I want to say something to show I’m not completely consumed with pain at the thought of someone else flying up and checking on Finn. And by the way they’re all looking at me, I can tell they expect me to make some quip and lighten the mood . . . but I can’t.

I’m done being mad. Trying to stay mad is exhausting, and I’ve never been good at it. I fucking miss Finn, I miss My Person, and I can feel my jealousy that Oliver got to see him for a weekend climbing in a hot flush up my neck.

“You okay over there?” Lola asks gently.

“Not really,” I admit. “I have to go up there next week to look at boats with Sal and we’re taking Finn to lunch to thank him for coming on as a consultant. I already know it will be awkward and hard to see him because he’s so good at being distant and professional. This whole thing is making me sad.”

God, I hate how honest I get when I’m feeling devastated. It’s like I’ve been trained under some Pavlovian trigger by my parents to talk it all out as soon as I have feelings too big to stuff into a sarcasm cannoli.

“If it helps,” Oliver says, “he looked just like you do now when I told him you stopped by the house, looking for him the day he split town.”

“Did you tell him the part about how I was mad, or the part about how I was sad?” I ask. “Because I want him to imagine me with a chain saw and ass-kicking boots.”

Oliver laughs, shaking his head and returning to his waffle.

“Did he tell you why he was mad?”

“A bit,” Oliver says around a bite.

“So it’s at least a little bit of an overreaction, right?” I can hear in my own voice that not even I am convinced.

Ansel pokes at his breakfast and asks, “Did he ever tell you why he dropped out of college?”

“Yeah, briefly. I mean we never really talked about it, but I know he left to start fishing with the family business.”

“Not exactly,” he says, putting down his fork. “He dropped out to run the family business.”

“Wait,” I say, holding up my hand. “In college he did? I thought he took over after Bike and Build?”

“No,” Oliver says. “When he was nineteen his dad had the heart attack and then a stroke a year later. Colton was sixteen. Levi was like eleven? There was literally no other choice for Finn but to take over.”

“His father is better now,” Ansel continues. “But there’s a lot he still can’t do, and Finn has basically run the entire thing since he was a kid. He took the summer off one year for Bike and Build when Colton was old enough to give Finn a break, and he came to Vegas, but other than that, this trip to San Diego was his only time away from the water.”

I nod, lifting my water glass with a shaky hand. I want to see him now, want to kiss him and help him and fix all of this.

“I actually like what you tried to do,” Ansel says. “When I talked to him a couple of nights ago he told me about it.”

“Did he use lots of four-letter words?”

“None, actually.”

I raise my eyebrows, impressed.

I look over at Oliver. “When you saw him this weekend, did he tell you what he’s going to do about the business?”

Oliver tilts his head, blinking. “Harlow.”

So he’s not going to tell me. Fine. I go for broke; I have no more pride: “Did he even mention me?”

Oliver shrugs. “Not much. But remember this is Finn we’re talking about here. He usually says the least about the things he’s thinking about the most.”

I laugh. Well played, Aussie.

OUR FLIGHT TO Victoria on Monday lands at four in the afternoon, and Sal and I ride to the Magnolia Hotel together in a cab, discussing the plans for the next two days: meetings, boat visits, and more meetings. The air here smells like ocean, but so different from home. It’s heavier, saltier somehow, and the winds feel more substantial, making me think of San Diego as a sweet, docile beach town. This place is on the edge of the ocean frontier.

I’m so nervous to be here, so close to Finn again that even in the October sun, I feel chilled. The last time I came here, I had nothing but the champagne bubbles of excitement, effervescent in my stomach and giving me a secret smile the entire trip. I barely noticed the wilderness, the space between houses, and how much water there is, everywhere.

This time, I notice everything. Even as we discuss work, and names I need to know and what kinds of notes Sal needs me to gather on this trip, I notice it all.

Finn lives here, I can’t stop thinking it. He lives here, in this otherworld, this alternate life surrounded by green and the sapphire-blue of the ocean. Fred’s bar and Starbucks and Downtown Graffick feel so far away from all of this. Finn must have felt like he was stepping into Tokyo when he came and stayed with Oliver. Into a video game.

I can’t even imagine how he felt about Vegas.

We check in, and as we wait for the elevator, Sal looks down at his phone and makes a little hm sound in the back of his throat.

“What?”

He smiles, handing me his iPhone open to Variety and I begin reading as we step into the elevator.

Adventure Channel Signs Roberts Brothers for “The Fisher Men”

The Adventure Channel has signed on for an unprecedented two full seasons of a new reality series following a family of four men—three single brothers and their father—as they navigate the fishing industry off Vancouver Island’s west coast.

The program, featuring Stephen, Finn, Colton, and Levi Roberts, will be an “exploration of family responsibility and the complex dynamics binding these men by love and the business they run together. The story of each son’s quest to both save the family business and build a life off the water in the often-brutal Pacific Northwest fishing industry is what drew the Adventure Channel to this show,” according to the co-executive producer, Matt Stevenson-John.

Along with Stevenson-John, Giles Manchego is on board to produce. The deal was finalized on Friday, according to an Adventure Channel spokesperson. “The Fisher Men” is slated to begin filming in the spring when the salmon season begins, with episodes premiering July 1.

“Wow.” I feel every particle of air evacuate my chest in a gust with that single word. Handing Sal back his phone, I say in a tight voice, “They signed on.”

“Looks like it.”

I’d told Sal there was a possibility, so he’s clearly not surprised by any of this, but I don’t know what to feel. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know why I’m surprised, but seeing it like this—in the crisp digital font accompanied by one of the promo shots Finn hated so much—I’m unprepared for the way it hits me like a physical blow to the center of my chest.