Hook, Line & Sinker

by Ev Bishop

  “What?” Katelyn asked, breaking into his thoughts.

  “What do you mean, what?”

  “You’re staring at me like a freak.”

  “I’m staring at you like you’re a freak?” Brian was genuinely confused. He did think she was different, but “freak” was the furthest thing from his mind.

  “No, you’re staring at me like you’re a freak.” Katelyn balled up the damp towel from her hair and threw it at his head. He grabbed it, laughing—then caught sight of that stupid painting of his. She had, of all the crazy things, hung it on the fridge. And here, after she’d seemed so normal on their running days, he’d had the stupid notion—and extreme relief—that the kids had thrown it away or painted over it.

  He read his silly, swirly words and felt himself go as red as the paint he’d used.

  Katelyn saw him notice the painting and her nose wrinkled. “Yeah, about that. We should probably clear the air and talk about it, hey?”

  Talking about it sounded like an awful idea, and maybe she thought so too, because despite bravely putting it out there, she opened the fridge and commenced rummaging, very effectively hiding from him.

  “Maybe we should—or maybe not, if it will be too awkward. Do you want me to go?” he asked a minute later, when she still hadn’t emerged from the fridge.

  She turned with a plate of veggie sticks and a container of onion dip in hand. “I don’t know. If you need to, sure. But I thought we could still watch TV or something, if you want to.”

  He did want to. Absolutely. But he was suddenly beyond uncomfortable. “Dammit,” he muttered. “Damn it, damn it, damn it.”

  Katelyn’s eyes widened. “Damn what?”

  Brian covered his eyes with his hands and scrubbed at his face.

  “What?” Katelyn repeated, sounding more alarmed.

  “You’re supposed to be my friend.”

  Katelyn stepped back and set the snack food on the counter behind her. “And, uh, I am.”

  “No. I mean I thought I was your friend.”

  One of Katelyn’s eyebrows shot up.

  Brian shook his head, then sighed. “I’m not articulating this very well. You and me, we’re supposed to just be friends, but I’m not feeling very, um, friendly toward you.”

  Understanding dawned in Katelyn’s face, lightening her slate gray irises to a soft charcoal. She nodded toward the painting again, looking pained. “I know.” She jutted a hip, planted her hands on her chest and waggled her eyebrows coquettishly. “You think I’m gorgeous . . . You want to kiss me . . . You want to hug me . . . You want to looove me.”

  Yes, yes, he did. He wanted to do all those things. “I knew we never should’ve watched ‘Miss Congeniality’ together,” he mumbled. “And don’t hide behind lame jokes. That’s my thing.”

  She laughed. “Well, heaven forbid anyone steal your thing.” But then she dropped her hands and her expression, still soft, grew serious. “We spend a lot of time together and we’re both single, both straight. It would be pretty weird if one or both of us didn’t sometimes wonder what if.”

  Brian searched her eyes and found warmth and mutual fondness—but she was shaking her head as if denying his silent question. “But your life is here and mine is definitely not. I’m leaving Greenridge as soon as I can, for better or for worse. I have to. For my kids, but also for myself. You need to find someone who’s actually available, Brian. You’re a great person. You should let someone else see that, trust them with your true self.”

  Suddenly uncomfortable, Brian sought levity, holding his hands up in a don’t shoot position, then winking. “I was just going to say that if you’re sexually frustrated and looking for a friend with benefits, I’m your guy.”

  His words did not get the grin he was aiming for. Katelyn frowned and gave a curt shake of her chin. “Don’t do that. Not with me. I don’t mind needing to have an odd, slightly awkward chat about boundaries now and again, or taking the risk of being hurt if we find out we can’t pull off being just friends and have to stop seeing each other, but I don’t like games. I like people to say what they mean and mean what they say.”

  “Maybe I said it like a joke, but I was actually serious.”

  “If I merely wanted sex, I could have it any day of the week. I don’t want that. Or not just that.”

