Page 32 of Fish Out of Water

Jake closed his eyes, holding the phone an inch or two away from his ear.

“Hello, Jake? Is that you?”

“Hey, Robbie.”

“Hi. What’s up? Is something wrong?”

“No.”

Jake could hear Robbie’s sigh of relief through the phone. “That’s good. Why are you calling me, though? Are you trying to pull some sort of prank?”

“No, I just—you said you wanted a friend.”

“What?”

“On the beach today. You made it sound like you wanted a friend.”

Robbie paused. “Oh, yeah, something like that, I guess. Listen, Jake, you know how those evenings at the beach get. We’re both tired, and it’s so isolating out there. Sometimes we say things we don’t mean.”

“So you don’t want a friend?”

“Are you even capable of being friends with a man like me?”

This conversation was not going how Jake had wanted. Secretly, he’d hoped that Robbie would grovel a bit, thanking him for showing up when he didn’t have to, and then he could finally get on top of their twisted little relationship. But that wasn’t Robbie’s method of operation, and Jake should have known that by now. He would get no credit for trying to be marginally nice for his own gain, not with Robbie Eaton.

“I guess you’re right about me, Robbie,” he finally said. “I’m hot and then I’m cold. I should let you go so you can go cook or smell bread or whatever you said you like doing.”

Robbie laughed softly. “Yeah, okay. Try not to call unless it’s important next time. You had me worried there for a second.”

Jake ran his free hand along his thigh, kneading the heel of his palm into his muscles until they hurt. “Believe me, I’ll never call you again if that’s what you want.”

“Goodnight, Jake.”

Jake paused. He almost said goodnight back, but then Robbie hung up, and he was left holding his phone to his ear, listening to no one at all.

Maybe Robbie was telling the truth now, and he really didn’t wantJake as a friend. He could be sneaky with his manipulation at times. Maybe that was all the conversation earlier had been—a way to guilt Jake into being a little nicer. If that wasthe case, then it had worked a little too well.

Jake left his room to get some food an hour or so later, expecting Isabel to have gone to bed. To his surprise, she was still up, going through some boxes she had out in the living room.

“What’s all this?” he asked, sitting in the chair closest to the TV.

“Oh, just the last of Marcus’ things that I haven’t gone through yet,” she told him.

“I thought you got rid of all that a couple months back.”

“I thought so too, but these boxes were hiding in the garage.” She pulled out an old, worn baseball glove that Jake remembered using when they visited years ago. “He must have packed all this up before he got too sick.”

“I can deal with it in the morning if you want,” Jake offered.

“No, no, it’s fine.”

“Let me help right now, then. I’m not ready for bed anyway.”

Isabel smiled. “Thank you, dear. It shouldn’t take long to sort through everything. I’ll donate most of it anyway, and the rest just gets thrown out.” She sighed. “If it were any earlier, I would ask Robbie to come over and help too, although it’s probably for the best that I can’t bother him now.”

“Yeah, he’s good at sorting shit out—unless it’s his own.”

Isabel set the glove back in the box and looked up, her confused expression sending a wave of heat through Jake’s chest all the way to his head. “That’s rude.”