“Maybe her work extends to—”
“Phone sex? She says it doesn’t.”
Tate said nothing else. For a few minutes, I suspected he’d fallen asleep. Too hot under the blazing sun, I stood to move under an umbrella. Tate picked up his beer and followed me.
“If you want, I can ask Luna to invite her over here for dinner with us.”
“Yeah, do that.”
He tapped out a text to Luna. She was spending the day in the marsh collecting soil samples for a research project. He set his phone down in the shade then studied me.
“She doesn’t strike me as your type. If you’re using her, Luna won’t forgive you. And then we’ll have an issue hanging out.”
“I’m not using her. I like her. For real. And what, exactly, do you see as my type?”
“Tall, skinny, Ivy background. Like the sorority girls from college. A northeast girl. The kind of girl you dated in undergrad.”
“Fuck off.”
“You think you’ve changed?” He chuckled. “Name one girl you’ve dated who doesn’t fit into that description.”
“You’ve been gone for ten years. How would you know?”
“Name her. Show me a photo.”
“I don’t date anyone seriously.”
“That’s not true. At least it wasn’t true. You weren’t the random hook-up guy. You’d date them. Do the restaurant thing. Movies. You’d date them for a while. Until they wanted to get serious.”
“For someone who’s been gone a long damn time, you really are presumptuous. You think in ten years’ time you’re the only one who changed?”
“Nah, Gregg and I don’t have much to talk about, so he’s filled me in on you.”
“That’s what Gregg said about me?” Tate’s brother and I had stayed friends when Tate went gallivanting around the world. I’d done my part to help them reconnect when Tate first returned, but sitting here, I began to regret it. “Why would he say something like that?”
“He didn’t mean it negatively. I think I asked him if you’d dated anyone seriously or something.”
“Why would you ask him that?”
“Because I have nothing to say to him. And come to think of it, you were texting me about Poppy. Asking me where she was. That’s why it came up. Over Christmas. So, what’s the deal? You can’t use her. I’m telling you, if you do, it’ll cause issues.”
“Use who?” Reed plopped down in a chair near us. I’d flown out and picked him up earlier that morning. He claimed my Cessna vibrated too much and made him nauseated, so he’d gone downstairs to the guest room to take a shower and nap it off.
“Reed, this is my friend Tate. Tate, this is my colleague I told you about. He and I started at Belman around the same time.”
“Nice to meet you. How long are you here for?”
“Not sure. I don’t know if I can get back in that little plane. I might book a commercial flight to get home.”
Tate chuckled. “Yeah, those little planes take a bit to get used to.”
“I’m not one to get seasick or anything, but man. I thought I was going to lose my breakfast.”
“Whatever. It’s a free flight,” I said pointedly to Reed. My plane gave me wings. Not metaphorical wings—real, tangible wings that allowed me to soar. I’d tested the waters a few years ago and became addicted. While it became one of my favorite hobbies, I discovered it was also often a solo hobby. Not too many people loved getting into the kind of plane I was certified to fly. And whereas I found it comforting to go over our plan should our single engine die, I’d noticed no one else took comfort in the fact the plane turned into a glider.
“Have you ridden with him?” Tate nodded as answer to Reed’s question. “Plane shakes like a tin can in the wind. Loud, too. Took forever.”
“We ran into turbulence. It’s not like that every time. And I hate to break it to you, but you won’t get a direct back. You’ll have to connect if you go commercial. My little plane is a helluva lot faster.”
“Your plane is a death trap.”
I flipped Reed the bird, and Tate chuckled.
“No, you don’t understand.” Reed’s tone took on an urgent quality. “He held a sample of fuel up to check for water or some crap. We had to push the plane out of the hangar. Then, when we landed, we pushed it back. Like, held on to a wing and pushed. The guy’s loaded. He should have a private jet and a stewardess.”
“I like flying my own plane. It’s fun. I’m not licensed to fly the bigger planes, and I’m not sure they’d be as much fun. Suck it up, Buttercup.”
“Not again. I’m not getting back in that single engine tin can.”
“Fine by me. Look, I’m going to order some food for dinner tonight. Tate, will Jasmine be joining us?” Tate’s adopted daughter, Jasmine, came over quite a bit for dinner. She always stuck her nose in a book. So quiet, you’d forget she was in the room.
“No. She left this morning for the Outer Banks with Alice. They have tickets to the outdoor Blackbeard show.” Alice, a grandmotherly kind of woman on the island, had bonded quickly with Jasmine. If I were Tate, I might be a little hesitant to let my daughter spend so much time with the odd bird. But given Jasmine arrived from Somalia and spoke in stilted English, I supposed making friends with other thirteen-year-olds might be challenging.
I stepped inside the house and called Shelley to request a catered meal. She asked about tablecloths and candles. If it had been only me and the guys, I would’ve declined. But I liked her suggestion and even told her I’d pay for them to string up some lights over my deck for ambience. After getting a screen door to the face, I decided I needed to up my game. I had zero intention of giving up on my little fantasy. My fingers ached to get a hold of those breasts.
I returned