  “I know that,” Brian said quickly. And he did. He also realized that what made him uncomfortable with Katelyn was not the confusing, changing nature of his feelings for her, but how her extreme honesty challenged him. She made him want to be honest, however painful, too. He closed his eyes. “I think I was hoping if we had sex, I’d be able to get over you that way, and happily return to feeling purely platonic.”

  Katelyn burst out laughing. “Okay, that’s not how it works—or, at least, that’s not how it should work.”

  “No,” Brian agreed. “But that’s how it’s always been for me in the past.”

  Katelyn removed the cling wrap from the veggie plate, passed him a carrot stick, and took one for herself. Her crunching was loud in the small room. “That’s really sad.”

  He shrugged. “I never used to think so.”

  “So . . .” she said after a long minute and a couple of veggie sticks. “Are you staying or going?”

  “For the movie or in the friendship?”

  Her smile, so big and genuine, made his stomach flip. “See, that’s what I mean. It’s feels good to be clear, to ask what you really want to know, doesn’t it?”

  He shook his head. “Kind of.”

  “It’s up to you. We might get hurt, aiming for friendship, but flirting with more—or we might end up being lifelong bosom buddies.”

  “I’d like to try,” Brian said finally, “but if it gets too difficult, we might have to be the kind of friends who never see each other or talk to each other.”

  “Wow, that sounds like a close friendship,” Katelyn said, eyes crinkling, but she nodded.

  “Also, never refer to me as your bosom buddy again. I do have some testosterone you know.”

  Katelyn’s laughter tinkled like a soft breeze moving through a glass chime. “I think that all sounds really good,” she said. “And I reserve the right to say we need to distance ourselves too.”

  Brian’s pounding heartbeat slowly calmed. He still had his friend. He hadn’t ruined everything. It was definitely the most bizarre relationship he’d ever had with a woman—and he was starting to feel like maybe it was his first real one. Did other men find themselves wanting to tell the woman in their life every single nuance of their soul? He’d have to ask Callum. No, on second thought, he’d take the very idea to his grave.

  He settled onto the couch with his plate of vegetables (so weirdly satisfying!) and Katelyn curled up in the big armchair.

  “So what’ll it be?” she asked.

  “Surprise me,” Brian said, but she didn’t get a chance to. The cabin’s landline rang and as he watched her answer it, he could tell by the crease that appeared on her forehead that something was off.

  “Ah, yeah, he’s here. Just a minute.”

  “Who is it?” he asked as she handed him the receiver.

  She shrugged, but still looked like she was struggling to put pieces together that should fit but didn’t quite.

  “Hello?” Brian said. “Hello?”

  He heard the click of the line disconnecting, but tried again regardless. “This is Brian. Who’s this?”

  There was, of course, no answer.

  “No!” The word was a yelp, and Katelyn dropped the celery stick she’d been munching. She left it where it lay. “That was a friend of Steve’s. It had to be. Now he knows. He knows.”

  That there really wasn’t anything to know, a fact their conversation had just reaffirmed, did nothing to ease the alarm slamming through Brian. He knew what Katelyn meant. That Steve knew he, Brian, was here in the cabin with her alone. And that was a bad thing. Maybe a terrible thing. He could see it in every one of Katelyn’s tensed for fligh
t muscles. In her instantly bloodless face. In her eyes, which darted left and right, as if scanning for and logging possible escape routes.

  Brian was suddenly hit with a crippling bullet of remorse. He should’ve stayed away. Even by being Katelyn’s friend, he was hurting her. Putting her in danger.

  Chapter 17

  The first time Steve told Katelyn he thought a man (of note: that’s how he said it, a man, not a person) was completely justified in doing “whatever it took, using whatever force necessary,” to protect what was his, she’d thought he was joking, exaggerating, trying to impress her with his strength or make her feel safe. And she thought he meant like his stereo or his car or his house or something.

