by Melinda Minx
“Thanks,” I say, scoffing.
“I don’t mean it in a bad way, man. I’m just saying. If neither of you fit alone, maybe together you’ll fit?”
I shrug. I’m not particularly attached to Tuckett Bay. I could take it or leave it. The seafood is good, sure, but I don’t have any family left here. I’m here for Sophie, that’s it.
We get our oysters and fries, and I ask Sophie if she wants to join us.
“Sure,” she says. “Just a few minutes, though. Melanie will get mad.”
She sits down beside me, and Marv grins. We shuck the oysters and suck out the cool, salty meat. The fries go damn well with it, the only thing missing is a nice cold beer. But I’m not gonna’ fucking drink on the job after seeing Samuel hit the bottle too hard. Drinking and fishing is a lot like drinking in combat. Fucking stupid. I’ll have to have a talk with Samuel. It’s one thing if he gets himself killed, quite another if he gets someone else killed.
We finish eating, and I kiss Sophie goodbye.
It starts off as a quick peck, but it’s hard to take my lips off her. Neither of us wants to back down, neither of us wants to stop. Our tongues meet, and my cock gets hard. I feel an intense urge to throw her down on one of the tables and take her right here and now, but the hooting and cheering sounds break me out of it.
We stop kissing, and Samuel is pounding his fist on his table and hollering at us.
“Sophie the waitress and Mason the fisher!” he shouts. “Shacking up at the ‘ol Crab Shack!”
He saunters over toward us and pats a hand onto my back. “Mason, man, don’t mess it up with her. Sophie and I were just talking together before you got here.”
I look at Sophie, and she looks a little bit guilty. It can’t be that something is going on with her and fucking Samuel? Right?
“Oh yeah?” I ask.
“Yep,” he says. “We were talking about how you left her, and probably how you’re gonna’ leave her again—”
“Samuel,” she says, “don’t make me kick you again. Or slap you.”
I look over at Sophie. “Really?”
“Come on,” Ashton says. “Samuel was doing all the talking. Sophie was just putting up with him for the tip.”
“The tip,” Samuel says. “That’s what the cougar wants, just the tip, huh? But the tip turns into the whole shaft, after a lot of inches at least—”
I punch him square in the jaw. Hard. Too hard.
He crumples to the ground in a heap. Knocked out cold. He’ll wake up with a wicked headache, and not just from the whiskey.
“Jesus, Mason, you fucking idiot!” she shouts.
“Mad you won’t get your tip?” I say, fuming with anger.
Definitely not a smart thing to say, I realize a few second later, as Sophie gives me a disgusted look. “Get out of here, Mason,” she says. “I don’t want your tip either.”
“Sorry,” I say, “I just—”
“Out!”
Marv and Ashton lead me out, and John stays behind with Samuel.
We get outside, and Marv starts laughing.
“It’s not funny,” I say, shoving him.
“You gonna’ knock me out, too? Soldier boy?” Marv says.
“We gotta get Samuel under control,” I say.
“You worried he’s gonna’ steal your woman?” Marv laughs.
“I’m worried he’s gonna’ get someone killed,” I say.
“You’re not the captain,” Marv says, scowling at me. “You know that drinking a bit is something that just happens.”
“A bit?” I ask. “John, you think he was just drinking a bit?”
John looks down at the ground.
Marv squeezes my arm. “Look, man, you don’t need to worry about this. I’ll get it under control. I promise, all right? Worry about Sophie, she’s pissed at you.”
“I gotta try that sometime,” John says.
“Try what?” I ask.
John swings his fist into the air. “Wham! Just knocking a guy out cold to defend my woman’s honor.”
“You don’t have a woman,” Marv says.
“Exactly!” John says. “’Cause I’m too chickenshit to pull a move like Mason did.”
“She’s pissed at me,” I say. “Don’t learn from me.”
“Pissed at you now,” John says. “But that just means you’ll either get some angry sex, or some makeup sex! You gotta keep a woman pissed at you to keep her around, I think I’m finally figuring it all out thanks to you.”
