Reason Is You (9781101576151) (12 page)

I laughed nervously. “No—see, I know and I’m sorry, but you don’t understand.”

“Don’t understand what?”

The coffee sat like acid in my stomach. “The—the boat—doing a tour by myself. I can’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t drive the boat. I mean, technically, yeah, get me out in
the middle of the river and I can probably steer it. But—getting out there—” I licked my dry lips and tried to breathe normally. “Launching and docking? No. Trolling? Not a chance in hell.”

He stared at me. “Marg told me you were backup.”

“Well, my guess is none of us thought it’d really come up.”

His jaw twitched as he turned and leaned against the counter.

“Well, my guess is you better figure out how to pull this bluff off.”

I felt a fine sheen of sweat pop out and I laughed. “Seriously, come on. If Hank can’t put a charter together this fast, what am I supposed to do? We have to cancel.”

“They’ll be here in an hour. It’s too late for that.”

I peered closer at him. “Why are you so calm?”

One side of his mouth drew up. “What do you mean?”

“You should be panicked, too. You’re all calm and—pleasant.”

He chuckled and averted his gaze. “My son turns ten today, I guess it’s a good day.”

“Oh. Well, that’s cool.” I put aside my misery for a micro-minute. “Doing anything special?”

A shadow passed through his expression and I instantly regretted the question. Of course
he
wouldn’t be.

Jason shrugged. “He probably is. I already had my time with him, sort of. Doesn’t matter, though. Still a good day.”

I set my cup down as he walked into the back, and in walked Blaine Wilson with Matty Sims. Lovely. I pulled out every drawer I could get my hands on, tugging maps from everywhere. Shit. I was so screwed.

“I’ll be damned, my wife wasn’t shittin’ me,” Matty said slowly. A little too slowly.

I attempted a courteous smile through my pending panic, four different maps clutched close. Surely two little girls wouldn’t be
that hard to buffalo. If I could just get the dad to drive the damn boat.

Matty sauntered to the counter, Blaine tagging behind like his pet ferret. He nodded at the maps.

“Whatcha got going here?”

The fumes that emanated off him pushed me back a step.

“Arranging a fishing tour,” I tossed back as I snatched a couple of Jiminy’s extra hats from an upper shelf. “Can I help you?”

Matty leaned forward on the counter. “You do tours? I’d go on one of your tours.” His speech was slow and drawly and matched his foggy eyes. Still, he grinned like he’d said something fabulous.

I set down the hats and put a finger under my nose. “Wow, Matty, that’s some powerful—breakfast—you had.”

His grin turned into something snarkier. “Well now, didn’t you just turn out all cocky?”

“Can I help you with something?” I didn’t have time for all that. I didn’t have time for anything.

“Came for some deer corn, but I don’t know—” he slurred. He dragged his eyes around and then back to me. Head to toe. “What else you got?”

I looked at Blaine, who turned his smirk away. I grabbed a nearby pad, refusing to be baited.

“How much corn you need?”

Matty ran a finger down my neck and I swatted it away.

“How. Much. Corn.” I stared him down with everything I had.

For about two seconds, we were back at school with me cornered under the stairwell. His body pressing mine against the tile. Same breath. Then I was back. His arrogant sneer was so repulsive, I almost felt sorry for Shelby. Almost.

“A little strange on the side might be fun, don’t you think?” he said, his voice raspy. The look on his face said he thought it was sexy.

I felt the familiar prickle on the back of my neck and I almost groaned.
Please don’t be you, Alex. Not now
.

“And you always were that.”

My head pounded on no caffeine, and an old lady in the corner caught my attention. She wore a blue T-shirt and black stretchy pants on her frail frame, black slip-on tennies on her feet. She had salt-and-pepper hair and was really unremarkable in appearance except for the mischievous twinkle in her blue eyes that hinted at trouble. She winked at me. Great. Another dead winker.

I slugged back more coffee. The old lady came to stand next to Blaine, close enough to make him fidget. It was hard to keep a straight face.

“Corn?”

“Aw, come on.” He dropped his voice. “Bet it’d be freaky with you. You still freaky, Dani?”

I blinked and put the pen down, leaning into his stinky breath.