  She’d been so naïve. It never occurred to her that some people (oh sorry, Steve, some men) considered their wives and children to be possessions. His words had never been intended as a reassurance. They had always been a warning—one that, over time, she started to heed. At first because it was easier. Dealing with him, his insecurity, his jealousy, was . . . exhausting. It was better to avoid situations and people that brought it on. Later because she was afraid. His temper, and what triggered it, was unpredictable to say the very least. But eventually, despite the fear—or maybe because of it—she’d realized she had no control over what caused his rages and they were only going to continue to get worse, more intense. And so she’d left. A decision she knew was right, but that carried its own danger too; she was always waiting for the repercussions of her choice.

  Spring cabin had always seemed cozy and secure, cloistered away as it was. Now it felt like a trap—a tiny, remote place in the middle of nowhere that hardly anyone knew about. A place where Steve, if he timed his actions carefully, could find her alone and unprepared. No. She refused to go down that road. She stood up gingerly, like she’d aged a hundred years, like perhaps her bones could no longer support the huge weight she carried: fear, anger, impotence.

  She glanced at Brian. She could read him like a book—read him exactly how she’d learned the hard, hard way to read Steve. Oh, what different stories they were though. How terribly, cruelly different. Why had she learned to read so late?

  “This is not your fault.” She waved her hand to speak to the whole big mess. “It’s not you or that you’re here. It could’ve been Callum, just for owning River’s Sigh. It could’ve been a gas clerk for filling up my tank. It could’ve been anything.”

  “But it’s not Callum or some other random man. It’s not anything. It’s me. Here.”

  She shook her head. “No, it’s nothing. It’s always nothing. Don’t make me feel like I have to comfort you or something. Please. It makes it even worse. Just take my word for it and let yourself off the hook.”

  Brian set his food down on the coffee table, looked at her steadily, then nodded. “So what happens next? What do you do? What does he do?”

  It was interesting to her in an academic way that Brian seemed to understand that this was nothing new. That he sensed it was an old dance between her and her ex-husband, one with familiar steps—and only the knowledge that one day she might falter, might forget a rule, or that Steve might decide to try a new routine kept her moving to its ugly music, kept her terrified, no matter how she sought to be independent of him.

  “I can’t believe that guy has unsupervised visits,” Brian said under his breath, but he didn’t appear to be talking to her, so she addressed his earlier comment instead.

  “He’ll call my cell in a minute, sounding like sweetness and light itself, and try to convince me to meet him for coffee. When that doesn’t work, he’ll say the kids want to see me, that they need me, so why don’t we all do something together for a few hours.”

  Brian didn’t meet her eyes. Instead he gazed intently at the floor as if reading some unseen note for advice or something. He tightened his hands into fists, then stretched his fingers as far as they would extend, and repeated the motion several times.

  Finally he spoke. “And does that work?”

  “Does what work?”

  “Telling you the kids need you. Does it get you to go to him?”

  Katelyn’s whole body drooped. “It has. In the past. Yeah.”

  “And then? After he convinces you to see him, what happens?”

  “It depends. Sometimes he can continue his good guy act for days or weeks afterwards. He uses that one or two hours of calm as proof he’s ‘changed.’ Other times just seeing me triggers one of his tirades.”

  “Does he hit you?”

  Katelyn unconsciously fingered the tiny crescent scar by her eye. “Not anymore. I captured video evidence of one of the “kerfuffles”—Steve’s word—when he came to pick up the kids one day. I turned it over to my lawyer, who submitted the clip at our last hearing.”

  Brian made an angry huffing sound. “And he still managed to weasel unsupervised access.”

  “Yeah. Steve’s lawyer had already presented the notion that some “things” had happened that Steve was very distressed by and was seeking help for. Said it was just that Steve was so upset by the idea of losing his family and everything. The judge bought the story, but did say if there were any similar incidences going forward, he’d revisit it.”

