geniuswithasmartphone | Onboard Dottie's Pride, Key Largo, Florida, Monday Evening

Hardison lounged on the deck of Dottie's Pride, sipping at a beer and watching the sun set over the water. Next to him, Megabyte and Stance snoozed next to his chair, tuckered out after a long day of romping about in the sea air. He wasn't sure where Eliot was--doing something nautical, no doubt--and the last time he'd seen Parker, she was clinging to the side of the boat and giving him a heart attack, but he figured they'd be joining him soon enough to enjoy the last vestiges of the day and looking out towards the gorgeous expanse of ocean. Tellingly, his laptop was still in its bag in the cabin; he hadn't even pulled his phone out, except to take pictures every so often.

Don't tell anyone, but sometimes it was nice to be unplugged for a bit. Long enough to appreciate warm weather, the rocking of a gentle ocean, and the company of the two loves of his life.

...Though he was starting to get hungry. One and a half days of sailing to get to the Florida Keys would do that to a man. Maybe he should needle Eliot about letting him starve at the very beginning of their vacation to see if that would turn into dinner for all of them.

Oh yeah, vacations were great.

[NFB and for thems what are with him, please!]

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"They got water in Oklahoma." Lakes. They had lakes in Oklahoma. And occasional rivers and things. "Takin' it's fine. It's when ya gotta talk about it for twenty minutes first."

"Yeah, in their bathtubs," Hardison muttered.

Which wasn't true but was good for winding Eliot up.

"An' talkin' kept me distracted till it worked!"

"I can think of plenty of other ways to distract ya for twenty minutes."

"Not when I'm feelin' gross you can't," Hardison declared. And was a liar about it. "I note I ain't feelin' gross now, however."

"So?" Eliot said, not even pretending to have a poker face right now. "I was talkin' 'bout your little tap games on your phone."

"Yeah, cause you don't complain when I even go an' look at my phone," Hardison snorted. "You don't like it when I pay more attention to my toys than to you."

"When it's a choice between you quiet and occupied or you bitchin' 'bout fresh air and sunshine?" Eliot said. He pulled a couple beers out of the cooler, popped the caps, and offered one to Hardison before grabbing a seat on the deck next to him. And immediately found himself in the midst of a tiny puppy pile. "Admit it, man, you're gettin' to almost like our little outdoor adventures."

"Well..." Hardison said, dragging it out a bit. He took the proffered beer with a smile of thanks, holding it out for a wordless 'cheers.' "I mean, we've had a lot fewer run-ins with racist rednecks, so I guess they ain't the worst things I ever dealt with."

Eliot could translate that.

He could indeed. Eliot clinked the neck of his bottle against Hardison's and nodded. "I keep tellin' ya man, there's way less redneck racists in the wilderness than you think."

Mostly because there weren't that many people out there. Let's be real.

"Well, sure, if we keep goin' out to the wilderness where there ain't nobody else around," Hardison argued, patting his knee to try to lure Megabyte over to him for pets. "But once we do start seein' other folks, odds are higher they will be redneck racists."

"That ain't even -- man, you understand we were even in that area 'cause of a case, right? Most folks live in the woods, they're there 'cause they ain't wanna see anybody."

"Except those guys, who wanted to hang out in the woods so they could have their little meetin' without no one bein' the wiser!" Hardison argued. "An' who says that wantin' to be left alone somehow precludes you from bein' a racist redneck? It just means you're that much more likely to be upset at bein' disturbed!"

"That's why you don't disturb 'em!" That seemed real simple to Eliot. "I don't get why you think havin' more people around means less racists."

"Ain't like I'm tryna disturb nobody in the woods! I just ain't, you know, a forest ninja or whatever."

And, let's be real, if Hardison found himself alone in the woods, he'd disturb anybody he could to get help back to civilization, where the electricity and internet lived.

"An' I'm just sayin', you're more likely to get a higher concentration of racists livin' out in their little prepper wood-bunkers than you would in a samplin' of people in the city, where, you know, minorities live."

He'd seen Deliverance, Eliot! Seen it!

"Right." Eliot rolled his eyes. "'Cause there ain't any minorities out in the sticks. I never saw a black man till I headed northeast. . . ."

"Yeah an' how many of 'em did you see livin' out in the woods," Hardison muttered. "Or joinin' a paramilitary group out there?"

"Believe it or not, that job was the first American paramilitary group I'd come across." Eliot sounded a bit surprised by that himself. "I mean, I saw plenty of 'em overseas. . . ."

"Really?" Hardison asked. "Huh."

A second later, he was grinning again. "So, 100% of the American paramilitary groups you've interacted with are made up of racist rednecks then, huh?"

Eliot put his hands up. "I ain't gonna argue about the make-up of your average paramilitary. But the percent of land they were occupyin' ain't even big enough to register."

"Yeah well, I--" Hardison's next incredibly detailed and well-thought out argument was forestalled by his stomach rumbling. Loudly.

"I'm apparently hungry as hell."

"And lemme guess, you're expectin' me to do somethin' about that." Not that, you know, Eliot wouldn't. But it was nice to get to not cook sometimes, too. "Whatcha in the mood for?"

"Are there still sandwiches in the cooler?" Hardison could go for a sandwich. "Oooh, we're in the Keys! I bet people totally get delivery to their boats. can we get boat takeout?"

"You wanna hunt some up, be my guest," Eliot said. "We can do fish tomorrow."

After Eliot had the chance to catch some.

"You want anythin' specific?" Hardison asked, busily pulling up restaurants on his phone. "Looks like I ain't the only person who thought of boat takeout. Some of these places have their own boats! This one'll deliver up to a quarter mile out to sea!"

"Should go with something islandy," Eliot mused. "There any jerk chicken places on that list?"

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