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  Chapter 1

  The dark blue water of the harbor was slimy with oil and fuel, and seeing it made me feel even more uncomfortable with the superyacht I was standing on. I only knew it was a superyacht because the son of a bitch who it belonged to had made sure to tell me about a dozen fucking times.

  He was a pretentious asshole, but it didn’t matter what I thought of him. All that mattered was that he walked away with a dozen pallets of smooth, well-crafted whiskey, and I walked away with a fat commission check. I was used to dealing with assholes like him, but this guy really put the rest of them to shame. He was unabashedly showing off, and I was playing along as if I were truly impressed with how much money he was making off the backs of his minimum wage restaurant employees.

  “Checking out the competition, eh?” Guy asked as I stared at the other yachts in the marina, and he flashed a perfect, almost too-white smile that probably cost him more than my house.

  He was a tall, moderately good-looking man, with dark brown hair and a freshly shaven face. I could just barely see some grays in his roots, which told me he colored them frequently, and his eyebrows were immaculately sculpted to the point I wasn’t sure whether or not they were real.

  He wore a white polo shirt, black slacks, and a pair of what looked like crocodile skin loafers. On his wrist was the fanciest Rolex I’d ever seen, and he sported a pair of Randolph aviators on his head.

  I’d been around so many of these richy-rich assholes that I’d picked up a thing or two throughout the years. Hell, I even owned a pair of glasses from that same company. Of course, I bought them off eBay for half the price, but they were simply meant to show these douchebags that I belonged, and most of the time they served their purpose.

  I hadn’t brought them with me this time, but that was only because I didn’t want to come in the first place. I was supposed to have started my vacation two days ago, but according to my boss, there was nobody else he trusted to take on this client besides me.

  And honestly, I could see why. This man needed a good ego stroke, and while I detested it, I was good at it. It was part of being a liquor salesman and distributor to the upper class. I learned a long time ago that flattery really did get me everywhere, and it had landed me more than one six-figure commission check, so I’d just keep raking in the cash, and the rest be damned. I usually only had to see these bastards a couple of times a year, anyway.

  “Not much competition, are they?” I chuckled and gestured to the other ships in the harbor. “They’re smaller, so they might be a bit faster, but I’m sure they don’t have half the amenities this baby has. What did you say she was again?”

  I was acting my damn ass off, and it was working.

  “Right you are.” Guy grinned and clapped me on the shoulder before patting the side of his precious superyacht. “She’s the S.S. Kaitlyn. Named after my wife, of course. I think she thought putting her name on it would make me less inclined to throw parties.”

  “I bet it didn’t stop you, though, did it?” I laughed through my disgust.

  “Not one bit,” Guy laughed along with me, but then a small crash sounded, and he turned to the deckhand who’d just dropped a box of canned food. “What the hell are you doing? Watch out, will ya? If you damage anything on here, it’s coming out of your paycheck, you understand?”

  The young man gulped and nodded before getting down on his hands and knees to pick up the cans and carefully place them in the now torn box.

  My immediate instinct was to rush over to help him, but I knew I couldn’t do that, not in front of Guy. The bastard looked down on me, but he barely even looked at the deckhand at all, and I was about ready to close this deal, so I needed to play it cool.

  Still, it pissed me off to hear him speaking to the kid in that way. The boy couldn’t be any older than twenty, if that. I’d seen a dozen deckhands rushing around this yacht, and a dozen more working on other yachts in the harbor, and honestly, I was surprised the owners would dare to fuck with them at all. These men were clearly strong, and they handled everything to do with these vessels. I doubted most of the owners even knew how to turn the damn things on.

  “You takin’ off soon?” I asked with a little gesture at the food in the box.

  “Heading to the Bahamas,” Guy said as he walked over to the luxurious outdoor table and chairs on the deck.

  He sat down and poured another glass of the tester whiskey I’d brought. Then he took a big sip and gave a little smile.

  He was loosening up, but I knew I needed to play it cool.

  “Your wife joining you on this trip to the Bahamas?” I asked as I watched the deckhands load box after box onto the ship.

  “Just ‘cause I named the ship after her doesn’t mean she’s got to go everywhere with it,” Guy joked, and he leaned back and took another pull of the whiskey.

  “I don’t know,” I said as I took a seat across from him. “A trip down to the Bahamas with no woman to accompany you? That doesn’t seem like your style, my man.”

  “Hey, all I said was my wife wasn’t going.” Guy grinned. “I didn’t say there wouldn’t be a woman or four on board.”

  “You dirty dog,” I teased with my best salesman smile, and Guy laughed so hard that he swatted his knee.

  Truthfully, I was repulsed to hear about his affairs, but I’d heard it a million times before. Nearly all of my rich guy clients were pieces of shit, and I didn’t think that was a coincidence. They all thought they could buy whatever they wanted, even their wife’s love. I didn’t think I’d ever heard one of them mention their wife in a way that wasn’t to say she wouldn’t be with them on whatever excursion they were running off to that day.

  “So, you and these lucky ladies are gonna watch the meteor shower?” I asked.

