The Fisherman Series : Special Edition

by Jewel E. Ann

WWJD?

  Fisher walked around the perimeter looking at things. What? I had no clue. I assumed he knew what he was doing. I followed a few feet behind him.

  “Plumber been here?” he asked one of the guys carrying a stack of two-by-fours on his shoulder and depositing it in the middle of the basement.

  “Not yet,” the guy said just as he adjusted his jeans and stood erect again.

  Whoa …

  He was built like an ox. “Hi. I’m Jason.”

  “I’m—”

  “What about Kevin? Has he been by yet?” Fisher totally cut me off. Rude.

  “Not yet.” Jason shook his head, scratching the back of his thick, tattooed neck.

  I didn’t think I was a big fan of tattoos, but Jason changed my mind.

  “Christ … are they fuckin’ sleeping in this morning? I don’t have time to wait around.” Fisher pulled his phone from his pocket and walked a few feet away from me, answering it with a sharp “Fisher.”

  “Are you the sidekick this summer?” Jason asked, glancing up as he measured and marked a board.

  “I guess. I think he offered me the job as a favor to my mom. I feel like a shadow that’s in his way. I think I prefer working with Hailey.”

  “Amen. She’s awesome.”

  “Yeah.” I slipped the tips of my fingers into my front pockets, glancing over my shoulder to see if Fisher was still on his phone. “Is he always in such a delightful mood?”

  “Just in the mornings. He’s not much of a morning person.”

  I laughed. “That’s what Hailey said.” I thought of our ride to the job site. He seemed fine with me.

  “Let’s go, Reese. It’s going to be a long day.” He made what I felt pretty sure was a growling sound which meant he was mad, but not at me or anyone in our proximity.

  I cringed at Jason and he laughed, shaking his head.

  “Well, it was nice meeting you.”

  “See ya around. Good luck with Mr. Sunshine.”

  “Thanks.” I rolled my eyes and smiled. That smile quickly faded when I turned toward Fisher who was not smiling.

  “Are you done rolling your eyes and talking about your boss?” Fisher asked me.

  I had nothing to lose. I kinda knew he wasn’t going to fire Rory’s daughter. “For now.” I shot him an extra toothy grin.

  “No lunch for you,” he murmured as he trekked toward his truck with me right behind him.

  “I have a Cliff Bar in my bag. I came prepared for your less than stellar attitude. And AHHH!” I tripped. Stupid big boots. I hissed a sharp breath, sitting back on my knees as I brought my hand close to my chest with a dirty nail partially impaled into my palm. “Ouch! Oh my gosh! I’m fine.” I hissed again. “I’m not fine. It hurts.” Tears stung my eyes, but I refused to set them free in front of Fisher and his all-male framing crew.

  “What did you do?” Fisher hunched down and reached for my arm.

  “I tripped,” I said with a bit of irritation lacing my words. What did he think happened?

  “Let me see.”

  I shook my head and turned my torso, hiding my hand and the nail away from his line of sight. I didn’t want him or anyone to touch it because it hurt too much.

  “Don’t. Touch. It.” I felt my control slipping. I needed someone. A female. My grandma. I needed her to fix this. She was good at fixing and mending things.

  “I just need to look at it. I won’t touch it.” Fisher grabbed my forearm and forced me to show him my hand. He frowned. “Well, looks like we’ll be adding another stop to our morning.”

  That did it. That made my tears escape. “I’m sorry,” I said with a trembling lower lip.

  “Why? It was an accident. Shit happens. We’ll get you fixed up. Okay?”

  Sniffling. I nodded.

  “Can you walk?” he asked. “Or do I need to carry you?”

  He didn’t want to open my door in front of anyone. I felt certain that carrying me was way out of the question as long as my legs weren’t broken.

  “I’m fine.” I started to stand on the uneven pile of dirt and, just as quickly, my foot turned to the side, and I felt myself going down again, but not before Fisher grabbed my torso.

  “I guess I’m carrying you.” He lifted me up, cradling me in his arms like a needy two-year-old and carrying me to the truck. After he helped me into my seat, he grabbed my forearm again.

  “Don’t. Touch. It!”

