into his ship-in-a-bottle hobby space! Evan’s old room is Mom’s sewing nook!”
She scoffs. “Again. Not my problem. The girls will have enough to go through dealing with our separation. I don’t need them uprooted from their home too.”
“I never said they needed to be!” I shoot back. “I agree with you there, but I’m their father. I don’t get a say as a parent at all?”
“The day you get a say as a parent is the day you actually decide to be a parent, Gannett,” she hisses. “You’ve always tried to be their buddy. Never, in their entire three years, have you been a father. You need to grow up; that's what you need to do.”
The words slam into me like a snowplow, knocking me back a few steps. My back hits the wall, and I slide down it until my ass hits the carpeted floor.
Another humorless laugh bubbles out of her, and she rolls her eyes, zipping up her luggage.
“That reaction says it all. You are totally clueless. I’ll let you know when I’m back in town.
Bring a pen, because you’ll have some paperwork you need to sign.
And clean up all these empty bottles, too, while you’re at it.
You think you’re so sneaky, hiding them, but you’re not. ”
I hang my head in defeat, my shoulders slumping as I curl in on myself. She’s right. I am totally clueless. How did I not see this coming? How the hell could I have been so fucking blind?
Maybe it’s true, what everyone thinks of me. Maybe, I’m just the world’s biggest dumbass.
My phone vibrates on the bartop. Instead of just texting me back like a normal person that lives in the twenty-first century, he calls.
I’m almost certain his aversion to texting is probably because he’s a man of few words, but it would take a century for his fat thumbs to type even those few out. And emojis? Evan’s never heard of her.
“I take it the time away didn’t do her any good?
” my big brother asks in lieu of an actual greeting, though I can hardly hear him over the raucousness at the pub tonight.
I gesture at Gordy to give me a refill before I slide off my stool and head towards the back hallway, where it’s a little less loud.
“That’s a negative,” I tell him. “I even tried to tell her about the couples counselor your boo suggested the day before yesterday, and all she sent me back was a middle finger emoji. I’m no Alfred Einstein, but that seemed like a surefire ‘no’ to me.”
Evan snorts. “Albert.”
I rear back, checking to make sure it’s still Ev I’m talking to. “How’s getting a Prince Albert going to help? She hasn’t wanted anything to do with Blackbeard in a while. I don’t think giving him some bling is going to win her back…”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Gan,” he sighs. It’s not a video chat, but I don’t need it to know he’s rolling his eyes at me. “Two things. One, it’s Albert Einstein, not Alfred. Two, grow up and stop calling your dick Blackbeard.”
“Don’t you think I’m going through enough life changes right now? Jesus, man, have some compassion. I would’ve thought Brooks would have thawed your cold heart a little.”
His reply is a soft hum; I can hear the phone muffle a little bit and him murmur, “Sorry, beautiful. It’s Gan.
Let me just take this real quick.” I hear more shuffling, and then finally Evan gets back on the line.
“What do you need, Gan? You texted me asking for a favor. I’ll do what I can, but make it quick. ”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Was I interrupting something?” I ask petulantly. He was probably in the middle of getting dicked down by his new beau, and I can’t help but want to rib him a little. It’s what little bros are for, after all.
Truthfully, I probably should keep the snark to a minimum.
After all he’s been through, he deserves some uninterrupted time to celebrate his big life changes, and here I am, cockblocking him by asking him to bail me out of troubled waters.
And there he is, being his typical self and offering to give me the shirt off his back—even though I’m a grown-ass adult, and should be figuring this out on my own instead of procrastinating and hoping it all blows over.
It’s been all weekend, Sarah’s due back in just a few hours, I’m feeling a little tipsy, and it has not, in fact, blown over at all.
“I need to be out of my house in a few hours, and I have nowhere to go,” I sigh.
“If you need a place to stay, I can contact my landlord and see if he’d be okay with you taking over the lease on my apartment for the time being,” he tells me. “But I don’t think he’ll be around until tomorrow. Can you find a place tonight?”
I’ve got a couple renting out my houseboat—the one my brother and Brooks absolutely defiled last night—so that’s a no-go, and at this time of day, it’ll be too much of an imposition to ask my parents if I can rent space on their couch.
