by Jewel E. Ann
“Hey!” Hailey jumped out of her chair. “Where have you been? Fisher said you bolted this morning. He told me not to tell anyone, but I’ve been so worried.” She hugged me as I stood limp in her arms.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to make anyone worry.”
Except Fisher.
I wanted to make him worry. I wanted him to feel a little bit of my pain. My frustration.
“Where have you been?” She released me.
I set my backpack by Fisher’s desk. “I just needed time to think about stuff.”
“Reese …” She handed me a glass of water. I had a fair amount of sweat pooling along my forehead and running down my back from walking in the heat with my backpack.
“Can we not talk about it?” I gave her my best pleading glance.
With worry lining her face, she nibbled the inside of her cheek and nodded slowly. “Okay. But if you do want to talk, you can talk to me about absolutely anything. Okay?”
Plopping into Fisher’s chair, I nodded.
Hailey gave me a few easy things to do before grabbing her purse. “Your ride is here. I’m taking off early. Remember, I’m always here.”
I was impressed that it took a full hour for Fisher to arrive.
“Thanks,” I murmured as Fisher opened the door and Hailey squeezed past him, shooting him a cringing expression.
“You’re fired.”
My gaze lifted to Fisher. I wasn’t surprised, yet … I was.
“The tile shop where I get most of my tile, they’re looking to hire someone to answer the phone. I got you an interview. It’s just a formality. They will offer you the job. I’m going to tell Rory I found you a new job because I didn’t want you on the job sites where you could get hurt. And Hailey doesn’t really need your help most days.”
I swallowed the lump of emotion in my throat. “Is this about yesterday? Or this morning?” I managed to say in a shaky voice.
“Yes,” he replied flatly, just as flat as the expression on his face.
“Rose promised not to tell Rory,” I said.
“She lied. Rose will absolutely tell Rory unless we end it.”
I had all these what-ifs lining the tip of my tongue.
What if we told Rory first?
What if we were more careful?
What if the world ended?
What happened to living in the moment? Living your best life? Loving the one you’re with? That was all I did. Rory left me, and I fell in love with Fisher because he was the one I was with. It was really Rory’s fault.
“Rory’s taking the morning off tomorrow to help you get a car. The interview with the tile shop is the following morning. You’ll be able to drive there on your own.”
“Are you mad at me?” I whispered.
He returned a tiny wince before pinching the bridge of his nose and blowing out a breath. “No. I’m mad at myself.”
The only thing more painful than rejection was regret. Fisher brought his A game. One brutal punch after the next.
A stupid, selfish, errant tear made its way to my cheek, and I looked away quickly to wipe it.
“Fuck …” he mumbled. “This is what I wanted to avoid. Rory is my friend. Rose is my friend. I didn’t want to be the villain. The guy who broke Rory’s daughter’s heart.”
I stood and grabbed my backpack, refusing to look at him as I shouldered past him to the door. “You’re such an arrogant asshole.”
Yeah, I said it. No regrets.
“And you’re the most beautiful and infuriating woman I have ever met.”
I stopped at the door like it was a wall that appeared out of nowhere. All the friends of that rebel tear showed up to ruin my carefully constructed facade, busting open the flood gates.
“And in a different time … a different place in our lives, I’d tell Rory and the rest of the world to go fuck themselves. I’d prove them all wrong. We’d prove the naysayers wrong. But … I don’t think they’re wrong. Not now.”
Sniffling and ignoring the unstoppable tears, I turned. “I’m beautiful …” I nodded slowly. “A pretty face. Long legs. Perky tits. And I sucked your cock. No college education. No fantastic job. Nothing … but I’m beautiful. Young. Innocent. And maybe the perfect amount of naive. It makes sense now.” I laughed through my tears. A crazy laugh. The edge of my sanity laugh. “Stupid, stupid me. I thought we were this magical thing that couldn’t be described. We didn’t make sense because magic, fate, and serendipity don’t have to make sense. I actually liked that we didn’t make sense, yet my universe seemed perfect when it was just us. I guess the eight-letter word for that is illusion. You played me. You liked the chase. The game. And what better chase than the virgin wearing a cross around her neck?”