  “Meteor shower?” Guy raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow as he leaned back even further.

  “You haven’t heard about it?” I asked, and then I gave a little shrug to show my disinterest as well. “The news has been pushing it every damn hour. Apparently it starts sometime today and goes for about twenty-four hours. Supposed to light up the sky like fireworks tonight.”

  “Damn.” He shook his head. “Too bad I leave on Friday. That sounds like one hell of an excuse to get the orgy started.”

  “Absolutely,” I laughed, even though I really just wanted to be done with this deal already.

  In all actuality, I was excited about the meteor shower. My daughter Sam and I had been looking forward to watching it together. This wasn’t going to be a typical meteor shower, either. It was apparently a “meteor storm” instead of a shower, whatever the hell that meant. All I knew was that it was supposed to be one for the books.

  Scientists had known about it for years and been preparing to study it, but the general public only found out about a month ago. Apparently, the meteors were going to be the closest to Earth they’d ever been. Of course, they’d burn up in the atmosphere, but that was part of what was supposed to make this storm so exciting. Scientists anticipated we’d get quite a show as the rocks disintegrated on their way to Earth.

  Sam and I were going to watch from my parents’ balcony in Niihau, one of the Hawaiian islands where they lived, but that plan had gotten a wrench thrown into it when I found out I had to come all the way to Connecticut just to talk to this asshole in front of me. Guy was the reason I was going to miss the meteor storm with my daughter, so I just hoped this commission check would be worth it.

  I watched Guy carefully, and I waited for him to take another drink before I started my spiel.

  “Smooth, isn’t it?” I asked with a small smile.

  He held up the glass and looked at the booze. “It’s not bad, that’s for sure. But it’s not the best, either.”

  “It’s no Pappy’s,” I laughed. “But it also doesn’t have that price tag. You have to agree it’s a good ten times better than a Woodford.

  “That it is,” he agreed.

  “It’s bottled in bond and aged for ten years. Now, you own… How many restaurants was it?”

  “Five,” Guy said with a lift of his chin. “And we’re opening a sixth in the fall.”

  “Six,” I whistled low. “That’s quite a lot.”

  “Where are you going with this, Peeltin?” Guy asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “Listen.” I leaned forward and smiled. “You’re a businessman, first and foremost, so you know how this goes. I’m supposed to tell you how wonderful my product is and convince you to buy it.”

  “That’s usually how this works, yes.” He nodded and took another sip of the aged whiskey.

  “Well, you seem like a smart guy,” I lied. “A lot smarter than most of my clients. So, I’m not going to bullshit you. Is this whiskey the piss of the Gods? Hell no. But does it have a nice, smooth flavor you could sip on for an entire night? Hell yes.”

  “It is smooth,” Guy murmured as he looked at the glass in his hands. “Doesn’t put that deep fire in my throat like some. Just a bit of a burn going down.”

  “Exactl y.” I grinned. “You could sip on it for hours, am I right?”

  “Get to the point, Peeltin,” Guy pushed.

  “Alright, alright,” I laughed and held my hands up in mock surrender. “Let me put it this way, your restaurants serve top shelf liquor, right?”

  “Only the best for my customers.” He grinned the most disgusting, money-hungry grin I’d ever seen in my life.

  “Right.” I nodded. “And when someone does order a glass of something like that, how long do they take to drink it?”

  “Hm.” He pursed his lips.

  “How much of that whiskey have you drank, versus, let’s say, a glass of Suntory Hibiki?” I pushed.

  “I do like my Japanese whiskey,” Guy said, and his eyes narrowed on me. “How could you tell?”

  “What can I say, I’m good at what I do.” I smiled and held my arms out at my sides. “But don’t avoid the question, Guy. How long do you sip on a glass of Hibiki?”

  “Well, that’s a fine whiskey,” he answered. “It’s meant to be sipped and savored-–”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I said with a dismissive wave of my hand. I was getting bold now, but from the newfound intrigue on his face, I could tell it was paying off. “And how many glasses of our whiskey have you had just since I’ve been here?”

  He looked at the nearly empty glass in his hand, smiled, and poured himself another drink.

  “This makes four.” He nodded and held the glass up to me before taking another long pull. “I see what you’re getting at, Peeltin.”

  “It’s not a sipping whiskey,” I chuckled. “It’s a drinking whiskey. And I have a feeling a lot of your customers would appreciate something they can get hammered on while still looking classy as hell.”

  “It is a nice bottle,” Guy sighed and held up the simple glass bottle to admire the aged and distressed label and the Washington seal that was stamped in wax on every bottle.

  “I’ve seen your clientele,” I said, and I leaned forward and lowered my voice. “Yoga moms, signs for the farmers’ market up everywhere, the women around here loooove to feel like they’re helping the planet.”

  “My wife just installed low flush toilets in every damn room of the house for that exact fucking reason.” Guy’s lip twitched. “I hate those fucking things.”

  “But you use ‘em, don’t you?” I laughed.

  “As if I couldn’t,” he snorted.

