This chapter was ready to be published yesterday, but I forgot to schedule it (oops) and it was already too late when I got back home.
Enjoy.
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Somehow, for a moment, seeing Diane walk away with such determination, I thought about just letting her go and seeing what would happen, but remembering her previous approach, using Dr. Grey and, her relationship with her mother. The idea died as quickly as it had appeared.
So, with the intention of asking what her plan would be, nervous about a much worse outcome. "Diane, wait" I said, raising my voice a little, quickly going after her.
Diane, who was several steps ahead of me, fortunately heard me call her. Biting her lip gently, she turned around and stopped, looking at me expectantly.
Relieved, I approached, and when I was about to speak. "There you are, breakfast is going to get cold" mom said exasperatedly, appearing at the corner right in front of us, "come on honey" she added, taking Diane's arm and gently pulling her.
Smiling apologetically, Diane followed mom back to the kitchen.
Without looking at me, walking farther away. "Don't take too long PJ" mom said, raising her free hand in farewell.
Defeated, not knowing what to do, I stood in place for a couple of seconds, thinking of all the possible scenarios resulting from Diane talking to Meredith.
With growing concern in my chest, unable to do anything else, at least not at that moment, I sighed, standing there, defeated, alone in the hallway.
A couple of minutes later, at the counter outside the kitchen during breakfast, like the night before, the atmosphere was full of pleasant conversations, to which unfortunately I couldn't pay full attention.
Watching Diane, sitting a couple of seats away from me, trying with great effort to start a conversation with Meredith, which almost always resulted in short and always extremely awkward answers.
I was sure that to anyone else, Meredith's discomfort was nothing more than the result of meeting with a new person; after all, in the first days of meeting her in Boston she behaved the same way. But I, and now Diane, knew otherwise.
While I tried to listen to whatever Diane was telling both Teddy and Meredith. "PJ!" Bob exclaimed in front of me, instantly snapping my attention away.
"Sorry, I was spaced out" I said embarrassed.
Smiling meaningfully, Bob looked at Diane and then at me, his smile growing even more. Obviously forming a wrong idea in his head, he leaned in. "It's okay, I completely understand how hard it is to concentrate when you have a big distraction" he declared, nodding toward mom.
Snorting lightly, amused, I shook my head. "Yeah" I murmured, admitting with fake reluctance.
"I was telling you that today is a great day to go fishing" Bob declared with a broad smile, causing Gabe beside me to groan almost completely silently.
Widening my eyes, surprised. "Fishing" I repeated, slowly shaking my head.
Nodding excitedly. "Yeah, since your mom and the girls are going into town, I thought it would be a great idea for us to catch dinner" Bob continued.
Hearing Bob's words, my gaze immediately shifted back to where Diane and Meredith were, separated only by Teddy. "You're going into town?" I asked, speaking loud enough to get mom's attention.
Smiling immediately. "Yes, it'll be a girls' day, there are lots of shops I still wanted to visit from yesterday" mom replied.
Putting a smile on my face, even though internally I was screaming, I nodded, slowly returning my gaze to Bob. "It's a great idea, right?" he asked.
"Yeah" I replied, keeping the smile.
What followed was the rest of breakfast, hearing Bob in the background explaining to Gabe and me all the aquatic life we could find, while I silently waited for the perfect moment to talk to Diane.
When everyone finished breakfast, Gabe and I stayed in the kitchen cleaning up everything that had been used.
Constantly checking over my shoulder while I washed the dishes, hoping mom and the girls, including Diane, weren't ready to leave before I finished. Hitting my arm with a weak punch, at least for me. "PJ!" Gabe said, making my divided attention return to where I was.
Seeing Gabe's annoyed face. "What?" I asked, puzzled.
Frowning. "I've been talking to you for a minute" Gabe said exasperated.
"I'm sorry Gabe, I'm a little distracted" I apologized, "what's up?"
Rolling his eyes in frustration. "You can eat Diane's face tonight, right now we have a problem" he replied seriously.
Ignoring my brother's comment, since Diane and I had practically done that last night. "A problem?" I asked, puzzled.
"Yes" Gabe said, twisting his face as if he couldn't believe I didn't understand something so obvious.
I must admit, maybe at another time I would have understood immediately, knowing Gabe, what he was talking about; after all, his 'problem' in one way or another was the same as mine, we were going fishing with Bob.
Checking behind us, clearly making sure no one was close enough to hear him. "A bunch of hours sitting in a boat fishing is not a good use of my time" Gabe whispered desperately.
Snorting. "You're ten" I said, raising an eyebrow, "I can bet all my money you don't have a single important thing to spend your free time on" I declared confidently, visibly offending Gabe.
