“Stop tapping your foot,” Tuck mumbled, nudging my arm with his elbow.
I finished tying his lure with a clinch knot and handed it to him. “Stop nagging me,” I muttered back. My foot obeyed Tucker without asking me permission, as if my body lived to serve the fussy physician sitting next to me.
“How’re those heifers you were having trouble with?” he asked after casting his line and sitting back in his folding chair.
“Fine. You were right. I think one of them is pregnant. Not sure about the other.” I cast my own line. “Hey, you remember the day we met?”
I felt his eyes on me even though I kept my own on the water. I wasn’t quite sure why I was feeling strangely sentimental this morning, but there it was.
“I believe you were like eight years old and I was asked to watch you while your parents took Brooks and Gracie into a haunted house at Halloween.”
I turned and gaped at him. “Say, what? I was talking about the time we found the same fishing hole out by Fossie Creek.”
Tuck let out a warm chuckle. “Wasn’t the first time, D. And you know it.”
“I do not know it. What the hell are you talking about?”
“You were mad as a hornet they wouldn’t take you into the haunted house. When they saw me taking care of my brother and the two of you recognized each other from school, they ditched you with us so they could go in. As soon as they’d disappeared into the entrance, you turned around and kicked me in the shin. Hurt like a sonuvabitch.”
His words brought back the memory, but I was surprised we’d never discussed it before now. “I coulda handled it,” I muttered.
Tuck’s barked-out laughter probably scared all the fish out of the damned lake. “Dunn Johnson, you’re so easily scared, you pissed yourself last year watching Aquaman. Aquaman.”
I shot him a look. “You promised on your granny’s grave never to mention that again,” I hissed.
My anger didn’t make him drop his smarmy smile. “Granny hates when I do that. Also, she sent some peanut brittle for you in my St. Patrick’s Day care package. Forgot to tell you.”
“You forgot to tell me because you ate it.”
He laughed again. “Perhaps.”
We sat in silence together for a while to let the fish return. I finally couldn’t stand it anymore. “I meant Fossie Creek,” I said in a low voice.
“I know you did, Dunn.”
“It’s just… why there? You’re afraid of heights, and the bridge over Fossie is super high. I never did ask you that.”
Tucker stayed quiet so long, I wondered if he was going to simply refuse to answer. I should have known better.
“I thought I’d had my heart broken, and I was feeling dramatic.”
I turned to stare at him and mighta accidentally screeched a little. “What?”
The birds shot from the trees, and Tucker winced as the fish most likely tore off toward Kentucky and away from our lures at my raised voice. “Sorry,” I mouthed.
Tucker shrugged and reeled in his line before setting his rod on the dock next to his chair. “It’s not like I was going to jump or anything. But I kind of wanted something to scare me out of my routine, you know? Like face a fear and conquer it.”
“Didn’t work,” I muttered with a smile. “At least according to the crescent-shaped scars on my arm from where you gripped it on the Ferris wheel last year.”
“No, it didn’t. But it was nice getting away regardless. I was exhausted from years of nothing but studying, working, and living under fluorescent lights. I wanted some time outside, alone, and I wanted time to calm down and be still. But then, of course, I met you instead.”
I smacked his chest with the back of my hand. “Asshole.”
He caught my hand and held it there, close to his heart for a split second. “Best damned thing I ever caught while fishing.”
Tucker let my hand go and gave me a cheeky grin to take some of the whipped topping off the lovey-dovey sundae, but I still allowed myself to take a giant bite of the sweetness.
“I’m sure grateful,” I said, clearing my throat. And then I added a bit so as not to seem too mushy. “Mostly because I need some help with picking out paint colors for the renovation.”
What I’d really wanted to ask him about was the heartbreak before Fossie Creek, but I didn’t feel like it was my place. We’d already made up from our fight the day before, and I was afraid talking about his love life was a one-way ticket toward Angry Tuckerville.
Tucker closed his eyes and let out a frustrated growl. “I told you, jackass, just because I’m gay doesn’t mean I know shit about paint colors.”
“You have to know more than I do. It’s like… virtually impossible to be worse at that stuff than I am.”