3. Chapter Three
Chapter Three
Trent
Thursday pizza at Mercury Slice is sacred, and tonight the whole congregation showed up.
Joel and Rayna are on one side of the table, Rayna hopping up every ten minutes to help at the pickup window even though she's off shift.
Ace and Chrissy are wedged together on the bench like a two-person unit.
Forrest has his arm across the back of Aileen's chair while she explains something about fish populations that only Forrest could look that in love about.
Liam's next to me, working his way through his usual half a pepperoni pie.
And I keep watching the parking lot.
"You're watching the parking lot," Ace says.
"I'm watching the sunset."
"The sunset's behind you, buddy."
Before I can come up with something, Dani's truck pulls in, and Josie climbs out of the passenger side in a yellow sundress, and my brain blanks.
She's got her hair down. She's looking around at the string lights and the red umbrellas and the boats tied up at the dock, and when her eyes land on our table—on me—she smiles, and I stand up so fast I bang my knee.
The table goes silent.
Then everyone starts talking at once.
"Oh, this is the best day of my life," Ace breathes.
"Sit up straight, y’all," Joel says. "History in the making."
"Should we tell him his mouth is open," Chrissy says, "or let him figure it out?"
I have spent an entire summer roasting these people. I called Joel a lovesick golden retriever. I asked Ace if Chrissy gave him a receipt for his balls. I made a sound like a strangled duck when Forrest asked Aileen to survey the lake with him.
I am now realizing that may have been a huge mistake.
"Everyone be normal," I mutter as Dani steers Josie to our table. "I'm begging you."
"No promises," says Liam.
Introductions go around. Josie shakes hands, says all the right things, and slides into the empty chair, which is somehow directly across from mine, because Rayna arranged the seating and Rayna plays chess while the rest of us play checkers.
"So, Josie," Rayna says, sweet as Ooey Gooey Sticks. "Tell everyone about the derby."
Josie tells them. The tackle box. The flyer. The entry form with her name on it in Gus's handwriting, paid up months before he passed.
By the end of it, the whole table's quiet. All the women have their hands pressed over their hearts or mouths. Even Ace looks misty.
"So, I'm going to fish it," Josie says. "For him. There's just one small problem, which is that I can't fish, don't have a working boat, and don't have a partner."
"That's three problems," Liam says.
"I'm a designer. Not a math professor."
I like her so much it's stupid.
"Well, it just so happens," Dani says, "that the derby is this table's favorite subject. Trent and Liam have fished it together for… what is it now?"
"Nine years," Liam says.
"And how many times have you won?"
Liam suddenly gets very interested in his pizza.
"They have never won," Forrest says.
"Not once," says Joel.
"One year they capsized," Ace adds. "In the no-wake zone."
"Totally Liam’s fault,” I grumble.
"My fault?” Liam puts down his slice. "You stood up in a twelve-foot boat to celebrate a catfish."
"It was a big catfish!"
"It was a medium catfish, Trent!"
"And this argument," Joel says to Josie, "happens every single year. You could set a calendar by it."
Josie's laughing now, her eyes shining in the string lights, and I already know what I'm about to do. I knew it the second she walked out of that parking lot in a yellow dress. Maybe I knew it when she told me her engine and she were quitting each other.
"I'll be your partner," I say.
The table erupts.
Liam makes a sound like I've stabbed him. "We're a team."
"We're a curse, Liam. Nine years. It's time to let each other go."
"Unbelievable. He meets a girl and I'm out on the street,” Liam mutters.
I roll my eyes. "You'll land on your feet, buddy.”
“Besides,” Chrissy says, “You wouldn’t want to get in the way of Trent’s chance to spend time with a pretty girl, would you?”
My cheeks start to burn and I glance at Josie. She’s twirling a strand of hair around a finger, looking apprehensive. As my friends continue to tease about the possibility of a blooming romance, Josie holds up a hand.
The whole rowdy table quiets for her. She looks right at me, and there's something careful in her face.
"I need to say the fine print out loud," she says. "I'm not here for romance. I’m selling Grandpa’s cottage. Once it sells, I'm gone. I’m just here for the summer. Well, what little is left of it."
Some of the guys snort, as if to say, ‘Just here for the summer… riiiight.’
I ignore them, looking at Josie. "Understood," I say. "Just for the summer."
I have never meant anything less in my life.
"Then okay." She sticks her hand across the table, businesslike. "Partners."
I shake it. Her hand is small and warm, and she doesn't let go too fast, and neither do I.
"First practice is Saturday," I tell her. "Sunrise. I'll have the Penny running by then."
"Sunrise," she repeats, faintly horrified, and the whole table laughs, and Rayna hugs Dani, and Ace whispers something to Chrissy that makes her grin, and under the table Liam kicks my ankle in a way that means congratulations and also I hate you.
Mikki, the owner of Mercury Slice, leans out of the pickup window. "Somebody want to tell me why it sounds like a party out here?"
"It’s Trent’s turn for love!" Ace hollers.
"I'm not—" I start.
"Ooey Gooey Sticks on the house," Mikki says. "This I gotta see."