  “My point exactly.” I nodded. “The men at your restaurants will love how easy it goes down, and the women will adore the fact that it’s made by a small company. They’ll push their husbands to order it for that reason alone. And none of them are going to look at the price point. Charge however much you want for it. Once they get a taste, they’re going to keep ordering.”

  I nodded to the bottle in front of him that was already nearly half-empty.

  “You know what, Peeltin,” Guy said, and he stood up and held his hand out to me. “You’ve got yourself a deal. How many bottles in a case? Eight?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “and eight cases per pallet, so I was—”

  “I’ll take twenty-four pallets,” he said.

  Holy. Shit.

  That was twice the amount I’d expected him to order, which meant double the commission. Maybe this trip wasn’t so bad after all. I could miss a few meteors for a commission like this.

  “On the stipulation that you leave this bottle here with me,” Guy joked as I stood up and grabbed his hand.

  “Consider it yours,” I laughed. “I’ll send the paperwork to your secretary right away.”

  “Good doing business with you,” Guy said, and he clapped me on the shoulder. “Now, get the hell out of here. I gotta get ready to meet my wife for dinner, and I think I’m gonna need the rest of this bottle to do it.”

  “Oooh, be careful with that,” I laughed, even though I wanted to roll my eyes at his horrific sense of humor and mistreatment of his wife.

  Then I gave him one last handshake before waving my goodbyes and hurrying off of the yacht.

  I nearly bumped into one of the deckhands bringing up yet another box of food, so I apologized as I pulled out my phone and forwarded the work order to my boss and Guy’s secretary.

  I signed the email to my boss with, “You’re welcome. Now, leave me the fuck alone while I go to Hawaii, will ya?”

  I’d known the old bastard long enough that I was comfortable making such a crass joke. He was practically family at this point.

  I’d been working for Mitch since just after I turned twenty-one, when my father called in a favor to get me the job. He and my dad went way back, so Mitch took me on and trained me himself. That was thirteen years ago, and in that time, he’d witnessed me at my best and my worst.

  Just a year after I was hired, Marie got pregnant with Sam. My wife was a wonderful mother, and a damn saint for putting up with me all through high school and into adulthood. Lord knows I wasn’t always the best man I could have been, but I loved her more than anything, and I made sure to always put her and Sam first.

  When she died, I was broken for years, but Mitch helped me pull through. He gave me time to grieve, and when the time came, he insisted that I get back out there, with both work and relationships.

  I was eternally grateful to that man for what he’d done for me, and he knew it. Otherwise, I would never speak to him that way.

  On top of that, I knew he’d be just as excited about the order as I was. He couldn’t say a damn thing knowing I’d just closed one hell of a deal on what should have already been the start of my vacation.

  As I walked along the dock toward my car, I noticed how dead the harbor was. Deckhands were going to and from Guy’s superyacht with boxes of food and supplies, but all the other yachts and boats were completely empty.

  The ships probably cost a fortune each, and I bet they were only used a couple of times a year at most. It was sad, honestly.

  I hurried through the harbor and over to the rental Ford Focus I’d been driving for the past day and a half.

  I fumbled with the keys to unlock it, and once I was inside, I pulled out my phone and connected it to the car charger I’d bought the day before.

  Then I pulled up Sam’s contact in my phone and FaceTimed her.

  She answered immediately, which wasn’t surprising. She was a twelve-year-old girl, of course she was on her phone when I called. She was on her phone when anybody called, though for different reasons than a lot of kids her age.

  Sam wasn’t allowed social media, and so she used her phone for research and games. My girl loved the stars and the ocean more than anything, probably even more than me. If she had a spare moment, it was guaranteed that she was on her phone reading some new article on one of the science journals she’d begged for a subscription to for Christmas.

  “Hey, Sammy girl.” I smiled at the sight of my beautiful daughter’s face.

  She looked so much like her mother it was unreal. Her long, light-brown hair was already getting bleached from the sun, and I thought I could just make out the beginnings of a sunburn on her fair skin.

  The only thing of mine she got was my eyes, which were a beautiful light-blue. But that was fine by me, I missed her mother so badly that being able to see her in my daughter was something I’d never take for granted.

  It was hard at first, and I struggled with it, as many parents do when they lose their significant other, but eventually I realized what a gift it was to be able to look at my daughter and see bits and pieces of my wife in there.

  “Hi, Dad,” Sammy said, and she panned the camera over to show my mom and dad sitting on the deck with a full spread of breakfast on the table. “Say hi, grandma.”

  “As if you have to tell me to say hi to my own son,” my mom laughed and waved at the camera. “Hey, Drew-boo, are ya on your way yet?”

  “Bacon’s gonna be cold by the time you get here,” my dad joked before ripping off a chunk of the savory pork, which resulted in a laugh and playful swat on the arm from my mom.

  My mom and dad had been together my whole life, and I’d never once seen them have anything but love for each other. Of course they had arguments like any couple, but they never screamed at each other, never threw things, never once called each other a name worse than asshole. Not that I heard, anyway.

  Hell, the two of them had been together so long that they coordinated outfits. That was probably my mom’s doing, but still.

 

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