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Chapter One
Seven
Perched on a ladder beside my beach house in Mexico, I press a thick plywood sheet against a window with my forearm. While gripping an electric drill in my other hand to secure the sheet into place, I hear my phone ring in my front pocket.
I utter a few curse words as I pull the nail from the magnetic drill tip and place it between my teeth. I hook the electric drill into the holster of my tool belt while keeping my forearm against the plywood. This conversation better be important.
I fish out my cell phone from my cargo pants to see the name on my phone.
Reeve Aisa calling…
He’s probably calling to check in. I have two more weeks left of my summer vacation before I board a plane and head back to Seattle for the start of the new Hawkeyes season.
There aren’t many people I would take a call from in general, let alone while I’m suspended against a building, but my teammates and coaching staff make the shortlist.
I pull the nail from my teeth and then drop it into the pocket of my tool belt.
“Aisa,” I say with my phone pressed to my ear.
“Wrenley… What's up, man? How are the fish biting today?” he asks, knowing that I spend my entire off-season at my house in Mexico.
He was already here for a week at the beginning of the summer.
My vision glides over the many windows still to be boarded up as a precaution for the offshore hurricane that’s headed our way.
The weather channel predicts that the storm's trajectory will hit mostly out at sea and off the coastline, but I’ve lived here every summer for the last fifteen years, and I know well enough that a hurricane answers to no weatherman.
Hurricane “Josie”… or as I like to call her after my ex-fiancé, Josslin, will do whatever she damn well pleases, no matter whose family home is in her wake. Much like the woman I have renamed the incoming cyclone after.
“No bites today. I’m boarding up my windows and my neighbors this afternoon and gassing up both backup generators. We’ve got a storm coming in.”
He’s right to assume. I’d be out on my boat if there weren’t a hurricane practically knocking on my front door. Even though half the time, I don’t even fish.
In my case, fishing is more of an excuse to take my boat out of the marina with a cooler full of beer and no timeline to head back to shore. I mostly sit on the boat, enjoying the peace and quiet and the sun radiating against my skin.
The sun—something we don't get a lot of back in Seattle.
Being out at sea is as remote as a man can get here, which makes it my preferred activity. After all, that’s why I spend my off-time at my beach house.
No one around here gives a shit about hockey, and even fewer people give a shit that I play for a professional team back in the States. Around here, I’m a nobody, which means I get left the fuck alone.
While spending my off-season in Mexico on a mostly secluded beach with Cancun over an hour away, my limited hobbies include fishing on my boat, whether the fish bite or not, whittling driftwood that washes up on shore, and reading whatever suspense thriller novel that I purchased in the airport concession shop on my flight over.
The occasional game of rummy and an authentic southern Louisiana-cooked meal at my neighbor Rita’s beach house, is the only reason I bother to shave once a week.
A trip to Rita and Bart’s local restaurant and bar for some fish and chips and a game of pool with my buddy Silas gives me just enough human contact to prevent me from completely transitioning into a recluse.
With Rita’s husband Bart, passing away a couple of years ago, she keeps me busy with odd jobs here and there at either her house or at her restaurant, Scallywag's.
Except for the week or two a season when Reeve or Brent show up and want to do all the tourist shit that requires us to drive into town.
Windsurfing.
Scuba diving.
Deep sea fishing.
With every passing year, I feel more of a kinship with Bigfoot. That fucker got his priorities straight the first time. I commend him for his constant pursuit of dodging civilization and living in blissful solidarity.
