GRAYSON #2
“I’m not responsible for monitoring her, on the internet or on the farm,” I tell him, not bothering to hide the angry edge in my tone. “Whatever bad comes out of this isn’t falling on me.”
Mark recognizes the surrender for what it is, and shakes his head in disgruntled disappointment.
“She’s an adult woman who doesn’t need babysitting.”
“Well, at least there’s that.”
“But she’s also an adult woman who deserves a damn good apology, or I’m going to have a PR headache.”
I scoff. “She threaten you?”
“No,” he says, and I unclench my fingers from the phone. “If I were her, though, I’d be thinking about some way to get back at us.”
My chest heaves a heavy breath. I’m the stereotypical middle brother, known for my patience and good nature. Of the three of us, I’m rarely the asshole, but I was a certifiable one to her this morning. I’m not arguing that.
It’d been a shit morning, between a time-consuming motor fix, needing to backtrack for the shed key, and the skies opening up on me mid-walk. When I’d entered my office to find a random girl ready to punt Dave out the door, I’d already been pissed.
Then I’d gotten a look at her, and my mood tanked irreparably.
Would I have reacted like that before last year’s dumpster fire? Maybe. Maybe not.
Doesn’t matter, though, because now I have to stomp all over my pride and deliver this stranger a grand fucking apology.
“Gray?” Anson prompts at my silence.
I scratch the back of my head, grimacing. “Yeah.” Shit. “I got it. I’ll buy her apology flowers, a cake, the whole thing.”
“You do that, Gray.”
Anson hangs up, and I shove my phone back into my pocket before jerking the skiff into drive. I’m too aggressive on the throttle, and the eighteen-footer jumps.
“She tries anything, I’ll end ‘er,” Mark says a little too casually from behind me.
I glance over my shoulder to see his tanned, heavily wrinkled face set.
Mark has no wife or kids, and I’ve never heard him speak of family, but I’ve worked with him long enough to know he isn’t a serial killer.
He’d put his neck on the line in an instant for those he cares about.
He’ll give you shit the entire time, but he doesn’t mean it.
Still, I don’t want to encourage any murderous behavior. At his age, folks get inclined to try all sorts of activities. Life in prison isn’t a very long time.
“Appreciate the offer, but I got it,” I tell him.
“You change your mind, let me know.”
Mark’s offer is still percolating in my head when this grueling day comes to an end. By some rare stroke of luck, it finishes better than it started. Tours go smoothly, the motor fix holds, and we get through every cage we planned to tumble, sort, and harvest.
I’ve just pulled up to my secluded home, bone-tired and ready for a beer and a burger, when my pocket vibrates again. Dave pokes the pocket with his beak from the passenger seat.
“Yeah, I got it.” He retreats, giving his feathered butt a wiggle as he stares at me.
If it’s Anson, I’m ignoring it—at least until I’ve taken ten minutes to decompress. But when I pull it out, JJ’s name lights up the screen.
I answer the call and swing my door open. “Hey, man.”
“What’s up?”
Even without the caller ID, I’d recognize JJ’s good-spirited tone anywhere. My best friend is a walking, talking, pocket-full-of-sunshine. Always has been. One interaction is enough to make anyone think his childhood was all rainbows and butterflies, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
“Take it you’re back from Alaska?” I pull Dave out with me and set him on the ground.
“Yessir. Just got back this morning.” A yawn fades out over the line, like he’s pulling the receiver away. When he returns, it’s to say, “We have to do a boy’s trip up there. It’s nature’s playground. Would love to enjoy it instead of letting it kick my ass in training exercises.”
JJ’s on the fire department’s dive team, and he’s been in Alaska for the last few weeks for some new certification.
I’d ask if he got it, but I already know he did.
He’s like my younger brother Dawson—born with the type of athletic genes that probably could’ve gotten him into the Olympics.
Unlike Dawson, though, he’s developed the grit and ethics to go with it.
I heave my bag out of the back seat and head to the door, Dave trailing me. Something stinks of sweat and engine fuel, and when the scent follows, I’m not surprised to learn I’m the source.
Good thing our tours are all outdoors.
No one comes out clean from a good day’s work. Dad’s words echo in my ears. I’d heard it as a mantra for hard work in my early twenties, but in hindsight, it was an excuse for him to let his hygiene slide.
He let a lot of things slide, toward the end.
