“I don’t,” Bonny says. Bonny balances Paula out; she’s a naysayer. “Women don’t fish.”

“Some women fish,” Swan says. “Your mother could start a trend, Baker. Lots of women with money are planning girls’ trips, and your mom’s fishing boat would be perfect. Plus, she could market to families with young children. And…bachelorettes?”

“Families, maybe, but bachelorettes do not want to fish,” Bonny says. “Do you even watch the show? The girls on The Bachelor will fish or bungee jump or go to the machine-gun range, but only to seem cool and beat out the other girls. It’s never their choice.”

“I majored in marketing at Florida State,” Swan says. “Have your mom reach out. I’m happy to help her, free of charge.”

“You are such a kiss-ass,” Bonny says.

“Maybe we could all help?” Paula says, and Swan gives her a withering look. These women make Baker miss Ellen, Debbie, Becky, and Wendy because they were relaxed, stable…and not after him.

“I’ll run it past my mom,” Baker says. He needs to get out of there before they come to blows. “Thanks, ladies.”

Episode 6: Baker is killing it at work! He feels like the host of a new HGTV show called Do You Want to Buy a Time-Share? He’s aware that most people take the tour only because they want the free breakfast (with bottomless mimosas) or the free appetizers (with free-flowing rum punch), plus the hundred-dollar resort credit. But Baker finds that the clients he interacts with at least consider the possibility of buying.

One day, he puts two units under contract, a one-bedroom and a three-bedroom! He experiences a surge of pure, unadulterated confidence that feels like mainlining a drug. Nothing is going to happen with Ayers until he makes it happen. It’s ludicrous that she’s right across the street and they almost never see each other. Cash sees Ayers more than Baker does because he goes over every day to visit Winnie. Floyd sees more of Ayers than Baker does because he tags along with Cash. Baker told Cash that the property manager of the Happy Hibiscus explicitly stated there were no pets allowed—but this was a lie. Pets are fine. Baker just wants Ayers to keep Cash’s dog so there is still one filament connecting Ayers to Baker. And anyway, the household is crowded enough as it is. (Sorry, Winnie.)

Baker swings by Our Market to get Ayers a pineapple-mango smoothie, then he stops at Sam and Jack’s for a bag of their homemade potato chips. This is the perfect afternoon snack. He still has an hour and a half before school pickup. He can bring Ayers these goodies and stay for a visit—catch up, see how she’s feeling, ask if she wants him to go with her to her prenatal appointment at Schneider Hospital. This will show he’s thinking of her. He’s never not thinking of her, but it won’t be overbearing.

Her green truck is in the driveway—wonderful. He strides up to the door and knocks. The pineapple-mango smoothie is sweating in his hand, and while he waits, he worries that her favorite type is pineapple-banana, not pineapple-mango. He should have written it down the second she mentioned it. This is the kind of thing that Mick knows by heart and Baker doesn’t.

He hears voices. A man’s voice. Is Mick there? The voice is very deep. Not Mick’s. Mick has a reedy voice that reminds Baker of some pimply adolescent playing the oboe. So someone else is here. Another man. Someone who took advantage of the broken engagement to make a move?

Baker turns to leave. He doesn’t want to know who it is. Naturally, as Baker is retreating, the door swings open.

“Hello there, young man, can we help you?” The deep male voice is attached to a very tall, very thin older gentleman with a high forehead and curly silver hair sticking out in tufts on either side, like an aging Bozo the Clown, although Bozo might be an ungenerous comparison. Baker immediately knows that it’s Ayers’s father.

“Hello,” Baker says, retracing his steps back to the front door. “I brought some things for Ayers. A smoothie. And chips.”

“Wonderful!” the man bellows. He holds the screen door open. “I’m Phil Wilson and my sweetheart, Sunny—Ayers’s mom—is here as well. You must be the infamous…” Phil turns and calls to someone who is out of Baker’s field of vision. “What’s the soap opera guy’s name again, Sunny?”

“Baker Steele,” a woman’s voice says.

“Baker Steele!” Phil says.

This isn’t exactly the way Baker was hoping the afternoon would go, but he steps inside because he sees no other choice. “Yes, sir,” he says. “Nice to meet you.”

Ayers and her mother are sitting cross-legged on the sofa. Sunny is beautiful; she looks just like Ayers, only older. She’s slender with curly blond-silver hair; she’s wearing a beige jersey dress and lots of silver jewelry. Ayers doesn’t look unhappy to see Baker, which he supposes he should take as a win. “Mom, Dad, this is Baker,” she says. Her expression is neutral, as though she’s introducing her parents to the pizza-delivery guy.

“You’re the one who impregnated my daughter?” Phil says.

“Um…” Baker looks to Ayers to see if she confirms this.

“Dad, please,” Ayers says. “Yes. Baker and I were together. This is his baby.”

“We’re over the moon,” Sunny says. “We flew all the way from Nairobi to be here.”

“Nairobi, wow.” Baker looks at the photographs hanging on Ayers’s living-room wall—her at the Great Pyramids and the Taj Mahal—and he picks out younger versions of Phil and Sunny. “You’re world travelers.”

“Nomads,” Phil says. “The earth is our home.”

“Where are you staying?” Baker asks. He looks around Ayers’s studio; Winnie is asleep on Ayers’s bed. “Not here?”

“We have a room at Caneel Bay for now,” Phil says. “We’re planning on staying a few weeks, then maybe spending some time in Jamaica, the DR, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Vincent and the Grenadines…”

“Bequia is supposed to be relatively unspoiled,” Sunny says. “We’ve avoided the Caribbean for the most part because it’s so tacky.”

“Gee, thanks, guys,” Ayers says.

“St. John is different,” Phil says. “It still has that rugged-nature-lover vibe.”

“With spots of luxury,” Sunny says. “Like Caneel.”

“There aren’t any all-inclusives,” Phil says. “Just the term all-inclusive makes me shudder.”

“They’re travel snobs,” Ayers says.

“Anyway, once we complete our little jaunt, we’ll come back here and wait for the baby to be born,” Sunny says.

“That wait could be weeks or months,” Phil says. “So I was going to look into buying a time-share at the Westin.”

“We’ll need a home base here if we ever want to see our grandchild,” Sunny says.

Baker hates to be opportunistic, but…“If you decide you do want a Westin time-share, I can help you,” he says. “I’m working at their sales office right now.”

“Great!” Phil says. “We’ll take one.”