Page 20 of The Big Catch

“Baby, why are you sorry? I know this shit is tiring. Gabrielle just woke up too. Thirteen. I caught thirteen more fish in three hours,” he informed me.

I jumped into his arms. “Baby! That’s good, right?” I was excited and didn’t even know if that was a good thing.

“It’s a very good thing. Come on.” His heavy hand slapped my ass. He told me the average angler could catch two to three fish an hour. Pro anglers caught anywhere from four to six.

I made sure my hair was under control and my clothes were straightened. Toolie and Gabrielle were already on the platform, waiting for us. All of the other contestants were close in their boats. I felt nervous with all the cameras around. You could feel the anxiousness in the air as the announcer started to talk. I felt the pins and needles sticking at the bottom of my feet.

They announced the second and third place. Gunner pulled me into his side when they said it was time for the first-place winner. My breath hitched in my chest. I heard them say the beginning part of his name, but the rest of it was drowned out by the screams of the crowd.

“Fuck yeah! You still that man,” Toolie congratulated. He celebrated with Gunner for a moment before he moved to get lost in my best friend.

Gunner gripped my ass and slammed his lips against mine. I thought it would be a quick kiss, but nope. There we were, tonguing each other down on national television. The announcer was nice enough to wait for us to finish our kiss before he announced the award. I controlled my facial expression when he said that the payout for this win was twenty thousand dollars.For catching some fish that he had to throw back!This was just one of three days for this competition.

After the announcement of the win came a photo shoot with the last big fish that he caught. He took pictures by himself, with the commissioner, with Toolie, with me, and with Toolie,Gabrielle, and me. When he conducted his interview, I stood right next to him. I felt so honored that he included me in his accomplishments. I reflected on my relationship with Carson, and this was a feeling I never had. Whether it was by my own doing of not caring, the fact was that he never included me in his accomplishments. They were told to me as an afterthought.

His wife was who he shared them with, perhaps. If he had included me, maybe I would have been more attentive. At this point, it was a moot point. That was old, and I needed to leave it where it was. Holden Gunner Becket Jr. was my right now. I hoped he would be my forever. Lord, I’d fallen for a country boy.

“So, you have to do the same thing tomorrow, baby?” I asked Gunner.

We were back in our suite, and he’d just gotten out of the shower. I loved to watch the water glisten on his body. It was so damn sexy and lickable. His body was toned by way of his home gym. He also ran daily.

His hand rubbed the body oil into his skin that he used to moisturize his body. There was nothing like a man who took his self-care serious. His eyes fell on me through the reflection of the mirror on the wall. “Pretty much. You don’t have to come on the boat tomorrow if you don’t want to. I know that shit is draining and can be boring.”

With a cheeky smile, I responded. “There’s no place that I rather be. Besides, who’s going to get you beer and give you kisses?”

His cheeks rose high. He grabbed something off the counter. He walked over to me, then sat on the bed. His hand wentaround and grabbed my hip. “Get up here and moisturize my beard.”

I straddled his lap before I took the small bottle of beard oil out of his hand. He told me not to use too much of it. I did as he instructed, then massaged it into his beard. I couldn’t help leaning in to kiss his lips. When I pulled back, my head leaned to the side. “Did you think we would get here? Like start liking each other and decide to be in a real relationship?”

“Nah, I didn’t. After we fucked the first time, I thought that’s all it would be. You tried to make me your sneaky link with your slick ass.” We both laughed because I really did. “I knew I wanted to explore something with you when you came over with Tink and my sister. You talked about what you wanted to do, and that shit turned me on. It also showed me that there was a shift in your personality that I could finally get down with.

“Since that conversation, you’ve taken steps to do what you said you wanted to do. That proved to me that it wasn’t all talk, which is important to me. The way you love My Boy and Stitch is something else that mattered. You show love to all my babies. In my mind, how you love and take care of animals tells me what kind of mother you’ll be. I want babies with my forever person, so I look for that in the woman I’m interested in,” he concluded.

Since our conversation about school and my jewelry, I’d picked a school that had the merchandising major that I wanted. I figured that would help me when I really started with my jewelry business. There were so many new techniques on how to make jewelry. I was able to find a class in Birmingham that I enrolled in. Gunner told me that he was proud of me after I told him about it. We weren’t even together then, and he cared.

“I just want to be a better person who doesn’t depend on someone else for my income or success. I’ve been there with my ex, and I never want to be there again. My fall from grace taughtme a lot.” Eye opening was all I could say about the past year and some change.

Gunner wrapped his arms tightly around me. “Are you sure you fell from grace, or were you elevated to where you were supposed to be all along? Change your thinking, change your ways, baby.”

I’d never thought about it like that. We were talking about my classes when my phone buzzed on the bed. I picked it up to see that it was an inbox on Instagram. I took the time to open it and became stuck.

Car_Son_TheGreat: Hi Belle. It’s been a while since we last talked. I was watching the news this evening and was surprised to see you on there at a fishing competition of all places. It looks like you’re in a new relationship. You’re not too far from me, so I wanted to know if you wanted to meet to catch up. Let me know.

Her body stiffenedon my lap when she looked at her phone. I watched her eyes move, reading the words on her screen.What the hell is she reading?“Baby, you good?”

My voice knocked her out of her daze. “Oh yeah, I’m good. I’m about to take a shower.”

She locked and set her phone down on the bed, kissed my lips, then climbed from my lap. I watched her ass jiggle to the bathroom. Minutes later, the water was turned on, then I heard the door to the shower closed.Yeah, something ain’t right.I picked up her phone, put the code in, and looked at the screen. She never closed the message that she read.Car_Son_TheGreat, huh?

It didn’t take rocket science to know that this was her ex. I read the message with an arched brow.Oh, married niggas want to catch up with their exes.I clicked on his profile to see something. There were no pictures of his wife or kids on it. Strolling down to the first picture on the page, he’d had thisprofile for two years or so. It was a huge red flag that his family was nowhere on his page.

He couldn’t use the excuse that he didn’t do social media because there had to be at least two hundred pictures on the page. I was the definition of a man that didn’t do social media. Yes, I had a page that Nadine managed as my media manager for my fishing career. If I was on a post, talking intentionally for the post, it was a pre-recorded promotion video that she posted. She posted a picture of my win today and my kiss with Belle. A man that was active on social media and in love would show off his family.

I went back to the inbox to send him a message of my own. Belle and I may not have been together for long, but I was the type of man to study people around me. I’d studied her from the first day that I met her. I knew when something was up with her ass. I put my fingers on the screen of Belle’s phone. I had to make sure I sounded like her.

Beauty_Belle_Cari: Hey… yeah it’s been a while since you told me that we were fake married. I have moved on. As far as the whole catching up thing, the only time that I have available is tomorrow for dinner after 6. My man is competing again tomorrow, so I’ll be busy during the day. Let me know where and what time.

Thetypingindicator came onto the screen. I wasn’t worried about Belle coming out and seeing me on her phone. She took forever in the shower, which was why I always showered first if we were not in it together.What the hell does he have to say?

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