Page 28 of The Catch

“You’re welcome. How about a drink, and then we can decide what to eat?”

“Sure.” He gestured for her to go ahead, and they stepped through the gate and onto a grassy pavilion filled with people and more tents. The sun was high in the afternoon sky, reflecting off of the white canvas and the vinyl pennant flags strung between the booths. A fine sheen of sweat dampened her hairline, but just like at the beach, Josh looked unbothered by the heat, by the crowd, by… anything.

“Beer or wine?” he asked.

Vendors lined either side of the grass. To the left was a crowd of college-aged kids tipping back clear cups of amber liquid and forming little islands of laughter and general rowdiness. To the right, couples meandered through the tables of reds and whites, holding hands and looking at each other lovingly.

She pointed at the line of barrels and kegs, and Josh nodded, letting her lead the way. “Do you come into the city often?” she asked when they each had a cup of a locally made IPA.

“I do a lot of work here.” He took a sip, licking the moisture off of his bottom lip. “You ever come out to the islands?”

The island where Josh lived was more like a peninsula. You didn’t have to take a boat to get there, but it still had that isolated feel. It was a well-known vacation spot, so it was kind of funny that he’d been vacationing elsewhere when they met. Fatefully funny, according to Emma.

“I’ve only been once,” she said. “It’s beautiful there.”

“Maybe I can get you to come a second time.”

Cat snorted a juvenile laugh at his inadvertent double entendre, and his ears pinked adorably. “For a visit,” he clarified. “But I’m not ruling that out.”

She laughed again, genuinely. He was good at this too—banter, flirting in a way that made her feel safe instead of like she owed him something for playing along. She started to get that cartwheel feeling in her belly again. She was making this way too easy for him, purring at every little thing he said. Time for some hardball.

“So, Josh,” she said, “you said that night in your hotel room that it wasn’t a habit for you to pick up women at bars and take them home. How do you usually pick up women?”

Josh’s lips parted in surprise, the corners of his eyes crinkling in amusement. He licked his bottom lip and shrugged. “Well, now that I think about it, I guess it sort of is a habit.”

A scowl pinched Cat’s face, her teeth grinding. She should have known. “I don’t do this sort of thing”—what a line. She squeezed the plastic cup in her hand, contemplating tossing it at him before remembering that she was the one who practically demanded that he take her to his room in the first place. All to prove a point to herself.Thiswas why she didn’t do stuff like that.

In the midst of her internal rant, she noticed he was smiling down at her, his eyes dancing with mischief. “I’m kidding, Cat. You’re the first woman I’vepicked upsince my divorce.” He used his fingers and satire in his voice to quote her somewhat churlish choice of words.

Oh. She’d forgotten how recently he’d been divorced. Less than a year and most people would require a little time before they got back out there. Maybe he really hadn’t been out prowling when they met. She started to feel guilty for once again judging him so quickly until another thought flashed in her head like a neon sign: Rebound. If she was the first, then she was destined to be the rebound to a marriage that lasted the better part of a decade. It all made sense now. Great. Just what she needed.

“So you haven’t dated at all since, you know?” she made a rolling motion with her hand in lieu of saying the worddivorce.

“I went on a few dates with one woman. I didn’t pick her up, though,” he said, nudging her elbow with his. “Dylan set it up. She was friends with his girlfriend at the time. It didn’t go anywhere. I should have known it wouldn’t but…”

“But what?”

He blew out a long breath and led her around another couple that was blocking the path. “It was a few months after my ex-wife left,” he said. “She just… she reminded me of her in a way. It wasn’t that I was pining away over Sarah. We were like polite roommates by the time we finally signed the papers. I just thought I wanted that familiarity. To go back to what I knew. But then I’m sitting there, staring across the table at this woman, and all I’m seeing is Sarah, hearing her voice in everything she was saying, and it hit me that this was a story I already knew the end to. Like I’d heard this song before, you know?”

“I do know,” she whispered, a little flustered by his mature response. Maybe hehadworked through some of this already. Maybe he even had her beat on that front. That was exactly how she felt the last time she saw Micah again, years after they had broken up—thinking she wanted that familiarity, that comfort. She quickly realized, however, that she’d been broken and put back together in a completely new way and they just didn’t fit anymore. She imagined it was like that for Josh, trying to fit into a box you had outgrown. Only he seemed to have a better handle on what kind of box would fit the new him. She was still unsure if one existed.

“Anyway,” he said, summoning back a lighter moment. “Are you hungry?”

“Always.”

Josh laughed from his belly, proving he’d forgiven her for being a jerk. “See,” he said, his grin back in full force. “We already have so much in common.”

Cat chose tacos from one of the food trucks lining the festival—Baja fish and avocado. Josh ordered something fried and smothered in a cream sauce, and he did insist on paying. Even if he turned up no other faults, he was clearly going to be a horrible influence on her diet. She’d eaten half of his chips dipped in that cream by the time they found a clear spot to sit and people watch.

The festival was in one of her favorite neighborhoods; rows and rows of brownstones strung together by brick sidewalks and old-fashioned lamp posts. It was a historic district, protected by the city, and it oozed charm and nineteenth-century romance. They walked to the edge of the festival area and found a patch of grass in the shade. The scent of cilantro from their lunch mingled with the sun-soaked earth and grass. The combination felt exotic, like they’d transported to a place where dining al fresco to the sound of steel drums was a normal occurrence. Like they were still on vacation. If she wasn’t there with him, she’d probably be eating a prepackaged salad in her office with the blinds closed to stop the glare on her laptop.

Josh laid out all of their food and two full cups of summer ale onto the grass. He sat criss-cross and offered her his hand while she climbed down beside him.

Cat crossed her legs, laying her napkin over her lap. “Tell me more about yourself, Josh,” she said, stealing another taco chip. “I feel like you and I started with all of the heavy stuff, but I don’t know very many basic Josh facts.”

“What do you want to know?”

“What do you do for fun?”

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