Page 15 of Catch and Release
She bit her lip, clearly trying to hold back a laugh.
“It’s just that you don’t look much like an experienced fisher,” Shawn said, trying to bring himself back to the conversation at hand.
He immediately knew he’d said the wrong thing. Her smile dropped slightly and her eyes narrowed.
“Yeah, well,” she said, quickly reeling in her line. “You don’t look much like a feminist. So.”
Shit.
Shit.
What he meant to say was, You were just so gorgeous with your flowing hair and your piercing eyes and your delectable tits that I thought, surely a creature this perfect can’t also fish like she was born to do it?
And instead, he’d said… that.
Once her line was all the way in, she withdrew the leftover bait from her hook and tossed it in the water. She put her fishing rod in a holder mounted on the wharf before facing him.
“I’m heading inside. Just put your rod away whenever you’re done.”
As she walked back to the house, she unceremoniously dumped the cast net into a dock box. Shawn watched her walk away until he could barely see her silhouette through the flashlight she was using to navigate back to the house. He sighed, reeling in his rod and disposing of his bait like she did, before hanging it on one of the holders they’d mounted on the wall.
As he walked back to his house, he checked the time and noticed over an hour had passed since he left to bring her the brownies. She operated on the water with the comfort of a local, fished like she’d been doing it since she was a baby—which, Shawn realized, she probably had. He wanted to make sense of her.
But she dressed like a Valley Girl and was as forthcoming as a barnacle.
And his stupid little crush meant he desperately wanted her to like him, which she clearly didn’t. He’d spent years doing nothing but flash a pleasing smile to tourists before teaching them how to fish, laying his accent on thick because he knew the effect it had on people, getting easy approval and trust from strangers.
Not to mention, he was a people-pleasing Southerner. He’d become the town’s go-to handyman over the past several years, ever since he took over the bait shop and his grandmother started giving out his phone number like it was the peppermint candy she carried in her purse. He’d fixed people’s docks after tropical storms, taught his elderly neighbors how to use Netflix, and mowed lawns for his grandmother’s friends while they were out of town. He knew the best fishing spots and took a group of elderly men fishing every month, before bringing them home to filet and cook their fish for them.
Everybody liked Shawn. He’d never had a problem charming women and he always knew what to say when someone was going through a rough time. He was reliable and steadfast and never hesitated to help someone out.
He didn’t know what to make of the fact that Willa tongue-tied him so much that everything out of his mouth seemed to offend or annoy her. Most of the time, it seemed better to just keep his mouth shut. And he wished to God, more than anything, that he didn’t care as much as he did.
Because even though he had butterflies again, he kept replaying what she’d told him.
Let’s just say I’ve sworn off men for a while.
A single lamp was lit in the living room. His grandmother was curled up under her favorite blanket knitting, and he grinned as he pushed open the back door.
“Can’t believe you’re still awake, Grams,” he drawled as he took his shoes off and sat across from her.
“You sure have been gone a long time, Scoob,” she said, lips pressed together and eyebrows lifted expectantly.
Shawn groaned, dragging a hand over his face.
“So that’s why you’re still awake,” he muttered.
“She’s pretty, isn’t she?”
“I thought you said you hadn’t seen her since she was a kid?”
“I’ve got binoculars for a reason, Scooby,” Grams said.
“Lord, have mercy, Grams. Don’t tell people that.”
“I’m 78 years old. I’ll do what I want.”
Shawn was torn between wanting to laugh and wanting to hide her binoculars. Instead, he got up and started heading to bed.