Samuel gets the rest of the day off. I punch him in the face for being a drunk jackass, and he gets rewarded? All right, maybe—just maybe—I shouldn’t have punched him.
Nah. He deserved it.
As we pull into the dock, I tie the ropes to the dock and watch Marv from the corner of my eyes. I thought I was mad; Marv looks like he’s about to shit a brick. Or forget a brick, he could shit an anchor.
He ignores me, and I know he’s pissed off at me, but I suspect he’s more angry with Samuel. Or maybe he’s angry at himself for letting it happen. A captain of a ship—it doesn’t matter how small the ship—is lord of his own realm. Everything and everyone within the ship is his kingdom. He’s responsible for every dumbass decision and drunken fuck-up that happens onboard. Hell, he’s probably relieved I decided to punch Samuel out at the Crab Shack and not on his ship.
“Alright, boss,” I say, jumping onto the dock.
“Go home, Mason,” he says. “Don’t worry about Samuel.”
I nod.
I’ll still worry about him, though. Especially when he’s around Sophie. I may just have to have a word with him.
When I get into my car, I feel too pissed off to just go home and sleep the day off. If I was a drunk, I’d go get blasted right now, but I’ve always too easily been able to see through the haze of alcohol for what it is. I’ve never been the kind of guy that can drink away his problems. My problems are always right there behind me. My vice was running away, not booze. I ran as hard and as fast as I could, and my demons were always right on my heels—but at least they hadn’t consumed me.
Fuck it. I won’t run again.
I start the car and head to Sophie’s place, as the sun falls below the horizon.
I don’t see her car when I get there, but I know Hank uses it sometimes. I might as well try. John may be a dumbass, but he wasn’t wrong about the makeup sex. Angry makeup sex would be even better. It’s probably the only thing that could get me to sleep at this point—tired as I am.
I knock, and wait.
Finally Hank opens the door. “Mason?”
“Hank,” I say, keeping my bloodied knuckles pointed down so he can’t see them.
“Sophie’s not here,” he says. “I think you pissed her off.”
“I know I did,” I say.
“Want a beer?” he asks.
I grimace, and Hank laughs.
“Having a beer with me is that bad?” Hank asks. “Come in, son.”
He waves me in.
“Sorry, Hank,” I say. “It’s just I was thinking of going to drink while Sophie cooled off, but then I decided it wouldn’t help, so I came here instead. It’s not you, I just didn’t want to drink.”
“Having a beer isn’t really drinking. I don’t feel a thing until I’ve had three.”
“Can’t argue with that,” I say, which sends Hank straight to the fridge.
He hands me a Heineken, and I twist off the top. I take a long swig. The cool liquid feels good as it flows down my throat. I won’t feel anything from one beer, but it tastes damn good.
As I sit down, I realize that this is the same position I used to sit in when I awkwardly waited for Sophie to get ready while we were dating those short few weeks.
Hank catches me smiling. “What’s so funny?”
I point behind him. “I see it now.”
“See what?” he asks, looking back.
“You always sat in that chair, with the gun case right behind you, and that’s
why you had me sit here, so I’d see you and the guns all together.”
Hank laughs. “You caught me.”
“Did you ever tell Sophie what I said to you?” Hank asks. “Back then.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “I was worried she’d get mad at you, which would get you mad at me.”
Hank laughs and slaps his knee. “So I scared ya? You can tell her now, by the way. I won’t get mad.”
“I’ll save the story for when she’s talking to me again, I guess,” I say, taking another swig.
“Any idea where Sophie is?” I ask.
Hank shrugs. “I’m sure you could find her if you wanted, but I know her pretty well, Mason. You don’t want to find her just yet.”
I nod. No angry makeup sex tonight. John would be disappointed.
I suddenly find my eyes drawn to the shotguns. I never really thought of my rifle as anything more than a tool. It became a fucking part of me, but it was still a tool. I was good with it, and my intense urge to do something I’m good at doesn’t subside. If I can’t fuck, I may as well shoot something.
