Chapter 5: Not in the House

On Friday the crew took me to the bar on the harbor road, the one with the cracked leather booths and the dartboard nobody had hit in years.

Gabe sat across from me with a beer, three crew guys between us, and my father at home with a cold.

Devon was visiting her sister in Toledo.

Nobody said that out loud.

Everybody knew.

Around ten, one of the guys leaned back and asked the table a question.

"Okay. Say you're single again. One night, one woman, anybody. What do you do?"

The guys threw out answers, the loud kind, and a couple of them were funny.

Then they turned to Gabe, because Gabe was the one who never said anything.

"Stoltz. Come on. Last night of freedom before June."

"I'm not answering that."

"Come on."

He turned the bottle in his hand.

"Fine," he said. "If I were free, I'd take her home and put her up against the nearest wall."

The crew whooped.

"I'd get her out of those jeans. I'd put my mouth on her until she couldn't stand up, and I wouldn't stop until she begged me."

The whoops got louder.

Somebody banged the table.

Gabe was looking at the table the whole time he said it.

I was looking at him.

My mouth had gone dry and my hand was clenched around a beer I hadn't touched.

"That's disgusting," one of them said, grinning. "You're getting married."

"I said if."

Gabe's eyes lifted and met mine across the booth for one second.

Then he finished his beer and left money on the table.

"Night, boys."

I waited until the door shut.

I gave it a minute.

Then I told them I was tired, put on my mother's jacket and walked out into the cold.

The yard was dark.

Lights glowed at the top of the ladder where the Carol Ann stood in her cradle, and her hatch was open.

I climbed up and went down the companionway without knocking.

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