For the convenience of people who used
the pier to fish, the restaurant had designated a restroom for their use with
an outdoor restaurant right behind the bar. Valerie loved to fish, but she
didn’t love the fishy smell that clung to her hands after handling bait and
fish all day. After washing her hands, she used a travel-size bottle of hand
cream in her backpack, warm vanilla scent, that she’d picked up at the mall,
before checking her cell phone.
One missed call from Kylie, a text from
Mom—Have fun, my love! Tell me about it
when u get home, k? It was cute to her, how her mother had mastered short
cuts on texts as well as any teenager.
The second text message had come from
Zed. Reading it brought an exasperated sigh from Valerie.
so
whos the fisherman? I no we said we were taking this slow and could see other
people but wow that was quick. we just got back together and u didnt say a word
bout it either. alright not a big deal just kinda sneaky of you but ok.
“Sneaky? Really, Zed?” she mumbled to
herself as she jammed the phone back into her shorts pocket.
This was coming from the same guy who
had done his share of “sneakiness,” and not only when they were younger,
either. The very last time she’d been his on-again girlfriend, he’d secreted
away a side-dish girlfriend, someone from Lodi who’d been visiting Wildwood
with a few of her friends. Valerie had found out from the grapevine, because
Zed would have kept the little game going for as long as he could if he hadn’t
gotten caught, that they had continued to see each other for months. All the
times he’d said he was going to New York on business, he’d really been driving
up to Lodi to visit his little redheaded secret.
Could it be that Kylie was right? She
tried to avoid the subject whenever her best friend and her mother were in the
same room, because those two agreed with each other when it came to Zed. But
Kylie had said something that had stuck with Valerie.
Zed
was your first love. I don’t believe he was ever really the person your heart
made him out to be, but you haven’t stopped believing the dreams of the
teenager you used to be. That’s why you keep holding on, because you think your
love is going to make him into something he’s never been and never going to be.
Valerie smiled, walking back along the
long pier, past others who were dropping their lines into the water below. She
remembered how she’d teased Kylie about behaving like an amateur psychologist.
And yet…it rang true. Her best friend
was like that sometimes, very insightful and, Valerie would say, even wise.
Maybe Kylie sometimes seemed to just know her better than she knew herself.
Up ahead stood Josh, checking her line.
He had paused and was watching her approach, standing with his long, slim legs
spread apart. His tan was deepening from the time they’d already spent out in
the sun that day, and there was something oh-so-hunky about the way his
complexion went so well with his wind-tossed, sandy brown hair. His sunglasses
concealed his eyes, and she mused how he reminded her more of some handsome
secret agent rather than a beach-going local.
Awesome
guy, she
thought.
She found it funny how she’d gotten his
choice of drink right on the money. He hadn’t even waited until they’d broken
out the sandwiches, either. Josh had whipped out the chocolate milk container
and had begun to sip it.
Chocolate milk, an occasional soda, and
iced tea. He told her that morning that he never drank except when he was
younger, and that he’d done that only to be part of the crowd. Now, he said, he
felt no such peer pressure. He claimed not to like the taste of beer, wine or
liquor, and that he wasn’t into drugs, either.
Then maybe April was mistaken about…that
other matter? Josh hadn’t mentioned a word about it. In fairness, though, that
wasn’t something a person offered to bring up, especially while out on a first
date.
Please,let
it not be true, Lord, she prayed. I
don’t know—can I pray that? I guess not. You can do anything, I know. You’re
God. But the past is there; it is what it is. It can’t be changed. Please let
him be honest with me. I’ve had enough of a man keeping secrets from me, Lord.
I’d rather he not disrespect me with a lie. That he be honest with me.
Josh was wiping his hands on a small
towel he’d brought with him when she made it back to their spot on the pier.
“You missed it,” he announced.
“What?
Oh,
man—I wasn’t even gone that long!” she moaned.
“Yep. Feast your eyes on this baby…”
He opened his cooler, which they’d used
to store any fish they’d caught—if any
were, in fact, caught. Fishing was often a gamble, but a fun one. Inside the
cooler, resting on a bed of ice, was a fish big enough to produce two suitable
fillets.
“Oh, that’s one gorgeous fish,” she said
reverently.
“Yeah, ain’t he good-lookin’? He’ll look
even better on a dish with lemon and tartar sauce.”
“Next to some of those yummy, little
fingerling potatoes. Roasted fingerlings.”
“And corn on the cob.”
“With butter.”
With all that talk of food making him
hungry, Josh licked his lips. That made her think of kissing. The thought of
kissing him made her have to catch her breath.
“That menu sounds perfect,” he declared.
“And we forgot biscuits. I know how to
make really good ones from scratch, like the ones you get at Red Lobster, with
some shredded cheddar and rosemary and garlic spice.”
He cleared his throat. “You think you’d
like to…have that for dinner tonight? Or…You’re busy after your volunteer
work?”
One
date…to be continued. Tonight.
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