  He laughed. Laughed! “Just chill a sec. I’m going to get my first aid kit from the back and get some antibacterial wipes to clean the dirt off around it.”

  “Don’t pull the nail out.” I slowly released my bent arm so he could see my hand.

  “I’m not going to pull the nail out. God … you’re a basket case.” He disappeared to the back of the truck and returned with the wipes.

  “Shouldn’t you wear gloves so you don’t get my blood on your hands?”

  “You have my saliva inside of you. It’s only fitting I get a little of your blood. Might as well let everything mingle today. Do you have an STD I need to know about?” Fisher squinted at me as his hands gently cleaned around the wound.

  I frowned.

  “It’s a joke.”

  “Terrible timing.” I jumped when his finger accidentally bumped the nail.

  “Sorry.” He cringed, giving me a sincere apologetic look. “Here, sit back. I’ll get you fastened in.” After he fastened the seat belt, he drove me to urgent care where we were ushered back surprisingly quick. They removed the nail. Cleaned the wound. Bandaged it. And gave me a tetanus shot because I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had one.

  “Do you need to go home?” Fisher asked when we got back into the truck.

  “No.” I felt stupid. I cried in front of him. How did I expect for him to think of me as a grown woman when I cried over a little puncture wound? I bet his date that night wasn’t a crybaby like me.

  “Sure?”

  I nodded.

  We finished off the day with me doing very little aside from waiting in the truck and holding sacks of food for the roofing crew at the final job where they were working late to finish before the rain.

  After a quick stop at the office, we headed home around six.

  “What time is your Bible study?” Fisher asked as we pulled into the driveway.

  “Seven.”

  “Are you still going?” He opened his door and paused, eyeing me warily like for the first time he felt bad about my accident.

  “Yes,” I managed to say like all was good. But I was not going to Bible study. “After a nice soak in the tub, I’ll be fine.” I shut the door.

  “Um … have you not noticed that there’s only a shower downstairs? A nice shower. A huge tiled shower with lots of shower heads, but still a shower.”

  I’d forgotten. “Shower.” I gave him a forced smile. “That’s what I meant.” I took three more steps before he said my name.

  “Reese, you’re more than welcome to use my tub. It’s a big soaker tub, and I rarely ever use it. I’ll shower in my other bathroom.”

  “No. A shower is great. A shower is what I meant.”

  “Well, if you change your mind, the offer stands.”

  “Thanks,” I called without looking back as I headed around to the side of the house. “I’m good. Have fun on your date.”

  Chapter Ten

  I showered when I really wanted a bath.

  I skipped Bible study because I just needed to sulk.

  I stayed up way too late, making a gazillion trips to the top of the stairs to press my ear to the door, listening for any sign of Fisher.

  By one in the morning, I gave up and went to bed, a little irritated that he either wasn’t coming home at all or was out so late … on a work night. People who were not morning people needed to get to bed earlier. My grandparents went to bed at eight every night, and they were always a bucket full of smiles in the morning.

  Thursday morning, I woke to a text from Fisher.

&nbs
p; You’re working in the office with Hailey today. Hopefully you can drive yourself. If not, call me.

  What did that mean? Did he not come home the previous night? Was he out too late? Hung over? At her place? Naked in her bed?

  NO!

  I really needed to get control of my thoughts. I should have gone to Bible study instead of going out of my mind eavesdropping on Fisher when he wasn’t home.

  “Good morning. How’s the hand?” Hailey asked as I set my backpack next to her desk. “You can sit at Bossman’s desk. I have a bunch of invoices for you to sort through today. Just set his shit in a pile on the floor.”

  “My hand is fine. Thanks.” I gathered the papers and blueprints on his desk and set them on the floor in the corner. “Have you seen him this morning?” I asked.

  “Not yet. I assumed you two would be riding together.”

  “He had a date last night.” I poured myself a cup of coffee. “I don’t think he came home.”

  “Oh …” She lifted her eyebrows and grinned. “Go, Fisher, go.”

  No. Why did she say that? Maybe because she had sexual fantasies about other men, not her boss. I envied her. It’s not like I wanted to pine for Fisher like a pathetic teenager.