Opening his mouth for a second, completely incredulous at my words. "For your information, in a few months I'll be eleven" Gabe said, furiously raising a finger, "and I have a lot of things planned more interesting than fishing."
Even though if it were up to me I wouldn't go on the fishing trip, just to make sure nothing bad happened between Diane and Meredith, I knew fishing was important to Bob, I mean, it was obvious how excited he was about it.
Patting the back of my brother's neck lightly, not caring that my hands were wet. "Well, I'm sorry dude" I said, feigning regret, "but you and I are going to go with dad even if I have to drag you to the boat with my own hands" I added threateningly.
Closing his mouth, betrayed, Gabe looked at me with narrowed eyes for a moment, seeming willing to try his luck and maybe fight, but I only had to tense my upper body muscles for him to lower his head in defeat.
Smiling triumphantly. "Good choice" I said softly.
"Shut up" Gabe muttered through his teeth.
Feigning that I had misheard, I pulled my brother into a hug. "I love you too" I said.
At that very moment, mom's, Teddy's, and Diane's voices were heard behind us, suddenly reminding me of the reason I was worried.
Releasing Gabe from the forced hug, making the boy fix his hair, panting from having done everything possible to break free, I walked quickly toward where I heard the voices.
The five women, including Charlie in mom's arms, were clearly ready to leave. "Diane wait, can we talk just for a second" I said, a little anxious seeing her smiling softly at Teddy and therefore at Meredith beside her.
Turning her attention to me. "Sure" Diane said, widening her smile.
Mom, who was behind Diane, looked at me, raising one eyebrow with an amused sparkle in her eyes. "Don't take too long, honey" she told Diane conspiratorially, obviously forming an idea, like Bob... which honestly, if it weren't for more important matters, I wouldn't mind if it were real.
Nodding calmly in response, Diane separated from the group of women, walking toward me, while mom and the girls left the house.
Stopping right in front of me. "What do you need?" Diane asked with genuine interest.
Checking that no one was around us.
I took a breath, trying not to show how uncomfortable the situation made me. "I just wanted to know exactly what your plan would be to approach Meredith" I said, speaking slowly.
Diane looked at me in silence for a few seconds, processing my question; a moment later her expression changed. Surprisingly, it seemed she had understood beyond my question. Without warning, she stepped forward, almost reaching my chest, and held my face in her hands.
Looking at me with an impressive softness in her eyes, as if trying to calm my worry. "I'm going to be careful" she said quietly and confidently, "I don't plan to embarrass Meredith, so I'm not going to say anything about your suspicions" she added, slowly shaking her head, "I just want to show her that I'm a good person."
Surprised by the emotional clarity Diane was showing, I was completely speechless.
"So, please trust me" Diane continued, tilting her head slightly.
I immediately felt a pang of shame in my chest. It wasn't just that I didn't trust Diane to make her own decisions, to allow her to make mistakes; it was that I was behaving, in one way or another, like her mother, trying to solve all her problems without her asking me for any help at all.
Lowering my gaze for a second. "You're right" I admitted. "I'm sorry" I said, returning my eyes to hers. "I just want you to know that you have all my support if you need it."
A sweet smile she tried to hide by biting her lip appeared on her face. "I know", she murmured, standing on her tiptoes to kiss me.
Leaning in, intending to deepen the kiss. "Ew!" exclaimed the perfectly recognizable voice of Gabe behind me, completely stopping the moment.
Pulling away, with a blush quickly climbing up to her ears, Diane gently wiped her lips with a finger. "See you" she said hurriedly, giving me one last smile before going out the door, following the rest of my family.
Silently looking at the closed door of the house, I sighed with relief, a weight had completely disappeared from me.
I had no idea why I was so worried… well, yes I did. I cared so much for Diane as well as for Meredith that the idea that either of them could, in some way, hurt the other made my stomach turn.
Behind me. "Seriously, did you have to do it right there?" said Gabe indignantly, completely breaking my brief moment of peace.
I turned toward him, annoyed. "Someday you'll have a girlfriend, and I'm going to wait for the most precise moment to embarrass you like never before", I declared, pointing my finger so he would understand I was serious.
It was a promise that planned to comply.
Gabe raised an eyebrow, trying to keep his composure, but the small flash of discomfort on his face gave me all the satisfaction I needed. "Yeah, sure…" he murmured, turning away to avoid my gaze.
Laughing under my breath, I followed my brother into the beautifully decorated cabin living room, where we sat down on one of the couches waiting for Bob.
Not long after, maybe one or two minutes, Bob arrived in the living room smiling broadly, wearing a beige vest completely covered in pockets, as well as a hat of the same color with various pins and what looked like hooks hanging from it. In his arms, he carried two more pairs of vest and hat of different sizes, clearly meant for Gabe and me. "Ah?" he asked excitedly, raising the clothes.
