The Other Fish in the Sea (Grab Your Pole, #2) Read online

  Now I have no idea where Parker and his friend are and I’m sure Jillian does, but since she accepted the flat rate bribes, she’s not saying, however, it was around 11:30 when the remaining teens repaired to our tent for some after-dinner conversation and a little drinking. Well, not everyone was drinking, but the one person I thought for sure wouldn’t be was. Melissa hardly ever drinks so I was a little surprised to see her accept an alcoholic beverage prepared for her by Brandon and actually drink it instead of just holding onto it all night like she does when we go to parties and stuff. I didn’t question her decision but I did feel like reminding her of the hell I went through the morning after I puked on a poodle.

  Ah yes, good times…

  We were all laughing and loosening our waistbands as we got settled in the living room portion of the tent and you’d think it would’ve been an enjoyable evening but as the night wore on, it didn’t look like “enjoyable” was going to be the best word to describe the mood. For me, it didn’t even start off all that great because I was forced to deal with more of that irksome jealous feeling when Bridget practically threw herself at Tristan as he and Jeff climbed in the tent carrying pie tins.

  “Oh my God, how did you get these?!” Bridget asked, trying to grab a tin of what she thought was contraband that Tristan was holding above her head.

  “I made extras,” Jeff said before I could answer. Granted, my answer would’ve probably been in the form of a tent spike through Bridget’s back, but still…

  “No way! You made these? They were by far the best dessert out there today!”

  Remember last month and the whole pot conversation on Tristan’s Wall of Infamy? Well, the part where Jeff said he bakes is astonishingly true. He really does and he’s really good at it. After he and Tristan had gotten his bike and swapped the tires for paddles and stuff, Jeff went home and baked up six pumpkin cheesecakes for which we are all most grateful, because they are seriously scrumdiddlyumptious. Four were out for dinner but he kept these two hidden in a cooler with dry ice. Again, you gotta appreciate those who plan in advance.

  “I know…good looks, brains, fantastic in multiple rooms of the house…I’m the perfect package.”

  It’s really a good thing he left out modest, that’d be a complete lie. I’ll give him the rest of it, though. Oh, aside from the multiple rooms thing because yeah…um, no. I’m assuming Kate agrees, but she and I haven’t ever talked about sex before. I’m not really sure why, but I think she and I have a “don’t ask-don’t tell” kind of understanding. Huh. Maybe I should seek some of her discerning wisdom on that front, though…I never thought of it before.

  Everyone started laughing about Jeff’s not so humble opinion of himself and then his response to what Julia said shocked the shit out of not only me, but just about everyone sitting there. Everyone aside from Tristan and Kate that is…

  “You’re not perfect until you don’t live off your parents, have a ton of money, and own your own home…oh and you have to like kids…I hate guys who don’t like kids.”

  “Like I said, I’m perfect.”

  We all started to blow him off but he just sat there, nodding in the affirmative with a grin. Then he started to tick off on his fingers the “perfect points.”

  “We all know I’m drop-dead sexy (so not modest…he cracks me up), you’re demolishing the evidence of my culinary skills, Katy can testify to my other talents (she just rolled her eyes), I have a four-point-o GPA (again, that’s news to me), and my money is my own as is the house I live in. (Excuse me? Did I hear him right?) As a matter of fact, in about three months I can kick my dad out if I want to. Oh, and I love kids.” When he finished listing his perfection qualifications, he gave Kate, who’s now looking at him in adoration, a kiss on her forehead.

  “Bullshit,” Brandon said, thinking he was calling a bluff. I’m getting the distinct impression that Jeff is totally serious, though.

  “Completely unbelievable, but it’s completely true,” Kate said, nodding in confirmation along with Tristan who I noticed was doing the same thing.

  “How is that even fuckin’ possible?” Brandon asked with a touch of attitude heavy with disbelief.

