I took Harris’s arm and guided him protectively up the stairs. “What on earth?” I whispered.

“Well, for a second, I was the hero. I hooked a marlin, it trailed the boat for almost thirty minutes, and I did it. I reeled that sucker in. It was the biggest rush of my life. I had no idea what I was doing, but it was just instinct. My hunter-gatherer ancestors were taking over. I was in it. I was in control. It was man versus animal, and man would prevail. Everyone was yelling and high-fiving me. For, like, two hours, I was in.”

I wanted to say something, but I didn’t know what. I held my breath.

“And then,” he said, like it was a full sentence.

“And then what?” I asked, pulling him into my bedroom and closing the door behind him, motioning for him to sit down on the bed.

“Did you know that every person on a boat has to have a fishing license?”

I gasped and put my hand over my mouth. Oh my gosh. He didn’t have to say anything else. Every person on a boat had to have a fishing license. It didn’t matter if you were in the galley flipping pancakes when the fish came in. I was sure they got a ticket and had been disqualified from the tournament. All that beautiful prize money and all those bragging rights just gone, in an instant. I was so used to everyone I knew receiving a lifetime hunting and fishing license when they were born that it hadn’t even occurred to me. Shouldn’t Dad have thought of that? Or Parker? Had they set him up?

He rested his head on my shoulder, and I stroked his cheek, bathing in guilt that I had brought him and, even worse, that I had kissed Parker. No, not kissed Parker. Made out with Parker like a teenager for much longer than I would like to admit, totally unable to pull myself away from him. “Poor baby. I am so sorry. This is my fault. I should have known.”

“We won, Amelia. They won. All that glory, and poof! Just gone.”

“I know, Harris,” I said soothingly. “But it’s okay. It isn’t the end of the world.”

He sat up and looked at me seriously. “They will hate me forever now. I will never be a part of your world the way I want to be because of this stupid, stupid thing.”

“No, no,” I lied. “They’ll all forget about it.” They would never, ever forget about it. And, unlike the other scenarios I had imagined, it would take a long time for any of them to treat this like a funny anecdote. Yeah, maybe it was stupid that a fishing tournament was so important to them. But it was. Yeah, the loss of nearly seven figures worth of prize money hurt. But I knew it was the loss of the bragging rights of a lifetime that bothered my dad and Mr. Thaysden most of all.