Page 2 of Harbor Me

“They found somebody new. Sounded like a real contender this time.” He steps over a coiled hose. “Aiden. The invoices.”

“I know about the invoices.”

“There’s a stack on that desk older than my marriage. Hendricks called me. On my personal phone. Wanting to know about his winter deposit, and I had to stand there pretending we’ve got a system.”

“We have got a system.”

“The system’s an office nobody’s allowed in and a boss who does paperwork at two in the morning when he figures nobody knows his truck is still parked in the lot.”

I stop walking. Marcus doesn’t back up an inch. That’s the trouble with him. Twelve years of working in this yard buys a man the right to plant his boots and be right at you until you cave.

“Fine,” I say. “Trial run. Whoever they send, if they last a week, I’ll fall over dead from the shock.”

“That’s the spirit.”

“And nobody touches the desk before they show up. It’s organized.”

“It’s a landfill with a lamp on it.”

“Go find my rubber chunks.”

He goes off grinning, because he got exactly what he came for. Which is the other trouble with Marcus.

The forty-footer’s owner’s escalated to both arms now, so I head out to the dock to shut it down before he pulls something we’ll both regret.

“Finally.” Boat shoes that never touched a boat before June. A polo the exact pink of stomach medicine. “I have been standing here-”

“Ten minutes. I know. We’re a little short on hands today.” I get the nozzle seated. “Fill her up?”

“Yes. And somebody needs to look at my depth reader. Says the whole harbor’s about to run me aground. Middle of the channel, it’s telling me six feet. That’s insane.”

“You running her flat out?”

Blank look.

“Speeding,” I translate. “Through the slow zone. You do that, the reader panics and feeds you garbage numbers. Ease off, it’ll settle down and tell the truth.”

“I wasn’t speed-”

“Pretty sure the Harbor Cam will show otherwise if you’d like to double check.” The pump clicks off. I top it, seat the cap, wipe the drip. “Hundred and twelve even. I’ll write it up, you can settle in the office starting tomorrow, we’ll have somebody in there.”

He grumbles something at me and eases the boat away from the dock. Slower than he came in, I notice.

Tommy’s leaning in the workshop doorway when I come back up the ramp, grinning like it’s Christmas.

“‘We’ll have somebody in there,’” he quotes back at me. “Listen to you. Manifesting.”

“Missing chunks, Tommy.”

“Found one.” He holds up a chewed strip of rubber like a prize marlin. “One to go.”

“Then go. Leave the other one baking in there and it’s your name I’ll be cursing in August.”

Around noon Walt putters in on his lobster boat wanting his alternator looked at “whenever,” which in Walt runs about ninety seconds from the word leaving his mouth. So I do it right there at the dock while he narrates his granddaughter’s entire softball season in more detail than the season actually had.

Something small’s burned out inside it. I’ve got a spare in the shop. He tries to pay me, I tell him to bring haddock instead, and we both pretend that’s a negotiation we haven’t run a hundred times.

“Heard you’re finally hiring for the office,” he says.