Page 46 of Pucking Good Girl

Oh, that makes sense, I guess. What I don’t get is why Tucker is glaring at Vaughn.

“Victor emailed everyone in our group to ask if someone wanted to swap, and this dipshit here,” he points at Vaughn. “Took the swap before I could.”

“You snooze, you lose, bro,” Vaughn chuckles.

I still don’t understand why Tucker is so pissed off. “I wouldn’t be so mad if I were you, Tuck. Your group had a much easier project than we did.”

Tucker unloads his bags on the wooden table where I set all my equipment. “Whatever. I would have been happy with any project for the sake of not having to work with Gen. I can’t stand her. Every time she sees me, she corners me, batting her eyes at me, and she gets all touchy feely. Ugh. Even if she weren’t Mack’s ex, and if I weren’t happily dating Taryn, I wouldn’t touch Gen with a ten-foot pole. She’s the one who’s toxic.”

I cannot say that I blame him. “But what are you doing here?”

My brother begins to pull small wax paper parcels out of the thin plastic bags he just deposited onto the table.

“I heard that you need fish for your recipe, yeah?”

“We sure do.” I confirm, scrunching my nose at the thought. I really don’t like fish in any way, shape, or form.

Tucker begins to unwrap a few of the parcels, and a pungent, fishy smell hits my nose, making my eyes water.

“Last night I heard these three dipshits,” he says, pointing at Vaughn, Macklin, and Becks. “Planning to go buy the fish for your project at one of the grocery stores in town. Can you imagine that?”

The guys take offense.

“What’s wrong with that?” Macklin asks.

“Look, I can’t blame you and Becks for being clueless, but you, Heston? You’re Star Cove born and bred; you should know better. Tourists go to buy fish and seafood at the grocery store. We’re a sea town. With a bustling port and a huge fish market that caters to the many restaurants in town and beyond. Didn’t your parents teach you to get up at the crack of dawn and wait for the fishing boats to return with their daily haul? Not only did we get the pick of today’s catch, but we paid a fraction of what the grocery store would charge for way lesser quality.”

Tucker is right. I remember more than one early morning with Dad, heading to the fish market. Especially before a long weekend, when my parents and their friends would prepare a clam bake or an oyster roast on the beach.

Mom would always grab a pack of hot dogs for me because I don’t like the taste of anything that comes from the sea.

“My parents?” Vaughn laughs, but the smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “All the grocery shopping that my parents ever did was telling our personal chef what they wanted on the menu. It was up to whoever they hired to source the food. To be honest, I don’t think either of my parents has ever even been inside a grocery store.”

“Must be nice to be part of the one percent.” Tucker’s tone is jovial, but there is an undercurrent of bitterness in his words.

Vaughn’s smile fades away. “Yeah? Must be nice to have parents who would do things with you. Growing up, I was lucky if I saw my parents once a month. They hired a small army of staff to look after me while they were always away on business. But since I turned eighteen? I see them even less. I actually haven’t seen them in person this year.”

It’s more than obvious that his parents’ disinterest bothers him.

I’m sad for Vaughn. My parents can be a handful, especially Dad, but they never made me or my siblings doubt how much they loved us or that we were their priority.

“What about your brother? Doesn’t he play hockey with Theo? I’ve seen them hang out together a lot lately.”

“Same deal,” Vaughn sighs. “He had a nanny until very recently. But he just turned eighteen now, so now they fired the nanny and there’s a housekeeper and a chef. They make sure he has everything he needs. I try to see him every weekend. We go to the local ice rink and shoot some pucks together. Theo tags along more often than not, too. They’re very good friends.”

I’ve been so caught up in my own problems lately that I realize I haven’t paid attention to my siblings as much as I used to.

If Theo is hanging out with Vaughn’s brother all the time, I should tell my parents to take him under their wing. I don’t know where Tucker and I would be without our parents, and I know they’ll be more than happy to be there for Theo’s best friend too.

I’m a firm believer that the saying “it takes a village” is true. Sam’s family is like a second family to me. This is my favorite thing about growing up in Star Cove: we look out for each other here.

Tucker continues to unwrap a few parcels, revealing a variety of fish.

There’s everything I put on the list I had given to Macklin and Becker.

“These are the sardines,” Tucker says. “And I was also able to get some fresh anchovies and sea bream. They didn’t have a lot of mackerel today, and someone from a restaurant bought all of it before I could get my hands on it. But Hank and his crew gave me these tiny shrimp that they were going to throw away because they’re too small for the restaurants. And I sweet-talked them into giving me some of the scraps from other fish. They caught some small skipjack tuna, and I got the heads of that for free.”

Yuck. I know a lot of people love fish and seafood, but I don’t. And seeing those creatures looking at me with their glassy eyes makes my stomach churn.