“What do you do for fun, besides beautify people’s yards?” I ask, wanting to bring her smile back and lighten her mood.
“I do love beautifying yards, and I was serious about the burning bush,” she says. “I’d love to plant one in Tyler’s yard. I bet Captain Jack would love—”
“To relieve himself on it?”
She laughs, and rolls her window down to create a cross breeze. It blows her hair across her face and all I want to do is touch it, rub it between my fingers as I place my lips on the pulse beating at the base of her throat.
“Okay, I wasn’t going to say that, but you’re probably right.”
“So fun?” I ask, bringing us back to my original question. “What do you do?”
She breathes out and relaxes against the seat. “I don’t have a lot of free time in the summer, but I love to…wait, you won’t make fun of me, will you?”
“I can’t guarantee it, Alyssa,” I say with a straight face.
“Fine, I actually love to fly fish. My grandfather taught me when I was young.”
My jaw drops. “You’re shitting me.”
“Nope.”
“You’re serious? You fly fish?”
“Yeah, do you think that’s strange?”
“I think it’s awesome. Will you teach me?”
“Sure, if you want.” She reaches over, puts her hand under my chin and nudges it up until my teeth click. “But you can’t have your mouth open like that. Otherwise you’ll be the one catching all the flies.”
I grin like a kid who just got a puppy on Christmas morning. I can’t believe I ran into this woman, and she fly fishes. That’s like the neatest thing ever. “What else do you do?” I ask, a measure of excitement going through me.
“There’s a farm not too far from here. I actually love spending time with the goats, and sometimes I help out making the soap.”
I stare straight at the road and shake my head. “You’re full of surprises.”
“In the winter, I ski, downhill and cross country. I make preserves from the berries my grandmother’s friends give me. My grandfather used to have a snowmobile, and I loved taking it out. My friends and I would all go. Jonah’s parents had a cottage…” Her voice falls off, like she’s remembering happy times.
“I might never leave,” I say, knowing that’s impossible. My life is in Boston and Seattle and I’m on the road more than I’m not.
“What do you do for fun?” she asks and when I playfully wag my eyebrows in a sexual manner, she whacks me and says, “Besides that.”
“I like hockey,” I say, and gauge her reaction.
“I’m not a fan.”
No shit, otherwise, she might have recognized me.
“It’s barbaric,” she adds.
“You’re not wrong,” I say.
“What did you plan to do while you were here?” she asks. “Netflix and chill?”
“My thought process is this,” I say without missing a beat. “If that fails me, there’s always fishing and making soap. I’m sort of a goat whisperer.”
She laughs, hard, and whacks my stomach again. “You probably wouldn’t know a goat if you tripped on
it.”