Aaron had only made about four shark jokes the entire time we’d been out there.
I hadn’t touched the first two fish I’d caught that had been too small, but by the third one, Aaron had made me poke it. When he’d caught one, he made me hold it for a second and I might have wailed. By the time I caught one so big I’d figured he would prepare it and make for dinner… I’d held it in my hands—wiggling, thrashing—at least until he’d unhooked it and then tossed it back into the water to live another day.
Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be able to eat fish again after holding a live one in my hands, but the day had been a lot more fun than I ever could have imagined. Fishing. Me. Who would have thought?
A gentle hand came up to cup the back of my neck then, conscious of the swollen pink skin that had taken a beating under the sun’s rays, and I could sense Aaron leaning closer to me as he said, loud enough for everyone at the table in the pub to hear, “I’m really proud of you.”
I did know he was proud of me. He’d kissed my forehead once more after I’d caught the fish and told me those same exact words, and when I’d gone to hug him for the first time since the day he’d picked me up at the airport, he’d hugged me back. Squeezed me. Needy, needy, needy. All warm and solid and affectionate and perfect.
“We were going to meet up with you, but someone suddenly started feeling bad,” Des chipped in with a smirk.
Brittany rolled her eyes from her spot across the table from me. “My stomach was hurting. It’s not like there’s a bathroom out there for me to use. What was I supposed to do? Go in the water?”
Des shrugged and had her mumbling “nasty.”
“You did great for it being your first time,” Aaron repeated.
It was sad how much I ate up his attention and praise, like I’d never gotten it before.
“Need more time to decide?” came a voice from my left that had already become familiar to me. It was the waitress. The very attractive waitress. One of the handfuls of women I’d already spotted eyeballing the heck out of Aaron.
It had taken all of two minutes after we’d gotten out of his truck for the looks to begin. I wasn’t sure if I’d just been too overwhelmed the first day to notice all the attention Aaron got or if I was just that oblivious, but the truth was: there was no ignoring it now. The teenage hostess at the restaurant had taken one look at Aaron and Max and turned redder than I ever had. She’d stuttered her way through a greeting before leading us to a table, only turning around every two steps to look at both of them.
And then the waitress had appeared.
“You’re back!” the woman had basically shouted before we’d gotten to the table.
Everyone except Mindy and me apparently knew who she was because they had immediately greeted her. From the bits and pieces I picked up as the four of them greeted her, they knew her from the last trip they’d taken to Port St. Joe. All I could gather was that they had gone out drinking together, or something like that. It wouldn’t have meant anything.
Until she’d turned to Aaron and Max with a smile on her face and asked, just asked, “You both still have girls?”
Like that. Just like that.
To give him credit, it was Max that answered with a “Not anymore” that had me looking away and, at the same time, reminding myself that it was true. At least Aaron was single now. And if he’d been here before he’d shipped out, he hadn’t been back then. He was now.
The woman had taken everyone’s drink order in between playful touches of shoulders and more than one wink I hadn’t been sure who it had been aimed at, but while she’d been gone, Aaron had jumped into our fishing story, distracting me with the way he told it, sounding so pleased. But the waitress was back, and I didn’t like the way my stomach felt in reaction to her presence.
“What do you recommend on the menu?” Max asked, still holding the menu in his hands.
The friendly, pretty waitress didn’t even think about her answer as she stood at the foot of the table, directly between Aaron and Max. It wasn’t that I didn’t like her because she was so attractive; no one held a flame to the women in my family. Also, I wasn’t that kind of person. Mostly, the ache in my intestines came from the blatant attention she was showing Max and Aaron. Realistically, I knew I couldn’t blame her. I did. They were both too good-looking for their own good.
But… she’d touched Aaron’s shoulder twice since we’d sat down. I’d counted.
“The chicken and waffles is one of our bestsellers,” the woman answered Max’s question, her eyes settling on Aaron for a moment as her flirting smile turned into a coy one highlighted by her bubble gum pink lipstick.
Friends don’t get jealous when other friends get hit on, I reminded myself.
“Lots of folks like the frog legs, too,” she added.
Frog legs?
“Frog legs?” I heard Mindy echo beneath her breath from her spot beside me, sounding just as horrified as I felt.
“It’s a local favorite,” the waitress threw in, like that would make it sound more appetizing, with a bright smile aimed at the younger girl.
“I’ll take the chicken and waffles,” Des basically muttered with Brittany echoing that order, followed by me. Mindy and Aaron chose something with a sandwich.
“I’ll take an order of frog legs,” Max piped up, grinning.
“Oh, gross, Max,” Mindy muttered.
“What?” He shrugged as he handed over the menu to the waitress with a wink before she backed away.
“That’s disgusting.”
“I’m sure it’ll taste like chicken. Everything tastes like chicken.”
Even Brittany shook her head with an “Ugh.”
Max’s eyes met mine and I smiled at him shyly. “Everything does taste like chicken. I had gator once, tastes just like it.”
Mindy turned in her chair to look at me. “You’ve had alligator?”
I nodded. “I had sheep’s head once.”
“You what?”
“In Iceland. Our tour guide didn’t tell me what it was and I tried it. I’d never eat it again, but it wasn’t the worst thing I’d ever had,” I explained.
Mindy was looking at me with a horrified expression on her face, her fingers picking at the napkin she had rolled up. “What was the worst?” she asked hesitantly, like she didn’t really want to know the answer but couldn’t help herself.
Fidgeting with my hands on my lap, I smiled and looked over at Aaron who was watching me. “I’ve had cow tongue a few times. That was good actually—”
“Cow tongue?” that was Brittany.
“Yeah. They sell it all over the place in Houston. I’ve had dinuguan—”
“What’s that?” Max asked.
I scrunched up my nose, remembering eating that way too clearly. “It’s a Filipino dish that my dad made me try. Its pig intestines, kidneys, lungs, heart, and the snout cooked in its blood—”
At least four of them said a variation of “eww” that made me grin.
“I know. My dad claimed it was dessert, like pudding. He loves it. I can’t eat pudding anymore because of that, no matter what color it is.”
“I’m not going to be able to eat pudding anymore after that….” Mindy trailed off.
“That’s not the worst,” I started to say before I shut my mouth. “Never mind. I’m just going to stop now. I don’t want to ruin anyone’s food.”
“There’s something more gross than that?” Brittany asked.
I lifted my shoulders, not wanting to say more.
“Now you need to tell us,” she insisted.
“We can handle it,” Max kept going.
“No, seriously, you don’t want me to tell you,” I tried to explain.
“Come on, Rubes,” Aaron chimed in, making me glance at him.
“I’ll just close my ears,” Mindy offered. “I don’t want to know.”
I watched them and asked, slowly, “Are you sure?”
Four nods around the table confirmed they were sure. Even Mindy raised her hands to the side of her head, middle fingers already going to her ears to plug them in.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you, okay?” I reminded them. They all looked so confident… it almost made me laugh. “I’ve never tried it, but my dad has a bunch of times—”