Rory, our baby sister, is coming home this weekend as well, along with her husband and their newborn son, Adam. I haven’t seen my nephew since the week he was born, and I need to make sure Rory’s husband is still treating her well. I take my role as older brother seriously, as I always have, and will cut throats and throw punches without a second thought when it comes to my sister.
“If you don’t want to go out with Annie, then don’t,” I say with a yawn. My line bobs down and I wait a beat, secretly hoping I didn’t catch anything. Fishing isn’t my favorite thing in the world, but we grew up doing this. I like being out on the lake with my brothers more than I actually like trying to catch a fish, and we put back most of what we catch anyway.
Dad started taking me out here on a rickety-ass boat when I was the only Harris kid yet to be born. Mom hated it, and I still remember being three years old and Mom putting blow-up water wings on my arms along with a multi-colored life vest. I couldn’t put my arms down—just like that kid from A Christmas Story—but in the opposite season.
Dad’s not out here with us today, though; he’s anxiously waiting for Adam to arrive at the house. There’s no doubt both Mom and Dad will point out how they only have one grandchild, and it’s the youngest of the bunch who settled down, got married, and popped out a kid first.
Mason and I already took bets on how long it’ll take Mom to remind me that I’m the oldest, the one she expected to get married first, yet here I am, single once again.
Though I’m not complaining.
There’s another tug on my line and I jerk it back, waiting half a second to see if I caught anything. The line doesn’t move again, so I slowly reel it up, somewhat thankful the bait is gone. Resting my pole against the side of the boat, I heft into one of the seats, warmed by the sun, and grab a beer from the built-in cooler.
The boat is only two years old, and was a much-needed upgrade from the old hunk of junk Dad insisted still “ran just fine,” despite us getting stranded in Lake Michigan for five hours during a storm until the Coast Guard could come out and tow us in. I bought this new boat for Dad on his birthday two years ago, and while it’s a bit over the top for a birthday gift, I figured it was the least I could do after my parents footed the bill for me to go to medical school and become a doctor. I had it paid off in only a year, and we’ve already got our money’s worth out of this thing.
We’re on Silver Lake today, much smaller than Lake Michigan, and the breeze coming in over the water is hot and sticky.
“Or go out with her,” Mason counters. “Wine and dine her, fuck her good, and then ghost her.”
“You’re despicable,” Jacob quips, leaning over the boat railing and looking down into the water. He won’t say the real reason he’s on the fence about going out with this girl is because he’s still bitter over his last relationship ending with his girlfriend cheating on him after two-and-a-half years together. Only Mason and I know he’d gone out looking at engagement rings the week before things blew up in his face.
“Tell her from the start you don’t want anything serious,” I suggest. “That’s what I do, and it’s worked out so far.”
“Yeah, it’s worked out well.” Mason rolls his eyes. “How many times have you and Stacey broken up and gotten back together?”
“Four,” I say with a shrug. We started dating a few years ago, and we get along just fine. But fine is all I can describe us as.
The sex is fine.
Her company is fine.
Everything is so fine there’s no substance to it. She agrees with almost everything I say, and I don’t actually know what she really likes or doesn’t like, even after three years off and on. If I want to get Mexican food, she does too. If I want to watch hours of murder documentaries, she does too. It sounds ideal, I know, and I fumble every time I try to explain why having someone just blindly go along with me is off-putting.
It would be one thing if she enjoyed the murder documentaries, or got excited to watch football with me, but she doesn’t. She’ll just sit there, looking bored as she stares at the screen of her phone. Physically, she’s there with me, but she mentally checks out the second we get together. No, she doesn’t actually enjoy any of that, and instead it feels like she’s doing it to appease me so she can get something out of it in the end…which she usually does.