19. Earning the Room
Earning the Room
Piper
The last piece of grouper on my plate broke apart under my fork before I could drag it through the puddle of hot sauce.
Across the table, Skipper was telling Lawson that anybody who needed three attempts to rebuild a carburetor had no business charging shop rates, and Lawson was answering with the patient expression of a man who had survived this argument too many times to bother winning it.
Nolan sat beside me with a smear of boat grease along his jaw.
I nudged his knee under the table. “You still have grease on your face.”
He wiped the wrong side with his wrist. “Better?”
“Worse.”
Lawson glanced over from his plate. “I told you to wash your hands before you touched the food.”
“I did wash my hands.”
“You rinsed them under the hose for ten seconds.”
“That counts.”
“It counts if you’re a raccoon.”
Skipper barked out a laugh that carried across the porch and over the water. Nolan grinned and reached for another piece of fish without offering a defense, which only made Lawson shake his head.
Weeks ago, Nolan would have been able to tell me exactly which fork belonged beside which plate at some sponsor dinner.
Now he had grease under his fingernails and a patch of sweat dried into the front of his shirt from spending the afternoon bent over an outboard beside Lawson.
Nobody at this table cared that he had once thrown footballs in front of eighty thousand people.
Lawson cared that he’d put a socket wrench back in the wrong drawer.
Skipper cared that he’d left a shop rag on the workbench.
And Nolan seemed happier for it.
“Pass the hot sauce,” Skipper said.
I slid the bottle toward him. “You’ve already drowned your fish in it.”
“That’s because the boy overcooked the first batch.”
Nolan pointed his fork at him. “You told me to leave it in the oil until the edges browned.”
“I told you to watch the edges.”
“Those sound like the same instruction.”
“They don’t if you know how to cook.”
Lawson swallowed a bite of grouper. “Don’t drag me into this. I fix engines. I don’t teach quarterbacks how frying works.”
“Former quarterback,” Nolan said.
No pause followed it. No one offered condolences. Nobody told him what a waste it was or asked whether he missed the league.
Skipper shoved the platter closer to him. “Former quarterback still eats like somebody else is paying for groceries.”
Nolan took the larger piece. “I worked ten hours today. I’m earning this.”
“Nine.”
“Ten.”
“You spent the first hour staring at that lower unit like it had personally offended you.”
“It had three stripped bolts.”
“And somehow Lawson survived without writing a press release about it.”
I covered my smile with my cup, but Nolan caught me anyway.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“More than I should.”
“Whose side are you on?”
“Whichever side keeps feeding me.”
“Smart woman,” Skipper said.
The breeze coming off the water pushed the smell of fried fish down the porch and stirred the loose corner of a paper napkin beside Lawson’s plate.
Beyond the railing, the marina had settled into its evening rhythm.
Lines creaked against cleats, water swirled around the pilings, and somewhere near the mechanic shop an old radio played low enough that none of us had to compete with it.
Nolan leaned back in his chair and looked toward the slips. “If the wind stays like this tomorrow, we should take the skiff out early.”
Lawson gave him a sideways look. “We?”
“Yes, we.”
“You’ve worked here a few weeks and now you think you’re part of the fishing fleet?”
“I think I’m capable of holding a rod.”
Skipper set his fork down. “That sentence right there is how tourists end up donating three hundred dollars in tackle to the ocean.”
Nolan laughed. “Give me one decent setup and I’ll prove you wrong.”
“I’m telling you, Callahan, if you try to use that light tackle on the reef tomorrow, you’re going to snap the line on the first strike.”
“I’ve got the arm strength to handle the drag, Skipper. Just put me on the fish and let me worry about the tackle.”
Lawson stopped eating to stare at him. “Arm strength doesn’t mean a damn thing when a Goliath Grouper pulls you straight into the rocks, city boy.”
Nolan looked offended for about two seconds before he broke into a grin. “You both seem very invested in watching me fail.”
“No,” Skipper said. “We’re invested in making sure you don’t lose my gear while doing it.”
Their argument rolled on from line weight to hooks to whether Nolan understood the difference between reef fishing and throwing a ball through a defensive secondary.
I stayed out of it and ate another bite of grouper, watching Nolan wave his fork at Lawson while Skipper interrupted him every time he tried to make a point.
There were no cameras waiting beyond the railing. No handler was checking a watch. Nolan wasn’t measuring his words for sponsors or wondering how a photograph might play online.
