Page 82 of The Hundred Loves of Juliet
Adam smirks.
She turns to me. “In all seriousness, though. What’s this talk about retiring?”
“I’m tired,” I say. “And captains without an appetite for the job make mistakes.”
“Like Colin falling overboard?” she asks gently.
I flinch, my remorse stinging like alcohol in a wound. “Yes, like Colin falling overboard.”
“Seabass is offering to cover the crew’s pay for crabbing trips we’ll miss,” Adam says. “But I object. We’re running a business here. You can’t just quit in the middle of the season.”
“The season’s almost over,” I say.
“We’re close to our quota, but not there yet. TheAlacritycould go out a couple more times. There would be lost catches, andPiñeros can’t do it with a crew short one man. And it’s too late in the season to find a good replacement.”
I nod. “Okay. No problem. I can pay for the lost catches, too.”
Far from appeasing Adam, though, my offer only incenses him. “You have a trust fund somewhere I don’t know about?”
I didn’t mean to come across like an obnoxious railroad baron, swooping in to buy him off. Yes, I have a substantial investment account. But I earned every penny over hundreds of years of work—which were also hundreds of years of suffering through a curse. I can’t tell him any of that, though.
“I, uh, made some lucky investment decisions in the past,” I say.
Adam snorts. “That would explain how you paid for that enormous house of yours. And why you think it’s fine to cut and run on me like this.”
“I don’t want to leave you,” I protest. But unless I offer a better explanation, the evidence is against me.
“No, Mr. Moneybags,” Adam says. “I refuse to let you out of the business just because you got bored and want to spend your time sleeping with some woman from the Lower 48.”
“What did you say?” I leap up from my barstool, livid.
But it’s not because of the insult that I’m mad. Not really. It’s everything unsaid beneath it, everything that Adam can’t even comprehend. I’m furious because it must be nice when your only problem is what engagement ring to buy your girlfriend, that when you think of “the rest of our lives,” you get to think in terms ofdecades.Not days or months or—only if I’m lucky—a measly couple of years.
“Simmer down, boys,” Dana says, a note of warning in her tone.
That brings me back to myself. To what this is really about, from Adam’s point of view. He doesn’t know what’s going on with me, why I have to do this. He only sees me abandoning him.
It’s not his fault. It’s mine, like it always is.
I sigh and try to lower the temperature. “I just…I can’t do it anymore, Adam. You don’t know what it was like, watching the ocean throw Colin around.”
“You think I don’t know what fear of the ocean is like?” Adam kicks at the bar with his bad leg. “That boat took something from me, too. What I wouldn’t give to be able to sail again—and you’re just taking it for granted. You need to get your shit together.”
“Adam…I don’t know what to say.”
He scoffs. “So that’s it? You come in here, tell me you’re abandoning our business with zero notice, and expect me to be happy about it? We built this company, you and me, from nothing. I thought that meant something. But apparently not. So fuck you, Sebastien.”
Adam never calls me by my actual name.
Dana tries to step in. “Why don’t you both take a breather, and then I’m sure we can have a levelheaded discussion. If you guys—”
“No, babe. Sebastien made it clear—he’s done with me and the boys and theAlacrity.So I’m done with him.” He turns to his basket of chicken and begins attacking it.
“Adam,” I say. “I didn’t want it to be this way—”
“Get out.”
Dana frowns. “Hey, this is my restaurant, and I say who stays or—”
