I rose to my feet, wanting to take another swig from the bottle on my desk, but decided against it. Heading down the hall, I unlocked the door to my private apartment at the back of the single-story building and let myself inside.
I stripped off yesterday’s clothes as I made my way toward the small bathroom with a glass stand-up shower stall. Not bothering to let the water warm, I stepped under the spray and hissed through my teeth.
A cold shower, both to sober me and to tamp down my raging libido.
Chloe was the golden-haired little girl I’d taught to fish, and caught minnows with. She was the first girl I kissed, the one who taught me the lyrics to her favorite pop songs. She’d been my best friend since I was a little kid—and now she was my fuck toy. The memory of how it all started loomed large, impossible to escape.
Samantha had been killed on a Wednesday. Four days later at her funeral, I wasn’t any closer to understanding what had happened. I felt lost and empty and nothing made sense. Then Chloe had taken my hand and looked at me with worry in her ocean-blue eyes, and I’d snapped. I broke the one rule I vowed I’d never break. Chloe was practically a sister to me. A friend. My best friend. But never my lover. That hadn’t stopped me from using her to escape the grief that stormed through me day and night.
I scrubbed shampoo through my hair and pushed all the noise out of my brain.
Apparently I was taking two of Chloe’s guests out on a fishing expedition in my personal boat since every other craft in my fleet was booked to capacity, and my own manager had even told me no way.
We lived and died by the rule the customer is always right. Nowadays you made one misstep and an angry patron would blast you with a one-star review on social media sites—and things like that stay there forever. We were barely scraping by as it was. We couldn’t afford to say no and leave guests unsatisfied. Not if I could help it, anyway. Plus with Chloe being the one to ask, I couldn’t exactly say no, considering all the ways she’d been there for me.
After dressing in a new pair of board shorts and a clean T-shirt, I headed out onto the docks, knowing there was more to be done. There was always more work to be done, or maybe it was that I needed to feel the warmth of the sunshine on my skin since I knew my soul was as black as night.
“Hey, did you get that charter figured out?” one of my deck hands asked.
“Nah. Fuel me up. I’m taking them out myself later today.” Once I’ve sobered up.
He shook his head, smirking at me. “She’s got you pussy-whipped, man.”
“Not even a little bit,” I replied.
I didn’t know if he knew the extent of my relationship with Chloe. But I was never going there again with a woman. Deep, committed monogamy. No way. I’d changed who I was once before and nearly lost a lifelong friend, and look what happened. My entire world got knocked on its ass. My philosophy now was that pussy was easy to come by and best when regularly rotated.
Then why haven’t I seen anyone but Chloe? a little voice inside asked.
Ever since Samantha’s death, I’d been fucked up in the head. Messing around with something you don’t mess with. Something sacred. My one-time best friend. Only now I had no idea what she was anymore. I only knew she made me feel good. I knew she let me fuck her raw six ways from Sunday. Let me mark her skin, and moaned when she tasted herself on my tongue, then asked for more.
The scary part was that I had no idea where this was heading and how it could possibly end well, but I knew one thing for certain—I had no plans to end our arrangement.
“Just fuel me up and keep the questions to a minimum,” I barked back.
“Yes, boss.”
I checked my cooler for this morning’s haul. The grouper was still sitting pretty on ice. I grabbed the fish and made my way inside, knowing I had my work cut out for me before I could get Chloe’s guests out on the boat later.
• • •
“Abe? You here?” I called, opening the flimsy screen door to his rundown one-bedroom house.
Stony silence punctuated the still air for several seconds, and my gut twisted. The eerie realization that one of these days I was going to get here and find him dead washed through me.
“I’m out back,” he called in his gruff voice.
Taking a deep breath, I headed through the house, stopping in the kitchen to set the fish fillets I brought him every Sunday in the refrigerator. Its uneven hum told me the appliance, much like everything around here, was on its last leg. I’d replaced his air-conditioning unit last summer and had a feeling more repairs were on the horizon.
I found him out on the back porch with its no-frills concrete floor and screened walls, doing the Sunday crossword from the newspaper. I needed to remember to bring him another crossword book; the man probably didn’t have any other hobbies.
I sank down into the folding chair beside him, the rickety thing creaking under my weight.
“You catch anything good for me today?” he asked.
“Fresh grouper. There’re two fillets for you in the fridge.”
“You sure you don’t want to stay for one? I can fry them up in some butter.”
He was a modern marvel. A full-fat diet, yet skinny as a rail and healthy as a horse.
I shook my head. “Can’t today. I promised I’d take a couple of Chloe’s guests out on a charter.”
“It’s nice how you’re there for her.”
I grunted. “Trust me, she does much more for me than I do for her.”