Page 31 of Falling for Her

I find a video tutorial, and we both watch it.

“Okay, that looks easy enough,” I mumble. “Get the rod.” He picks up one of the rods and brings it to me. “We need a hook.” He digs around in the tackle box and finds one. I sit on the ground, pausing the tutorial as needed. It takes me way longer than it should, but I finally think I have it right. “Got it.” I smile up at Asa, and he rushes to get the live bait. He pulls the top off, and the black earth inside writhes with worms. “Here,” he says. I look at him.

“Gross, gross, gross,” I mutter, grabbing a worm. It wiggles right out of my fingers. I get up, turning in a circle as he laughs at me.

“It’s not gross.” Asa picks it up off the ground and holds it out for me.

“Thanks.” I grab it and drape it over the hook.

“You need to stick it in the worm,” he tells me, and I close my eyes. “Want me to do it?”

“No,” I snap out, “that’s so pointy.” I hold the worm as it wriggles. “I’m so sorry,” I apologize as I stick the hook through him. “This has to be the grossest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

“You’re the best,” Asa cheers. He’s grinning at me, and my heart seizes in my chest.

“Okay, go fish,” I tell him, handing him the rod.

It takes him a couple of tries before it flies in the water.

“I did it!” he yells, jumping up and down. “I did it!”

“Good job! Now I think we just wait until it pulls or something, and then you reel it in with that.” I point to the little round thing.

He tries the hook in three different spots. “This is, I think, somewhat relaxing, don’t you think?” I ask him as he looks at the water rushing downstream.

“Yeah.”

“You are really quiet today.” I push his arm with mine. “Especially after I just brought you fishing?” I smile at him. “What’s going on with you?”

“Mom didn’t call today or yesterday.”

I put my arm around him. “You miss her, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I guess. She said she was going to call me.” His voice is low, and I just want to take him in my arms and, at the same time, call Maggie and tell her to call her son.

“Maybe with the time change and everything, she thought you wouldn’t be up. Or, you know, we weren’t really home all day yesterday, so we might have missed her call. We wouldn’t even know since you brought your tablet with you and there was no Wi-Fi.” I’m just making shit up at this point, hoping that he doesn’t call me on it. “Once she’s back home, everything will go back to the way it was. I mean, now she’s married, so you have a new stepdad . . . Do you like him?” I have to wonder if any of the husbands my mother had after my father even gave a shit about me or the relationship we had. I barely had one with my mother, so I don’t think I was even given a second thought. Out of sight. Out of mind.

“Tim?” Asa shrugs his shoulders. “He’s okay, I guess. He tries really hard to get me to do things with him, but it’s just too much.”

“I’m sure it’s not easy for him.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “He’s coming in, and he knows how cool your dad is, so he has to try and be as cool. He’s trying to get you to like him, but not too much because he’ll never be your dad.”

“I never thought about it like that.” He reels his line in a bit. “He did say he wanted to be a bonus dad.”

“Maybe there are things that you and Tim can do together. Like, I don’t know, what about playing chess? Or fishing? Maybe find something that can be just for the two of you.”

“I guess I can do that,” he says, still unsure. “I just don’t want my dad to feel bad.”

“Asa, your dad is not going to feel bad. But if you want, why don’t you have a conversation with him about it? He loves you big time, so I bet he’ll be happy you went to him instead of keeping things inside.”

He doesn’t answer because his line pulls, and he shrieks, “I got something!” He starts to reel it in.

“Nice and slow,” I advise, like I know what I’m talking about, as he eases it out of the water. There’s a small fish on the hook.

“You did it!” I shout with my hands in the air. “You did it.” He pulls the fish up so it dangles in the air. “Eww,” I say as it flops side to side.

“Finley, I think he’s hurt,” he tells me, holding the fish in his hand. “You have to take it off and throw it back.”

“It’s okay.” I walk to him. “How about you hold the fish, and then I can take the hook out of him?”