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I felt nauseous.
Like, one out of ten, I was at a sixty-two, nauseous at the thought of hurting her by my own hand.
“Come on,” she said. “It’s gonna have to be you. I don’t trust anyone else.”
I used both hands, taking one to split my fingers on either side of where the hook would be going, and the other to grasp the hook firmly between my fingers.
“Ready?” I asked.
I wasn’t.
“Ready,” she said.
“Um, her pole is going nuts,” I heard the moron say.
The moron was actually named Nugent Jones. He was a lawyer for the biggest players in sports. He “protected them” and “got them what they wanted” whether it be something that they needed, wanted, or coveted of someone else’s.
He was used to getting what he wanted, and when he didn’t, he had to be cajoled like a lamb to slaughter.
I couldn’t stand him.
And after what had just happened, I knew that I would never be able to stand him.
Greer shook both of us off and walked toward her pole. She started to reel it in, to the shock of all three of us.
“What are you doing?” I asked her, staring at the hook in her side and wondering how in the hell I was about to get it out without hurting her.
The sad fact was I wasn’t going to accomplish that.
I was going to cause her pain, and she was going to fucking cry, and I was going to fucking hate myself.
“I’m gonna reel this in while you scrounge up the courage to push this hook all the way through my skin,” she pointed out.
In all honesty, it wasn’t just through her belly fat. It was through some muscle, too.
This was going to hurt, and maybe if her mind was on something else, it would help.
She started to reel, and her entire tiny body was in complete use.
She used everything she had to reel in the fish that was on the other end of the line.
I looked at Aodhan, and he nodded in understanding.
Going up behind her, he waited for the inevitable flinching she was about to do.
And I finally got to work, forcing myself to do what needed to be done.
Once again, I braced her skin, feeling her abs play beneath the surface as she cursed and paused in her reeling. Not because of what I’d done, but because the fish on the other end of the line started to fight back.
I used that moment to grasp the hook, then pushed.
She screeched, flinched, and it was only Aodhan’s grip on her that kept her from pulling away from me.
Once I’d started, though, I couldn’t stop.
I pushed it all the way through, then stood up and vomited over the side.
“Ouch!” Greer said in between heaves.
So on top of not liking to hurt Greer, I also didn’t like choppy waters, and today was a bit of both.
Once I was done, Aodhan had a pair of pliers that he was already using to cut the hook’s barb off with.
I was thankful that he was doing that, because I probably couldn’t even if I wanted to.
“Done,” Aodhan stood. “Now we just gotta push that all the way through.”
Before I could help with any of it, she reached down and did it herself.
Then, because she could, she tossed the half a hook at the man that’d caused her pain and said, “Next time, when you can see the fucking hook, don’t yank the damn thing out of the water. It’s called level of awareness.”
I blinked at her in surprise.
I’d never expected her to be mean to anyone but me, and I liked it.
It turned me on.
Nugent looked shocked to have the hook hit him in the chest.
But instead of snapping back, he actually showed an ounce of decorum and held his tongue.
He did hand the hook back to Aodhan, though, and said, “Your deckhand can’t fix this right now.”
His deckhand couldn’t fix it earlier, she was just a good actress.
She’d been playing the part the whole time, as if it was all one big game. She was adding flourish where there shouldn’t be flourish, and in the end was only doing it to mess with me.
It’d worked.
I’d been half-mad for her all night.
Aodhan went on about his business, helping Nugent. Meanwhile, Greer reeled away.
“It’s a fuckin’ tuna,” I said, slightly numb at our first sight of the fish.
“It’s a fuckin’ tuna!” Aodhan crowed.
“What’s the big deal about that?” Nugent asked.
Nobody answered him as the boat went into a flurry, getting ready for the fish to be landed.
Aodhan got a massive hook.
I pulled out my phone. And together, we all watched as Greer landed the biggest goddamn tuna I’d ever laid eyes on.
It was so damn big we had to use the hoist to get the damn thing in the boat.
“Holy shit,” Greer said, eyeing the fish. “That isn’t gonna fit in the bait thingy.”
