Story—but in the opposite season.
Dad’s not out here with us today, though; he’s anxiously waiting for Adam to arrive at the house. There’s no doubt both Mom and Dad will point out how they only have one grandchild, and it’s the youngest of the bunch who settled down, got married, and popped out a kid first.
Mason and I already took bets on how long it’ll take Mom to remind me that I’m the oldest, the one she expected to get married first, yet here I am, single once again.
Though I’m not complaining.
There’s another tug on my line and I jerk it back, waiting half a second to see if I caught anything. The line doesn’t move again, so I slowly reel it up, somewhat thankful the bait is gone. Resting my pole against the side of the boat, I heft into one of the seats, warmed by the sun, and grab a beer from the built-in cooler.
The boat is only two years old, and was a much-needed upgrade from the old hunk of junk Dad insisted still “ran just fine,” despite us getting stranded in Lake Michigan for five hours during a storm until the Coast Guard could come out and tow us in. I bought this new boat for Dad on his birthday two years ago, and while it’s a bit over the top for a birthday gift, I figured it was the least I could do after my parents footed the bill for me to go to medical school and become a doctor. I had it paid off in only a year, and we’ve already got our money’s worth out of this thing.
We’re on Silver Lake today, much smaller than Lake Michigan, and the breeze coming in over the water is hot and sticky.
“Or go out with her,” Mason counters. “Wine and dine her, fuck her good, and then ghost her.”
“You’re despicable,” Jacob quips, leaning over the boat railing and looking down into the water. He won’t say the real reason he’s on the fence about going out with this girl is because he’s still bitter over his last relationship ending with his girlfriend cheating on him after two-and-a-half years together. Only Mason and I know he’d gone out looking at engagement rings the week before things blew up in his face.
“Tell her from the start you don’t want anything serious,” I suggest. “That’s what I do, and it’s worked out so far.”
“Yeah, it’s worked out well.” Mason rolls his eyes. “How many times have you and Stacey broken up and gotten back together?”
“Four,” I say with a shrug. We started dating a few years ago, and we get along just fine. But fine is all I can describe us as.
The sex is fine.
Her company is fine.
Everything is so fine there’s no substance to it. She agrees with almost everything I say, and I don’t actually know what she really likes or doesn’t like, even after three years off and on. If I want to get Mexican food, she does too. If I want to watch hours of murder documentaries, she does too. It sounds ideal, I know, and I fumble every time I try to explain why having someone just blindly go along with me is off-putting.
It would be one thing if she enjoyed the murder documentaries, or got excited to watch football with me, but she doesn’t. She’ll just sit there, looking bored as she stares at the screen of her phone. Physically, she’s there with me, but she mentally checks out the second we get together. No, she doesn’t actually enjoy any of that, and instead it feels like she’s doing it to appease me so she can get something out of it in the end…which she usually does.
I spent the weekend watching sports with you, take me shopping now?
“It must be good pussy to keep going back,” Mason notes.
I shrug. “It’s okay.”
“Just okay?” Mason’s brows rise incredulously. It’s the first time I’ve so much as hinted that things between Stacey and me aren’t hot and heavy. I’ve had a reputation to uphold, but honestly, I’m just tired right now. “Time to move on.”
“I plan on it,” I say, not going into detail that we were together just two months ago. I had a particularly rough shift at the trauma center and burn victims are some of the hardest to treat and to see.
It’s worse when said victims are children…burned by the result of evil, vile parents who inflicted the burns as a form of