Asking For A Friend

by Parker, Ali

  I just didn’t know if I liked the idea of being part of the actual catching process. Annie, on the other hand, was super excited.

  When she said she was all about going fishing for our dinner, she was dead serious. Layton went to his place to get his tackle box and the fishing rods, while Annie proudly went to our garage and came out carrying the little pink rod he got her as a gift last time we went out to go fishing.

  Denise and I cleaned up after breakfast while Annie got changed into the cutest pair of waders he had bought her after we spotted them in a shop window the day we did the Freedom Trail. Denise turned to me while we were washing dishes, her voice barely above a whisper, but it was clear she was thrilled. “He stayed over?”

  I felt a flush creeping onto my neck and cheeks. “Yes, he did.”

  “Was it good?” She rolled her hips and did a hilarious pelvic thrust. “Please tell me it was good. He’s too hot not to be amazing.”

  Rolling my eyes at her antics, I laughed as I wiped down a pan. “Fine, but I’m not giving you any more details than telling you a-freaking-mazing.”

  She whooped quietly and gave me a high five. “You’re so lucky. I’ve been so deprived, I can’t even remember what an orgasm feels like. I need to find me a man like that, one who really knows what he’s doing.”

  “You will,” I told her. I wasn’t even just saying it, I meant it. Denise was an awesome person, and if anyone was going to get the happily ever after they deserved, it was her. “The right guy for you is out there.”

  “I just wish he would hurry up and make an appearance,” she sighed, but then smiled wide. Her olive green eyes crinkled at the corners. “But I really do think you’ve found the right one for you. If he’s good in the sack, that’s even better.”

  I stacked the pan in the deep drawer beside the stove and turned back to her. “Do you want to come fishing with us?”

  “No,” she waved me off. “You guys need to spend some time together and I need to spend some time with my couch and Netflix.”

  “Okay, but if you change your mind, give me a call okay? You’re family to us, and you’re always welcome,” I said. Denise nodded and Annie came back into the kitchen, showing off her deep purple waders. She looked adorable, though I sincerely hoped she didn’t honestly think she was going in the water in this weather.

  Denise said goodbye to us a little later and Layton arrived shortly after. Soon, we were standing next to the river, the same place we went to last time. Layton stood behind Annie, helping her cast her line. “You want to pull it back just far enough, like this.”

  He had his hands on her arms, holding them gently as he showed her the motion she needed to be making. “That’s perfect. Can you feel where your arms are now? That’s where you want them to be.”

  “Cool!” Annie exclaimed. “Can I try now? Please let me try.”

  “Okay, sweetie,” he said. “Just tell me if you need me to stop your arms where they should be.”

  “No,” she replied, smiling. “I think I got it.”

  The first few tries, she bombed completely. The line never even came close to the water. Layton was patient with her though, encouraging her to keep trying.

  “I can’t do it,” she huffed out, her bottom lip quivering.

  “Come on, Annie. Give it one last try, okay?” I urged her on, watching as she looked from the end of her rod where the line came through to the water.

  She managed a small, tight smile and nodded. “Okay, I will. But if I don’t get it this time, can Layton just cast for me like he did last time?”

  She looked up at him with these puppy dog eyes and I saw him soften, saw his answer before he gave it. “Sure, sweetheart. If you’re tired for today after this time, we’ll try again next time okay? But I want you to know that you’ll get it right eventually. There’s quite a trick to it, but once you get it you’ll have it forever.”

  She sucked her lower lip into her mouth, considering before she agreed. “Okay, one last try.”

  Layton and I both held our breath in anticipation. Annie pulled back on the rod and somehow, thankfully, managed to get her line to hit the water this time. Hook, line and sinker. It was amazing.

  I let out a loud whoop and clapped my hands. Layton dropped to his knees and threw his arms around Annie. Once hers were securely fastened, he hooked his around her waist and picked her up, spinning her around and around. “You did it! I knew you could do it.”