“It’s got to be a summer trip, though, right?” I ask.
I’d be geared up for a boy’s trip with JJ in a heartbeat, but I can’t leave the farm in peak season. It’s winter travel for me, only, and even that requires thorough planning and contingencies.
“Yeah,” he says. “So we only got to wait forty years or something ‘til you retire.”
“That’s the cost of free oysters.”
He chuckles. “Trust me, I’m willing to pay it. How’re things at the farm?”
I wedge the phone between my shoulder and ear as I unlock the door. “The usual.” The door opens, and I set my bags down with a labored sigh. Dave waddles past before I close us inside.
“What happened?”
“What do you mean, what happened?”
“Gray, that was a dramatic sigh if I’ve ever heard one.”
I beeline it to the fridge for an ice-cold brew, because he’s right. That was a dramatic sigh. I need to unwind. “Just a little problem I need to work out.” The cap comes off the bottle with a satisfying pop, and I take a long draw.
“If it’d help to blow off some steam, I’ve been wanting to get the boys together to play some ball.” He pauses. “Though me kicking your ass might just piss you off more.”
“Alaska made you delusional,” I say, pulling a leftover burger from the fridge.
“Pick a day, and I’ll take great joy in proving you wrong.”
I laugh at his challenge. JJ and Dawson aren’t the only ones with some athlete in them. We all grew up playing sports, and working on the farm has kept my endurance high and body tough.
“Until then, though, tell me what’s going on.”
The patty goes into the microwave, and I’m digging through the cupboard for a bun as I tell him about the encounter with Eliza this morning. I don’t omit our conversation. JJ knows as well as my brothers that the sainthood everyone knows me for has its limits.
“I’m not surprised Anson went around me, hiring her without consulting me first, but can’t say I’m not angry about it.” The three emails I’d missed didn’t even ask if I wanted her—just told me to expect my new Social Media Director today.
My fingers find the corner of a plastic bag, and it slips weightlessly into my hands, reminding me a little too late that I’d eaten the last bun yesterday and was supposed to pick up more today. Great.
“That was shitty of him, but expected,” JJ agrees, having been around my brother almost as long as I have. His folks were absent more often than not, so he essentially became my parents’ fourth child. “Your shittiness is a little less expected, but I get it.”
Thank you.
But JJ keeps going. “But you’re still being a dick now, even knowing she didn’t show up out of the blue. Your brother posted the job, and she took it.”
The microwave beeps, and I pull the burger out, tossing the plate on the counter. The patty stares back at me, pathetically bare, as I mull over JJ’s words.
“You’re right,” I decide.
A long exhale rattles over the connection. “I don’t like that, man.”
“What?”
“That two-word answer resigned bullshit. Means you’re digging your heels in.”
It’s scary sometimes how well he reads me.
He continues to do so when he says, “This girl might remind you of Mackenzie, but she was a special kind of crazy you don’t see much around here. I doubt this one’s like her. I wouldn’t hate her right off the bat.”
“I don’t hate her.”
It’s a half-truth. I know I shouldn’t hold Mackenzie’s likeness against her, but it’s a natural defense mechanism to be wary of the newcomer who gives the same first impression as the woman who screwed me over because she thought I was cheating on her.
The impression that’d somehow drawn me in last time, like a lamb walking itself right to the slaughter.
I set down my beer and lean against the counter. “It’s mistrust. Wariness. A desire for her to not be here, because social media is going to make us into a gimmick.”
JJ’s quiet for a beat. “Well, there’s nothing you can do about it. A contract is signed. It’s legally binding.”
“I’m legally bound to allow her to do her job at her workplace,” I correct. A grin snakes up my cheek that I’m glad no one is around to see, because this town respects me, and I’m stooping lower than I typically do. Lower than I should.
But if City Girl’s resume is as impressive as Anson says, there are endless opportunities she can seize—opportunities that lead to promotions, higher pay, and far more success than she could ever get at a contract gig on an oyster farm in Garnet Shores.
This wouldn’t hurt her in the least. If anything, leaving would be doing herself a favor.
“There’s a second part to that sentence,” JJ says cautiously.
There is. “She works at the farm,” I repeat, taking a swig of beer. The cold, bitter sweetness feels like a refreshing shower as it goes down. “Doesn’t mean I’m obligated to make sure she likes it.”