  “Easy. My mom was rollin’ in dough when she met my dad and when she found out she was pregnant with me and my dad wouldn’t marry her, she paid a visit to Katy’s parents. She had Katy’s mom sell her a house and her dad write her up a living trust, and she put everything in my name. Then, she died in the hospital after having me,” Jeff elucidated for us with a shrug of his shoulders.

  “My mom and dad are co-trustees and executors of the trust,” Tristan added to give credence to Jeff’s story.

  “Dude, I’m sorry. I had no idea your mom was gone.” Interesting…Brandon does have feelings. I don’t think it’s necessarily intentional, but he’s usually oblivious to how his words affect others. “It sucks growing up without one…my mom didn’t die, but she bailed on us when I was five and my dad never got over it.”

  Ah. Knowing this, I think maybe I should cut Brandon a little more slack for not having a whole lot of tact in his conversation skills.

  “It’s okay, dude, it hasn’t been bad for me without her. Tristan’s mom totally has that part covered and my dad’s really pretty cool, he just doesn’t talk a lot about what happened because it makes him depressed.”

  “Wait. I’m confused. How did Kate’s and Tristan’s parents get so involved in everything?” Melissa queried.

  It was a logical question for Melissa to ask, being a trust-fund baby herself thanks to her grandma. So that being the case, she knows how these things work and even though I don’t have any experience with wills aside from being left jewelry; I was just as confused as Melissa. You see, as far as anyone knows, again apparently excluding Kate and Tristan, Jeff’s mom didn’t know Kate’s or Tristan’s parents so it seems like an odd choice for her to pick them for such major roles in her and her child’s life.

  Taking a deep breath and winking at Melissa, Jeff started to explain how he came to be. “Okay, sadly, even without enticing nude photography to mention, like in last night’s entertaining tale, you kinda need some history to understand how it all happened. However, I’ll try to keep it as short as I can without confusing you all. So, let’s begin… My dad went to school with Tristan’s parents and Katy’s mom, but he got picked up by a minor league team right outta high school and moved outta state to play with them for a year before he got called up to pl—”

  “I didn’t know your dad played pro ball,” Pete interrupted.

  I didn’t know that either and from the looks on Melissa’s and MaryAnn’s faces, neither did they.

  Jeff sighed and shared the briefest of looks with Tristan before answering and I got the impression he hadn’t meant to let that slip. “Yeah, he did, but he’s kind of bitter about it.”

  “Why the hell for?” Pete’s extremely interested in this whole part but I’m not sure why.

  “Shit. Dude, there’s a reason why I haven’t told you about him.”

  “There better fuckin’ be because I think you owe me a goddamned explanation…one of my best friend’s fathers was a major league ball player and he never fuckin’ tells me about it?!” Now Pete is highly agitated and well on his way to being pissed off, which I’ve never seen before.

  Let me give you a little more info on Pete real quick. He’s average/tallish guy height, kind of built, he has medium brown, messy guy hair and warm brown eyes. And you could probably say he’s attractive but not in an “OMG, I hope he asks me out” way. It’s more like you’d say to yourself, “Huh. I suppose I’d go out with him if he asked.” He’s sort of unassuming and tends to blend into the background, but at this particular moment in time, he’s giving off such intense energy that I would call him a force to be reckoned with which surprisingly catapults him straight into the “OMG, I have to have him” category. It’s like he’s become a completely different person and that persona will never be denied what it wants. And right no
w, it wants answers.

  Oh and just so you know, Pete doesn’t swear all that often so that’s also how I know he’s getting worked up. The tent has, all of a sudden, become a pretty uncomfortable place to be…

  Melissa, not wanting to stare back and forth between them but not knowing where to look either, has taken over flipping through the catalog of spy equipment Jillian just abandoned. Jill, who’s been listening with one ear to her iPod while circling “wish list” items in the catalog and hasn’t been paying all that much attention to what we’ve been talking about, has picked up on the uncomfortable tension and is now watching Pete carefully. Kate is looking at Jeff, Tristan is looking at me—it almost feels like he’s avoiding eye contact with Pete which is weird—and the rest of the people present are looking like they wished Jillian had brought more catalogs.

