In the kitchen, there was a bag of spinach in the fridge and a bowl of fruit on the kitchen table. I wasn’t sure if Dad had turned over a healthier leaf, or he was deferring to what I’d want to eat while I was home.
‘How’s school?’ he asked, pulling a beer from the fridge, his hair wet from a shower. He’d been out on the boat before we arrived today, of course. I assumed he would take tomorrow off completely, but was afraid to ask. It would hurt Cindy’s feelings if he didn’t.
‘Good. I netted a spot on a research team next semester. A project with one of my professors from last year. There’s a stipend.’
He sat at the small, ancient table – the varnish long since worn away, the wood scratched to hell. ‘Congratulations. So – engineering research? Race-car design?’
My mouth twisted. My interests had morphed beyond race cars since high school – not that he knew that. This exchange had to be the longest conversation about my academic goals we’d had since Mom died. ‘No – durable soft materials. Medical, sort of. Stuff to be used in tissue engineering.’
His eyebrows rose. ‘Ah. Interesting.’ He stared out the window over the table, which had the best view of the gulf, except for the view from Grandpa’s room – where no one lived. I was about to leave the room to shower and unpack the few things I’d brought when he asked, ‘Dinner plans?’
‘I’m, uh, going out with Boyce in a bit.’ I took a beer from the fridge and popped the cap off with the edge of my unopened pocketknife.
‘Got your key, still?’
‘Yeah.’
He nodded, eyes never leaving the window, and we lapsed into our customary silence.
Boyce and I chose a booth near a window. There was one halfway decent bar in this town, and we were in it. It was too loud and too smoky, and I missed the beach hangouts he said were overrun with high-school punks now. We had to laugh, because we were the high-school punks not that long ago.
‘Still got the Sportster?’ he asked. In the last few months before I left town, the two of us had rebuilt the badly maintained Harley his father had accepted as payment for repairs from one of his drinking buddies. When I needed to sell the truck to pay my first semester of college tuition, Boyce had somehow talked him into selling the bike to me cheap.
‘Yep. It’ll do a few more months, until I graduate.’ I thought about Jacqueline’s arms, locked round me, her hands clasped low over my abdomen. Her chest pressed to my back. Her thighs braced round my hips. ‘I’ll probably keep it, though, after I buy a car.’
The waitress brought our drinks and a basket of assorted fried stuff. Boyce picked out a beer-battered avocado slice and dipped it into the salsa. ‘Seen Pearl lately?’
I shook my head. ‘Not in a few months. She was doing well, I think – probably applying to med schools now. You’re more likely to run into her than I am, though. There’s, like, fourteen times as many students there as there are residents here, and I know she visits her parents often.’
‘True.’ He sipped his tequila.
‘So – you’ve seen her?’
His mouth kicked up on one side. ‘A few times.’
I shook my head, smirking. ‘You two have a strange relationship, Wynn. One of these days, you’re gonna have to tell me about it.’
‘Whatever, man,’ he said, dismissing the subject of Pearl Frank. ‘Any new adventures for you? Threesomes? Orgy parties? Cougar professors sexually harassing you?’ He waggled his brows, hopeful.
I ran my teeth over the ring in my lip and shook my head, laughing. ‘You know I’m studying or working all the time.’
‘Yeah, man – your hundred and one jobs. You can’t tell me you don’t take T-and-A timeouts, just to break the monotony.’ He glanced behind us at the growing crowd. ‘You’re too damned picky or I’d suggest one or two of the girls in this bar. What about that tutor job? Any hot chicks needing supply and demand demonstrated at close range?’ I stared into my beer for one second too long, and he slapped his hand on the table and leaned closer. ‘Maxfield, you son of a –’
I put my head in my hands. ‘I’m kinda getting over something. Or trying to.’
He was quiet for about five seconds. ‘One of those students you tutor?’
Fuck me – how did he know that? But Boyce always knew. I nodded.
‘Hmm. Knowing you – and I do – that sucks ass. If it was me? I’d be all over that shit. Just as well I’ll never be anyone’s tutor. Or boss.’ He tossed back the last of his tequila and signalled the waitress for another round. ‘See, me – I need to get hired by some hot chick so I can be the one being harassed.’
In one flash, I imagined Jacqueline and me swapping positions – if she were the tutor and I were the student. If I’d been a high-school-senior bass player to her college-girl bass tutor … Every muscle in my body contracted and hardened. Goddamn, I would seduce her so fast her head would spin.
The waitress thumped our second round down and Boyce laughed and clinked his shot glass to my frosted pint glass. ‘To whatever you’re thinking, dude. That’s the look of a guy who’s gonna get him some. Anything I can do to help?’
I shook my head, startled at the intensity of that one-minute fantasy.
That’s what it was, of course. A fantasy.
Two more weeks of economics classes. Two more self-defence modules. Over.
When Boyce was driving me back last night, I caught the altered sign of the Bait & Tackle, which had added ‘Coffee & Wi-Fi’ to its name. I could imagine old Joe painting the sign extension himself – which is exactly how it looked. I thought about stopping by, signing into my campus email to see if Jacqueline had written to me. To Landon.
Once I thought about her – home alone, parents skiing, dog boarded, I couldn’t stop worrying. I reminded myself that we’d travelled in opposite directions for this break. She went four hours north while I’d meandered four hours south. If she was in trouble, there was nothing I could do about it.
If she was fine, I could relax. All I had to do was check.
But I’d left her standing in front of the language arts building three days ago, when I’d made the decision to suspend this craving, at least for the break. If I texted her now, everything would start all over. That wouldn’t be fair to either of us.
Then Caleb fell asleep on my bed after eating at least two pounds of turkey and double helpings of everything else. Dad, Charles and Cindy were all glued to a closely contended football game I couldn’t focus on at all, and Carlie whined, twice, ‘I’m so boooorrrred.’
My convictions vaporized and I volunteered to accompany Carlie on an exploratory drive around town. Her father happily surrendered the keys to his SUV. We rolled down the windows and I submitted to a pop station in exchange for stopping at the Bait & Tackle & Coffee & Wi-Fi.