  He passed her off to me and I hugged her tight, speaking into her hair. “I’m so proud of you, baby. That was so good. I’m so glad you persevered.”

  “Me too.” When she pulled away and slid back down to the ground, she smiled. “Thanks for believing in me.”

  “No problem, kiddo,” Layton said, and mussed up her hair.

  She squeaked and ducked out from under his hand, picking up the rod. In all the excitement, she had dropped it on the ground.

  Nothing seemed to have happened though, since it was just lying there. As soon as she picked it up though, her line started running. Her eyes grew wider and wider. “Do I have one?”

  “Yes ma’am, you have one. Quickly now, reel him in,” Layton said encouragingly. “Do you remember how to do that?”

  “I think so,” she replied, her small hand moving to the pulley. Layton had taught her how to do this part last time, along with baiting the hook and packing all the equipment.

  Layton stayed right next to her, ready to jump in if she needed help. She didn’t, though. Five minutes later, she pulled out a small brown fish.

  Layton grabbed it immediately and freed it from the hook. “It’s a trout. We’re going to need a few more of these before we have enough food for dinner, but great job Annie. Trout is delicious. Let’s bait the next hook. Marissa, you still good?”

  I nodded, watching my line in the water. It was still totally loose in the water, or whatever it meant when it hadn’t tightened and clearly didn’t have a fish on it. “I’m fine. I don’t think I’m great at fishing. I might go read again. That was more my speed.”

  He laughed, but then his brow furrowed when his gaze dropped to Annie. She frowned down at the fish flopping on the ground. “What do you mean we’ll need more of him for dinner?”

  “Remember when I said earlier I know of a spot where we can catch our dinner?” He asked the question patiently. I adored how well he treated her. Annie nodded, but waited for an explanation. “Well, what I meant was that we come out here, catch some fish and then take them home and cook them.”

  “Cook them?” Her head jerked to the fish on the ground. “That one, too?”

  Layton shrugged, a line appearing between his eyebrows as he nodded. “Yeah, that one too. Along with the others we’ll hopefully still catch before we have to go home.”

  Annie’s blue eyes filled with tears and she blinked at the fish. “I don’t want to cook him. I won’t eat him, I can’t. Of all the hooks he could have chosen, he chose mine. I want to keep him.”

  My chin dropped and her head cocked to the side as I tucked an arm around Annie’s shoulders. “That’s not how it works, baby. These aren’t the kinds of fish you can keep, unless you’re the aquarium probably. I don’t even know if the aquarium has trout.”

  Annie’s bottom lip started quivering and she hugged her arms around her waist, dropping to her knees to kneel beside the fish. She whispered to it. “I’m sorry, little guy. I didn’t realize we were going to eat you. I’m so sorry, I’ll never fish again, I promise.”

  “Wait, now. Just wait, Annie. What’s this about never wanting to fish again?” Genuine pain flashed in Layton’s eyes, surprising me. “I thought you loved fishing.”

  She nodded, then shook her head, then shrugged. “I did. I mean, I do. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t want to eat him or his family.”

  She looked horrified by the idea, tears starting to slide down her cheeks. Layton lowered himself into a crouch, bringing his hands up to wipe away her tears. The sight of him doing that
made my heart lurch, and I felt tears welling in my eyes now, too. Happy ones. But I blinked them back, I didn’t want any part of this image to be blurred.

  “Look, Annie, if you don’t want to eat him, we don’t have to. We can keep him or put him back in the pond to be with his family, whatever you want. Fishing is supposed to be fun, so if catching your own dinner isn’t fun for you, then we won’t do it.”

  “I want him to go back to his family,” Annie whispered. He nodded and smiled, then kissed her on the forehead and let her go release the fish back into the water. Seeing him care so much about her concern for the life of a fish warmed me all the way through. The happy tears came back, but this time I didn’t bother blinking them back.

  “You okay?” Layton asked, after packing everything up. We were heading home. Annie didn’t feel like fishing anymore, but said she would like to come back out in a couple of weeks.

