The Naked Fisherman (Fisherman 1)

“Off to confess your sins?”

I jumped and glanced at the garage with both doors wide open and Fisher bent over his weight bench working his triceps.

No shirt, of course.

“Um …” I cleared my throat, eyeing Arnie’s Escalade. Did it mean Angie was still there too? “Yes. I’m going to church.” I tightened my grip on the clutch purse I’d used the previous night and took slow steps into the garage.

“You look nice.” He eyed me in my simple white romper and silver Birkenstocks.

“Thanks. Is…” my gaze signaled to the door to the house “…Angie gone?”

“Nope,” he replied with a strained voice as he continued his workout. “In the shower.”

“Oh. Did you … sleep on the sofa or in a spare room?”

“No. It’s my bed. Why should I have done that?”

Swallowing hard, I clenched my teeth and shrugged with stiff shoulders. My entire body tensed with anger. “No reason.” I managed to eke out the words. “Later.” I pivoted, holding my breath—holding everything that tried to pry open my lips to be set free.

“You want to know if I had sex with her, huh?”

My feet stopped in place, but I couldn’t turn around. “No.”

“No? Really? Well, we did. Full penetration. There’s really nothing better than being buried balls deep in a woman. No holding back. No fragile hymens. No guilt. Just raw fucking.”

Tears stung my eyes before I had a chance to flinch at his vulgarity, and I forced my feet to make speedy, gigantic strides out of the garage.

“Not so quick.” I heard the thunk of weights hitting the rubber mat, and in the next breath he grabbed my arm and whipped me around to face him. “It’s a joke.” He shook his head and grinned as his other hand blotted the wet corners of my eyes.

“It’s a terrible joke,” I whispered past the lump in my throat.

“Probably. But Rory comes home in a few days.” He blew out a long breath. “And you said it would stop then. You said you didn’t want her to know. So if we’re a few days from ending whatever this is … then you need to get ahold of yourself.”

That confirmation? The one that said his feelings toward me were way different than mine were toward him? It sucked.

Jerking my hand away, I finished wiping my eyes before a new round of emotion made its way to the stage. “I have ahold of myself. I’m just not emotionally dead like you are. Not because I’m eighteen. It’s because I’m a good person with real emotions, and that will never change. So excuse me if the idea of you screwing someone immediately after consuming me like some tasteless appetizer is a little disheartening, but it’s only because I don’t offer myself up to just anyone like you obviously do.”

Fisher’s head jerked backward. “First…” he held up a finger in my face “…you didn’t really let me taste you, so the tasteless reference is unfair. And second…” he held up another finger “…if you’re insinuating Angie is just anyone, then you need to check your facts again.”

My face scrunched into my most menacing expression, which probably only made me look constipated. “You are … you’re …” My hands balled into tight fists.

He smirked.

Gah!

I hated him for smirking at me when there was nothing funny about anything we were discussing.

“For a cruciv—cruciferous whatever that made-up word was you called yourself, you sure lack in vocabulary when the pressure’s on.”

My hate grew. First his smirk, then his stupid fumbling of the word cruciverbalist. I didn’t want to smile. It wasn’t okay for him to steal my anger with his intentional or unintentional humor. Yet there I stood, with my hands still fisted and an unavoidable grin climbing up my face.

“You’re so stupid. Never again do you get to reference my age since you just called me a botany term denoting cabbage family plants. Not the same thing as cruciverbalist—one who constructs or is good at solving crossword puzzles.” I added an eye roll for good measure.

“Broccoli. Cabbage. Cauliflower. I know. I’m not as stupid as you think I am. Again, you just don’t get my humor.”

“I’m going to church.” I turned on my heel and continued toward the Outback.

“Say hi to the virgins for me.”

“Jerk,” I mumbled—but not without grinning because Fisher Mann was so … extra.

“Welcome back. It’s good to see you again.” A somewhat familiar face greeted me as I took a chair in the Sunday school classroom. “It’s Brendon.”

I nodded. “Yeah. I remember.” I didn’t really. “Thanks. We missed you at the singles’ Bible study on Wednesday night.”

“I wasn’t feeling well. Headache.” The hardest part about having a church family was the accountability which led to truths they didn’t want to hear or lies they happily swallowed while God knew. He always knew. Like earlier that morning during the sermon, I wasn’t thinking about the words echoing through the sanctuary. My mind replayed the previous night. With my Bible open on my lap and people all around me responding to the day’s gospel with “Amens,” I squeezed my thighs together and thought about Fisher between my legs while silently saying my own kind of Amens.