Stick Figure’s “Meet Me by the Ocean” played low through Rum Away’s cockpit speakers—quiet enough to let Trout sleep, loud enough to put a little rhythm into Sage’s work as she wiped five days of salt from the salon windows.
The song fit the morning. So did the man snoring behind her.
Trout lay facedown across the cockpit settee, one arm hanging toward the deck and nothing covering him but a corner of the sheet tangled around his left ankle. He had come off watch less than an hour ago, peeled out of his clothes somewhere between the helm and the couch, and apparently lost consciousness before completing either task.
Sage paused with the chamois against the glass and looked him over.
The sun had begun finding the lighter streaks in his otherwise dark-brown hair. His back and shoulders still carried the hard definition of a man who treated physical decline as a personal insult. He looked peaceful, which meant he was either deeply asleep or planning something.
His left foot twitched.
Deeply asleep.
She went back to the window.
Rum Away moved easily beneath her, the fifty-eight-foot catamaran rolling just enough to remind them they were still at sea. They had hauled ass down from Maine in five days, staying offshore and riding a clean beam wind until the cold finally lost the chase. For most of the run, the custom foils had remained deployed, taking some of the boat’s weight and smoothing the worst of the sea. This morning, with the wind fading and Hispaniola less than seventy miles ahead, Trout had retracted them and slowed the boat to something almost civilized.
Almost.
Even at an easy eleven knots, Rum Away seemed impatient.
Sage understood the feeling.
She cleaned the last corner of glass and checked the trolling rod secured at the stern. The line cut a thin diagonal into the wake, unchanged for the better part of an hour.
They had eaten two protein bars and the final respectable apple for dinner. If the ocean declined to participate soon, lunch was going to come from a can.
The reel screamed.
Sage dropped the chamois. “Fish on!”
Trout came off the settee as if someone had fired a starting pistol.
The sheet caught his ankle. He took one blind step, clipped the table and planted his bare foot directly into the small cactus Sage kept beside the salon door.
“Mother—”
He jerked away from the cactus, hit the edge of the settee with his other foot and swept Sage’s coffee off the table with his hip. The cup landed upright. The lid did not. Coffee ran across the deck and down his shin.
Sage was already at the helm. “Rod first. Death scene later.”
Trout limped past her, naked, half-awake and carrying three cactus spines in the side of his foot. “Why is there hostile vegetation on my boat?”
“Our boat.”
“Not the cactus. That asshole is yours.”
He snatched the rod from its holder as the line peeled away.
Sage eased the sheets and brought Rum Away higher into the wind. The sails softened, speed bled from the hulls and the rod bent hard in Trout’s hands.
“Little more,” he said.
She feathered the helm. “Tell me when.”
“Now. Hold her there.”
The easy humor fell out of his voice. His feet set. His shoulders settled. In the space of a breath, the naked man losing a fight with a houseplant disappeared and the competent one took over.
Sage liked both versions more than she admitted.
Trout worked the fish in, taking line when it gave and letting it run when it had to. The rod pulsed in his grip.
“Please be dinner,” Sage said.
“Feels expensive.”
“That isn’t a species.”
“It is on a menu.”
Something flashed behind the boat—electric blue, then green, then molten gold as it turned beneath the surface.
Sage leaned over the helm. “It’s a mahi!”
“Now you can say it.”
“I did say it.”
“This time you had evidence.”
The fish broke the surface and threw itself sideways, sunlight exploding from its flanks. Trout gained line, lost half of it, then braced the rod against his hip and fought it back.
Sage watched the fish, the sails and the depth readout, making small corrections while Trout brought it alongside the starboard sugar scoop.
“Leader,” he said.
She left the helm in autopilot long enough to grab the leader with one gloved hand. Trout set down the rod, reached over and lifted the mahi onto the deck.
For half a second, it lay stunned between them, brilliant blue and green against the white fiberglass.
Then it detonated.
The fish hammered its tail, spraying seawater and scales. Trout lunged and caught it behind the head. It twisted free, slapped him across the chest and launched itself under the cockpit table.
Sage blocked the port side with her foot. “Don’t let it reach the scoop.”
“That was already my plan.”
“Your plan appears to be wrestling it with your dick out.”
“Improvisation is a leadership skill.”
The mahi shot toward the stern. Trout dropped to one knee, caught it by the tail and stood with the fish bucking in both hands, water running down his arms.
His grin arrived a full second before the joke.
“Look at this thing. Almost as big as my dick.”
Sage looked deliberately from the fish to him and back again. “You’re right. If the fish weren’t green and blue, I couldn’t tell the difference.”
Trout stared at her.
She smiled. “You walked into that one.”
“I trusted you.”
“That was your first mistake.”
The mahi gave one violent twist. Trout’s grip slipped, and the fish hit the deck between his feet.
Both of them moved at once.
Neither was fast enough.
The mahi flopped once, twice, then shot down the open sugar scoop and vanished into the wake.
Trout remained frozen with both hands extended.
“No.”
Sage bit the inside of her cheek.
He stepped to the edge and looked into the water as if betrayal might leave a bubble trail. “Get back here.”
That did it. Sage folded against the helm, laughing.
Trout turned. “You aided the escape.”
“I blocked port.”
“You confused me with the dick analysis.”
“It was a visual identification.”
He looked over the stern one last time. “That fish is telling this story wrong.”
Sage wiped tears from her eyes. “Relax. We’ve got canned tuna. I’m pretty sure you can overpower that.”
Trout gave her a wounded look and took one step toward the settee.
“Don’t sit down,” she said.
He stopped. “Why?”
She pointed.
A broken piece of cactus clung to the sheet directly behind him.
Trout closed his eyes. “I hate this boat.”
“You designed half of it.”
“I hate your half.”
Sage retrieved the first-aid kit and nodded toward the cockpit table. “Foot.”
He sat on the edge, reluctantly surrendered his heel and watched her pull out the first spine.
“Ow.”
“You’ve been shot at.”
“Bullets don’t leave splinters.”
“That may be the dumbest thing you’ve said today.”
“It’s early.”
She removed the second spine, then the third. Trout studied her bent head, his expression settling into something warmer.
“Good run,” he said.
“The fish escaped.”
“I meant from Maine.”
Sage glanced up. Behind him, the Atlantic ran clean and blue to the horizon. Ahead lay Hispaniola, warm water and a wreck they had talked about diving for years.
“Five days,” she said. “No broken gear. No terrible weather. Nobody called us with an emergency.”
“You shouldn’t say that last one out loud.”
“And now we’re almost there.”
Trout’s smile turned crooked. “Pirate ship first. Beach bar second.”
“That order remains under review.”
He reached for the coffee she had rescued from the deck, discovered the cup was empty and looked personally offended.
Sage held up the last cactus spine in the tweezers. “Anything else hurt?”
“My dignity.”
“Can’t remove what I can’t find.”
The reggae beat rolled softly through the cockpit again. Trout looked at her for a moment, then laughed and pulled her between his knees.
“Canned tuna?” he asked.
“Unless you want another shot at the cactus.”
“Tuna sounds great.”