Page 44 of The Catch

“Why?”

“Because I want to know why you’re so afraid of me.”

Her mouth dropped into that O thing again. She was going to start catching flies. “I’m not afraid of you,” she said with an awkward cackle of insincerity.

Josh tipped his head, his expression tenderly disbelieving. His eyes said,bullshit, Cat.His smile saidI can see thatyou’re a terrified little girl who has no idea how to do this.But he didn’t say any of that out loud. Instead, he laced their fingers and looked out toward the pool, gently pulling her along, the way only he seemed to know how to do.

“His name was Micah,” Cat answered cautiously. They were having such a nice time. Bringing up Micah seemed like inviting it to rain on a picnic—or a make-out session on the beach—but he’d asked. “We were together in college from my sophomore year on. He was a year ahead of me.”

“Okay.”

She sighed. “We had plans—the forever kind—but I had my own plans too. I wanted to go to Berkeley to study immigration law.”

“California?”

“Yup. It was my dream. I got in, too. But Micah was already going to Georgetown for law school.”

“Hometown guy.”

“Right. He had a year in already. He asked me to wait until he was done, promised we would go together and…” She trailed off, not wanting to reveal how foolish she’d been.

It didn’t matter. She was smarter now.

But Josh pressed. “And what?”

“And get married, buy a house… all that.”

Josh nodded, settling back on his hands. “But, you didn’t.”

“Right before he graduated, after I’d wasted two years doing an internship instead of getting my own degree, he got offered a job here in D.C. He said it was too good of an opportunity to pass up.”

Cat felt her skin heat in anger as she remembered Micah’s face when he’d broken the news—rueful, embarrassed even, but in no way conflicted. He made his choice so easily. Cat and everything she ever wanted were collateral damage to a shrewd business decision. It was humiliating.

That was the thing with Micah. Not only had her dreams been smashed to pieces, but they’d been together since college. There was a huge web of friends and acquaintances who had witnessed her naivety. They probably still laughed about how easily she’d bought into that lie.The girl who gave it all up for a guy.It was something she’d watched her sisters do and vowed never to imitate.

Her oldest sister Maria had an MBA, and instead of using it to open the restaurant she’d always wanted to, she gave up that dream to do basic accounting for her husband’s marina. Olivia had what you would call a face for the big screen. She’d modeled from the time she was a toddler, and everyone expected to see her name in lights one day. Instead, she got married as soon as she graduated high school, and she’d been popping out kids ever since. Goodbye, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition; hello, stretch marks. And after all of that, what had Cat done with the first guy she fell in love with? She’d happily skipped down the exact same path like Little Red Riding Hood to the wolf’s house.

You can have love, or you can have your pride. You can’t have both.

“So, no California?” Josh asked. He squeezed her hand and she wanted to sob.

“No California. I enrolled locally instead, and here I am, twenty-seven and still not a lawyer yet.”

“You’re still doing it, though. You didn’t give up. That’s brave.”

“Maybe.” It hadn’t felt brave. It felt like accepting a consolation prize. “The one light in all of it was that my internship was at the victim’s advocacy firm where I work. After spending those two years there, I knew that’s where I wanted to focus, so I stayed. When I pass the bar, I’ll already have a position.”

Josh was quiet again, and she listened to the pool water lap the concrete side, thinking. “I don’t know the guy,” he said after a moment, “so I can’t speak for him… but I have a feeling if you asked me to go somewhere with you, anywhere, I would.”

She swung her head around to look at him. His eyes were dark with sincerity. “Why?” she whispered.

“You can work anywhere. Having someone who wants to go through life with you? To be happy for your happiness, and you for theirs? I’d never let that go for a job. For anything, really.”

It struck her that Josh must have felt the same way when his wife decided to renege on the plans the two of them had made together, and a sort of combined sadness settled over her. Some for him; some for her.

She took the last sip of her drink, setting the cup beside her, and leaned over to trail her fingers in the pool. The moonlight reflected off of the glassy surface, a sorrowfully-crooned country song drifting around them in surround sound. Josh moved closer to her, and instinctively she did the same until they were touching. Surprising herself, she leaned her head on his shoulder, feeling a little like being comforted.

He seemed to know as much. He wrapped an arm around her and pressed his mouth to the top of her head, breathing through her hair for a few moments. Cat’s eyes began to prick with absurd tears, a vulnerability washing over her that she hadn’t felt in a long time. It was probably just the tequila, she told herself, while snuggling closer to him, but she knew it was more than that. She felt open all of a sudden, and she needed to get back to something that made sense. Josh’s hard chest and strong arms made sense. The physical reaction she was having to being pressed against him made sense. At the moment, it felt as simple as breathing. Physiology, biology. Tonight she was going to finish what she started on that beach.

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