Chapter 3
The kitchen light was on when I came downstairs at five twenty-seven, which meant one of two things: Cole had developed a touching concern for my caffeine needs, or people who owned boats were fundamentally unwell.
He stood at the counter in a gray T-shirt and cargo shorts, pouring coffee into a stainless-steel travel mug. His hair was still damp from a shower. Mine was twisted into a knot held together by optimism and two bobby pins I had found at the bottom of my camera bag.
He glanced at the clock over the stove. “Three minutes early.”
“Please record that. My professional reputation depends on witnesses.”
“I have a logbook.”
I stopped beside the coffee maker. “You would.”
His mouth moved at one corner.
At five twenty-seven in the morning, I was apparently funny enough for Cole Mercer.
I poured coffee and opened the refrigerator.
Someone had lined up three paper lunch bags on the middle shelf, each labeled with a child’s name in black marker.
NORA had a tiny drawn camera beside it. NICO had a shark with what appeared to be laser eyes.
JUNE had a square that might have been a sandwich or a threat.
“Who draws the lunch art?” I asked.
“Rafe does Nico’s. Gray does June’s. Nora does her own because I was informed my dolphins look like potatoes.”
“Do they?”
“Yes.”
I looked over at him.
He took a drink of coffee without a trace of shame.
There was something deeply unfair about a man who could admit artistic failure before sunrise and still look like that.
I found yogurt, ate it standing up, and tried not to stare at his forearms while he checked the marine forecast on his phone. He enlarged the radar, read something twice, then set the phone down.
“Still good?” I asked.
“Good through late morning. Light wind now, more by noon. Heat builds again this afternoon.”
“So we get the pretty water before the atmosphere remembers it’s summer.”
“That’s the plan.”
Upstairs, a floorboard creaked. Then another.
Cole’s attention shifted instantly toward the ceiling.
Nora appeared at the bottom of the stairs in purple pajama shorts and an oversized T-shirt, rubbing one eye.
“You’re leaving?” she asked.
“For the charter,” Cole said. “Rafe’s here. Gray’s here. Breakfast is in twenty minutes.”
“I know.”
She looked at me, then at the camera case by my feet.
“Are you taking pictures on the boat?”
“That’s the rumor.”
“Can I see them after?”
“If your dad’s clients are okay with the ones I show you.”
Nora nodded. “Don’t drop your camera.”
I put a hand over my heart. “I thought we were friends.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. That was horrifying.”
Cole turned his face away, but I caught the smile anyway.
Nora climbed onto one of the kitchen stools. “Dad drops things in the water sometimes.”
“Tools,” Cole said.
“Your phone.”
“Once.”
“Your sunglasses.”
“Those floated.”
“For a little while.”
I looked at him. “This safety lecture is losing credibility by the second.”
“Nothing with a neck strap has gone overboard.”
“Excellent. That’s going on the brochure.”
Nora looked satisfied with the damage she had caused.
A sleepy voice came from the stairs. “Why is everybody awake?”
Nico appeared wearing one sock and dragging a stuffed shark by the tail.
Cole checked the clock again. “That’s our cue.”
Within ninety seconds, Rafe came down behind Nico looking offensively functional for a man who had spent most of yesterday making penis jokes in a place of business. Gray followed carrying June, who had apparently chosen unconsciousness as her preferred transportation method.
“Morning, roomie,” Rafe said to me.
“I hate your energy.”
“You wound me.”
“You’re smiling.”
“I recover fast.”
Gray set June gently on a kitchen stool and kept one hand at her back until she was awake enough to stay there. “Weather still holding?”
“Yes,” Cole said.
Gray nodded at me. “Life jacket’s on the boat. Cole has a spare dry bag if you want one for a body or lens.”
“I brought two.”
His eyes flicked toward my cases. Approval. Tiny, but there.
Rafe opened the refrigerator. “My God. She plans ahead. Cole is going to fall in love by breakfast.”
The kitchen went quiet for half a beat.
Not silent. The refrigerator hummed. Nico dropped his stuffed shark. Mango rustled somewhere in the covered cage in the living room.
But quiet enough that the sentence existed in the middle of us.
Cole looked at Rafe.
Rafe’s grin weakened by approximately twelve percent.
I lifted my coffee. “If he does, I hope he invoices me properly. Gray has standards.”
Gray said, “Net thirty.”
The tension broke.
Rafe pointed at him. “See? Romance. Impossible.”
Cole picked up my camera case. “We should go.”
I could carry it. He knew I could carry it. I knew he knew.
I let him anyway.