He was sitting beside me with grease on his face, arguing about fishing tackle while two men I loved gave him hell.
This was my family.
Skipper had just started explaining why Nolan’s football career had apparently taught him nothing useful about fishing when I laughed and set my fork against the edge of my plate.
Lawson was already reaching for another piece of fish, and Nolan had launched into a defense of his imaginary reef-fishing talent.
I reached across the table for a napkin.
Pain seized my lower abdomen so hard that my hand stopped halfway there.
My fingers dug into the edge of the table instead.
I pressed the backs of my legs against my chair, letting it keep me upright while the pain built and held.
This wasn’t one of the dull aches that had followed me through the last few weeks, the kind I could walk off or complain about while Nolan rubbed my back.
Nolan’s smile vanished. “You okay?”
“Wait.” I stayed bent over the table, staring at the smear of hot sauce beside my plate as if it might give me something useful to concentrate on. “Just give me a second.”
Lawson put his fork down. “Piper?”
“I’m fine.” The lie barely made it past my teeth.
Skipper shifted his chair away from the table. “That didn’t look like fine.”
The pain began to ease. I straightened enough to look at Nolan, ready to tell all three of them to stop staring at me like I might explode on Skipper’s porch.
Then warmth spread beneath me.
I went still.
For one strange moment, the ridiculous details demanded all my attention instead. The wet seat. The abandoned napkin under my hand. The piece of grouper cooling on Nolan’s plate. Lawson staring at the floor beside my chair.
Nolan was on his feet before I could say another word. His chair scraped back, and he put his arm around my waist as I pushed myself upright.
“Piper, tell me what you need.”
Skipper looked from the chair to me. “Is that—”
“Yes.” Another cramp started low and gathered strength before I could finish answering him.
Nolan drew me against his side. Grease still marked his forearm from the motors, and his shirt smelled like salt air and the day’s work. Nothing about him resembled the man who used to walk into our mansion expecting somebody else to have already solved whatever problem waited for him.
His attention stayed on me.
“Nolan.” I caught the front of his shirt when the pain climbed again. “Nolan, it’s time.”
“I’ve got you. Breathe, Piper.” He turned his head toward the other two without letting go of me. “Skipper, go pull your truck directly up to the ramp. Lawson, grab the hospital bag from the shack.”
Skipper shoved his chair aside. “I’m on it! Keep her breathing!”
Lawson was already moving toward the steps. “Bag’s in the shack. I’ll get it.”
“Front room, beside the desk.”
“I know where it is.”
Skipper disappeared around the side of the office, still calling something about moving a cooler out of the truck bed. Lawson took the porch steps two at a time and headed across the yard.
Nolan stayed.
That was the part that caught me.
Months ago, he would have grabbed his phone. He would have called somebody whose job title promised answers, then started asking what came next. There would have been an assistant, a driver, a schedule, somebody on the other end of a headset telling him where to stand.
Now he just held me.
“Tell me when it starts easing,” he said.
“It is easing.”
“Good. Don’t move yet.”
“I have to move eventually.”
“Eventually is fine.”
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it. “You sound like you think you’re coaching a fourth-quarter drive.”
His mouth twitched. “This is much more terrifying than a fourth-quarter drive.”
“Excellent. Very reassuring.”
“I can lie if you’d prefer.”
“Don’t you dare.”
Another chair sat crooked where Skipper had abandoned it.
Plates remained scattered across the table, dinner forgotten so fast it might as well have belonged to somebody else.
Cool air touched the sweat along my temples while Nolan adjusted his arm around me and waited until I could stand without folding over the table again.
From the driveway came the cough of Skipper’s truck starting.
Nolan glanced toward the sound, then returned his attention to me. “We’re not rushing this. Skipper gets the truck here. Lawson gets the bag. Then I get you into the passenger seat.”
“You have planned this.”
“I may have asked Skipper how long it takes to reach the hospital.”
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
Despite everything, I smiled. “You didn’t tell me.”
“You would’ve accused me of hovering.”
“I would have been right.”
Lawson appeared in the yard with the hospital bag slung over his shoulder. Behind him, Skipper swung the truck around toward the porch.
Nolan tightened his arm around me enough to guide me toward the steps.
For once, there was no one else he expected to handle the hard part.
He kept me steady while Skipper and Lawson ran to get us out of there.