Page 14 of Catch and Release

Fuck, he hadn’t had butterflies like this since he was a teenager.

And he was fumbling the bag so badly every time he opened his mouth.

Willa breathed in deeply, inhaling the ocean air with her eyes closed, a slight smile curling her lips upward. She looked so natural out here, the moonlight reflecting off her auburn hair. When she opened her eyes, she glanced over to him and bit her lip as she noticed him gawking at her.

“Not much fish tonight, huh?” she gestured to the water.

Shawn whipped his head toward the spotlight shining on small bait fish swimming underneath it. A few saltwater catfish swam in and out of view, on the periphery of the light.

“I figure I’ll need to keep the light on every night for a few weeks before the fish I want start showing up,” Willa continued.

Shawn grunted in response, then felt an overwhelming desire to face-palm.

He was a self-proclaimed ladies’ man for most of his life, but one little crush had him at a loss for words.

God, how embarrassing.

“But in the meantime,” she said, turning around and grabbing a couple of fishing rods and the bucket of shrimp she’d bought from him earlier, “there’s no harm in a little catch and release.”

She offered him a rod, which he accepted, before she baited her fishing line and tossed it into the water. He followed suit. They cast their fishing poles in companionable silence for ten minutes or so, replacing bait that got taken by the catfish occasionally, before his curiosity got the better of him.

“My grandmother heard that you moved here,” Shawn said. “For good.”

Willa hummed in agreement as she methodically reeled in her line, and damn it if Shawn couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like for her to hum like that with her lips around his cock. He shifted as his pants suddenly felt tight at the thought. Why couldn’t he keep his mind out of the gutter today? He’d been around hot girls in bikinis his whole life. Taken them fishing on his boat. Considered himself all but immune to the wiles of women in bikinis holding a fishing rod.

But he wasn’t standing behind Willa, teaching her how to bait a hook and cast the line. She was doing it all on her own. She didn’t need direction or help from him; in fact, if he tried to offer it, Shawn was pretty sure she’d put him in his place with that smart mouth of hers. He held back a smile at the thought.

“Why?” Shawn followed up, hoping to get more in response this time.

Willa sighed, and she frowned.

“Bad breakup,” she finally said, her knuckles white as they clenched onto the fishing pole.

Shawn’s head ran wild wondering what kind of bad breakup she’d been through. Was she dumped, or did she do the dumping? Was it someone she’d been with for a while? It had to have been, for her to have that look on her face. Did he break her heart? His curiosity begged him to ask her for details, but he couldn’t bring himself to pry.

“That sucks,” he said.

She let out a humorless laugh.

“Yeah, well. Let’s just say I’ve sworn off men for a while.”

A pang of disappointment ricocheted through him.

“So you thought the best place to escape them would be here?” he asked.

“I thought the best place to escape everything would be here,” she responded quietly.

Her ex must’ve been the one to call it off. That had to be the reason she looked so broken-hearted. Shawn wondered what kind of guy would let go of a girl like her.

He suddenly felt like shit for underestimating her earlier. God, what a dick move.

“Look, I feel like I need to apologize,” he said, and she looked at him with a bemused expression. “For earlier.”

Willa set her fishing rod on the chair near her and crossed her arms, looking at him expectantly.

Okay, so she wasn’t going to make this easy for him at all.

“I shouldn’t have assumed you were clueless at the bait shop,” he said. “I’m a fucking feminist, and I acted like a dick. Sorry.”

---