Maggie exhales heavily and mimics my actions. “I hate to say it’s because of a guy…”
“But it’s because of a guy,” I finish.
She nods. “It’s stupid, and I’m certain you don’t want to hear all the hairy details.”
I clench my jaw, trying to determine if I should write her off because she’s on the rebound. Normally, rebound girls are like catnip to me. They’re horny and emotionally unavailable…just my style. But it’s one thing to be recently rejected. It’s a whole other thing if they’re still hung up on the guy. If Maggie is going to these lengths for a guy, she’s clearly not ready for a rebound.
“I don’t need to know all the details, but I’m curious what kind of guy would inspire a person to take up ice fishing?”
“He’s a quarterback.” She states those two words as if they’re supposed to impress me. When I have no reaction, she quickly adds, “And he’s being drafted by the NFL this spring.”
“Okay,” I reply noncommittally, trying to conceal what I’m really thinking.
Now look, I don’t consider myself a judgmental prick most days, but growing up in Boulder, there were two kinds of guys: athletes and adventurists. And since I always preferred the rush of snowboarding down a black diamond hill or rock climbing a 5.15 mountain over shooting hoops and playing catch, I definitely ran in a different crowd than the athletes. I even tried ice swimming once when I was drunk. My poor balls have never forgiven me.
The point is, I’m an adrenaline junkie who loves the outdoors more than a “hey man, let’s play catch or get tickets to a game” type. So I never really understood why girls put athletes on a pedestal. I’m not condemning them for it, girls can be attracted to whoever they want. But part of me feels a pang of disappointment when I find out Maggie is one of those girls. I knew we were opposites when I met her, but after she held that fish, I had hoped she was different.
I guess I was wrong.
“I suppose you think I’m a lame cliché, right?” Maggie states, her voice wobbling with insecurity at the end. “You’ve probably never done anything to impress the opposite sex.”
I shake my head and remain silent as I watch the school of muskie swim away on the video monitor, almost as if they couldn’t bear to hear this sob story either.
“But Sterling and I had plans, okay?” she states firmly, spinning on her stool to face me. “I met him this summer at a party, and it was love at first sight, which is exactly how my parents met, and they’ve been married forever. It’s like the stuff my mom and I have been reading about in romance novels for like our entire lives! Sterling and I fell so hard and so fast. We were talking about marriage, kids, and our future together on our third date.”
“You were planning your future together after only a few dates?” I ask incredulously, doing nothing to hide the shock in my voice.
“Yes, don’t judge!” she snaps back, and the fire in her eyes has me biting my tongue. “Haven’t you ever been so madly in love that you can look at a person and see your whole future with them?”
I bark out a laugh. “No fucking way.”
“Well, how have you felt when you’re in love then?”
“I’ve felt nothing because I’ve never been in love,” I assert. “I’ve never even been in a relationship before. But I don’t have to experience commitment to know that talking about a future together after only three dates is fucking crazy.”
“But you’re old,” she retorts, looking me up and down as if she’s going to find a fucking deformity to be the cause of my lack of emotional commitment. “Surely, you’ve had at least one serious girlfriend.”
“I’m not that old,” I grind out because fucking hell, today is my birthday, and I don’t need to be reminded that I’m getting older.
“You’re pretty old. Come on, how old are you?” she asks, latching on to this topic change like a dog with a bone.
I glare at her for a second and then lean forward so we’re nose to nose. “I’m thirty-one today as a matter of fact.”
She jerks back, her challenging eyes softening instantly. “Today is your birthday?” she asks, her voice high pitched and overly sweet. “Happy Birthday!”
“Yeah, yeah,” I grind out, rolling my eyes. “Since you think I’m such an old fuck, you’d better run on ahead and save me a seat with the blue-hairs at Marv’s. I’ve been dying to take Arthur in Old Maid for weeks.”
A laugh escapes her lips at my deadpanned expression, and I sit back, adjusting my pole in the water again and shaking my head at this girl. She really seems young now all of a sudden. Either that or I really am just an old fuck. “Finish your story. What happened with this love at first sight guy?”
She exhales heavily and begins toying with her pole. “Well, we were planning our future together, right? My parents loved him, and my brother even took to him, which is a shock because he hates all the guys I’ve ever dated. So we started making plans for after graduation because I was finishing in December and the NFL draft is in April. Anyway, he asked me not to look for jobs until he knew what team he was going to play for. And I thought taking a few months off to spend time with family sounded nice. No big deal because we were clearly on the road to forever, right? The former cheerleader and the future NFL star. The beginning of a fairy-tale romance. Then Christmas morning came…we were visiting my parents, and he was acting weird, which made me think, ‘Oh my god, he’s going to propose!’ Well, I was ridiculously wrong because he was actually preparing to dump me.”
“Wait, what?” I ask, lowering my pole and turning to face her again. “You got dumped on Christmas morning?”
She nods, her lips jutting out into an angry duck face. “Yep,” she replies with extra emphasis on the p. “At my parents’ house before the sun came up over homemade cinnamon rolls and coffee.”
“Fuck,” I drawl, shaking my head from side to side. “Getting dumped on a holiday…that’s cold.”
“Colder than this lake,” she adds, sliding her boot on the glossy ice beneath us. “But the real kicker wasn’t that I got dumped…it was what he said when he dumped me.”
I wince because this douchebag already seems like half the idiots I got into fights with in high school. “I don’t even know if I can bring myself to ask.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll tell you.” Maggie sets her pole down and leans closer to me, her dark hair framing her angry face perfectly. Her lake blue eyes lock on mine in a threatening way that actually somehow makes her even hotter. “He said I was too basic.”
“Basic?” I repeat with a shake of my head. “Like…girl, that outfit is so basic?” I ask, regurgitating shit that I hear my sisters say to each other all the time even though they are all in their thirties.
“Exactly,” Maggie confirms.
“What kind of guy uses that word?”
“Exactly!” she exclaims, pleased with my small show of solidarity. “And he said I was really pretty and smart and an obvious match for him, but he wanted someone who brought more adventure into his life.”
“What a dick.” I scoff, squeezing my pole hard and thinking this guy deserves to get knocked the fuck out.
“Yet for some sick reason, I’m the asshole out here trying to find a sense of adventure.” She shrugs helplessly. “I was even texting him pictures of me trying to set up that ice hut today, thinking it might impress him. I’m so pathetic.”
“Is this how you think you’re going to win him back?” I ask while reeling my pole in a little.
She winces and begins tugging at her silky black hair. “I think trying out some outdoorsy adventure stuff could change how Sterling sees me. Make me seem less…basic.” She looks over at me with big, sad eyes and a pouty lip that have my body reacting carnally. “Does that make me a silly girl?”
I shake my head and fight the urge to throw her over my shoulder, take her back to my place, and show her she doesn’t need to change for some guy. She’s great just the way she is.