Just when I open my mouth to say something—and I have no idea what is going to come out, but sincere emotion has risen high in my throat—my rod jerks in front of me, the entire top half bowing sharply.

“Whoa, okay,” Finn says, eyes lighting up with excitement as he steps forward and guides me closer to my rod. “You’ve got one.”

Fishing with my dad in the rivers of Northern California when I was a kid in no way prepared me for the process of hauling a fish in from the ocean. When it’s a nine-inch trout in a river, your bobber dunks underwater and your skinny twelve-year-old arms can easily reel that sucker in. Here it takes every muscle in my body to pit myself against this swimming beast. I tug the rod, turn the reel in mere centimeters, each one a victory. Beside me Finn shouts and whoops as if I’m hauling in a great white shark. A couple of men gather behind us to watch, calling out their encouragements.

“Want me to take over?” Finn yells over the cheering.

“Fuck no!”

But now I know why he took his fleece off; I’m sweating, swearing, cursing the moment I decided deep-sea fishing was a good idea. But when I get the first glimpse of the halibut on my line—of the spikes along its spine, of the sheer size of it—I’m giddy.

“My fish is so much bigger than your fish!” I yell.

Finn steps behind me to help me pull, taking over the reel after about ten minutes, when my hand starts to shake and grow numb. With both of us holding the rod, we pull, and pull, and finally the halibut comes out of the water, glorious. It flops on the deck, and I hate that part a little, but then Finn holds it and does something so fast I can barely see, and it goes still. The fish is ice cold from the water when he hands it back to me, and with a little gesture he indicates that I hold it up by the gills so he can take a picture.

I need to use both hands, it’s that huge. It’s the biggest fish we’ve caught so far, and the feeling is amazing, though not nearly as good as when Finn looks at me as he lifts his phone.

“Hold it up, baby,” he says quietly, eyes gleaming in pride. “Let me see that fish.”

My arms are shaking under the weight but I hold it up for him to see. He snaps a picture and then moves to my side, taking the halibut and handing it to Steve to tag for us.

“We gonna talk about how you just called me ‘baby’?” I ask as he ducks down, getting my line rebaited.