Page 27 of Barefoot Lake

“Goooooood morning, Jake,” he practically sings the greeting, and I can immediately tell this isn’t bad news. I sigh heavily and wonder how many years of my life I’ve lost from panic. “How are you doing this fine day?”

“Grateful Bob, it’s four a.m. That hardly counts as day.” I’m still trying to sort out why he’s calling me so early. “Is everything ok?”

“Oh yes, yes. Just fine.”

I’m tempted to hang up on him, but he continues.

“It’s just that there’s this boat knocking against my dock, and I know I pulled mine out of the water a week ago. You don’t happen to be missing one, do you?”

“Missing a boat? I don’t — hang on.” I flip back the covers and swing my legs over the side of the bed. Pushing back the curtains on my back window, I look out at the lake. It’s dark, but I can still clearly see my dock and the empty lake beside it where my boat should be.

I drag a hand down my face. Can I not catch a damn break? I groan in frustration and try to figure out what on earth could have happened. I keep that boat secured at all times and nobody else⁠—

Scott must have taken Piper out, completely disregarding my advice.

“I’m going to murder Scott.”

“That seems a bit drastic, don’t you think? The boat looks fine. It just went out for a midnight float.” Grateful Bob is laughing now.

I’m glad one of us finds this amusing. Scott has grown up around water and boats, but the kid can still be so careless.

“I’m sorry, Grateful Bob. We’ll come collect it now. Thanks for the call.”

“Never a dull day, boy. Never a dull day.” Grateful Bob snickers again before hanging up.

I grab a pillow off my bed on my way across the hall. I fling open Scott’s door, letting it hit the wall behind.

“Wazzamatter?!” Scott yelps as he sits up, a second before I smack him in the face with my launched pillow.

“Just got a call from Grateful Bob, letting me know our boat is at his dock. Were you fucking around with the boat again? With Piper?” I realize my hands are on my hips and drop my arms to my sides before I turn into our father.

“What are you talking about? I haven’t gone anywhere near the —” Scott cuts off so suddenly that I’m immediately suspicious. He looks at me wide-eyed like he’s just realized something.

“Out with it. What happened?”

“Nothing! Like you said, I was messing with the boat. I wanted to impress Piper. I must not have tied it up properly. I’m sorry.” Scott has to be the worst liar on the planet.

“Bullshit. You want to try again?”

“Nope! It was me. I’m sorry.”

I’m not buying it, but we don’t have time to fight right now.

“Fine. If you’re not going to fess up, you’re going to come with me to get it. Let’s go.”

A few minutes later, Scott and I are in sweats and on our way to Grateful Bob’s. Thankfully, the walk isn’t long because it is cold out in the low forties. The days are breezy, and the trees are gorgeous, but when the sun’s down, there’s little warmth left these days.

I try to figure out what game Scott is playing, but he won’t budge, insisting he was showing off for Piper. It just makes no sense. The guy barely shuts up about her. There’s no way he’d have been able to keep from detailing the entire encounter to me as soon as I saw him. Something is up.

“Howdy, boys!” Grateful Bob greets us as we come through the trees and up to his house. He’s chipper as ever, despite the early morning wake-up.

I elbow Scott hard in the side. If he’s taking the blame for this, he needs to apologize to Grateful Bob.

“I’m sorry for the disruption, Grateful Bob. I’m careless, and I didn’t tie up the boat properly yesterday,” he says each word forcefully, with his eyebrows basically touching his hairline.

Grateful Bob chuckles. “It’s alright boy. I know you didn’t mean it.”

Ok, so Grateful Bob is in on whatever’s going on here.