The marina before six looked like Cape Mercy had briefly remembered it was a working town instead of a summer attraction.
Delivery trucks backed toward restaurants.
Charter crews rolled coolers down docks.
A man in rubber boots hosed fish scales off a cleaning table while gulls gathered nearby like hostile auditors.
The sky over the Atlantic was pale peach at the horizon, fading into blue above us. Good light. Soft enough for faces, directional enough to give the boat shape.
My whole brain woke up at once.
“Oh, that’s rude,” I said.
Cole, unlocking the dock gate, glanced at me. “What?”
“The light. It has no business being that good this early.”
“You resent sunrise.”
“I resent attending sunrise. Different issue.”
He shook his head and held the gate open.
The repeat clients were already waiting by the storefront when we came around the corner. A married couple in their late fifties named Beth and Alan, both wearing sensible hats, long sleeves, and the smug preparedness of people who had read the confirmation email all the way to the bottom.
I liked them immediately.
Cole introduced me as Tide & Timber’s photographer and explained that I would be working during the charter if they were still comfortable with the release they had signed.
Beth looked at my cameras. “Can you make me look twenty pounds thinner?”
“Not while you’re holding a fish,” I said. “Fish are terrible at Photoshop.”
She laughed.
Alan said, “Can you make the fish twenty pounds heavier?”
“Now we’re discussing an industry-standard service.”
Cole gave me a look.
“Kidding,” I said. “Documentary truth. Mostly.”
We loaded without drama. Cole gave the safety briefing in the same voice he used to tell me not to step on the gunwale, calm enough that you listened because he clearly did not need your approval.
Personal flotation devices. Fire extinguisher.
Radio. Where to hold and where not to put fingers when lines were moving.
The kind of instructions tourists probably heard as background noise until they suddenly mattered.
Beth listened.
Alan listened.
I photographed both of them listening.
Not glamorous, but useful. Tide & Timber did not need to look reckless to look fun.
Once we cleared the marina’s no-wake zone, Cole brought the boat onto plane. I braced my feet wide, clipped one camera to the safety tether I had rigged inside my bag, and kept the other strap across my body.
The wind tore loose every strand of hair my bobby pins had claimed jurisdiction over.
Cole glanced over. “You okay?”
“I can no longer see, but otherwise excellent.”
“Sit behind the console if you need less wind.”
“I need you driving the boat.”
“That’s convenient.”
“Try to look heroic.”
“No.”
I laughed and started shooting.
The first twenty minutes were not about pretty pictures.
They were about learning the movement of the boat.
The rise, the slap, the moment the hull settled after crossing another wake.
I watched Cole shift his stance before each change in speed.
He never grabbed at anything. He simply seemed to know where the deck would be next.
Annoying talent.
At the first spot, he throttled down and explained the plan to Beth and Alan. Nothing dramatic. Bottom fishing over a structure he had marked. He checked the current, set the drift, then handed Alan a rod after baiting the hook.
I photographed hands.
People always thought photography was faces, but hands told on you.
Alan’s were eager and a little clumsy. Beth’s were careful. Cole’s were economical, the line moving through his fingers without wasted motion.
“Show Beth the grip again,” I said.
Cole did, turning the rod slightly in her hands.
I shot from low near the console, catching Beth’s concentration and Cole’s profile beyond her.
“Don’t look at me,” I said.
Neither of them did.
Perfect.
A gull landed on the T-top.
Alan looked up. “Is that normal?”
Cole said, “He thinks we owe him.”
“Do we?”
“No. He disagrees.”
The gull screamed.
“Strong position,” I said.
Beth caught the first fish, a small sea bass that was not remotely impressive by the standards of men’s stories but was apparently the finest animal ever removed from the Atlantic by hers.
She shouted. Alan shouted. The gull shouted because he felt excluded.
I shot through all of it.
Cole stepped in only when he needed to, helping her keep the rod angle right, then bringing the fish aboard. He measured it, declared it too small to keep, and held it over the water long enough for me to get one clean frame of Beth beside him.
“Want to release it?” he asked her.
“Absolutely.”
He showed her how to support it and lower it over the side.
She did.
The fish disappeared with one kick of its tail.
Beth’s face stayed lit after it was gone.
Click.
That was the campaign image.
Not the fish. Not Cole. Not the boat.
Her.
A client who looked like she had just remembered she could still be delighted by something.
I lowered the camera.
Cole was watching me.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“You keep saying that.”
“You do too.”
Fair.
Alan hooked something fifteen minutes later and immediately became convinced it was a monster. It turned out to be a stingray with the temperament of a tax audit.