“You still dick-less, Matty?”

Blaine snickered and moved like there were ants in his shoes. The old lady followed him, so that every place he landed, he had to instantly shuffle again.

Matty puffed up like a blowfish. “You’re just jealous, freak show, because you never got you a piece.”

I nearly upchucked my coffee. “A piece? Really?”

The old lady walked up close to him and whispered something in his ear that made him quickly grab his crotch and then relax again. I laughed.

“You know what? I think I’ll let Shelby have all your
pieces
, okay?”

“Coach Sims!”

Matty whirled wobbily around to greet the voice with a car salesman grin and a shaky hand. A boy of about twelve rattled on
to Matty about football while the dad stood proudly by him and held the hands of two younger girls.

Two little girls. Crap.

I turned to grab all my papers, and was about to go look for Jason to ask questions, when he walked through the hall entryway.

“Oh hey,” I said, “I think they’re here. Early.”

“Got it under control?”

“Do I look under control?”

One of the maps slipped free, and he bent to pick it up. As he handed it to me, he leaned to look past me at the group by the door.

“They don’t look too scary.”

“I want to throw up.”

He laughed. A genuine laugh, which I noted as the second one I’d seen in two days.

“You’ll be fine.”

“No. I won’t. I’m gonna make an ass out of myself and then follow that up with probably killing us all.” I pulled out their paperwork for the dad to sign. “But hey, if you’re good with that, then what the hell.”

My pen clattered to the floor, shattering what was left of my composure.

“Shit.”

I squatted to pick it up, and suddenly the old lady was squatted in front of me, directly between me and Jason. Her skin was deeply etched and kinda saggy, but her light blue eyes could have been that of a twenty-year-old.

“Just watch,” she said in a soft, muted voice.

I opened my mouth but then looked up at Jason by the counter, and I rose, carefully stepping to the side so as not to touch her.

“So what boat do I take?”

Jason shook his head as you would to a child that just wears you out and opened a cabinet with keys dangling from hooks.

“This one is already out and docked,” he said as he pressed the key into my hand. “No launching required. Just go in reverse first.”

I stared at the key and wished for another life.

“And since when do we call customers ‘dick-less’?”

That brought my head back up, and heat rose up my neck. But irritation won over embarrassment.

“Since he wanted to get in my pants and I’ve seen what’s in his.”

The corner of his mouth twitched into an almost smile. “Oh?”

“And not in a fun way.”

“Oh.”

“He’s just an older drunker version of what he was twenty years ago.”

“Shelby’s fortunate.”

I just raised my eyebrows at that. I didn’t have the fortitude to get into a Shelby discussion.

“Okay.” I rubbed at my face and felt lost. “He needs deer corn. I’m gonna go—deal with this. If you hear a loud bang, or we don’t come back tonight, send out a search party.”

“I’ll take care of the corn,” he said. A knocking noise came from the bait room, and Jason frowned his way back that direction.

The girls’ names were Celeste and Carole. Eight-year-old twins, but not the wear-the-same-clothes-and-fool-the-teacher kind. The brother left for some kind of practice, while Daddy-O and the rugrats were left with me, all signed in and donned with Jiminy’s caps. Celeste didn’t look impressed with the hat idea. She appeared to be the potential high-maintenance future cheerleader. Carole, however, promised to follow a more library-aide-slash-valedictorian route.

Celeste kept taking her hat off and tucking her hair behind her
ears and replacing it. She had a neon pink rod and reel. Carole brandished a blue one. They were ready to go.

Okay. I downed two more cups of coffee before I remembered I would be out on the water for four hours.
Four hours.
Crap.

“Okay, let’s head down to the dock,” I called with enthusiasm. Hoping I fooled the dad. I carried the tackle box full of lures and Jiminy’s notebook of laminated fish pictures and notations. I would cheat my way through.

I watched the water approach, watched the boat bob gently, and felt the familiar buzz of anxiety fill my body. The sound of distant wind sang in my ears, and I shook my head clear of it. Then, as we reached the boat, the unexpected happened. I heard it. That unmistakable sound of body functions start to churn, reroute, and spew. I pivoted just in time to see little Carole pull a Linda Blair and blow forth half her body weight in vomit.