  Teenager.

  Oh my gosh … it wasn’t until the word popped into my brain that I realized I had let the whole “adult” thing go to my head. Sure. Eighteen was legally adulthood, but I was eighteen which meant I was a still a teenager.

  That seemed so wrong, to be a teenaged adult. Like an oxymoron.

  Fisher got laid by a real woman. A non-teenaged adult woman. What was I thinking? And why couldn’t I stop?

  “Yay, Fisher,” I said, lacking all enthusiasm just like the fake smile I tossed in Hailey’s direction as I carried my coffee to Fisher’s desk.

  “I wonder if it was the orthodontist? Meghan or … Keegan? I can’t remember, but if it’s Jason’s friend from high school, then it’s the orthodontist.”

  An orthodontist. How was I supposed to compete with that? Highly educated, self-sufficient, real adult orthodontist. Or … teenaged adult who cried because she scraped her knees and got a little nail prick?

  “Think you can hold things down for thirty minutes while I run a quick errand?”

  My head snapped up at Hailey, and I nodded quickly. “Um … sure.”

  “Cool. So here are the invoices. Just sort them by distributer then alphabetize them. They’ve all been scanned and saved on the computer, but Fisher likes hardcopy backups to everything.”

  “Got it.”

  “Can I get you anything while I’m out? A bagel? Better coffee?”

  “I’m good. Thanks.”

  Twenty minutes into sorting invoices, the office door opened and Bossman sauntered inside carrying a to-go cup of coffee. “That’s my desk.”

  “How was your date?” I kept sorting, refusing to look at him.

  No need to see his messy hair, unfairly sexy body in dark jeans, boots, and a black tee with his construction logo on the back. I didn’t care about his square jaw and sinful smile.

  Nope.

  I had stuff to sort.

  “Fine. Where’s Hailey? Where’s my stuff?”

  “On the floor.” My hands kept sorting papers, but I stopped focusing on any sort of alphabetical order.

  “Hailey or my stuff?”

  I didn’t want to grin, but I did. “Your stuff.”

  “And Hailey?” He squeezed behind me, pushing his desk chair (and me) forward an inch or so.

  “Errands.”

  “What errands?” He hunched down and thumbed through the stack of papers I’d set on the floor.

  “I didn’t ask. How was the concert?” I was pretty proud of myself for slipping that in like it was no big deal.

  “I said fine.”

  “No. You said your date was fine. I asked about the concert.”

  “It was fine too.”

  “You’re such a guy.” I rolled my eyes and sneaked a quick peek at him over my shoulder.

  “Well, yes, last I checked, I was a guy.” Pulling out a manila folder, he stood.

  “Hailey thought your date was an orthodontist.”

  “She thought right.”

  I felt six inches tall sitting in his desk chair while discussing his date … that date who had him all night.

  “How was Bible study? Did you go out for ice cream?”

  “It was fine.” I covered my face with one hand and sighed. “It was … well, I didn’t go.”

  Fisher chuckled and rested his butt on the edge of his desk, opening the folder. “Did you just try to lie? Are you incapable of lying?”

  “No. Trust me. I can lie just fine. I just don’t like to do it.”

  “Then why lie about last night. Why try to lie about it?”

  “Because I don’t want you to think that I didn’t go because of my hand. I just didn’t feel like it. That’s all.”

  “Hey, you don’t owe me an explanation.”

  I continued alphabetizing invoices while he remained leaning against the desk, close to me. So close I could smell his woodsy soap mixing with the coffee he set on the desk next to him. “So … you must have been up early this morning. Since you uh … texted me to drive myself. Were you meeting with the plumber?”

  “No.”

  No? NO?

  That was it. One word. No additional details. No explanation as to why he asked me to drive myself to work.

  “You never sent me the photos from our trip into the mountains.”

  “Oh. Sorry.” Without taking his attention away from the contents of the folder, he slipped his phone out of his pocket and unlocked it before handing it to me. “Go for it.”

  I had Fisher’s phone. It felt oddly personal like I had his whole world in the palm of my hand.

  Contacts.

  Text messages.

