“You aren’t helping. I already don’t want to do this.” He steals a few of my tater tots. “But my brothers think it will be a trip. It’s like they don’t really understand how it will change their lives. Colt is always sleeping with someone different. Levi... I swear I think he’s a virgin.”

I look at the sandy-haired hottie in the picture. “Okay, you’re high. If this guy isn’t putting out left and right, there is no God, Santa, or Easter Bunny.”

He waves me off. “Whatever. I just don’t think we’d make very good television.” His argument is so weak, even he can tell. He winces at my gaping shock, looking away.

“You’re kidding, right?” I ask him. “A manwhore hottie, a virgin hottie, and the hottest older brother who’s clearly too busy for love? This is a television producer’s wet dream. This show practically writes itself.”

As if relenting, he says quietly, “They’re laying it on pretty thick. Two-season commitment to start, they bought my truck just as a good-faith gesture, and they’ll repair our main two boats and get us a new one.”

I let out a low whistle. “Wow. So you’re upset because a huge television studio wants to give you oodles of money? Poor baby. Why aren’t you jumping on this?”

He looks at me, and it’s his turn to be incredulous. “I like my life, Harlow. It isn’t cushy, and we’re always sort of scraping by, but I chose this for a reason. I like my little house on the water, and working on the boat and cracking jokes with my brothers and those days where we get an unreal haul. Those days make all of the slow ones totally insignificant.” He looks away, running his thumbnail down a groove in the table. “The idea of a crew coming on and filming us twenty-four hours a day for three days a week makes me nauseous.”

“What do Oliver and Ansel think about it?” I ask.

“They don’t know.”

“I know something they don’t?” I crow.

He shrugs. “It’s hard to discuss this choice with my best friends. I’m in the middle of this crazy decision, but in two years I may look back and think, Why did I even consider this? I don’t want to mull it over with people who will be in my life every day if I realize only later how pathetic it all seems. Does that make sense?”

So he’s not expecting me to be in his life in two years? Okay. This one stings and I tilt my beer to my lips, looking away. “Makes total sense.”

“Shit,” he whispers, seeming to register how that sounded. “You know what I mean.”