  On a sigh and looking down at the drink in his hands, Jeff murmured, “He says baseball ruined his life.”

  “How in the fuck did it ruin his life?”

  “Pete, dude, he was really fuckin’ good like you...” Good like you?? I glanced at Tristan in confusion and he gave me the barest shake of his head meaning, “Not now, I’ll tell you later,” so I looked back at Jeff as he continued. “But he blew out his goddamned shoulder, had a surgery for that, and then right when he was just startin’ to get game time again, his fuckin’ elbow went and he didn’t come back from the Tommy John, okay?”

  I’m not sure what “the Tommy John” is, but I’m guessing it’s a sports related injury or something, seeing as how it’s named after a person and Jeff put the “the” in front of it. You know, like Lou Gehrig’s disease wasn’t called that until a famous baseball player died from it.

  “SHIT!” Pete swore through clenched teeth. “You still should’ve fuckin’ told me.”

  “Yeah, I know, dude. I’m sorry. I just thought…you know. We good?”

  “Yeah I know…go back to your story.”

  And just like that, Mr. Hyde, AKA: “Lonely Pete,” settled back into his normal, unpretentious temper. He did seem distracted for a while, though, because he pulled Jillian’s catalog away from in front of Melissa and just stared at it without flipping any pages.

  “Okay. Uh… Shit. I forgot where I was,” Jeff said to himself in irritation at having done exactly what he’d been teasing Melissa about doing last night.

  “Your dad moved out of state,” Tristan supplied for Jeff who widened his eyes at him and blew out a silent breath as if to say, “Jesus, I’m glad that’s over.”

  “Right. So when he came back five or six years later, he looked up all his old buddies. Now, Katy’s dad was my mom’s lawyer and how she and my dad actually met. When my dad moved back to town and got in touch with Tristan’s parents and Katy’s mom, Katy’s parents thought it would be fun to fix him up so they could triple or something. Anyway, my mom had just gone through a divorce where she walked away with an assload of money and she wasn’t looking for anything serious, so Katy’s dad set up a blind date. My parents had only been dating a few months when my mom got pregnant.

  “When she found out, she decided to buy the house and used Katy’s mom as her realtor. My dad stepped up by moving in with her and agreeing to raise a baby with her, but he didn’t love her and wouldn’t marry her, so she had Katy’s dad re-write her living trust naming her unborn child as her sole heir. My mom didn’t have any family she was close to and since Tristan’s mom was pregnant with him, the two pregos started hanging out a lot which worked out well because my dad and Tristan’s dad were becoming best friends again. That’s why my mom named Tristan’s parents the trustees and shit. From what they say, my mom was never really mad at my dad about not marrying her but, even though he didn’t need the money, I think leaving my dad outta the will was kinda like a screw you thing similar to what Melissa’s Playboy Bunny grandma did…I still wanna see that picture by the way.”

  Kate and Melissa both rolled their eyes and Melissa asked, “You’re just never gonna drop it, are you?”

  Jeff grinned at her. “Nope. Anyway, there was all this chaos when my mom went into labor and had major complications trying to have me, so they had to put her under to do an emergency c-section. They got me out all safe and sound and just as perfect as I am today, but my mom never regained consciousness so she couldn’t fill out my birth certificate and name my dad as my father… It’s a damned good thing Katy’s dad was there and saw the whole thing comin’. He immediately had my dad take a paternity test proving he’s my biological father and he drew up more papers to make sure my dad wouldn’t get hassled about sole custody. Then my mom had a stroke a few days later and died. And that’s pretty much it.” He finished his tale by taking a bite of cheesecake and chasing it with Pirate Punch.