Fisher shook his head slowly. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Because I’m eighteen?”
“Because you’re scared.”
“Of what?”
“Failure. Eighteen-letter word. Starts with a K.”
I wasn’t following him. So I said nothing. I did nothing but blink my tear-ladened eyelashes.
“Kakorrhaphiophobia. An abnormal fear of failure. That’s why you’re here and not chasing a dream. Not in college. Not making any plans in your life. Your dad died. Your mom went to prison. And you’ve been left with a Bible that prepares you for death and makes you feel ashamed of anything you do in this life to truly live.”
He opened the door, and I waited for more, but he didn’t give me more. We climbed into his truck and headed home, or so I assumed. We didn’t make it home. We pulled into his parents’ driveway instead.
“Let’s go.” He hopped out.
I didn’t.
Fisher came to my side and opened my door. I assumed my recent firing allowed him to open my door.
“They’re out of town. Let’s go.”
I eased out of the truck and followed him into the house. He opened a door to a storage and utility room, scanning a wall of boxes and plastic containers. When he found what he was looking for, he pulled a box from the shelf and brought it out to the family room.
“Sit.” He nodded to the sofa.
I eased my butt down to it, watching him kneel on the floor and open the box. I couldn’t see what was inside. He paused, staring at its contents.
“I told you I played sports. And I loved construction. But my real talent came in the form of spelling bees.” He pulled out a stack of plaques, certificates, and trophies. “I took first place at a national competition.” His face held a bit of harnessed pride as he set everything at my feet. “I liked words. Dissecting them. Studying their origin. A full year of Latin. My mom used to say I’d never find a woman who really appreciated my word-loving soul. And she was so disappointed in me when I let that love of words die, when I found my new favorite words like…” he smirked “…well, most of them were and still are four-letter words. Sometimes simplicity is best. So gone were the days of winklepicker shoes and ulotrichous women. I gravitated toward fuck, fucker, and fucking. It helped me fit in.”
His gaze seemed to be focused on the past or maybe whatever was still in the box. “Who would have ever imagined that a girl … a young woman ten years younger than me would breeze into my life. Beautiful? Yes. Quirky? Absolutely. Innocent? Painfully so. But also a cruciverbalist.” Shaking his head, gazing in the box, and irony curling his lips, he pulled out tablets and notebooks, tossing them at my feet with the spelling bee awards.
I bent down and picked one up. Inside, it was filled with hand drawn crossword puzzles.
“Cruciferous …” I whispered, easing my head side to side. He pretended to not know what a cruciverbalist was. Fisher did play me, just not in the way I thought.
“An eighteen-year-old cruciverbalist. Really, what were the chances?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I glanced up at him.
He ran a hand through his hair and exhaled. “I don’t know. I think I was in shock. And maybe a little awe was involved. A
suffocating dose of confusion. A little anger at the timing, at your age. At the fact that you’re Rory’s daughter.”
I thumbed through more pages of his notebook. “Do you love me, Fisher?” My gaze remained on the notebook, my voice steady, almost passive as if I was asking him about the weather or his day.
“Reese, it doesn’t matter.”
My head inched side to side. “You mean it doesn’t change anything. And maybe you’re right. But …” I lifted my gaze. “It matters.”
He climbed to his feet and drifted to the windows overlooking the backyard. Hands in the front pockets of his jeans. “I think I loved you before I met you. But we don’t always get what we want. I let go of my crossword puzzles and word obsession because it didn’t fit into my life any longer. The thing is … I don’t know where you fit into my life. And I know, I know you don’t like your age to matter, but it does. I won’t be the reason you don’t take chances in life. Don’t make marriage and sex your life’s goals. If Rory found out, she’d want to know why. Why I would get involved with an eighteen-year-old girl? And I don’t think cruciverbalist would work. Maybe if our ten-year-age gap was more like twenty-five and thirty-five, I could make a case for word geeks and kismet.”
