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)
In a few weeks, Grandma and PaPa were having a big anniversary party, and Grandma kept going on and on about how her friend would come up and plan it all out for them. The party was also taking place on my property, and so many people would attend because my grandparents were professionals at making friends with anyone and everyone who crossed their paths. The theme was Alice in Wonderland—Grandma’s favorite story. PaPa went along with the theme because whatever Grandma wanted, she got. It’d been that way since I was a kid. And Grandma always wanted batty, colorful parties. She’d even talked about how hers and PaPa’s funerals should look as far away from funerals as possible. “Lots of color and music,” she’d said. “And shots of whiskey,” PaPa would add in.
Anything with Molly Langford near it would always be vibrant. Especially their anniversary party.
I was already dreading hosting it.
I was dreading having a summer roommate even more. Like I said, I liked my solitude.
A few years ago, when Grandma went to visit her sister in Chicago, she met a friend at a crocheting class. They’d been pen pals ever since, writing one another handwritten letters each month. Leave it to my grandmother to still be making friends in her late eighties. She invited said friend to stay all summer.
The whole. Fucking. Summer.
Her friend agreed.
Which meant I’d spend the next three months living with some old lady who still sent snail mail like it was a normal thing. It must’ve been nice to be retired and able to spend your whole summers wherever you pleased.
I prayed each day that the woman wasn’t a yapper.
I didn’t have the time or energy to listen to an old woman talk about crocheting and soap operas. My hope was that she’d spend most of her time at my grandparents’ house, then go to bed at three in the afternoon so she’d hardly cross my path. That was the best-case scenario in my mind.
The worst?
Yap, yap, fucking yap.
After dinner that night with my grandparents, I’d do what I did every night during the summer months. I’d pack my tackle box, grab my fishing poles, and go sit on my boat for hours into the night. I’d always bring a book with me, too, since the fish were nonexistent some nights. Then I’d do the same thing the next day. I liked my life. It wasn’t much, but it was simple.
It was quiet.
I loved the quiet.
For a long time, I felt lonely growing up. I didn’t have friends and grew up getting bullied, which led to me leaning into two things: fishing and books. Sometimes books about fishing. Even after I was an adult, I still held on to my private life. Growing up, I spent a lot of time in the gym bulking up because it was easier not to get beat up if I had enough muscles to fight back. Grandpa used to chew me out for getting into so many fights as a teenager, but when I finally broke down and told him the reason for the fights, he signed me up for karate courses.
I haven’t had to fight in years, though. I thanked the muscles for that. Though I found it hard to connect with people in town, especially the ones who tried to pretend they weren’t complete dicks to me growing up—both the women and men. It amazed me how much bullies had amnesia when it came to the bullshit way they’d treated people.
I wondered if they remembered how they used to shove my head into the toilets at school whenever they’d show up at the farmers’ market to request a deal on salmon. Or how they used to call me St-st-stuttering Theo throughout high school when they had enough nerve to ask me out on a date nowadays. One thing was true about Kaitlin—she never bullied me when we were kids. She did sleep with my cousin, though, so that was enough for me to remove her from my life.
None of that mattered, though, because I wasn’t that scared little boy anymore, and I wasn’t really interested in looking for love. I’d already found my favorite love story.
That love story was me on the water.
Sitting on my boat.
Reading my book.
With a braided fishing line resting in the water.
Everything was fine and dandy until around two in the morning when I heard a giant splash not too far from where my boat sat.
CHAPTER 2
Theo
What the hell was that?!
I stood in my boat and placed my book on my seat as I glanced around the lake, searching for what had caused the loud noise. I’d never had other people on the water with me in the wee hours of the morning, so I knew it wasn’t another fisherman. And I knew damn well it wasn’t the urban legend giant squid, Mumford, whose stories were told around the Westin campfires when I was a kid.