His New Stepsister. His Biggest Threat. novel · Chapter 3 of 32

Chapter 3: Lunch on a Tug

On his tug Gannon explains why he kept her in the game, and goes cold when she tells him his father bet against him, until Marva calls: Hal is at the bar asking for her.

"Why?" I said.

"Not here."

He tipped his head at the guard booth, where the guard was pretending to read.

"I owe you lunch," he said. "You drove to Culver City at four in the morning to call me a cheater's stepsister."

"I came to say I'm not one."

"Same trip. Follow me."

I followed his pickup down the 405 for forty minutes, telling myself it was about the contest.

He parked at a marina in Long Beach and walked me down a dock past sailboats with names.

At the end sat a tugboat.

Black hull, red stack, white wheelhouse. Old tires hung along her sides.

"You live on a tugboat," I said.

"She's a 1962 harbor tug. They retired her when I was twenty-five. I bought her for scrap price and a promise."

"To who?"

"To her."

I couldn't tell if he was joking.

He didn't seem to know either.

Below deck was a galley the size of my bathroom, every inch of it used.

Brass hooks. A cast iron pan. Charts rolled in a rack.

He put a pot on the stove and started chopping onions without looking at the knife.

"You cook," I said.

"I cook for my crew. Eight guys. If I don't, they eat gas station burritos and die before fifty."

He slid a bowl of fish stew in front of me, then a heel of bread.

It was the best thing I'd eaten in a year.

I didn't tell him that.

"So," I said. "Why'd you tell them to keep me?"

He leaned on the counter.

"Forty-one games," he said. "You know how many of those people actually scared me?"

"How many?"

"Two. And one of them was a retired neurosurgeon who froze on pop music."

"And me?"

"Your reel. You knew the Battle of New Orleans was after the treaty. You knew three of the six wives' causes of death without the rhyme. You got a pottery question I didn't know."

"Majolica."

"Majolica," he agreed, like it hurt.

"So you want the best one."

"I want to beat the best one. Not some alternate they pulled at nine-forty on a Saturday night. If my streak ends, it ends against somebody real."

"Why do you even care? You've won a million dollars."

"One point three eight."

"Sorry. One point three eight."

He looked out the porthole at the cranes in the port.

"The company I pilot for is for sale," he said. "The owner's retiring. Two point four million. A shipping conglomerate wants it, and they'll replace my crew with their own guys in a month."

"So you buy it."

"So I win twenty more games and buy it."

"Twenty more."

"Nineteen, if I beat you."

"That's adorable," I said.

He grinned, and it changed his whole face.

I needed him not to do that.

I took out my phone.

"Before you decide I'm worth beating," I said. "You should see this."

I put it on the counter between us.

My mother, 11:48 Saturday night.

Did you read it yet? Before you burned it. Tell me you at least looked.

And then, a minute later.

Hal has three hundred thousand on Gannon losing Tuesday. Six to one. THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND, Tilda. You've ruined us.

Gannon read it twice.

He didn't touch the phone.

"Your father bet against you," I said. "That's why the envelope. That's why the tip, when I said no."

He straightened up.

The galley got smaller.

"My father doesn't gamble," he said.

"Okay."

"He doesn't. He counts the mints at the front desk."

"Then why would my mother say he did?"

"I don't know your mother."

"I do," I said. "She's a lot of things. She's never once been bad at math."

He picked up my empty bowl and put it in the sink.

He ran the water a long time.

"Thanks for lunch," I said.

I climbed the ladder.

Up on deck the wind off the harbor pulled my hair out of its knot.

I heard him come up behind me.

"Tilda."

I turned.

He was close. Closer than a stepbrother had any business standing.

The deck rocked under us, and he put one hand flat on the rail by my hip to hold us both.

"I can't think about this," he said. "Not before Tuesday."

"Then don't."

"I can't stop."

He reached up and pushed the hair off my face.

His thumb stayed on my cheek, right on the freckles, warm and rough.

I could feel the rope scar on his palm.

I could've leaned in.

I wanted to so badly my knees knew about it.

"We're playing each other in twenty-eight hours," I said.

"I know."

"Your father just married my mother."

"I know."

"Then take your hand off my face."

He didn't move it.

Neither did I.

My phone rang in my back pocket, loud and stupid.

It was Marva.

I stepped back and answered it.

"Honey," Marva said. "Your new stepdaddy's here."

"What?"

"Hal Boyle. Teeth like a bathroom. He just bought the whole bar a round at one in the afternoon, and he's asking where you are."

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