“Wanna shoot the guns?” I ask.
Hank cocks his head. “The shotguns? You wanna shoot them? When?”
“Now,” I say. “Let’s gather up all the empty bottles you’ve got.”
We drive down to the old abandoned lumber mill just outside of town.
“If Sophie finds out I’m going shooting with you,” Hank says, “she’ll be mad at me, too.”
“Tell her it’s stress relief,” I say. “She’s always going on about your health and—”
Hank glares at me. Shit. I shouldn’t talk about that to him, it might make him feel like less of a man.
“Sorry,” I say. “You know how women are, that’s all I mean.”
Hank laughs. “My mother died just after I married my wife, and my wife died just after Sophie was born. It’s like God wanted to make sure there was always a woman in my life, telling me exactly how many strips of bacon I can eat per week.”
“How many?” I ask.
“Three,” Hank says, shaking his head. “Get used to it, Mason, if you’re gonna’ stick around that is.”
I ignore his jab. He didn’t mean it maliciously, but he’s rightly worried about me. I haven’t been back long enough to prove that I’m intending to stick around. I’ll have to prove to him that I can stay put.
We grab the 24-pack, which is mostly full of empty bottles—some are still full—and haul it out toward an abandoned wooden shed. It’s more of a hut than a shed, I suppose, since it’s open on all but two sides. It looks like they used to use it to store raw lumber. There’s some wooden scaffolding, which was probably used to keep the wood off the ground so that it didn’t get wet. I arrange three of the bottles equidistant apart from each other atop the scaffolding.
Hank has the shotgun—we decided we only really needed one—loaded and ready. It’s dark already, so we have the headlights and high beams on, illuminating the lumber hut.
“This isn’t fair,” Hank says. “My old man eyes against your soldier vision?”
I shrug. “I’m not competing, Hank, I just wanna shoot shit.”
“Fair enough,” he says, aiming the gun and firing. The muzzle flash is brief, but it illuminates his face in a warm yellow and orange for a brief moment. I swear I can see the stress melting away from him in that brief moment.
The bottle doesn’t move. A miss.
“Shit,” Hank says, but he doesn’t sound angry or upset. It’s just a thing he has to say to acknowledge he missed.
Shooting was a good call. One of the few good ideas I’ve had since deciding to come back here for Sophie. Taking up fishing again was probably a shitty idea, all things considered. Maybe I should have gotten a job at a shooting range.
“I got an idea,” I say.
I grab the unopened beers and place them down by our feet, then I head over to my car and turn off the headlights.
Hank laughs. “I miss the bottles when the lights are on, and your idea is to turn them off? How’s that supposed to work?”
“Drink a beer with me,” I say.
I pop open two beers and hand one to him. We clink the bottles together and drink.
“You’d have been real proud of Sophie,” Hank says. “Seeing how far she got. I never thought a girl I raised would turn out that smart.”
“You did a good job with her.”
“Don’t kiss my ass,” Hank says. “It’s her mom’s genes. That’s gotta be it.”
“Ever thought of fishing again?” I ask him.
He laughs. “I worked as hard as I did so I’d never have to do it again. You don’t wanna keep doing that shit, son.”
“I know,” I say.
We finish our beers, and I point over to the hut. “See the bottles?”
“Shit,” Hank whispers. “I do see them. It’s pitch black, but I definitely see them. How the hell?”
“It’s your night vision,” I say. “Your eyes can adapt to the dark really well, but only if it stays dark. When we ran night missions, we had to do everything we could to protect our night vision. Sometimes the bad guys would even hit us with a strobe light just before they made the jump on us.”
“Wouldn’t that give them away?”
“Yeah,” I say, “but then we couldn’t see for shit.”
“What about night vision goggles, infrared?”
“We had that,” I say, “but they hit you with a strobe light when you got that shit on, then you’re really blind.”
