11. Tess
Tess
The knife met a ridge of ice inside the ballyhoo and stopped halfway through.
Tess shifted the fish on the cutting board, set the blade back into the same groove, and drove it down until the flesh gave.
Silver scales stuck to her wrist. Meltwater crept across the stainless-steel prep station toward the drain, carrying a thin ribbon of blood.
She swept the next bait fish into place and started again.
Outside the shack, metal scraped along fiberglass.
She kept her eyes on the board. Camden had been on Sully’s property before sunrise again.
Of course he had. He had appeared with the same work clothes and that maddening persistence, his hands now ruined from yesterday’s shift, as if showing up each morning could create permission.
Sully found him work. Camden took it. The yard kept moving around him as if a former league MVP scraping hulls belonged beside the fuel pumps.
The knife caught another frozen seam.
“Come on,” Tess muttered.
She pressed harder. The blade slipped through and struck the board with a thud.
“That fish insult your mother?”
Sully filled the open doorway, resting one shoulder against the wood. A shop rag hung from his hand. Sweat had marked the front of his shirt, and the morning humidity had already settled beneath the tin roof like a second ceiling.
Tess pulled another ballyhoo from the tray. “It’s still half frozen.”
“Then let it thaw.”
“The charter captains won’t.”
Sully glanced at the cutting board, then at the cooler beside her station. “You’re winning an argument with dead bait. Congratulations.”
“I’m working.”
“So am I. Difference is, I’ve had water.”
The next cut went crooked. Not enough to ruin the bait, but enough to leave the tail attached by a strip of flesh. Tess turned it, finished the cut, and dropped the piece into the bin.
Beyond the wall came another long scrape of metal.
It had to be Camden. The name arrived without invitation, and she pushed another fish onto the board before it could bring anything else with it.
Sully stayed planted in the doorway. “Fridge is behind you.”
“I know where the fridge is.”
“Good. Saves me drawing a map.”
Tess slid the knife down the belly of the fish and cleared the blade against the edge of the board. “You planning to supervise every sip now?”
“Only the ones you refuse to take.”
“I’m not refusing anything. I’m clearing the cooler.”
“You’ve been clearing that cooler since I checked the pumps.”
“That’s because people keep stopping me to discuss water.”
A corner of Sully’s mouth twitched, but he did not step away. “Blade’s starting to drag.”
“The bait is frozen.”
“Your pace is bad.”
“My pace is fine.”
“No, your temper is doing the cutting now.”
Tess set the knife against the next fish before he could study her face any longer. The blade went down. The table answered with another dull knock.
Work was the simple part. A fish went on the board, the knife came down, the finished bait went into the bin.
Nothing in that sequence asked what Camden had said to Sully in the yard.
Nothing asked how long he planned to stay.
Nothing asked why the scrape outside had become easier to recognize than the rattle of the bait aerators.
Sully pushed off the frame and took one step inside.
“You haven’t moved from that station since seven, Tess. Step away from the table and get a bottle of water before you end up on the floor.”
“Twenty minutes.” She turned another fish and cut through the spine. “I’ve got half a ballyhoo cooler left. Let me clear this station, then I’ll hose the mats.”
“Five minutes.”
“Twenty.”
“Five.”
Tess slid the severed bait into the bin and reached for the next one.
Sully’s voice lost the last trace of humor. “You drop from heat exhaustion, I get an ambulance idling on my docks. That is not happening to my manager.”
The knife hovered over the cutting board.
Outside, something scraped across fiberglass again, followed by the muted drag of a tool being reset for another pass. Camden kept working. No knock at the door. No plea for her attention. Just the same infuriating patience he had brought to the yard every morning since Sully handed him a scraper.
Tess lowered the blade toward the bait.
Sully’s gaze lingered on the knife, then shifted past her shoulder toward the yard. “Five minutes means five minutes,” he said, and pushed away from the doorway.
Tess dragged the blade through another strip of bait before he cleared the threshold. The door swung toward the jamb behind him.
Before it could shut, Camden caught the frame and stepped inside.
The chemical reek of bottom paint arrived with him. Blue dust streaked one side of his shirt, black engine grime marked his forearms, and sweat had flattened his hair against his forehead. For one useless second, Tess forgot where she meant to place the knife.
The untouchable quarterback had vanished somewhere under all that boatyard dirt.
She set another ballyhoo on the board.