Leaning toward me. "Still feel the same?" Gabe asked me in a low voice.
"I can still drag you to the boat" I warned, pushing his head as I stood up.
Wearing the vests and hats Bob bought for us, we took one of the available boats, against Gabe's wishes, the oldest and apparently poorly maintained one, at the private dock and moved until we were well into the center of the lake.
With the three lines in the water, we were in complete silence on the boat, Gabe for his part reading one of the comics he had brought with him, while Bob and I enjoyed the view the lake offered.
It hadn't been long when my line tightened, alerting everyone on the boat. With a quick tug, I began reeling in, feeling the resistance of the fish fighting against the line.
Bob leaned in with a mix of excitement and pride in his eyes. "Let some out" he said, keeping his hands a few inches from my shoulders, as if he was afraid to disturb anything that was happening.
Gabe, although until that moment completely uninterested, set his comic aside to look intently toward the edge of the boat, following my line.
The struggle lasted almost a minute, with the fish pulling hard and me keeping just the right tension not to break the line. Finally, with one last pull, a good-sized fish emerged from the water, glistening under the midday sun and moving energetically as I held it up, lifting it out of the water.
"It's a blue catfish, PJ!" Bob exclaimed, slapping my shoulder with proud strength before taking a net to catch the fish, "it must weigh at least eighty pounds" he added, laughing cheerfully.
Carefully Bob placed the fish inside the boat's cooler, Gabe curiously leaning in to study the animal attentively.
Looking at the fish next to my brother. "I'll give you five dollars if you touch it" I said challengingly, lightly bumping Gabe's side with my elbow.
"No way I'll touch that for less than ten" Gabe immediately refused, the fish was still moving over the ice, dying from the cold and the asphyxiation in little time.
"Seven" I countered.
"Eight and fifty cents" Gabe said seriously.
Snorting, I nodded. "You've got a deal" I said. I would have paid the ten dollars without any problem.
Nodding and quickly taking a breath to build confidence, Gabe slowly stretched out his hand, approaching the now quieter animal, stopping millimeters from the fish, he shook his head. "Forget it, I can't do it" he murmured.
Without thinking, before Gabe could pull back his hand, I pushed his shoulder, causing his hand to fully hold the fish just as the now dead animal moved in a spasm.
Screaming, Gabe quickly jumped in place, moving away from the cooler, rubbing his hand on my vest, 'cleaning off' any feeling of fish completely.
Laughing amused, I dodged Gabe's hand, stumbling and falling to the floor of the boat.
On the floor still laughing at the situation, I held Gabe's wrist, preventing him from now rubbing it on my head. Bob just watched us in silence with a smile on his face.
After that, everything returned to the previous calm, causing Gabe, a ten-year-old boy, to quickly return to his apathetic state, sitting with his hands holding his face, completely bored since he had finished reading his comics.
Certainly, without something… exciting happening, like trying to catch a fish, being on the boat in silence to avoid scaring them away was somewhat monotonous.
Several minutes had passed, and I had caught a couple more fish, making most of the fish we had in the small cooler my catches.
Gabe had a moment of glory and genuine excitement when his line finally tightened; with Bob's help, he managed to pull out another type of fish, a Crappie, according to Bob.
With the cooler full of a couple of fish, among them the Blue Catfish and the Crappie Gabe and I had caught, as well as a couple of bass that strangely only I kept catching, Gabe's line had tightened a couple more times, all unfortunately ending with the loss of the fish, while Bob's line remained completely still.
We had already spent a couple of hours on the boat when Bob, stretching his back, stood up, walking, what seemed like the twelfth time, toward the cooler to look at all the fish. "We've got enough for dinner for a couple of days" he said proudly, patting my back, "maybe instead of a doctor you should dedicate yourself to fishing, you're a fish magnet" he added, snorting.
Smiling falsely, I nodded. Maybe the part of struggling with the fish was fun, but even though I'd never admit it in front of Gabe, the waiting part was extremely boring. I was completely relieved that fishing was something Bob was satisfied to do once a year.
Sighing exasperatedly. "Since we've got dinner," Gabe suddenly said with an acidic tone, "can we go back to dry land… I'm starting to smell like fish, I need a bath" he added, smelling one of his arms.
I looked at him in silence for a couple of seconds, the idea forming in my head immediately. "You're right" I said, standing up, "you need a bath" I added, and before Gabe could react, I lifted him and threw him into the water in one single movement. The splash was so strong it sprayed inside the boat.
