Page 28 of The Captain
“Hushpuppies, basket,” Tamika said. “Extra honey butter.”
“And a pitcher of the coldest thing that isn’t sweet tea,” Miguel added.
“And water,” Becca said, earnest, because she knew me.
“And water,” I echoed.
I should have asked for a grilled something and a pile of greens. Real food. Not another night of salt and adrenaline, pretending to be dinner. Tomorrow, I told myself, I’d pack fruit, hard-boiled eggs, something that grew in dirt. Tonight I’d, at least, drink the damn water.
When the drinks landed, I wrapped my palm around the sweating glass and let the cool bite into the tenderness at the base of my thumb. I took a long swallow. The first pull of cheap beer is always better than it deserves to be—bubbles too eager, bitterness uncomplicated. The second is worse. I liked the first enough to risk the second.
“You going to tell us what your father said?” Tamika asked, not really a question.
“He told me to stop being certain faster than the facts,” I said, to the river. “He told me he came to America because the Navy paid him on time. He told me the line between a clean research fairing and a dirty secret is money and tension.”
Miguel lifted his glass. “To fathers who are right in ways that make us mad.”
We clinked. I didn’t look up, because sometimes friendship was easier to manage if you pretended it was just gravity doing the work.
“So, what’s the play?” Becca asked. “If we don’t assume guilt?”
“We follow the paper,” I said. “And we keep our thumb on Pincense’s promise about private permits until he either gives me a number I can strangle or a name I can bless. We keep working the animals. We make the Navy fix what they can fix. We make the other people tell us what they’re hiding.”
“And Dominion Hall?” Tamika asked casually. “The brothers?”
“They gave me what I asked for,” I said, careful. “A boat that doesn’t brag. A radio channel that doesn’t jam. Bodies who canmove a stretcher without needing to be thanked. I don’t have to like the way money looks to appreciate what it can buy when it behaves.”
Miguel’s mouth twitched. “That sounded almost like a compliment.”
“Don’t quote me,” I said. “I’ll deny it.”
The hushpuppies arrived steaming in a basket. Honey butter made its own small sin in the bowl, shining and soft. I put one into my mouth and almost made an indecent sound. It’s ridiculous the way fried dough can put a woman back into her body after a day like mine. Rib by rib, I felt the armor shift.
“Okay,” Tamika said, watching me with satisfaction. “Now that you’ve remembered you’re mortal, let’s talk about treading carefully.”
I rolled my eyes and popped another bite to keep from speaking. She took that as permission.
“You are a force,” she said, meaning it as both compliment and caution. “When you decide something is wrong, you burn a path to the fix and take out anyone who stands in the way. It’s why we follow you onto beaches where tourists think they get a vote and why donors who came for a selfie leave with an empty checkbook. But if you make the Navy the villain before you can prove it, you’ll lose them. And you’ll lose McGuire. She’s a good one.”
“I know,” I said, and did. The beer softened my voice. “I know.”
“Also,” Becca said, soft but not timid, “Ryker got us 7–Delta in forty minutes and Atlas’s guys stayed out of the camera shots without us asking.” She twisted her napkin, caught herself, smoothed it. “That’s … not nothing.”
“It’s not nothing,” I agreed.
The music from the jukebox changed—something old and dirty-blues, a bassline that felt like sweat. The deck had begun tofill with men whose days had left lines on their faces and women who wore their heat like jewelry. The air moved slow. I let it.
“You’re thinking of him,” Tamika said as salt glinted on her brown skin. Her box braids were knotted high under a ball cap, and her shoulders held the square set of years on the sling. She spoke the way women who loved you did—stating it, not asking.
I stared at the river. Lying would’ve been an insult. “I don’t have his number,” I said, as if the lack of digits could hold the size of the problem. “Even if I did, I wouldn’t?—”
“Call him,” Becca filled in.
“Right.” I wanted the word to sound righteous instead of regretful. It didn’t. “He’s … Dominion Hall-adjacent, which means he’s Navy-adjacent.”
“Or he’s a man who was in your bed and said the word ‘breathe’ like a sacrament,” Tamika said, uninterested in letting me hide in hyphens.
“Tam,” Miguel said mildly, like a seatbelt.
