Missy raised her sunglasses and squinted in the bright sunlight. The brown-skinned skipper stood beneath the shade of the paint-blistered wheelhouse, picking at one of his fingernails with the blade of a large knife. He could have been in his early forties or his late fifties. She had no idea. The sun and sea and salt had not been kind to him, turning his skin into old leather, at least what she could see of it behind his scraggly, graying beard. His full given name was Chanidulala, or something ridiculous like that. “Chan” was much preferable.

“Patience, sir,” Chan said simply. “They here. They come. We follow birds. Birds follow fish. Big fish follow small fish.”

Standing on the aft deck, Karlo was dressed in a white linen shirt, Ralph Lauren khaki shorts, and leather boat shoes. Atop his mop of silver hair sat a cap embroidered with the logo of the Queensland Maroons, a State Rugby League team in Australia. Missy had met him in October of last year at the Brisbane International Film Festival. She had gone with three girlfriends, all single, all on the hunt for men with fame or wealth (or preferably both). Karlo didn’t have much fame, but he had wealth, lots of it. He’d made his money in real estate and was now happily spending it producing Australian documentaries and short films. That evening, at an after-party on his sixty-foot yacht, Missy worked her magic on him, bedded him, and that was that.

Nine months later, she was Mrs. Missy Winkler.

“Maybe we should call it a day, pookums?” she suggested. “Try again tomorrow?”

“I’m not heading back without even getting a bloody bite,” Karlo griped. Then, to Chan, “What the hell am I paying you for, mate? You said you knew where the fish were! Patience? We’ve been bobbing around out here like a message in a bottle since dawn!”

Chan set the knife aside and lit up a cigarette.

“Patience,” he repeated around a waft of smoke.

“Not a single bloody bite,” Karlo grumbled.

Missy sighed again. If they were going to be stuck out here for however much longer, she was going to make the most of the time and get a proper tan. She reached behind her back and unclipped her bikini top.

She shot the skipper a stern look. “No perving on me, Chan. Got that?”

Chan watched her remove her top, then averted his eyes.

Karlo left his fishing rod in the holder and joined her amidship. “What in God’s name are you doing, love?” He frowned at her bare breasts.

“You know I hate tan lines,” she said. “I’ve already been in the sun today for so long I’m going to look like a zebra tomorrow. And it’s not like I can go topless at the hotel pool. There are kids around.” She squeezed some sunscreen from the bottle next to her and lathered her breasts. The cool cream on her warm skin made her nipples hard.