While Bob tried to avoid bursting into laughter, I didn't stop watching as Gabe emerged kicking, his hair dripping and his brow furrowed. "I hate you!" he shouted as he swam desperately toward the boat.
"It's all right, I love you enough for both of us" I said mockingly.
Helping him up simply by pulling on his vest, Gabe with his brow completely furrowed, barely with his feet planted on the edge, began hitting my arm repeatedly. "Why did you do that?" he growled, soaking everything around him.
"Because it's fun," I replied obvious, covering, or at least trying to do so, of the erratic but relatively strong blows of my brother.
"No, it wasn't" Gabe complained furiously.
Unable to help myself. "Oh come on" I said, feigning offense.
Bob placed his hands firmly on my shoulders. "PJ's right, son, it's very fun," he said from behind me, giving a push.
Laughing, I resisted just enough to not go overboard right away, 'losing' the battle on purpose when Gabe, who quickly changed his attitude now laughing excitedly, jumped in to help Bob.
Once I was at the edge, I took a deep breath and dove headfirst into the water. It was perfect, warm enough to be pleasant, cool enough to be refreshing, and although I would've preferred to be in a swimsuit, I floated and swam comfortably beside the boat.
Laughing happily, Bob and Gabe bumped their fists triumphantly.
"How does it feel?" Gabe exclaimed mockingly.
Splashing water at my brother. "Wet," I replied sarcastically.
Wiping the water I managed to throw at his face. "Dad, we should leave PJ here, let him swim back," Gabe said, smiling broadly.
Raising one of his eyebrows. "Excellent idea," Bob said, making Gabe turn excitedly to look at me with a mocking smile.
Smiling, carefree, I watched as Bob quietly positioned himself behind Gabe.
"Have fun swimming," my brother exclaimed maliciously.
Holding Gabe under his arms. "We can't let PJ have all the fun," Bob said, getting ready to throw Gabe once again.
"No!" Gabe shouted a second before flying into the water.
Bursting into laughter, Bob threw his cap inside the boat, jumping into the water a second later.
When Gabe resurfaced from his second unexpected splash, a water fight began among the Duncans, which ended when something brushed Gabe's leg. "Something touched my leg!" my brother shouted, moving erratically, splashing water everywhere.
"It's just a fish," Bob clarified, trying to calm Gabe. "Alligators don't get close to boats or people, they're afraid of us," he added with calm tranquility, immediately causing the opposite effect in my brother, who surprisingly swam quickly back to the boat.
In better spirits, we began the return. The constant sound of the old motor being the only thing masking the silence of the lake, that and the chattering of Gabe's teeth. We didn't have towels and had already been wet for a while… until a roar of an engine completely drowned out any other sound.
An expensive boat, painted in bright red and white, sped by not far from us, the pilot circling as if in a show. Gabe watched it fascinated, the boat moving with surprising agility over the water, jumping over its own waves caused by accelerating over the surface.
"Fortunately, we finished fishing a while ago," Bob said, watching the boat speed away and turn in quick succession.
Moving quickly, the boat approached us, passing very close, close enough for the turbulence from its motor to lift waves that hit our boat, and in a second, a curtain of water drenched us from head to toe… at least if we weren't already soaked to begin with. Bob snorted, Gabe stopped smiling, and I simply blinked, dripping even more water, as the boat sped away, leaving a trail of foam in its wake.
Unable to do anything, there was no way to catch up to that boat with the one we had, we could only head back. Getting off the boat, I helped Bob dock against the buoys at the pier and a moment later to carry the cooler.
As we climbed the stairs toward the cabin's balcony, Mom, who had clearly heard the boat's motor, immediately came out through the glass door, her mouth opening in shock at the sight of us. It was obvious she didn't expect us to be wet.
Going back inside the house, she came out a moment later with a towel, which she used to wrap Gabe, who was the coldest. "What happened?" she asked, while hugging Gabe with the towel. "Why are you soaked?"
Gabe, who was under the strong embrace of his worried mother, could only make muffled sounds.
Bob and I shared an amused glance for a fraction of a second. "We fell out of the boat," I replied, shrugging my shoulders.
"All three of you?" Mom asked.
Trying, and failing, to avoid smiling. "It was a slippery boat," Bob said.
The noises Gabe was making only grew louder.
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Author Thoughts:
As always, I'm not American, not a doctor, not a fighter, not Magnus Carlsen, not Michael Phelps, not Arsene Lupin, not McLovin, not Elliot, not Capone, not Ranger Smith and not Jeremy Wade.
Another chapter has passed, so new thanks are in order. I would like to especially thank:
11332223
RandomPasserby96
Victor_Venegas
I think that's all. As always, if you find any errors, please let me know, and I'll correct them immediately.
Thank you for reading! :D
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