Stand Aside, the Billionaire Is Here novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: Ramon's Plaque

Joaquin did not say anything for a long time after he read the plaque.

He put his palm flat on the bronze.

Then he turned to me and said, in a voice that barely worked, "Come somewhere with me tonight."

At sunset he drove us out along the channel road to a pier I had never seen.

At the end of it a flat steel barge lay against the tires, rusted red and low in the water.

Its name was painted out, and someone had patched the wheelhouse with plywood.

"She is the first thing I ever bought," Joaquin said. "Forty thousand dollars, every cent I had, and the seller cried."

"You kept her."

"I keep everything that was true."

He took my hand and helped me over the rail.

The deck was warm from the day, and the refinery flare burned a long gold line across the water.

Below us the channel moved, slow and black, and the gulls had gone quiet.

He had a bottle of wine in a canvas bag and two paper cups.

We drank it sitting on the hatch cover with our backs against the wheelhouse, shoulder to shoulder.

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