  The guys brought all the fixings for that and we’re drinking it out of Gatorade bottles—no one would ever know unless they actually drank it or got close enough to smell it. So, camouflaged alcohol: ✓

  Even putting aside that whole scene with Pete, not to mention the tidbit Brandon shared and the whole thing with Melissa last night, I honestly don’t know what to say. I’d no idea there was so much to Jeff and his origins. It’s weird, you know? I mean, I come from two parents who love each other, got married and planned having me and my sister, and I guess I never took into consideration that that’s not how it always happens for everyone else. I suppose you could say that’s a naïve perspective, but I honestly just never thought about it. And now that I am, I remember my parents talking once about a girl who was a few years ahead of them in school and she was like seven months pregnant or something when she graduated. It really makes me wonder what the rest of my friends’ birth stories are. I’m not going to ask, though. I mean come on, that would be the epitome of tacky, don’t you think? Not to mention the tension in the air at the moment.

  “You know, all that got me thinking…do you think whoever your dad was talking to that night on the phone might be someone he met and fell in love with while he was playing baseball?” Oh! I forgot about that whole phone/lips of an angel thing! Good question, Kate!

  “Yeah, maybe. It could explain why he never said anything about her… He really doesn’t like to talk about those days.”

  Melissa, thankfully, then changed the subject when Pete let out a semi-disgruntled “Humph” and finally began turning the pages of the catalog while she and Jillian scanned them as he did so.

  “Do you actually buy this stuff?”

  Jillian considered Melissa for a thoughtful moment before responding. I’m guessing she’s trying to decide if Melissa is worthy. “I have a little bit.”

  “It’s kind of expensive…” Pete opined.

  “That’s why I only have a little bit, but that’s okay...the wannabe Betty Crocker over there is helping me save up for these,” she said, tapping a couple of items in the catalog while shooting Tristan a wholly smug look that I took to say, “Your piggy-bank’s mine.”

  He was on his feet in a flash and snatched the catalog out from under Pete’s hand.

  “Lemme see this… Shit…I knew it. That video will only get you the GPS tracker, and only if I get all the copies and watch you with my own eyes delete the one I know you’ve got hidden on your hard drive. You’re truly fuckin’ crazy if you think I’m buying you the audio surveillance setup.”

  “True, but Little Sister is patient and she’s always watching.”

  With her response, the tension in the tent evaporated and everyone started snickering, and in Jeff’s case, flat out laughing at Tristan.

  Tristan tossed the magazine down in front of Jillian and upon hauling me to my feet; he gave me a resigned look and said, “She’s evil incarnate you know.” Then he dragged me off to the bus for an inning or four of America’s Teenagers’ Favorite Pastime with more patience than I was honestly expecting.

  5.

  Enigmas, Omnipotence, And, The Reaper

  Seven a.m. on day two and now he’s more annoying—if that’s even possible. Dang…
it sure is, because now he’s a gall-darned enigma.

  I hate enigmas.

  My ears are hearing Kid Rock chant “Bawitdaba,” but my brain is listening to Johnny Rzeznik singing about being a question to the world. Sorry. It’s how the song “I’m Still Here” starts. I’ve been hearing it almost daily since I met him.

  Okay, Jillian, get it together. I know you really want to know what that whole thing last night was about, but if you just put it out of your mind, the information will come to you just like it always does.

  A distraction…that’s what I need.

  Perfect, here comes one right now. He’s not my first choice, but I’ll take a distraction in the form of my cousin Dylan—Derek’s freshman little brother—over the idiots Julia and Company any day. The two of them get on my nerves. I still can’t believe the stuff they’re saying about Tristan behind Camie’s back. I’m honestly considering letting Camie hear some of what I recorded the other night. Shoot. If I do that then there’ll probably be blood shed within the family. If not that, then there will at least be distrust and dissent and well…that would be uncomfortable on Christmas Eve. Whatever…I’ll think of something, I’m sure.

  “Hey Jill, I know something you don’t know.”

  See? Dylan’s already piqued my interest and I’m on my way to being thoroughly distracted.

  “No, you don’t.” I’m sure he knows many things I don’t, but the trick is to appear omnipotent.

  “Damn it! We thought we made sure no one heard us.”

  “Don’t be too hard on yourself. You know how little ears hear everything you don’t want them to hear and nothing you do.” I love the little kids…they’re my minions.