He turned to face me, every ounce of his vulnerability on full display. No walls. No lies. Just the hard truth. “Loving you is my favorite thing to do. It’s automatic and effortless. And you’re right, that matters. But …”
“It changes nothing,” I whispered, setting the notebook on the sofa and pressing my hands to my legs as I stood. Gazing up at the ceiling, I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and blew it out in one big whoosh. “Naked fisherman, you are incorrigible. Moody. Bold. Unpredictable. Brash … and a million other things that are bad for me. Yet it felt like you were the first person in my life who just … fit. The version of myself I dreaded … the version I blamed on your bad behavior, I came to love it. It started to feel like my true skin. It felt good to smile without something in my brain telling me I should smile. You gave my days this vibrant color, and I don’t know what I will see when you’re not…” I drew in a shaky breath as emotions stung my eyes “…when you’re not mine.”
His arms slid around my waist, his chest to my back, his face bowed to my shoulder. And I shook as emotion took my body like an earthquake. Unsettling emotions needed to be released. Grief suffocated my lungs. Reality tore at my heart.
Fisher turned me in his arms and pressed my cheek to his chest. He soothed me with soft kisses to the top of my head and gentle strokes from his other hand down my back.
I was so tired of the unfairness in my life. The unanswered prayers. The testing of my faith.
My dad died, and it made no sense. And I didn’t want anyone, not even God himself, trying to convince me otherwise.
Rory’s decisions made no sense to me either. It was like one day she was my mom, my world, and the next day she was this stranger being sentenced to five years.
Did I have an unnatural fear of failure? Yes. Success felt like a myth. Happiness … an unreachable destination.
And love … well, it was something blurry and always changing forms in my life. I chased love.
Love for my father.
Love for God.
Love for Rory.
But it always felt just out of reach. Until Fisher. With him, I touched love. I held it in my hands, like reaching the end of a rainbow or lassoing the moon.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I got the Forester and the tile shop job. And I missed Fisher. Sometimes I saw him mowing the lawn or working in the garage when I got back from my evening walks or jogs. Sometimes I saw him at the tile shop picking up something.
We mastered courteous.
We perfected our sibling relationship around Rory.
But mostly, I spent my time praying for the crater in my heart to heal and … missing him.
It would have been easier had I stayed angry at him, had I not known everything, had I not felt his love.
“I’m going to Texas this weekend,” I announced to Rory, Rose, and Fisher as we ate pizza and cake on a Wednesday night to celebrate Rory’s birthday.
“Oh?” Rory eyed me suspiciously from her favorite rocking chair on the porch.
“It was a last-minute decision. It’s Grandma’s and Grandpa’s fiftieth wedding anniversary, and their church is having a party for them. They invited me. Paid for my airfare. And they’ll pick me up at the airport Friday evening when I land. Just a quick getaway. I’ll be home Sunday night because I have to work Monday.”
“Well, tell them happy anniversary from me.” Rory wrinkled her nose. “Not that they’ll care. I’m not exactly the favorite daughter-in-law anymore.”
“Do you need a ride to the airport?” Fisher asked. It was a rare moment of us sharing direct conversation instead of keeping our focus on Rory or Rose like usual.
“No. I’m leaving my vehicle at the airport since I’ll be getting in late Sunday. I didn’t want anyone to worry about picking me up.” After talking to my plate because I still couldn’t look him in the eye, I did the impossible—I lifted my gaze to his for a split second.
“Okay.” The hint of a smile touched his lips. It was the Fisher smile I had come to love.
“How’s your new job going?” Rose asked.
“It’s fine. A little monotonous, but the people I work with are nice.”
Rose’s gaze slid to Fisher. He glanced away from all of us.
“I’m not implying my last job was bad or the people weren’t nice.” I should have kept my mouth shut.
