Page 41 of Catch of a Lifetime
“Dave wouldn’t dump you any more than Marcy would dump me,” he said.
“I didn’t mean he’d left me forever, I meant he’d left me for the year. I know a goodbye when I hear one. Unlike some people.” I gave him a pointed look.
“Hah. Dave hasn’t gone for the year, and I ain’t leaving you to brood, you great drama queen.”
I ignored him, dropping my gardening gloves on the table by the door and going over to the kitchen sink to scrub my hands.
“Well, okay. Could be he has gone for the year,” Jerry amended. “I can’t be sure about that part. But him coming back, and me not leaving you to brood, that I’m sure about.” He hauled out a kitchen chair and dropped into it. “Make us a brew, would you?”
I filled the kettle and set it to boil.
Jerry was worse than dandelions. If he wanted to be there, you couldn’t get rid of him.
I opened the biscuit tin and dropped it in front of him. He busied himself stuffing his face with Hobnobs while I busied myself making tea.
I brought the tea over and sat opposite him. “It was goodbye, Jerry.”
He did me the courtesy of not simply brushing it off straight away. Probably because he had his mouth full of biscuit. He swallowed, washed it down with a noisy gulp of tea, and said, “So. It was goodbye. Big deal.”
“Yes, actually. Big deal. I’ve said before that I’d wait forever for Dave, and I mean it. It’s not exactly my preference, though. Forgive me for my disappointment.” I poked through the tin and selected a custard cream, twisting it viciously in half and going right for the filling. I had to take my pleasures where I found them, I supposed, since I’d be going without the kind I really wanted for another year.
God.
I wanted to hold him. To be with him. It wasn’t the sex. It had never been about the sex. I wanted toholdhim.
“I still think he’s got worms,” Jerry said.
I grimaced.
“That’s disappointing. Was trying to cheer you up. Make you laugh. Make you choke on your biscuit.”
I wanted to choke on something else, thanks.
“All right, I don’t think it’s worms. Can’t argue that he’s unnaturally hungry. Twice he’s gone after my nets. That’s a lot of fucking fish, Joe. I reckon he ate them all, as well. Reckon if he didn’t, he’d have tossed any leftovers up over the side.”
“Yeah. I think I was starving him.”
“Starving him? You’ve got a right one on you, haven’t you?” At my flat look, he said, “You’re in a mood.”
“Thank you, I do understand the idiom.”
“Do you also understand that you were doing your very best and that’s all you can do, then?”
“Yes.”
“Give yourself a break, would you? He’s still convalescing. He needs his food. The way he’s going at it so single-minded, like, says it’s more than hunger what’s driving him. Know what I reckon is more important to Dave than wanting a little snack? Wanting a little Joe. That’s what I reckon.”
I stared at him.
“And…” Jerry scratched his beard. “Maybe if I’d thought of that earlier, I’d have let him keep on at my nets. And billed you, because I want to see you happy, Joe, but I need to pay my mortgage, too. But if thatwasgoodbye, I bet you anything he’s gone off to find a better feeding ground. He’s cleaned us out around here. Soon as he’s got his strength up and can give you a good seeing to, he’ll be back.”
“Do you think so?”
He grinned. “Yeah. Have a fiddle with your magic button and have a look. Bet you he’s scoffing already.”
“Not a magic button.”
“Have a fiddle with that very ordinary and easily explained by science scar on your neck made by your merman lover’s giant fangs what lets you bond to him mentally and see what he’s seeing.”