  I smiled at him, resting my head on his shoulder for a second as Annie skipped on ahead of us. “I’m fine. It’s just—seeing you with her, it feels right.”

  “It does,” he agreed quietly, giving me a peck on the temple. “Thank you for coming out here today, I know you didn’t really feel like it.”

  “Well,” I said, batting my eyelashes and smiling playfully. “This asshole from my office kept me up half the night. He’s insatiable.”

  “Hey,” he protested. “The way he remembers it, you were pretty demanding yourself.”

  I blushed, because he was right. “It was awesome, though. Wasn’t it?”

  “It was,” he winked, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he smiled. “We should do it again sometime.”

  “Yes, let’s do,” I said, just as we reached his car. We loaded everything up, got Annie settled in her seat and talked all the way home.

  When we pulled up outside our house, Layton twisted in his seat so he could look at both me and Annie. “I’m thinking of having a party at the office next week. That new project of ours is progressing well now, but it almost tanked. I think that calls for a celebration. It’s going to be huge for the firm to be tied to it. It’ll give us a massive boost.”

  “Okay,” I said, wondering why he was bringing this up now.

  He eyes slid to Annie. “You should come too, to see where your mom and I work. If you want to, that is.”

  Annie smiled her first real smile since the fish debacle. “I want to. I definitely want to.”

  “Then it’s all settled then,” he said. “I’ll see you both there.”

  Chapter 65

  Layton

  “I really hated seeing her cry,” I told Marissa on Monday afternoon. We were eating lunch in my office, Chinese takeout that I’d ordered up from a place down the street.

  Marissa’s shoes were off and her ankles were crossed on top of my sofa, where she was sitting sideways as we talked. Officially, we were in a meeting about cost estimations for a new project, but realistically, I didn’t know how many people who walked past actually believed that.

  I didn’t care though. I loved her. It was bound to come out sooner or later. I had zero fucks to give about what anyone else thought about it.

  Marissa smiled sympathetically. “I know. It’s the hardest part by far, seeing them sad and not knowing what to do to fix it. You did a great job, though.”

  “She’s resilient though,” I said. “I don’t think there’s much she can’t bounce back from.”

  “That’s true,” she said, as she took a bite of her spicy fried chicken, rocking her head from side to side as she chewed. Once she swallowed, she said, “She’s strong, but it makes me sad sometimes that she’s had to be that way. Kids shouldn’t have to deal with all this adult stuff, you know.”

  “She doesn’t have to be so strong anymore.” The words slipped the moment I thought them. If I’d thought more about it, I didn’t know if I would have made the comment, but now that it was out there, I rolled with it. “I’ll be there for her from now on, too.”

  “She loves you,” Marissa admitted. While I was thrilled to hear it, I couldn’t help but wonder if Marissa shared her sentiment. If she did, she hadn’t told me. Which was fine, I could wait.

  I knew I loved her, and I meant when I said I could wait for her to work through whatever she had to work through before she could say it back. If she ever said it back. The thought that she might not wasn’t one I wanted to entertain.

  But I could see it in the way she looked at me, how she was with me. She did care about me, too. Even if she might not love me yet. I could give her time to get there, though. I had nothing but time. I wasn’t going anywhere unless she sent me away.

  “I love her too,” I told Marissa, hoping she could see I wasn’t just saying it. That little girl had become a beacon of light in my life. A reason for me to start thinking about things differently.

  “I know,” Marissa smiled. She took another bite of her chicken, getting lost in thought. We ate in comfortable silence before she added, “Denise thinks you’re good for Annie, and for me too.”

  “I knew she was a smart woman.” I shoveled a bite of my pork chow mein into my mouth, winking at Marissa. “For the record, I think you’re good for me too.”

  “Good,” she blushed, going back for her last bite of chicken before setting the container down on the table. “Should we talk about the Anderson account now, since we’re supposed to be in a meeting?”

