“So you’re the oldest of five boys?” Aidy asks out of nowhere.
“Right.”
“I can’t imagine having five sons. I’d probably go insane. My aunt had three boys. I used to babysit them and they were bouncing off the walls constantly. So crazy. I don’t know how your parents did it, but kudos to them.”
Smirking quietly, I nod. “Yeah. We were pretty crazy. Mom kept us in line though. Most of the time.”
“What about your dad?”
I pause, staring at a soft ripple of water ahead. “He wasn’t really around. And when he was, he was drunk.”
Aidy turns to me, her stare heavy. “I’m sorry.”
Shrugging, I brush it off. “It’s okay. He’s been gone a long time now. His liver quit on him by the time I hit junior high. Honestly don’t remember that much about him. Feels like forever ago.”
“I feel the same way about my dad sometimes,” I say. “But he’s alive and well. Living it up in Kansas City, Kansas with his new family.”
“New family?”
“Yeah. He didn’t waste any time replacing us after he left Mom,” she says. “Even produced a couple of new kids, both daughters, with his new wife. We get Christmas cards, and sometimes he’ll call when he remembers a birthday, but we’ve pretty much gone our separate ways.”
“That’s terrible. You’re his daughter.”
Aidy laughs. “Yeah. It is pretty terrible when I say it out loud. Jesus, he’s an asshole.”
“Do you keep in touch with your half-sisters?”
She shakes her head. “I’ve only met them a handful of times in my life. His new wife keeps them on a short leash. She’s one of those helicopter moms. Never lets them out of her sight. Kind of makes it challenging to get to know people that way, you know?”
I slip another worm on my hook and laugh through my nose. “Growing up, I always wanted one of those helicopter moms. Don’t know why. I guess maybe we always want what we don’t have.”
“Preach.”
“My mother worked two jobs for as long as I can remember. She never made it to any of my games. Fed us frozen dinners most nights. Taught us how to do our own laundry by the time we each turned eight.”
“Interesting.” I feel her gaze on me. “I’m sure she was just doing what she had to do to keep food on the table. Can’t imagine it’s cheap to feed five growing boys.”
“Yeah, no. She was a great mother,” I say. “Never missed a birthday or a holiday. Made dinner on Sundays and invited half the neighborhood. Encouraged us to follow our dreams, no matter how ridiculous they were at the time. She was just kind of in survival mode all those years.”
“How is she now? Only working one job, I hope?”
Laughing, I say, “Yeah. She’s retired now. She was a schoolteacher for thirty-five years, so she has a pension. She quit waiting tables at night as soon as my youngest brother graduated high school. She’s good now.”
“Where are you from?” she asks.
“Jersey,” I say,
“You don’t have an accent.”
“We don’t all talk like wise guys,” I say. “Besides, we grew up in Ohio mostly. Only moved to Jersey after our father died. Mom had family there, so that’s where we went.”
“What are your brothers like?”
“I think you’ve got something on your line,” I change the subject.
Aidy jolts, sitting up straight. “Oh. You’re right. Feels bigger, this one.”
She reels in another crappie and carefully takes it off the hook and strings it.
“Funny how this stuff just comes back to you,” she says. “Anyway, are you close with all your brothers?”
Shaking my head, I chuff. “Not as close as we used to be. We all kind of left the nest and flew in five different directions.”
“Where are they now?”
“Everywhere,” I say. Seattle. Los Angeles. Chicago. Who knows with the fourth one. He doesn’t tend to stay in one place very long.
“Wren and I have been inseparable our whole lives. Best friends,” I say. “We never really had that whole sibling rivalry thing. People thought there was something wrong with us when we were teenagers because we got along so perfectly.”
“That is . . . definitely not normal.”
“We’re unusually close.” Aidy sighs, staring ahead and blowing a breath through her lips. “It’s going to be so weird when she gets married. It’ll be the first time in years that I haven’t lived with her, but I think it’ll be good for me. I’m not scared or anything, it’ll just be . . . different. You like living alone? You seem like the type.”
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
She shrugs. “Neither?”
The sun begins to set over the water, painting in warm shades of blue and green and orange. Thickets of bushes and overgrown trees line the shores, and there’s at least a good half of a mile between here and the nearest house.
I haven’t always lived alone, but I do like my privacy. Guess it shows.
“Have you ever skinny dipped out here?” she asks, glancing up at the dimming sky.
“Never.”
“What?” Her jaw falls and the corners of her mouth inch into a surprised smile. “You’re kidding me.”
“Usually come here alone,” I say. And by usually, I mean always. “It’d be weird if I stripped down and went for a swim naked and alone, don’t you think?”
Aidy shakes her head, thick blonde waves falling in her face. “I don’t think so. I’d do it.”
“I have a feeling you’d do a lot of things I wouldn’t.”
“Get in,” she says, her eyes darting from me to the water and back. “Take off your clothes and get in.”
“You’re out of your mind, woman.”
She pushes my right shoulder, and it aches, but I don’t say a word because when she touches me I’m not thinking about my pain. Or my past. I’m here. Present. In the moment. Staring into the face of one of the most beautiful free-spirits I’ve ever seen.
God, I wish I could be like her. Carefree. Light.
But I’ll never be.
So I’ll settle for being with her instead.
At least for the weekend.
“Take off your clothes,” she says it like it’s no big deal. “I won’t look if you’re shy.”
Scoffing, I tilt my head. “I’m not shy. Jesus, Aidy. You lose that really quick when you spend the better part of a decade hanging out in locker rooms.”
“Fine. Do it. I’ll do it with you.” Aidy places her rod securely against the railing of the dock and stands up. Before I have a chance to protest, her fingers are working the snaps of her cut offs and she’s pulling her tank top over her head.
A lacy pink bra covers her generous breasts, and her belly is soft and smooth with a feminine hint of muscles. She shimmies out of her shorts, revealing a pair of panties that hang low on her hips. I can’t think straight. I can’t talk. Everything gets stuck and caught and jumbled as I stare at this gorgeous creature standing nearly naked on the end of my private dock.