Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 94609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
She turned on the heel of her flip-flop, and her smile stretched even farther than before. “I like it when you do that, too—laugh.”
I didn’t say anything because sometimes when I looked at her, all words seemed not to exist.
“Hey, Theo?” she whispered.
I slid my hands into my pockets and tried to ignore my wild heart. “Yeah?”
“Can I go fishing with you tomorrow night?”
The next day, I caught Willow standing on the edge of the dock with a fishing pole in her hands, practicing her casting skills. Her technique was awful, yet she stayed there for a long time, trying again and again. She’d managed to tangle up her line pretty poorly, and I stood in the kitchen window, sipping my coffee, laughing at her trying her best to undo the madness she was creating.
“What are you looking at?” Jensen asked, walking into the kitchen.
I shook myself from the trance I’d been stuck in for far too long, stepped away from the window, and went to the coffeepot to pour more. “Nothing,” I muttered, trying to play it off as if I hadn’t spent the past thirty-or-so minutes creeping on Willow standing on the dock.
Jensen ignored me and glanced out the window. He smirked before opening the fridge. “I told Willow, but she didn’t believe me.”
“Told her what?”
He grabbed a plum and shut the fridge door. He tossed the fruit into the air before heading back toward the direction he’d entered. “That you look at her when she’s not looking, the same way she looks at you.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I asked, but he ignored me and continued on his way. I cleared my throat and shouted. “Hey! What do you mean? How does she look at me when I’m not looking?!”
Willow went fishing with me that night.
She caught not a thing.
“Theo?” she said.
“Yeah?”
“Can I go fishing with you tomorrow night?”
We kept fishing for days, and Willow did what she did best: she talked. She’d tell me a lot about herself, then she’d apologize for talking too much, and I’d ask her to go on.
Her favorite color was lavender, though it changed yearly. Last year, it was burnt orange, and she had a suspicious feeling it would be deep forest green by next spring. She loved butterflies. Like loved-loved butterflies. She once flew off a motorcycle and ended up with a broken arm. Two years ago, she ran a marathon in South America with a man she’d met on a dating app. They were still friends. She had a lot of those—friendships. She also had fourteen tattoos in places people could not see. If I hadn’t been afraid of her dying the first night we met, I would’ve probably noticed more of them.
The only one I could see was the one of the clementines sitting on her wrist. When I asked her if there was some symbolic meaning to the fruit, she smiled and didn’t reply. The way her eyes glassed over was enough for me to realize that there definitely was a meaning behind the tattoo, yet it was too hard for her to talk about.
I respected that.
There were some things in my life that I didn’t talk about, either.
On day four, Willow tossed her hands up in the air in frustration and picked up one of my favorite books. She thumbed the dozens of tabs on the novel, in different colors, and raised an eyebrow. “You like this one, huh?”
I nodded. “It saved me time and time again.”
“I’ve never met a guy who tabs his novels.”
“Well, hello, it’s nice to meet you.” I rested my fishing pole on the floor of the boat, allowing it to lean against the side so the line would stay in the water. The fish were assholes that night, but I didn’t mind. I didn’t mind the company lately, either, which was odd.
Why didn’t I mind?
“Can I read it?” she asked me.
“You can do whatever you want, Willow.”
She grinned, grabbed a headlamp, and made herself comfortable. A slight breeze brushed past, so I grabbed my extra blanket and tossed it over her lap.
Why didn’t I hate it?
She read the rest of the night, thumbing through the pages I’d thumbed through in the past. After we finished, I walked her back to the house. We didn’t talk, but she still had the book in her hands, saying she’d need to read it into the night. I didn’t blame her. When I started that book, I also struggled to put it down.
As I walked past her room to head toward mine, Willow hugged her doorframe. “Theo?”
“Yes, Willow.” I gave her a lazy smile. “You can fish with me tomorrow.”
She smiled, and I felt it in my chest.
We’d fished together for the next week. We talked a little bit more, too.
She still hadn’t caught a fish, but she didn’t seem to mind.