As he and Burns waited for a table on the wooden deck outside the establishment, Rick gazed across the water to Holiday Isle, which was the last stretch of beach before the bridge to Okaloosa Island. Beautiful, he thought, watching a yacht slowly make its way through the harbor to the gap that led to the Gulf of Mexico. Feeling a tap on his shoulder, he turned to see Burns holding two longneck Coronas. “Ask and ye shall receive,” he said, passing the cold beer to Rick and looking out at the harbor. The trip hadn’t been too bad, Rick had to admit. The Saturn stayed in one piece, and they had only made two pit stops, one just outside of Birmingham and another in Andalusia. In Andalusia, at Burns’s urging, Rick bought a six-pack, and Burns took down five of them before they hit the Mid-Bay Bridge, which took them into Destin. Rick had only had one and didn’t finish it. He knew he needed to keep his wits about him. They had parked a few doors down from The Boathouse at a place called The Fisherman’s Wharf.
