“I’m so sorry,” I said. Nervousness and relief that I hadn’t lost my breakfast caused me to try to make light of the situation. This was a bad play. “At least it was just a book and not an essential item, but I’ll absolutely buy you a replacement.”

“Not necessary.” He frowned at me and looked at where the paperback was now polluting the ocean—one more thing for me to feel bad about—and then back at me and said, “I take it you’re not a reader.”

And there it was, the judgmental tone I’d heard my whole life when it became known that I was not a natural-born reader. Why were book people always so perplexed by non–book people? I mean, it’s not like I wanted to be dyslexic. As usual when I’m feeling defensive about my disability, I said the most offensive thing I could think of.

“Books are boring,” I responded. Yes, I, Samantha Gale, went there. I knew full well this was likely heresy for this guy, and I was right. His reaction did not disappoint.

His mouth dropped open. His eyes went wide. He blinked. “Don’t hold back. Say what you feel.”

“Why would I read a book when I can just stream the movie version, which allows me to use both hands to cram popcorn into my face at the same time?” I asked.

“Because the book is always better than the movie.”

I shook my head. “I disagree. There’s no way the book version of Jaws was better than the movie.”

“Ah!” he yelped. If he’d been wearing pearls, I was sure he’d be clutching them.

When he was about to argue, I cut him off with the duuun-dun duuun-dun duuun-dun dun dun dun sound from the iconic Jaws theme music.

Reader Guy laughed and raised his hands in defeat. “Did you pick that movie because we’re on our way to the location where it was filmed?”

I shrugged. “Maybe. Also, it was the first movie that popped into my head.”

“I wonder if sharks are big readers?” he asked. He peered down at the water. His book had soaked up enough of the sea that it was slowly dropping beneath the surface, sinking down to Davy Jones’s locker forevermore. I glanced back at his face. He looked as if he was in actual physical pain.

“You all right?” I asked.

“Not really,” he said. He rubbed his knuckles over his chest as if his heart hurt. “I was just getting to the good part.”

I had to force myself not to roll my eyes. It was just a book. I thought about abandoning Reader Guy to his grief, but it seemed impolite since he had saved me from a fountain of barf and I had accidentally smacked his book into the drink, and besides he was cute in a buy-local sort of way.