SALVATORE AND HARLOW have already been seated when the hostess leads me back to the table. I’ve never eaten at the Mark at the Hotel Grand Pacific, but I should have known it would look just like this: like something out of a glossy catalog for the beautiful tourist stops in Victoria.

I can immediately sense Harlow isn’t going to look at me much during lunch. When he sees me behind the hostess, Sal stands to greet me, and Harlow follows reluctantly. I shake his hand and we all sit. Apparently not even Sal expects Harlow and I to greet each other.

Her notepad is out and she’s ready to play the role of the assistant. Maybe with anyone else she could fade into the background... though she’s physically stunning and hard to ignore, so I doubt it. And with me, it would be impossible. She looks so unbelievably beautiful it constricts my throat, ropes something tightly in my chest. Her hair is down, she’s wearing a sweater as green as an emerald, and tight black pants with these sexy little strappy heels. Jesus fuck, I want a picture of her in this outfit glued to my ceiling.

But I’m here for business and I really do want to be a consultant for the film. My noncompete clause with the Adventure Channel doesn’t apply to film consulting, and I’m still so terrified of this unknown future that I’m grasping at any footing, any new contact. Besides, in our first conversation, Sal said he needed someone who could “talk fish from A to Z” and I don’t know anyone better qualified to do that around here than me.

“How’s the boat?” Sal says by way of official opener, and it actually makes me laugh. Seeing it myself once I was home... it was depressing.

“It’s busted.”

He laughs, this genuine, warm laugh I wasn’t expecting. He looks slick but he speaks real, and I glance over at Harlow, seeing her in a new way. This guy is the real thing—a decent man in Hollywood—and he’s plucked my girl up to be his right-hand man because he knows she’s the real deal, too.

“Congratulations are in order,” he says. “The show sounds great, Finn.”

“We’ll see,” I hedge. “It’ll be different, that’s for sure.”

For a beat, my eyes meet Harlow’s and I wonder if she knows what I’m thinking, that I don’t give a fuck about the relationship clause. I’m spoken for, whether the producers know it or not. But she blinks away, looking out the window, and I see her jaw flex. It’s possible I fucked it up so much yesterday that even when I find her later, it won’t matter.

I hope I’m wrong.