“He didn’t bring a blanket, and I was too nervous to bring anything other than, thankfully, the condom. Which meant all we had that wasn’t intensely uncomfortable to do anything on were the two cushions on the captain’s and passenger’s chairs. And they weren’t even next to each other. We ended up doing this awkward tangled-up thing sitting on the captain’s chair. It wasn’t pretty.” Sloane sighed, already internally cringing at the memory. “Well, at one point, the steering wheel thing, which was this weird U-shape, dug into my back and hurt like hell. I yelled out at it and, well, this guy thought I was yelling at other things, and that kind of made him…well, you know.”

Brady devolved into laughter. Sloane waited for him to finish before continuing.

“We realized after the fact that we just got swept up in that whole teenaged-lust thing and stopped dating. I never told him about how miserable my experience was, and he just assumed it was the best thing ever. I definitely didn’t tell him about the steering-wheel part, either.”

“Okay, so why are you telling me this now?”

Sloane closed her eyes for a moment and thumped her head back against the seat. When she spoke again, it was in her smallest I know mistakes were made voice.

“Because I wrote about it in my blog.”

Brady whistled long and low. “You wrote about it in your blog,” he repeated.

“Yes. But in my defense, that whole situation was a big deal for me, and the blog was absolutely private at the time. With no intention of it ever, ever going public. Though, just in case, I did change his name.” That being said, Sloane knew that anyone who had known her back then wouldn’t have a hard time guessing who “Rudy” was. She hadn’t been anywhere near prolific when it came to high-school dating. “I only bring it up now because I can’t imagine Carol not at least mentioning it today. In front of everyone. Because of the boat.”

He nodded. “Yeah, I’d imagine a story like that is catnip for her.”

Sloane groaned. “I should have deleted the whole blog years ago. I guarantee that I’d never have to deal with Carol on a boat if I did.”

“True, but then you’d also probably never have to deal with me on a boat.” Brady’s voice swung low. He delivered a devastatingly wonderful grin. “And I’m fucking magical on a boat.”

Sloane’s jaw went slack at the comment.

Her mind didn’t just slide into the gutter; it plummeted.

Before she could attempt to recover, movement outside the truck caught their eye. Carol and child-size sun hat 2.0 moved into view on the sidewalk that led from the parking lot to the boat ramp. She gave them a little trickle of a wave.