Page 10 of Sail Away with Me

“What an odd name. Why would your parents do that to you?”

“Says the woman named Galvin?”

“I’m named after my grandparents. You’re named after . . .” She paused and tried to think of anything other than a sailboat and came up empty. “A wind sail?”

Sail laughed. “It’s not that strange,” he told her. “My parents run multiple businesses and all their sons are involved. Once you hear our names, you don’t forget them. It makes it very easy when you need one of the Carter boys.”

Galvin stared.

“My older brother is Dune, then there’s me, Tidal, and Crew.”

At the mention of Dune, she nodded. “Dune, I know. He runs the nightclub here. But the rest . . .” She shook her head.

Galvin grew suspicious. “Look, I think you should go. I don’t know you and you clearly have no idea what goes on at the diner. For all I know, you’re trying to pillage the diner.”

“Pillage?”

“Means rob.”

“I know what it means. I’m questioning your usage of the word.”

She shrugged. “I figured with a name like Sail, you’re some sort of pirate.”

“Argh,” he said, laughing as he crooked his arm.

Galvin pushed the handle of the broom into him, and he stepped back. “Like I said, you don’t seem genuine, and I’m going to call Mr. Carter to let him know he has a . . .” she waved her free hand in his direction. “A whatever you are intruding on his property. This is a small town. It won’t take the police long to find you.”

Sail held his hands up. “Okay, I’ll go. But first, what can I do to prove I am Jack and Pearl’s son?”

“Nothing,” she told him. “You didn’t even know about the dipping sauce, Mr. I know the menu by heart.”

“Yeah, that one threw me off a bit, but in my defense, I haven’t been home in a while.”

Galvin took a step back slowly, leaving the broom between them. She started climbing the stairs backward, never taking her eyes off him. “Likely excuse,” she said when she was halfway up the stairs.

Sail stood there with his hands in his pockets, watching her. “I like what you did with the porch,” he said when she was almost to her door. “The plants are a nice touch.”

She ignored him. “I’m going to call the cops now.”

Sail looked down at the ground and moved his foot over what she assumed was a pebble. “All right, Galvin. I’ll go and tomorrow you can apologize.”

“I doubt it.”

Sail laughed. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he told her as he turned toward the diner door.

She bolted for her door, slamming and locking it, and then scurried to all the windows and closed the curtains. At the last one, she peeked out front and saw Sail standing there. She swore he was looking at her.

sail

. . .

What was I thinking?

He hadn’t been. That was the problem. Not now and certainly not when he drank his way through half his junior year and the beginning of his senior year of college. He wasn’t an alcoholic. Sail had a problem, though; one he was working on rectifying. It was unfortunate for him that it took being booted out of school to see how fucked up his life had become. Since the day Dean Holmes told him to get his ass off campus, Sail hadn’t had a drop to drink.

Still, as soon as he saw Galvin walk out the backdoor, he had to investigate. It took him hardly any time to find out she lived in the studio above the diner. This intrigued him, and he wanted to know more. The problem was, Penny wasn’t talking, and it wasn’t like he could ask his parents. Hell, they didn’t even know he was home, let alone the reason he’d brought his sorry ass back to Seaport.

The only plausible thing to do was to put himself in her line of sight. Front and center where she couldn’t miss him. He figured, if anything, she’d come out and talk to him. Sail thought they’d had a great conversation at the diner earlier in the evening.

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