  Photos.

  Apps—which could tell me a lot about a person.

  I behaved despite my mind whirling with a million possibilities. Opening his photos app, I quickly found the ones he took of me and us because they were the most recent. My gaze flitted from his phone screen to him several times to see if he was paying any attention to me.

  He wasn’t.

  I airdropped the photos to my phone, then I may have accidentally swiped up a few times to get a quick glimpse of other photos he’d taken. Most were from job sites.

  “Did you get them?”

  I jumped and fumbled his phone, trying to hand it back to him. “Yeah, thanks.”

  “Sure.” He stood and tossed the folder back onto the pile on the floor. “Well, I’m out of here. I’ll catch you later.”

  It killed me, as in physical pain clawing at my chest, to not say more to him.

  Where was he?

  Did he sleep with her?

  If so, why?

  Was it his MO to sleep with women on first dates?

  Was he planning on seeing her—having sex with her—again?

  So many crazy, irrational, and completely inappropriate questions chased each other in my head. But all I could do was smile like a sane person, like the adult teenager I was, even if a streak of insanity buzzed just beneath the surface.

  Over the next week, Fisher tortured me by mowing the lawn without a shirt, eyeing me way too long in all the wrong places, and dropping slightly crude remarks at every chance. Then he’d buy me coffee and treat me like an equal for two seconds before the torture started all over again. I looked forward to every morning, even if all we did was banter and sling questionably appropriate comments at each other. (He was such a bad influence). And I liked the evenings when I’d take a walk only to return to him washing something in the driveway or watering plants—sans a shirt.

  The wandering eyes.

  The cocky smiles.

  The slow wetting and rubbing of his lips together.

  It felt like a game of cat and mouse, but I wasn’t always sure who was the cat and who was the mouse.

 
The evenings I didn’t like were the ones when he was gone … the nights I assumed he was with the orthodontist. Every cell in my eighteen-year-old brain hyper-focused on my new crush in bed with another woman. Despite its extreme irrationality, it sucked.

  And it sucked the most at my first party. Well, my first adult party at Hailey’s house on Friday night. There must have been fifty people there, and she called it a small gathering. A lot of the guys from work showed up, some with wives, girlfriends, and even a few with boyfriends. That made me a little uneasy, and I hated that it made me uneasy. Fisher’s words replayed in my head. Now you can fucking think for yourself.

  That was hard for me. All my beliefs seemed to be interwoven with scripture, parental lectures, or sermons.

  “Hey, you came.” Jason playfully elbowed me before taking a swig of beer as we stood on the deck overlooking the backyard cluttered with people, yard games, kegs, and loud music.

  “Hey, yeah. Good to see you again.”

  He wore cleaner jeans and a crisp white tee hugging his monstrous chest and arms covered in tattoos. “How’s the hand?”

  I laughed a little, holding up my hand with the tiny Band-aid. “Fine. Clumsy me.”

  “Drink?” He held his beer bottle toward me.

  More shared germs? Did I want to swap saliva with Jason?

  “Bossman!” Hailey hollered from the backyard.

  I glanced over the railing to Fisher … and his date. Hailey handed both of them red plastic cups of beer. Dr. Smile was a petite blonde with normal sized arms and legs—and of course perfect teeth. Mine were fairly perfect, but a few lower teeth had shifted after I stopped wearing my retainer. And she was at least a solid C-cup.

  “Where did you get the bottled beer?” I asked Jason, feeling out of sorts with my emotions. I shouldn’t have hopped on the back of Fisher’s bike. That trip to the mountains messed with me.

  “I brought my own beer. Don’t care much for keg piss.”

  Staring at the amber bottle in his hand, I battled wrong and right in my head. Then I gave Fisher and his date another quick glance. She slid her hand around his waist.

  “Maybe just a sip.” I took the bottle from Jason’s hand and brought it to my lips taking a whiff. It smelled like beer. I had no idea if beers had different aromas like wine. Taking a hesitant sip, I let the slow mingling of carbonation and alcohol coat my mouth. It didn’t burn like I’d imagined. Maybe that was just hard liquor. It didn’t exactly taste great either.