“Tell me where to stand so I’m not in your way,” he said.
“Other side of the door.”
His mouth tightened, but he stayed inside. “Tess.”
The knife came down through the fish. “You asked where to stand.”
“I know.”
“Then use the information.”
Camden shifted along the wall instead of coming closer.
A cast net hung from a ceiling hook near his shoulder, and he ducked beneath it before the weighted edge brushed his face.
He looked absurd in the cramped shack. Too broad for the narrow aisle, too careful around the bins, too familiar to belong anywhere near her new life.
Tess shoved the cut bait into the tub and reached for another piece.
“Drop the knife,” he said. “Just for one second.”
“No.”
“I was blind.”
That almost stopped her.
The blade caught against a frozen section and skidded sideways. Tess reset it before he noticed the mistake.
“Marcus sold me the corporate machine as the only way to protect this family,” Camden continued. “I bought it because it was easier than admitting I kept choosing what he wanted.”
Tess stepped around the corner of the station with the knife still in hand. “That sounds like a speech.”
“It isn’t.”
“Good. I charge extra for speeches.”
He followed the aisle, keeping his hands away from the counters. Water shifted beneath one of the rubber mats as he stepped near the edge.
“Watch the mat,” she said.
“I’ve got it.”
“Then stop chasing my elbows around the room.”
He stopped long enough for her to pass the cooler, then followed further back.
“I’m not trying to corner you.”
“You flew across the country and parked yourself in my workplace.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that like it earns something.”
“It doesn’t.”
The answer landed without the usual excuses. No mention of sponsors. No schedule. No explanation about cameras or contracts or what Marcus had demanded.
Tess cut through another fish.
Camden ducked under the net again. “I called every bad decision protection because that sounded better than cowardice.”
The knife struck the board harder than she intended.
She scraped the blade clean against the edge and reached into the cooler. There was still enough bait left to keep both hands busy. That mattered more than anything he had walked in here to say.
“I’m on the clock, Camden. The offshore fleet isn’t killing their engines for your personal drama. If you have a speech to deliver, pitch it at my back while I clear the bottom of this cooler.”
“I drove fifteen hundred miles without a script.”
“Congratulations on discovering highways.”
“I’m standing in this mud because I owe you for what I did.”
Tess turned the next fish beneath the knife.
Camden stayed where she had left him. “I wrecked our anniversary. I lied to you about where I was. I left you alone, and then I let four months pass because I kept trusting the same man who taught me to treat our marriage like a problem to manage.”
The blade stopped against the board.
Tess did not turn around.
“I abandoned you,” Camden said behind her. “I own that. I am so sorry.”
Tess slid the knife beneath the next strip of bait and pushed the severed piece into the bin.
His apology hung there. No Marcus. No contract.
No exhausted excuse about playoff schedules or sponsor obligations.
Just the exact words she had waited months to hear, arriving after she had already learned how to live without them.
“Say something.”
She released the bait and turned toward the sink. “Move.”
Camden stepped into the aisle.
Tess stopped before they collided. He stood between her and the basin with his hands empty at his sides, still covered in the evidence of Sully’s yard. The quarterback who once commanded crowded stadium tunnels had chosen the narrowest part of her workplace to make himself impossible to avoid.
“Not until you look at me,” he said.
Her fingers tightened around the knife handle. “You do not get to stop me from walking through my own workspace.”
“I need you to understand what I’m saying.”
“I understand every word.”
“Then look at me.”
Tess raised her gaze.
That was the mistake.
There was no polished smile waiting for her. No bored impatience. No expression suggesting she had turned a manageable inconvenience into a crisis. He stood there covered in the evidence of Sully’s yard, waiting for whatever she decided to give him.
Months ago, she would have traded anything for that attention.
Now it made her furious.
“You handed her our draft-night booth at O’Malley’s, Camden.” Tess stepped closer instead of backing away. “I stood beside an oven on our anniversary while you sat in the one place that belonged to us and let her climb all over you for the photographers.”
His gaze stayed on her face. “I know.”
“You lied about where you were.”
“Yes.”
“You let me sit there waiting for you.”
“Yes.”
“And when I left, you decided I needed space.”
His mouth opened, but Tess kept going.
“You didn’t come after me. You let me drive into the night alone and got on a plane.”
Camden’s shoulders lowered. “Cowardice. All of it.”
The single word stopped her cold.