Page 100 of Just One More Thing

“Wayne Kerr. Tampa Bay Buccaneers.”

The kid checks again. Then looks at Wayne. Then back at his clipboard. “Not here.”

Wayne’s mouth falls open. “BETHANY!” he hollers. “I know that vixen is behind this!” He storms off in the direction she was last headed.

Jake laughs first.

Then Ryan.

Then me.

Ryan steps forward. “Knox.”

“Who’s your partner gonna be now?” I ask.

“Looks like I’ll float,” Ryan says. “Fill in where needed.”

Jake squeezes my hand lightly. “Ready?”

“No.”

He grins. “Good.”

We head toward Fetch-A-Fish, where a man in a referee shirt drops a cooler at our feet and flips it open.

Whole fish.

Whole dead fish.

Extremely dead wet fish.

I stare down into the cooler, then slowly turn toward Jake.

“I was going to mention it.”

“When?”

“Eventually.”

Lane two erupts as Wayne discovers what’s inside his cooler. “I DID NOT AGREE TO TOUCH A FISH!”

“You paid twenty dollars to touch a fish,” Ryan reminds him.

“I paid twenty dollars for the idea of fish. Not the physical manifestation.”

“I’ll pay you twenty dollars to shut the hell up,” Bethany yells from behind him.

“It’s for the dogs,” Ryan reminds him.

Wayne stares into the cooler. Then at Ryan. Then back at the cooler. “The dogs better appreciate this.”

The referee blows a whistle.

“You toss it to your partner,” he explains. “Partner catches it, runs it to their bucket. You alternate tossing and catching. Fastest team to get four fish in their buckets wins.”

The whistle blows again. I grab the first fish. It is cold. It is slippery. It’s an entire personal crisis with gills. I lob it toward Jake.

The fish spins in midair and baptizes me in fish juice.