Page 31 of Standing Still

“Figured you might need it,” he waggles his brows.

“Why do you look fresh as a daisy,” I grouse.

“Years of getting up before the sun,” he shouts.

I put a hand to my temple and Ssh him. He just laughs, the ass. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see,” he says with a smirk.

I’m too hungover and too tired to care. And it isn’t just the drink making me tired. I’d tossed and turned for ages last night, thinking about him. How he looked at me when we danced, how he seemed to really care when we were talking.

I hadn’t missed how his expression darkened when I brought up Adrian. I gave myself a pep talk about letting memories fill my head, both old and new.

Ben doesn’t make small talk, so I lean my head back against the headrest and close my eyes. I’m jolting awake when he pulls to a stop, a little more abruptly than would have usually been necessary.

“Wakey, wakey,” he claps his hands together. “Time to go.”

I push my sunglasses up and look through the windshield. I see the river. And boats. To the left of the parking lot is the office for George’s. They have not replaced the old sign in god knows how long. My mouth drops open as I watch Ben go around the truck. He is getting something out of the back. I half stumble out of the truck and turn to find him with a large cooler in his hands. He winks as he passes me, indicating with his head for me to follow.

“Fishing? You’re taking me fishing?”

“It’s another Mystic staple.”

“I never went fishing once when I lived here.”

“So then you should enjoy this new and exciting experience. Let’s go.”

He walks off in the dock's direction where there were about thirty boats lined up. I already know which one belongs to George’s. I pause when my eyes move over the back end of the boat. Where it used to say ‘Miranda,’ my mother’s name, it now says ‘Second Wind.’ I’m not sure if I’m relieved about that or sad.

I try not to think about her too much, remembering what an amazing mom she was to me, until Darren. I shake out of that memory. It’s just a boat.

Ben doesn’t comment on the change of name, so neither do I. Pulling my coat tighter around me, I follow him down the jetty. He steps onto the boat with ease and sets the cooler down, then turns and holds out a hand to me. I pause and look out at the water. It’s cold, but it’s calm and I know within a couple of hours, when thesun rises, it will get warmer, but I’m already imagining how my stomach is going to react once we’re out there.

“Come on, don’t flake on me now.”

“Not sure how that can happen when I didn’t even know where we were going,” I grumble.

“It’ll be fun.” He shakes his hand for me to take it. So I do. “You remember how to start her up?” he asks as he hops back off so he can untie the lines.

Surprisingly, I do. Guess you can’t have a fisherman as a father and not spend some time out on the water. Dad taught Darren and me how to drive a boat. He tosses me the keys from his pockets, then goes back to his work.

Already my stomach is protesting as the boat bobs up and down. He’s waiting for me to say I don’t want to do this. I won’t give him the satisfaction. Even if I felt I might hurl at any moment.

Ben doesn’t say much more as he does his last checks, takes over, and guides the boat out into the open water. I take a seat beside him at the controls and do my best impression of a non-hung-over person, grateful for the third coffee of the day, all before nine AM.

He keeps casting looks my way, but I only indulge myself watching him when I’m sure he’s occupied with the controls or the water. He’s standing at the wheel, his thick arms holding the boat steady, guiding her through the water. He has on a hoody with his jeans and boots. He’d been wearing a cap when he came to collect me, but it is gone now, so his hair is blowing about in the breeze.

I try not to let him catch me studying him, looking at all the ways he’s changed since we were teenagers and madly in love. I conclude he has only gotten better with age and my lady parts are far too interested for their own damn good.

When he reaches a point on the water that makes him happy, he drops the anchor, then gets everything ready for us to fish. I wrinkle my nose as he hooks the lines with live bait, and he laughs when he tries to get me to do it, but I squeal and slap his handaway from me. He drops the worm and I jump back in horror as it wiggles across the floor. He rolls his eyes.

“I don’t know how to do it,” I say when he pulls me over to the boat’s edge.

“Don’t worry, I’ll teach you,” he says.

And he does, getting up close and personal and making my blood pressure rise every time he pushes up against me. No matter how innocent. I get the hang of it after a while though, my father’s daughter, it seems. After an hour of trying, I get a bite.

“Holy shit!” I exclaim as Ben reaches out and pulls the line in with the enormous fish attached.

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