“Put on something else,” Huck says. “That top is too revealing and that skirt is too short.”

“What are you talking about?” Maia says. “I wear this outfit all the time.”

“You do?” Huck says. He has to admit, he doesn’t usually notice what Maia is wearing and he has never commented on it before. “I guess maybe you’re growing, because it looks too small.”

“Maybe you need new glasses,” Maia says with a grin. She peers into the frying pan, where he’s scrambling eggs. “Cut the heat. They’re perfect now.”

Huck snaps the burner off. It’s an ongoing joke that Huck tends to overcook the eggs, and Maia feels about dry eggs the way that Huck feels about dry fish. No bueno.

“Serve them up yourself,” Huck says. “And make your own toast. I have to get ready.”

Maia stares at him. “Is this about yesterday?”

Huck stops in his tracks. He’s facing the refrigerator, where he’s about to grab Maia’s lunch box—packed with a peanut butter and jelly as per her request because all of a sudden sandwiches made from freshly caught fish aren’t good enough. “Yesterday?”

“Taking my friends to town,” Maia says. “You’ve been in a weird mood since then.”

She’s intuitive, he’ll give her that. He can’t very well tell her the truth—that what has put him in a “weird mood” is the hundred and twenty-five grand he found in her mother’s room—but neither does he want her to think that he minds driving her and her friends around. If she believes that, she’ll start asking someone else for rides, and he’ll lose his window into her world.

“That’s not it,” Huck says. “I enjoyed taking you to town.”

“Oh,” Maia says. “What is it, then? Is it Irene?”

At this, Huck does turn around. “Irene?”

“You miss her, right? That’s why you’re grumpy?”

Huck opens his mouth but for the life of him, he can’t think of how to respond. The night following Irene’s departure, he made the mistake of drinking a couple of shots of Flor de Caña and saying some things to Maia that he should have kept private. What exactly did he say? Maybe something as innocuous as I’ve never seen a woman fish like that before. Maybe something more revealing. But did he say he had feelings for Irene? No. Did he ever say he’d miss her? No.

Huck nearly snaps, I’m not grumpy! But he is, and it’s not Maia’s fault.

“Sorry, Nut,” he says. “I’m just tired, I’m missing your mom—and your grandma too, for good measure—and I’m dreading this bachelor party.”

Maia opens her arms to give Huck a hug, which he gratefully accepts. He loves this child to distraction, she’s all he has left, and he’ll be damned if he’s going to let whatever mess Rosie was involved in affect her.

“Eat your breakfast,” he says.