Page 47 of Neap & Spring

He grins without turning around. “That’s literally the only downside.”

Wesley snorts. He cuts the engine and lets us drift. “You ever gonna actually ask her out, or are you just gonna keep making puppy dog eyes at her from afar?”

“I’m playing the long game, Wes. It’s called strategy.” Roman reels his line in a few feet, testing the drag.

“It’s called being chickenshit.” Wesley chuckles, handing me the rod he’s been rigging. “Here. This one’s yours.”

“Language,” I say automatically, the way Dad would.

Wesley winks in my direction and casts his own line, the movement perfect. The line arcs through the air and hits the water with barely a splash.

Show-off.

I cast mine, not quite as gracefully, and it lands with more of a plop.

Roman laughs. “Rusty, Chef?”

“Shut up.”

We settle into the rhythm of a boys’ day spent fishing. The boat rocks beneath us. Gulls cry overhead. The water stretches out in every direction.

This is what Saturdays are for. Or once a month, anyway. When we can manage it, we hand the kitchen over to Cora and the team, and we disappear out here for the day. It started two years ago when Roman showed up at the restaurant one morning, looked at me, and said You need air, let’s go.

It was what I needed then. And it’s what I need now.

Open space. Salty air.

Distance from the restaurant and the kitchen and the debt.

And Vivienne.

I sigh deeply, the ocean wind carrying away the sound. I should’ve known I couldn’t escape thinking about her, even way out here.

“So,” Roman says too casually, adjusting his line, “you gonna tell us why you got a stick up your ass more than usual, or are we gonna pretend you’re fine?”

I reel in my line a few feet and check the bait before casting it out again. “I am fine.”

Wesley is leaning against the side of the boat, one hand on his rod, the other wrapped around his coffee. “You have been a nightmare all week.”

“No, I haven’t. This is just the way I am.”

“You snapped at Danny for putting the fish in the wrong bin.”

“It was the wrong bin.”

“No, it wasn’t.” Roman takes a long drink of coffee, grimacing at the taste. “And you made Cora redo a dessert three times because the meringue wasn’t ‘structurally sound enough.’”

“It wasn’t,” I mutter, refusing to look at him.

Roman straightens up, reeling his line in to check his bait. It’s still there, completely untouched. He casts it back out, farther this time. “Is it the restaurant? I know the consultant’s been hard on you, but I think she has good ideas.”

And just like that, every muscle in my body tenses.

It’s been almost a week since our conversation in the kitchen where I told her everything and she gave me nothing. Days of the two of us existing in the same space but completely separate.

My line tugs. I reel in, but whatever was there is gone.

“It’s the consultant,” I admit finally, casting my line back out.