Hot Sauce (Suncoast Society #26)(56)

And she loved the boat. It wasn’t uncommon for them to go out in the evenings during the week when Reed didn’t have charters, Reed having her run the boat and gaining confidence with it as they ate dinners and watched the sun set.

She also liked boat sex, under the stars with her two men, feeling free, feeling happy. She still didn’t have enough confidence to bring the boat through the channel after dark, so she would hold the spotlight, finding channel markers with Lyle’s help and lighting them as Reed drove.

When Reed pulled into her driveway at five-thirty that morning, she was ready and waiting and hurried into the truck, giving him a quick hello kiss.

As he put the truck into reverse, he winced. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, just indigestion,” he said, rubbing at his stomach. “I’ve had some bouts of it off and on, and it’s been getting worse the past few weeks.”

She cleared her throat at him, making him laugh. “I scheduled the appointment already,” he assured her. “Next Tuesday.”

She leaned in to kiss him. “Thank you.”

“It’s okay, though. Indigestion is a little different than a fever and being sick. I think I might have that, what’s it called? Reflux? Sometimes if I take stuff for that, it goes away immediate. I probably need to quit eating crap and change my diet. Please, don’t let it upset you. I nuked a greasy breakfast burrito and wolfed it down with hot sauce before my shower. It’s just not settling right in my stomach is all.”

She relaxed. Yes, that was probably all it was. “I promise I won’t drag you to the doctor as long as you’re following up on it.”

“Oh, I am. It wouldn’t shock me if it’s the start of an ulcer, either. Which I know isn’t good, but my dad, three of his brothers, and my grandfather had those. I know in the grand scheme of things, those are usually easily treatable.”

Yes, they were. She refused to let her mind go down that rabbit trail of what-ifs.

Reed was an adult. And he was already on top of it. He knew it was a trigger for her, and she trusted him to make a sound decision.

Within an hour, they were on the boat and headed down the channel toward open water. It felt freeing with the boat up on plane and speeding over the glassy water. She’d left her cell phone locked in his truck, only taking her ID and her tote bag with her towels and other sundries. She wouldn’t need anything else out on the boat.

It was supposed to be fun, even if it was work, technically. It couldn’t be for nothing but pleasure, because the men had met Lyle before and knew he and Reed were a couple, so Reed had introduced her—truthfully—as a friend who’d recently lost her brother and needed to spend some time away from home as a result. It saved an awkward conversation about poly relationship dynamics. So, technically work.

Yes, she enjoyed her work, or so she’d thought. This kind of work…she could understand why Reed had made the trade-off.

He leaned in so he could talk in her ear and she’d hear him without the wind ripping his words away or their passengers up front hearing him.

“We should look into getting you a captain’s license,” he said. “Then you could come out with me any time you wanted and even run the boat.” He smiled down at her.

“We’ll see. Never say never.”

He’d warned her ahead of time that, with a paying charter on board, he needed to be at the wheel due to liability and Coast Guard regs, so she wouldn’t be running the boat today.

The thought of maybe being able to do this for a living, even on the side, had never entered her mind before.

Why does he always have damn good ideas?

Because now that he’d planted the seed, she felt it already growing roots that were taking firm hold in the fertile ground of her brain.

They’d done well at their first fishing spot of the day and headed out to the second after the tide changed around noon. They ate lunch, and then Reed dropped another chum bag into the water off the stern before they started their second round of fishing about twelve miles offshore from Sarasota.

She’d taken a moment to discreetly tinkle off the swim platform before he’d put the chum bag in. When Reed turned back to the center console, she spotted something wrong. He was rubbing at his stomach again and wore a pained look.

“Did you bring anything to take for it?” she asked, keeping her voice low.

He shook his head. “There might be something in the first-aid kit. It’s in the side storage hatch in the console.”

She went in search of it. The customers weren’t paying any attention to them. They already had their hooks in the water and were on their fourth beers each. Reed had assured her they always stopped drinking before he headed in at the end of the afternoon, and were sober and safe to drive by the time they hit the dock. One of the reasons they liked going out on a charter was that they had the freedom to drink if they wanted and not worry about breaking the law.

She found the kit and rooted through it. There were some antacid tablets that had expired six months earlier, and she handed them over to him.

“Thanks.” He took two and chewed them, chasing them down with some water.

“You really need to update your first-aid kit.”

“Yeah, I know. I’ve been meaning to and keep forgetting.”

“Stop forgetting.” She poked him in the shoulder. “And get it done.”