Troy refused to discuss it. Shock.
Then Sam had made an offer on a second boat for Lucky Harbor Charters, a boat they’d been eyeing for a long time and wanted badly, but they’d been a day late and a dollar short—the boat had sold yesterday.
And then as a topper, Tanner had been halfway through a swim to clear his mind when a vicious leg cramp had nearly done him in.
When he’d limped out of the water and collapsed on the rocky beach, gritting his teeth in pain, he discovered he had a witness.
Troy.
Most of the time Tanner didn’t give a shit about his leg and the fact that it was only at about 50 percent. He only thought about it when it sent a stab of nerve pain through him. Or when Callie had noticed his scar. But rolling on the shore in the grip of that vicious cramp with Troy hovering over him asking “What can I do?” over and over again had been humiliating as hell.
Now Troy was with Elisa for the night. Her parents were in town and the kid was to help her make a good show. So Tanner, Cole, and Sam had walked to the Love Shack for a pitcher of beer.
“To Gil,” they toasted at their first drink, as they always did, and though Tanner felt the usual familiar pang of grief, it wasn’t accompanied by the also all-too-familiar pang of guilt.
For surviving when Gil hadn’t.
“You okay?” Sam asked.
Was he? “I still expect to see him sitting here with us, every time.”
Neither Sam nor Cole had to ask who. Sam blew out a breath. “He is here; he’s always here.”
Cole lifted his glass. “I’ll drink to that.”
They all drank to that, and turned to a game of darts.
“What are we betting?” Cole asked before starting the game.
“Ten bucks,” Sam said.
Cole and Tanner both laughed.
“What?” Sam demanded.
“You’re so tight you squeak when you walk,” Cole said. “Does Becca know this? Does she realize she’s marrying a tightwad?”
“What’s wrong with ten bucks?” Sam asked with a scowl.
To be fair, the guy couldn’t help himself. He’d come from nothing, less than nothing. Tanner too, but at least he’d had his mom to share the reality of their rather grim situation.
Sam had patched things up with his dad now, but there’d been many, many years where his only home had been the one that Cole’s mom had made for him in a spare room of her house.
But Sam had been money smart. He’d turned a dime into a dollar and then a dollar into many, many more. He’d been in charge of their rig earnings, and he’d done incredibly well for them all. They’d gotten off the rigs and were able to buy their boat and start Lucky Harbor Charters, all thanks to Sam pinching every penny.
“Fifty bucks,” Cole said. “And the loser has to tell us why he hasn’t told us he’s seeing Callie.” Sam and Cole stared at Tanner.
Tanner felt himself scowl. “Why do you assume I’m going to lose?”
“’Cause you always do,” Sam said. “You suck at darts.”
“Notice he didn’t deny the Callie thing,” Cole said, eyes still on Tanner.
“I’m not seeing Callie,” Tanner said. Because you’re an idiot.
“Then what was the other morning?” Cole asked. “Coming out of her place?”
“None of your business.”
“Or…” Sam asked, brow arched.
And for some reason, Tanner felt himself lose his temper. Maybe it was knowing that tentative and rather precious beginning to whatever he and Callie had been doing was all past tense thanks to him fucking it up. “It was nothing,” he said. Snapped. “She’s a coffee companion. Just that, nothing more.”
Cole was giving him the slicing the finger across the throat gesture but Tanner was on a roll now, so no, he wasn’t going to cut it out. “Just because you’re getting married doesn’t mean love’s in the air, so knock it off with the Callie shit and butt the fuck out.”
“Excuse me,” someone said from behind him.
A female someone.
An unbearably familiar female someone.
He turned and faced—yep—Callie.
She was dressed in a pretty skirt and those boots he loved. She smiled without a hint of teeth and gestured that she needed to get through. Behind her were Olivia and Becca, both giving him the hairy eyeball.
Feeling like a first-class jerk, Tanner tried a smile. “Hey.” Shit. He was such an asshole. “You ladies want to join us?”
“No, thank you,” Callie said with utter politeness, even though the underlying tone in her voice suggested that he could fuck himself. Sideways. She started to push past him but he slid a hand to her elbow to pull her back around. She stared down at his fingers on her until he let go.