Sunday’s are Dad’s R&R days. Historically speaking, you don’t fuck with those.
Besides, I’m not sure I’m ready to handle the verbal flogging I’ll get from them.
They’re not mean, just set in their ways.
I already feel like an epic failure. Trust me, I don’t need any more reminders.
I’ve been holed up at Portside all day reminding myself, drowning in whatever swill Gordy Masterson’s got on tap.
“Gannett,” my brother grunts. “Have you got anywhere to go tonight?”
“No, I have nowhere to go tonight. Sarah was adamant I be out of the house by the time she gets back from her parents’ in Massachusetts. She already thinks I do nothing, so I don’t want to piss her off more by proving her right and still being there when she gets home.”
Evan sighs. “Spare key is under the doormat at the top of the landing. You’re, uh—you’re going to want to change the sheets before you sleep in my bed.”
“Fuckin’ disgusting, bro. Must you debauch everything? My boat wasn’t enough for you?”
“Would you rather your ass be sleeping out in the bed of your pickup? I hear the stars are lovely to gaze at this time of night out in Ternbay.”
I snort. “Not like you’d know. You’ve just dedicated your life to moving out to Alder Notch to chase after your boyfriend.”
“Mhm,” he hums. “I’d shamelessly follow him to the ends of the Earth, if that’s what it takes.”
I roll my eyes. “Lovesick sap.”
“Been called that a bunch recently,” he jabs, then adds, “No fucks given, though.”
“Good. You deserve it,” I tell him honestly. Without me even knowing it, Evan had struggled so much with self-loathing for so many years. Also without me knowing, it was at the hands of the same man who has been serving me beers all night long.
I always knew there was some falling out they’d had back in high school that put Evan and Gordy at odds with one another.
And I caught bits and pieces of it the other night, when they had some epic blowout at a coming-out cookout my parents had for Evan and Brooks—but I still don’t know what sent Gordy into a mental spiral so huge that he had to be carted off by ambulance.
I was too busy trying to keep my own shit together, after mine and Sarah’s fight we had the night before.
But regardless of whatever it was between Gordy and Evan, it seems my brother is finally on a path to happiness.
While I would have preferred that he stick around Ternbay to help Dad and I out on the boats, he seems to have found a more meaningful passion in helping run a grief camp with Brooks.
Good on him, for real. After his wife passed suddenly, a couple of years ago, I felt helpless watching the downward spiral he was on.
Miranda’s passing was hard enough. Her and her family have been friends of our families for years, even before she and Ev started dating. It was such a huge loss.
In the wake, Ev and his son, Colton, were at odds with one another for a while there too.
I chatted with Brooks a bit at the party, before everything went to hell, and it sounds like Colt and Ev are getting better, though.
It’s a bittersweet feeling—watching everything come together for him, while everything in my life seems to be falling the fuck apart.
“Gan, are you still there?” Evan’s voice, on the other end of the line, rips me out of my thoughts.
“Yeah,” I sigh.
“It sounds like you’re at Portside. I asked if you were okay to drive.”
“I’ve been nursing the same watered-down beer for over an hour.”
“Gordy behind the bar tonight?”
“Yep.”
“How’s he seem?” Evan asks, surprising the hell out of me. Evan normally would be damning Gordy to hell. It makes me curious, this sudden turnaround. That’s probably because I’m a native Ternbayan, though. It’s practically coded into me to want to know the tea there.
“Acting his normal self,” I reply. “You ever going to tell me what happened Thursday?”
“Not my place,” Evan grunts.
“Not at all vague and unnerving…”
“You’ve got enough on your plate. Be safe, and text me when you get to the apartment. Also, don’t let your girls go rummaging around in Colt’s room, okay? That’s his little sanctuary, or whatever.”
“Look at you loosening the reins a little.” I smirk. Evan’s always been a little too overbearing on his son, in my humble opinion. Total helicopter parent, just like Sarah.
He snorts. “I’m trying, so don’t give me your shit for once in your life.”
“Containing it now,” I snark. “But seriously… Thank you.”
“Mhm,” he hums. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to—”
“Eating ass?” I supply, cutting him off.
“Exactly that,” he snickers, right before the line goes dead. Oof.