  Brian shook his head, but Katelyn didn’t take it personally. He didn’t say it was unbelievable. But he wouldn’t say that, of course. He worked in the courts. He knew anything was possible.

  “Has he ever physically abused the kids?”

  Katelyn hesitated, then shook her head.

  “But you think he might.”

  Her stomach dropped. It was something she fought to not think about—fought hard—but she nodded. “They’re the one thing he knows for sure he still has over me.”

  Brian muttered a string of low, venomous curses. “And if you stand your ground, refuse to meet him, and make him keep the kids without your intervention or help for his full weekend?”

  She couldn’t look at Brian. She hated the shame that roiled in her guts. She had nothing to feel ashamed of; it was just an oily residue left over from all those years of being with Steve.

  “Have you ever managed to?” Brian prodded again in a gentle voice.

  “Yeah . . .”

  “But?”

  “But it makes the following weeks brutal. He calls constantly, files bogus complaints against me to his lawyer, who then contacts my lawyer . . . and it’s all money I don’t have, you know?”

  Brian nodded. “Well, it’s your life, and I guess you know him better than anyone.”

  “But?”

  Brian looked down.

  “Tell me what you think.”

  “But I’ve seen too many cases like this to not have a bit of advice—only if you want it.”

  Katelyn nodded. “Sure. What?”

  “He doesn’t have you the way he wants you, in his house, as his wife, but he still has an incredible amount of power over you. He basically says jump and you jump—”

  “To protect my kids!”

  Brian’s face held no judgment, just sadness, and because of that, and because Katelyn had gleaned a bit of Archer family history over the past months, she heard his words as genuinely intended help, not criticism. “But maybe what would really protect them in the long term is to see their mother truly escape their abusive maniac of a father, not to see her continuing to accept his control just in a different way. To see that, no, a person cannot continue to rule over another person indefinitely. To learn that, no, a person does not have to continue to let someone treat them badly forever, or endure them being a part of their life forever. To believe that no one is entitled to access to another person.”

  “But what if . . . what if . . . ” Katelyn could hardly squeeze out the words. She had no air and no room in her lungs to draw in any. The swelling pain in her heart, the dread, took all the space in her chest. “What if he hurts them, what then? What if we become just another ‘intimate partner’ or family violence statistic?”

  Brian’s voice was ragged, l
ike he too was on the verge of tears. “I don’t know. There are no easy answers. None. But you’ve come this far, and while he hasn’t liked it at all, in some ways he has learned to take no for an answer, does respect some boundaries.”

  He put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her into a gentle hug. She let herself sag into the strength of him. “You can do this, Katelyn. You can be free. Let him take care of his children, make him learn to be a single parent, show him that you are not a part of his world in the ways you used to be—in any way, shape, or form.”

  She uttered a stifled choking sound and Brian spoke even more softly. “And either he’ll learn it and you’ll be free, or he’ll do something that the courts can’t ignore.”

  “But my kids . . . ”

  “Are already damaged by him, are still being damaged by him.”

  That hurt—and angered—her, but she couldn’t deny it was true. Lacey was too old, too watchful for her years. Sawyer, though slowly coming out of his shell, was still too quiet.

  Katelyn’s phone rang, making them both jump. She stepped out of Brian’s embrace quickly, feeling like she’d been caught doing something indecent. And maybe she had been. Maybe the emotional closeness and safety she felt with him was more intimate than any physical act they could participate in.

  The phone continued its incessant buzzing. Katelyn stared out the living room window and considered not answering. The trees and greenery, the mountains, the sky—the whole reality of the world beyond her—was nothing but a blur, a fuzzy idea almost blotted entirely from view by the gathering darkness and weeping clouds.

  There were a few seconds of silence. Then the phone sounded again.

  Katelyn looked at Brian. He held her gaze the same way he had held her just moments earlier: calm and steady. She nodded at him once, then picked up her cell and hit Talk.