Inside, sitting at the kitchen counter, Lucille was drinking what looked a lot like a Bloody Mary, and she looked like a wreck. All in all, an average morning for her.
“Mother,” I said.
“There you are. I was wondering where my useless son had gone.”
“Anything that isn’t alcohol is useless to you, Lucille.”
“There’s that asshole wit of yours,” she snapped. “When will you grow up?”
I heard a floorboard nearby creak but decided I didn’t care if we had an audience.
“You forget, Lucille, you have absolutely no bearing on my life. But you are involved with Claire and her father.”
“What’s it matter to you? You’re going to do whatever you want and then disappear at the end of summer.”
“Maybe,” I said, shrugging. “But you shouldn’t be a bitch to Claire.”
Lucille rolled her eyes. “That girl is such a weak little brat.”
“She doesn’t deserve your psycho bullshit.”
“Oh, sure, she’s nice. So nice and cute. Too bad she’ll be all used up by the time she’s my age.”
“Not everyone is you.”
Just then, Jonathan stepped into the room, a fake-as-hell smile plastered on his face. You clearly heard all that, I thought to myself. You know she’s crazy. Why are you still with her?
“What are you two talking about?” he asked, the annoyance barely hidden behind his fake smile.
“Nothing, dear,” Lucille said, perking up. “Just talking about what he was doing for the summer.”
“Yes, about that,” Jonathan said, looking at me. “Still going to run the boats for me? Tommy said you two didn’t show up today.”
“Actually, I need to talk to you about that.”
“Go ahead, Nathan.”
“Alone.”
He stared at me for a second. “Whatever you have to say, you can say in front of your mother.”
“No, sir, I can’t, because my mother is a harpy and will tell the first reporter she can find.”
They both gaped at me. “Nathan,” Jonathan said, “you can’t talk about your mother that way.”
“Yes, I can,” I said quickly, stifling whatever Lucille was about to say, “because you want to hear about this.”
Jonathan looked at me for a long second.
“You can’t be serious, Nathan,” Lucille said during the silence. “Are you this desperate for male attention? I know your father died when you were young, but this is pathetic.”
I had to clench my fists to keep from smacking her across the face. I knew she was my mother, but that was a low blow, even by her standards.
Jonathan seemed to agree. “Lucille, leave the boy alone.” He gestured at me. “Follow me.”
I walked next to him as my mother glared at me. I ignored her, following Jonathan out the front door. We walked in silence until we reached the path that led back around toward the beach.
“What’s so important that you’re risking my marriage?”
“Something happened yesterday. You may not believe what I’m about to tell you, but it’s the truth.”
He frowned at my serious expression. “Go ahead.”
And so I explained to him what went down. I started from the beginning. However, in this version, me threatening them with a gun was enough to scare them off, and getting a local drunk was enough to find out about the Broken Hearts. I wasn’t sure Jonathan needed to know about them, but I decided anything that could get him to take me seriously was worth divulging. But he sure as hell didn’t need to know that I had killed two men and had threatened to kill a third.
When I was finished, he looked thoughtful, though not as worried as he should have been.
“Pirates, huh?”
“Pirates. Real deal, no bullshit pirates. But I don’t think they were after the boat.”
“Oh? And why is that?”
“The Broken Hearts are locals. They wouldn’t bother a local boat, even one owned by an outsider.”
“Besides,” Jonathan added, “Tommy works for me. He’s lived here his whole life.”
That was an interesting bit of information. I couldn’t help but tuck it away in my mind for later, even though none of this was my problem.
“You should hire security, just in case,” I said.
“Well then, it’s a good thing you’re here.”
“I don’t do private security.”
“I’ll pay you. A lot of money, actually. More than the SEALs ever paid you.”
“It’s not about money.”
He looked at me thoughtfully as we walked down the beach. “I heard what you said earlier,” he said finally.