‘Why?’
‘You would have moved on.’
‘What if I hadn’t?’
He doesn’t answer, staring across at me with a grave expression on his features. His jaw is set into a hard line, day-old stubble making him look even sexier than usual. My mind flicks to the bed inside the cabin and the desire to have him make love to me there is suddenly overwhelming.
Richard, Richard,Richard! For fuck’s sake, how many times do I have to remind you?
Oh, but maybe if we had sex I’d be able to put him out of my mind once and for all.
That is a crock of shit, and you know it.
Spoilsport.
I pull myself together and say, ‘Did I spy some crisps in that hamper?’
Ben comes back to life, the atmosphere reverting to normal. ‘Yep. What do you want, salt and vinegar, chicken or plain?’
‘Salt and vinegar, please. Who would ever opt for boring old plain, hey?’
‘You’re right. I should have known you’d have no interest in them whatsoever.’
‘Why, because I’m a fussy cow?’
He laughs. ‘No, because you’re anything but boring.’
Stop saying things like that to me. It’s making me think of the bed again.
‘Are you going to catch me a fish, or what?’ I say rather huskily.
‘You can catch one yourself,’ he replies with a smile.
Twenty minutes later, I feel a tug at the end of my line. We’re using handlines, not fishing rods. I’m holding onto the line itself and I can actually feel when a fish takes the bait.
‘Wind it in,’ Ben insists excitedly.
A fish of about a foot long flaps and flutters as I drag it out of the water.
‘You caught a whiting!’ he exclaims, taking the wriggling fish off the line.
‘Your namesake,’ I laugh as he throws it in the Esky. ‘That was easy. What was all this business about a four o’clock start?’
‘Hey?’ He baits up my hook with another wriggling worm.
‘Back in Adelaide, you said I had to get up early. We’re catching fish now, aren’t we? What’s the point in getting up before it’s even light if you can catch fish in the middle of the day?’
‘If we were sitting out here in the midday sun during a hot Australian summer, you’d know.’
‘Fair enough.’
We catch one more whiting, a flathead and two ‘shitties’ as Ben calls the inedible fish, before we set off back to Middle Harbour again. He throws the latter back, but promises to cook me a fry-up sometime. ‘Maybe you could bring your family over to mine for dinner later this week?’ he suggests. ‘These won’t go far, but I can come back out here and get some more before then.’
‘Oh.’ I feel jumpy, can’t think what to say. ‘I doubt that will be possible.’
‘Oh, right. Sure.’ He looks away.
‘They’re going to be very busy, you see. It might be too much to organise.’ I try to convince him, but I’m guessing he thinks I’m embarrassed to introduce an older man to my dad. I feel awful, but there’s nothing I can say to make him think otherwise – except to tell the truth and explain that I have a fiancé. But let’s not go there, eh?