  I grunted around my own last bite, dropping my cardboard container into the trash can beneath my desk. Marissa picked hers up from the table and brought it over, dropping it in after mine before sitting down in one of my visitor chairs and reaching for a file from the stack she’d carried in at the beginning of lunch.

  She looked good today, wearing fitted red slacks with purple flowers on them and a purple button down shirt. The buttons pulled apart just enough that I could see they were under a bit of strain. I focused on the one right between her breasts, willing it to pop open with the strength of my mind.

  It killed me that I couldn’t touch her in the office, which was where we got to spend the most of our time alone together. Well, I couldn’t touch her in broad daylight when all of our coworkers were walking past my windows and anyone could come in at any time.

  I considered drawing the blinds and locking my door, but then I might as well let the entire office watch us have sex. It’s not like they wouldn’t know exactly what was going on if I did that every day at lunch time.

  Instead, Marissa and I decided to make the best of our lunch hour by spending it together every day—when we could. Which meant if I wasn’t on a site and Marissa wasn’t in a meeting, we ate together. My assistant knew I had ‘budget meetings’ with Marissa every day, so she never scheduled anything that could clash.

  It was our one short attempt to carve out time for each other every day. A gesture I knew she appreciated as much as I did. Both of us were short on time to spend alone together since work was crazy and Marissa had Annie and needed to spend as much of her free time with the little girl as she could.

  “Layton,” Marissa clicked her fingers, grinning as she fingered the button my eyes were still glued on. “Are you going to be able to focus better if I just unbutton it for you? I’m sitting with my back to everyone, they won’t see a thing.”

  I shook my head. “If you unbutton that, there’s no way I’m going to be able to focus on anything except that, until long after you’ve left my office. I might even have to pop home for a—shower.”

  She laughed, making her curls bounce on her chest. My throat went dry and as always, my dick sat up and took notice. “A shower, huh? Is that what the cool kids are calling it these days?”

  Her eyes dropped to my lap even though she couldn’t see anything through all the papers on my glass desk. “Would you like some company for your shower?”

  “Aaaand there goes any hope I had of focusing,” I complained, teasing. “So yeah, let’s go home and take a shower. It’s not like I’m going to get anything done now any
way.”

  Laughing some more, she shook her head and opened the file on her lap. “Anderson. Come on now Layton, focus.”

  “Nope,” I grinned. “I can’t. It’s your fault really. Let’s head home. I love showers.”

  She smiled coyly, looking at me through her thick lashes. “So do I, and while you make a compelling argument, we can’t just flake.”

  “There has to be some perks to being the boss,” I argued. “We can go over those files of yours after. I’ll tell Carrie it’s going to take a few hours and we need to go review the files somewhere else.”

  “A few hours, huh?” Her cheeks flushed. “You’re feeling awfully confident today.”

  I scoffed, “I’m always feeling confident. And you know it. You also know my confidence has never been unjustified.”

  “Let’s just say you’ve got one very satisfied customer right here,” she winked before dropping her eyes back to the file. “But these guys won’t be unless we actually get to it.”

  “You’re no fun.” I wadded up a napkin and chucked it in her direction. “I’ll satisfy them anyway. Might as well satisfy you first.”

  “That’s such a line,” she smothered a giggle, arching an eyebrow. “Are you being serious or are you just messing with me right now?”

  “Depends. Are you going to say yes or keep wasting time trying to convince me to look at your files?” I wasn’t kidding. I wanted nothing more than to take her to my place and spend the rest of the afternoon there wearing no clothes. I was rock hard by now though, so walking out of the office was going to be tricky. Good thing I had to carry my coat.

  “We can’t, Layton.” She started to explain why not when my phone rang, interrupting her.

  I glanced down at the screen with every intention of silencing it until I saw who was calling. “It’s Mr. Banks.”

  Marissa’s eyes widened. Banks was our client on the museum project, the one I had to pump my own money into already in order to keep the job going. What the fuck now?