“I think we should use a different kind of bait next time,” Keane says after a while. “The fish are laughing at us. You hear ’em down there? They’re like, ‘Hahaha! What a couple of twatheads!’”
“A good workman never blames his tools.”
“Okay, then I blameyoufor buying shitty bait.”
“Hey, back to Olivia for a sec,” I say. “What’s the ‘gigantic’ red flag you see? I don’t get it at all.”
“Then you’re blind. Dude, if she’s not showing you anything but beauty-queen perfection for a solid month, then she’s most definitely a closet psycho.”
“Fucking Colby. When did you talk to him?”
Keane looks genuinely surprised. “I didn’t. Colby said Olivia’s a closet psycho?”
“Yeah, in those exact words. We were together when I met Olivia in a bar, and Colby was like, ‘You dabble with the blonde one, there’s gonna be aFatal Attraction-style boiled bunny in your future, man. That one’s a closet psycho, for sure.’”
Keane laughs heartily. “But you dabbled anyway?”
I shrug. “If you saw Olivia, you’d understand.”
“There you go thinkin’ with your dick again, Ry. Haven’t you learned by now?”
“Oh my God. You’re one giant dick, Peen. For fuck’s sake, everyone calls you Peen.”
“Yeah, but we’re talking about you, not me.” Keane shakes his head. “Rule number one for a handsome and happy life? Listen to Colby Morgan, every time. And rule number two? Listen to me, occasionally.”
“Well, this isn’t one of those ‘occasional’ times. You’ve never even met Olivia.”
“I don’t need to meet Olivia to know she makes my batshit-crazy radar go off like gangbusters.”
“Based on what?”
“Based on the evidence. You said there’s nothing wrong with her. That’s enough right there. But, on top of that, you’re the prettiest Morgan brother of us all—which is saying a lot, considering how pretty we four are, especially me—and women are biologically programmed to want to mate with the prettiest males. Just look at peacocks. You think that tail is just for yucks?”
“Dude, I’m not even remotely thinking about ‘mating’ with Olivia. It’s been a fucking month.”
“Bullshit. You’realwaysthinking about mating—I’ve never met a dude who wants babies more than you. It’s not normal, Ry.”
“I haven’t said a word about that to Olivia. Of course not.”
“Good. Don’t talk about that shit with any woman for at least six months or you’re gonna get yourself mixed up with a gold-digging baby-momma in record time.”
I shake my head.
“It’s true, brah. Open your eyes. You’ve got a fancy-pants career that’s bringing in the duckets-by-the-buckets. Plus, along with that pretty face of yours, you’ve got those coolest-guy-in-the-room tattoos on your arms and a permanent I’m-gonna-fuck-you smolder. Women can’t resist that shit. Add to all that your boner to change shitty diapers and any woman’s gonna tell you whatever you wanna hear to lock you down.”
I roll my eyes. “You haven’t even met Olivia, Peen. She’s not like that.”
“Dude, stop being Forrest Gump about this girl. She’s Katniss-Everdeening you with her crossbow and you’re sitting there with a hard-on talkin’ ’bout, ‘Life is like a box of chocolates.’ Well, you know what I say to that, Rum Cake?” Keane puts his palm to the side of his mouth and shouts his next words at the top of his lungs: “‘Run, Rum Cake, Run!’”
I laugh. “Not so loud, Peenie. You’ll scare the fish.”
“There ain’t no fish to scare, son.” Keane leans back in the boat. “But, regardless, you’ve got bigger fish to fry than a few skittish fishes. I hate to break it to you, Captain, because I really do love you the most and respect you even more, but odds are two to one your new gal pal’s a bunny-boiling loon. Based on the totality of the circumstances, this girl’s nothin’ but a huntresson safari and the big-game prey she’s hunting is one Captain Ryan Ulysses Morgan.”
“Okay, enough. I wish I’d never brought Olivia up in the first place. I never said I was in love with her or that she was The One or that I had any desire whatsoever to procreate with her. All I said was, ‘So far, so good.’ Now shut the fuck up and at leasttryto catch a fucking fish before I pummel those dimples right off your face.”
We sit in silence, staring at our motionless fishing lines in the lake for a long while, the silence between us thick with my extreme annoyance. But when I notice Keane absentmindedly rubbing the bright pink surgery scar on his left elbow, my irritation with him instantly vanishes.
“How’s the arm?” I ask.