“I’m gonna’ take another shot,” Hank says.
He lines up his shot, steadies his breathing, and squeezes the trigger. The glass shatters.
“Fuck yeah,” he says.
“Try to pick off the last two one after another. Shoot, pump, shoot.”
Hank pumps the shotgun, aims and fires. The second bottle shatters. He pumps again and fires straight away. Miss.
“The muzzle flash killed my night vision,” Hank mutters.
I laugh. “Good fucking excuse. You don’t know how many times we used that one. It also helps if you don’t look directly at the bottles. Try to look ‘around them’ if that makes sense. You can see low light better out of the center of your vision.”
Usually when I explain that trick, I explain it as, “Pretend you’re trying to check out a hot woman’s tits, look at them without looking at them,” but considering Hank is the father of the woman I want to be with, I decide to leave that little nugget of wisdom out.
He aims again and fires, and the bottle shatters apart.
“If you hurt Sophie again—really hurt her—I mean,” Hank says, “then you’ll regret showing me how to shoot so damn well.”
He hands me the gun. I don’t miss a single shot.
19
Sophie
When I get home, Dad isn’t there. It’s past midnight, where the hell could he be?
I call him, but his phone is off. He never charges it.
I notice a second coaster on the coffee table. Who was here?
Mason. He tried to call me, and I didn’t answer, so he came here. And now Mason took my father out? Are they out drinking together, picking up chicks?
I call Mason, and when I hear his voice, something explodes in the background.
“Don’t tell me you went back to Syria,” I say.
He laughs. “Oh, so now you care where I am?”
“No,” I say, not really meaning it. “Where is my dad?”
“He’s with me.”
“And where is that?”
“The old lumber mill.”
“What the hell are you doing with my dad at—?”
I realize my voice sounds different—there’s no sound coming from the earpiece. He hung up on me. That asshole!
I get in my car and turn it on. A friend of my dad’s got the alternator fixed while I was at work this morning. Mason was annoyingly right about the cause of the problem.
And why of all places are
they at the old lumber mill? What the hell are they doing together?
When I get there, I spot Mason’s car just at the end of the dirt road. I pull up and see Mason holding a gun, aiming at something in the distance. My headlights hit them, and they both look over at me, shielding their faces with their arms.
I get out of the car, leaving the lights on so that I can see them as I shout at them.
“What the hell, Mason?” I ask.
“Come on, Sophie,” Dad says. “Turn those lights off, you killed our night vision!”
“Your night vision, what the hell are you talking about? Why do you need to shoot beer bottles at midnight?”
Mason gently lowers the gun down to his side, keeping the barrel pointed down and away from me and Dad. “We don’t need to,” he says. “But why not? You know?”
“No,” I say. “I don’t know. It seems stupid to me. I’ve never had the urge to shoot a beer bottle.”
“I’m gonna’ take your car back home, Sophie,” Dad says. “This sounds like a two wheels are better than three type situation to me. A vicious tricycle.”
“That’s not an expression,” Mason says, laughing.
“Don’t laugh,” I snap. “Dad can’t drive, he’s drunk.”
“You want to drive us back then?” Mason asks, grinning.
“No,” I say. “I don’t want to, but I have to, don’t I?”
“We’re out of beer,” Mason says. “We were just gonna’ shoot until we ran out of bottles or ran out of shells, whichever came first. Probably we’d both have been sober by then.”
Sophie drives us back home. Hank passes out in the back seat as soon as the car starts moving.
“You had to get my dad drunk?’
“That wasn’t the goal,” I say.
“So shooting stuff was the goal? Getting drunk just kind of happened?”
“More or less,” I say, shrugging.
“You’re insufferable sometimes.”
“Sometimes?” I ask. “That means I’m usually not?”
I catch her almost smile, but she forces her face back to neutral.
“Sophie,” I say, keeping my voice low so as not to wake Hank. “I came to your house to see you. You weren’t there, so I got talking to your dad, and—”
