“Not yet.”
“Maybe the fish know something we don’t.”
I take a sip of coffee. It’s perfect, black and strong, the way I like it. She remembered.
“You didn’t have to come find me,” I say.
“I know.”
“I’m not great company right now.”
“I know that too.” She bumps her shoulder against mine. “I came anyway.”
We sit in comfortable silence for a while. The water laps against the pier supports. Gulls wheel overhead but keep their distance. A family walks by on the beach, kids shrieking about something.
“This is where we had our first kiss,” she says.
“I remember.”
“You were so nervous. Your hands were shaking.”
“They were not.”
“Levi. They were shaking so bad you almost dropped your soda.”
“That was the wind.”
“There was no wind.”
I laugh despite myself. “Fine. I was terrified. You were the prettiest girl I’d ever seen and you actually wanted to talk to me and I had no idea what I was doing.”
“You figured it out.”
“Eventually.”
The memory settles between us. We were just teenagers. Summer night. The pier lit up with string lights from some festival happening in town. She was wearing a yellow dress and I couldn’t stop staring at her and when I finally worked up the nerve to kiss her, it was the best three seconds of my entire life.
Then I pulled back and said “sorry” and she laughed and kissed me again.
“I think about that night a lot,” I admit.
“Me too.”
“Sometimes I wonder what would’ve happened if...”
My line jerks hard.
“Whoa.” I grab the rod, nearly losing my coffee in the process. “Something’s on there.”
Delilah scrambles back. “What do I do?”
“Nothing. Just stay there.”
I start reeling. Whatever’s on the other end is putting up a fight. The rod bends. The line zings. This is not a small fish.
“Is it a shark?” Delilah’s voice goes up about three octaves. “Can there be sharks here?”
“It’s not a shark.”
