Page 6 of Everything You Hate
“Shut up, Captain.” I glare at the bird, but he just tilts his head and stares back with that infuriatingly knowing look.
“Son of a bitch,” he squawks, then adds, “Rude!”
I turn away from the bird and scrub a hand over my face. Captain is the pet I never wanted, passed to me in my father’s will as his final practical joke. It outlived him. It will probably outlive me. Dad is definitely laughing about that somewhere.
The thought sends a pang through my chest. A year since he’s been gone, and sometimes the grief still catches me like a rogue wave. As a surprise late-in-life baby, I didn’t get enough time with either of my parents. Not like my brother Henry, who is twenty-one years older than me and has always been more like a second father than an older brother.
I need to talk to Bodhi.
But first I need to change out of these wet clothes.
I walk back to the office, ducking under the low door frame. Doug hasn’t moved from his throne of life jackets. His paws still paddle the air, and a thin line of drool has connected his jowl to the floor. Abel is behind the counter, typing something. The kid is one of the few good Merricks. He’s kind to everyone and a hard worker, which is why I had no problem hiring him, despite Bodhi’s concerns over inviting a Merrick into a Haven business.
“You have a tour booked at two,” Abel says without looking up.
I pause halfway to the back room where I keep a change of clothes. “You didn’t.”
Abel blinks innocently. “Didn’t what?”
“You know damn well what.”
“Boss, she wanted a tour.”
“Reschedule her. Put her on tomorrow.”
“Can’t. Tomorrow’s full. You know that.”
I do know that. I also know Abel is enjoying this a little too much.
“Fuck,” I grumble and continue to the back room. “If she asks about the family, about the feud, about anything that isn’t the goddamn tide charts, I’m dropping her off on No Name and leaving her there.”
“Sure thing, boss.”
I shut the door on his laugh. The small space contains a cot that I only use when weather makes sleeping on my boat impossible, a small fridge, hot plate, and coffee maker, Doug’s food dish, Captain’s cage, and a locker full of pretty much my entire wardrobe. It smells like diesel and old coffee. I yank my wet shirt over my head and toss it into the corner with the rest of my laundry pile. My reflection in the dented mirror on the locker looks exactly how I feel—tired, pissed off, and thoroughly inconvenienced by a woman I’ve known for an hour.
I pull on a dry Henley and a worn flannel and step into jeans that have seen better days. My boots are still damp, so I change into an old pair of running shoes that have seen better days. I hang my baseball cap on a hook, run a hand through my hair, and decide that’s as good as it’s going to get.
When I come back out, Captain has migrated to the top of the filing cabinet. He’s watching me with a tilt of his head that means he’s about to say something inconvenient.
“Don’t,” I tell him.
“Abort, abort!” he says anyway.
I grab his flight harness. “I’m going out to the farm,” I tell Abel as I hook the bird into it. “I’ll be back before two.”
The phone rings, and Abel gives a thumbs-up as he answers.
I turn to my dog. “Doug, want to go for a ride?”
He snores on, completely unbothered and uninterested.
Dean
The road to the farm is a narrow strip of asphalt that winds up through second-growth forest, past the turn-off to the resort, and finally opens to twenty acres of rolling green. My truck handles it like the old beast it is—engine growling, tires finding every pothole with unerring accuracy. Captain perches on the dashboard, swaying with each turn and occasionally squawking commentary I ignore.
“Rude,” he announces as we hit a particularly vicious dip.
“You want to walk?” I ask him.