I jumped back. Celeste screamed. The dad cursed. Poor little Carole just turned green at the sight of what she’d done all over the dock, and did it again. Thankfully, she missed the boat. And the old lady sitting in it. She winked at me again.

The dad apologized and I turned the whole stinky crying procession around, with promises to reschedule when Carole felt better, and to please keep the hats. I breathed a sigh of relief and told them I’d meet them there in a moment.

When they were out of earshot, I turned back to her.

“What did you do?”

“No offense, but I’d rather my grandkids not be run up on a sandbar or impaled with each other’s hooks.”

She finished with a gravelly cough. First time I’d ever heard a spirit cough. Kinda figured that went by the wayside with that whole death thing.

“Your grandkids?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I began to laugh. “Oh, that’s just priceless.”

“They can come back another time,” she said. “Maybe I will, too. This looks like fun.”

“You made her throw up?”

She shrugged and her eyes lit up again. “You learn things.” She got up slowly. “And now she’ll go home and be allowed to curl up in bed and read all day.”

I narrowed my eyes. “What she really wanted.” She shrugged again and smiled. I pointed a finger. “You’re good.”

“You’re welcome.”

I laughed nervously. “That, too. I was petrified, thank you.”

We walked back up the dock, and I was careful to face forward like I’d long trained myself to do.

“By the way, what did you say in Matty Sims’s ear?”

She chuckled and coughed again. “I told him his penis was out.”

“And he heard you?”

“Nah, just gives him the idea.”

“Man, where were you when I was in high school?”

“Breathing.”

T
HE
back door was open as I walked back up, and the banging noises I’d heard earlier were noticeably louder.

“I’m back,” I said, peeking in. “Holy crap.”

“Can you hand me that wrench?” he said, his voice strained from what appeared to be a nearly upside down position he was in.

I followed his finger to a rusty tool on the floor in front of the minnow vat. A floor now evenly covered in about a half inch of water. I handed him the dripping wrench and gingerly spattered my way around him. He had the cover off the water pump by then,
and the motor made sounds like a giant card caught in a wheel spoke.

“What happened?”

“A hose ruptured, I think. There’s some electrical tape up front in the drawer. Go get it so I can wrap it before it completely pops.”

“That’s making the noise?”

“No, that’s making the mess.”

I smirked behind his head. As I turned, the noise stopped. “Hey, you fixed it?”

“Temporarily,” he said with a grunt as he tightened something a little more.

He was still on his knees in the water, and his jeans soaked it up. His hair stood out on end. It dawned on me that I’d never seen him messy.

“Hmm.”

“This thing needs to be replaced, but for now all I have are Band-Aids.”

“It’s pretty old.”

“It’s ancient,” he said, blowing out a breath. “And if I turn it off, it may not come back on, so can you please go get that tape before I prune up?”

The question barely crossed his lips when it happened. The hose burst under the pressure and whipped out, catching him across the side of his neck before he could duck.

“Jason!”

He fell sideways and attempted to grab the wildly gyrating hose as it blew fish water like a power washer.

“Crap!” I lunged and tried to grab it, too, but it sliced across my legs and arms faster than I could move. “Ow! Shit!”

Jason scrambled for it and his angle hit the hose so that water spewed directly up my nose at two hundred psi. I half screamed,
half choked as I fell backward onto my ass with a splash. The burn made my eyes water and I coughed as I groped blindly.

“I got it,” he yelled, but it slipped past him and walloped me upside the head.

“Ack! Geez!”

Suddenly it hit my hand at just the right millisecond, and I wrapped my fingers around it. Not a great moment, because the power pulled me with it. Right into Jason. We went down like dominoes, me on top of him, nose to runny nose.

T
WO
seconds later, the water stopped. Just stopped. We both head-snapped toward the offending hose—and past it to where Bob stood, his hand on the switch. His mouth twitched with the effort not to laugh.

“You turn the water pump off, it’ll stop,” he said.

Jason and I both sucked air, and as we faced each other again, I was suddenly acutely aware of his arms around me and the fact that I was sprawled against him. I let go of the limp hose and pushed myself awkwardly off him, till I could sit. In water. But there reaches a point when you can’t get any wetter.