Page 10 of Love Puck

When she obviously wasn’t.

Not ever.

I was the chump.

The cheater.

Christ.

Just when I thought I couldn’t feel worse about myself—I hit an all-time low.

I let out the breath I was holding. “That was years ago. I’m fine. Jillian and I are—fine.”

I saw Beau and Trey glance at each other. “Whenever Lexi says she’s ‘fine,’ I have to think real hard about how I fucked up,” Trey said straight to Beau.

Beau reeled in his line and said, “Yep, that’s the one word you never want to hear. I agree.”

I rolled my eyes. These idiots didn’t know what they were talking about. “Okay, then. I’m great.”

Trey whistled and shivered. “Whenever ‘great’ comes right after ‘fine,’ I know I’m in big trouble.”

Beau’s head nodded slowly. “Exactly.”

I muttered to myself, “Whatever.”

Trey snorted and said, “That’s the worst word of all.”

Beau answered him instantly, “I don’t know, I think ‘fine’ is the worst. ‘Whatever’ is definitely trouble, but ‘fine’ has that—” he paused for a moment, “dismissive attitude that always comes with it.”

Trey laughed. “Uh, yeah, but ‘whatever’ is the final nail in the coffin.”

No joke, I was two seconds away from jumping into the lake—when suddenly Trey yelled out, “I’ve got something! Holy shit, this one’s a whopper!”

I quickly reeled in my rod and dropped it on the deck. Then I stepped over to see if Trey needed any help.

He had one hand on the handle, and one on the reel. His rod was curved down and he pulled up with much effort.

It did look like this was going to be a big one.

“I’ll grab the net,” I said, and reached over the seat to get it. Trey kept reeling in and pulling.

“This one’s gonna be a whale,” he grunted. I wished I could help him, but this was his catch. All we could do was wait patiently and be here if he needed us.

“Is there something I should be doing?” Beau asked quietly with a ton of hesitation in his voice.

After I leaned over the side of the boat, I said, “Nothing yet. Right now we wait and see what Trey’s caught.”

Another minute or two and Trey was grunting with every pull backward. “Jesus, I don’t think I’ve had one fight me like this before.”

Thirty seconds later, he pulled the culprit out of the water.

“What the fuck?” Trey breathed heavily as we all stared at what he had hanging from the hook.

A few seconds later—and Beau and I were cracking up laughing. I sat down on the deck and set the net down.

I wouldn’t be needing it for the dripping, soggy white underwear Trey had managed to catch.

Beau laughed so hard he had tears running down his cheeks. “You caught yourself a real whale there, buddy!” Beau burst out, making me laugh even harder.

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