I can feel him watching me, and frankly it’s wrecking my concentration.
I suck at fly-fishing, I realize. I don’t suck because I’m holding back; I just plain suck.
“This is fun,” I say. “Thanks for bringing me.”
“Yeah, it’s kind of my favorite thing. You wouldn’t believe some of the fish I’ve caught in this river: brook trout, rainbow trout, cutthroat trout, some brown trout. The native cutthroat are getting rarer, though; the introduced rainbows breed them out.”
“Do you throw them back?” I ask.
“Mostly. That way they grow to be bigger, smarter fish. Better to catch next time. I always release the cutthroat. But if I catch the rainbows I’ll take them home. Mom makes a fierce fish dinner, just fries them up in butter with some salt and pepper, a bit of cayenne sometimes, and it almost melts in your mouth.”
“Sounds heavenly.”
“Well, maybe you’ll catch one today.”
“Maybe.”
“I have tomorrow off,” he says. “You want to meet me at the butt crack of dawn and hike up to watch the sun rise from the best place in Teton? It’s kind of a special day for me.”
“Sure.” I have to admit that as distractions go, Tucker is top-notch. He keeps asking me to do things and I keep saying yes. “I can’t believe summer’s going by so fast.
And I thought it would drag on forever. Ooh, I think I see a fish!”
“Hold on,” groans Tucker. “You’re just waving it around now.”
He steps toward me at the exact moment that I cast the line back. The fly catches his cowboy hat and jerks it off his head. He swears under his breath, lunges to grab it, and misses.
“Whoops! I’m so sorry.” I draw the line in and manage to snag the hat and free it from the hook. I hold it out to him, trying not to giggle. He looks at me with a little mock scowl and snatches it out of my hands. We both laugh.
“I guess I’m lucky it was my hat and not my ear,” he says. “Stay still for a minute, all right?”
He wades into the river and sloshes over to stand behind me in his hip waders, suddenly so close that I can smell him: sunscreen, Oreo cookies for some mysterious reason, a mix of bug spray and river water, and a hint of musky cologne.
I smile, suddenly nervous. He reaches over and takes a strand of my hair between his fingers.
“Your hair isn’t really red, is it?” he asks, and my breath freezes in my lungs.
“What do you mean?” I choke out. When in doubt, I’ve learned from Mom, answer a question with a question.
He shakes his head. “Your eyebrows. They’re, like, dark gold.”
“You’re staring at my eyebrows now?”
“I’m looking at you. Why are you always trying to hide how pretty you are?”
He seems to gaze right into me, like he’s seeing me for who I truly am. And in that moment, I want to tell him the truth. Crazy, I know. Stupid. Wrong. I try to take a step back, but my foot slips and I almost go headfirst into the river but he catches me.
“Whoa,” he says, snaking both hands around my waist to steady me. He pulls me closer to him, bracing against the current. The water parts around us, icy and relentless, tugging and pulling at us as we stand there for a few slow-passing seconds trying to regain our balance.
“You got your legs under you?” he asks, his mouth close to my ear. Goose bumps jump up all along my arm. I turn slightly and get a really close look at his dimple. His pulse is going strong in his neck. His body’s warm against my back. His hand closes over mine on the fishing rod.
“Yeah,” I rasp. “I’m fine.”
What am I doing here? I think dazedly. This is beyond distraction. I don’t know what this is. I should—
I don’t know what I should do. My brain has suddenly checked out.
He clears his throat. “Watch the hat this time.”
We lift the rod together and swing it back, then forward, Tucker’s arm guiding mine.
“Like a hammer,” he says. “Slow back, pause on the back cast, and then”—he casts the rod forward so that the line whirs by our heads and unrolls gently on the water—
“fast hammer forward. Like a baseball pitch.” The dun lights delicately on the surface and hesitates a moment before the current swirls and carries it on. Now that it’s riding on the water, it does resemble an insect, and I marvel at its play on the water.
Quickly, though, the line pulls it unnaturally and it’s time to cast again.
We try it a few times, back and forth, Tucker setting the rhythm. It’s mesmerizing,
“Ready to try it on your own again?” he asks after a while. I’m tempted to say no, but I can’t think of any good reason. I nod. He lets go of my hand and moves away from me, back toward the bank where he picks up his own rod.
“You think I’m pretty?” I ask.
“We need to stop talking,” he says a little gruffly. “We’re scaring the fish off.”
“Okay, okay.” I bite my lip, then smile.