Fisher grunted a laugh, gazing out in the distance.
“It’s a safer job,” Rory added.
Fisher fired me because he didn’t want to be around me after breaking up with me. It might not have been an actual breakup. We weren’t together in the traditional sense. Still, the breakup, real or not, was thick and suffocating in the air between us.
“It is …” I nodded slowly.
“Have you talked to Brendon lately?” Nice subject change from Rory. Not that I wanted to talk about Brendon in front of Fisher.
“I see him at church. And I saw him last Wednesday night at Bible study.”
“No dates?”
I shook my head. “He’s been busy studying, and I’ve been …” With a half-smile, I lifted a shoulder. “Not thinking much about dating.”
Rose continued to eye Fisher and me. If she couldn’t see the distance between us, the emotional distance between us, then she was blind.
“Well, remember what I said. It’s a good thing to cultivate the friendship first.”
No whirlwind love affairs.
Nothing forbidden.
No passion.
Was that the life I wanted?
I stole a quick glance at Fisher and his slumped shoulders, quiet demeanor, and faraway gaze. It didn’t matter what I wanted.
I was eighteen with stuff to do like … figure out what to do.
“How about you, Fisher?” Rory swiped a glob of frosting from her piece of cake and sucked it off her finger. “Rose said things fizzled out with Tiffany. Any other prospects? Or are you still content with one-night stands and a solid grip on your bachelorhood?”
Was he having one-night stands? After investing so much time in Virgin Therese, he deserved to have a normal sexual encounter that involved … sex.
“I’m going to get some more ice cream.” I grabbed my plate and headed into the house.
“Get it together,” I whispered to myself as I set my plate on the counter and rested my hands on the edge, my head hanging low.
“I thought I could use some more ice cream too.”
My head lifted as Rose shut the door behind her.
Clearing my throat, I smiled. “Yeah. Of course.” Turning, I opened the freezer.
“I think we both know you don’t want more ice cream. And neither do I.”
I closed the freezer door and leaned against it. “If you’re concerned
that Fisher and I—”
“You’ve stopped … whatever you were doing.” She climbed onto a barstool. “I can see that. He’s been quite the bore lately. I’ve been making up excuses for him because Rory sees it too. You’ve actually done a better job of hiding it. Good for you.”
Good for me?
I laughed. “Well, it doesn’t feel good.”
“I know.” She gave me a sad smile.
“Do you? Do you know what it’s like to have feelings for someone and them have feelings for you, but you can’t be together because the timing in life sucks? It just …” I rolled my lips between my teeth and shook my head. “Sucks.”
“I fell in love once. And the timing was all wrong. But love doesn’t care. Your heart doesn’t understand. And the scariest part is you want to believe that someday it will work, but you don’t know. You just don’t know. Will patience be rewarded? Will God answer your prayers with the answers you want? You tell yourself that if it’s meant to be … it will be.” She pushed a long breath out of her nose and offered a weak smile. “And sometimes the answer is yes. But sometimes the answer is no. So the most you can do is find love and life in every day. The one thing I can promise you is that life rarely goes in the direction we think it will. And that’s not always a bad thing. Sometimes it’s the most amazing surprise.”
My gaze affixed to Fisher on the porch. He was the most amazing surprise.
“I want to have this conversation with my mom. There have been so many moments over the past five years that I’ve thought, ‘I need my mom.’ And now she’s here, but I can’t talk to her. And I hate it because he didn’t take advantage of me. It wasn’t like that. And I know what you said about him being a man whore, but that wasn’t who he was with me.”
Rose gave me a look like she didn’t entirely believe me. Or maybe she believed that I believed what I said, but it was just my foolish heart, my naive eighteen-year-old brain blinded by my first real crush.
“Well, I’m glad that’s not who he was with you. That at least shows he had a little respect for Rory, but it’s not enough for her to overlook the obvious. He’s twenty-eight and you’re eighteen. He should have known better. He should have had self-control.”