Caddie laughed. Now over both the pain of her fall and the dashing of her hopes for news from Sam, she was actually pleased to be talking to Brian. “I’ll send you the emergency room bill,” she teased.

“I just wanted to say I had a good time last night,” Brian continued. “I know you’re supposed to wait two days—or maybe it’s three, whatever—before you call, but I was thinking about you this morning while I was cutting up fish.”

“You really know how to make a girl feel special,” said Caddie. “I’ve never been compared to fish parts before.”

Brian groaned. “That’s not what I meant,” he said. “See, this is why men can’t talk to women. You never know when we’re complimenting you. Me, I’d be thrilled if you compared me to chum.”

Caddie took the phone (it was at least cordless, which she thought was something of a miracle) into the living room and sat on the couch, pulling her legs up and nestling into the pillows. “I’m not sure if you’re up to chum,” she teased. “Maybe bait.”

“I’m hanging up now,” said Brian, and when there was dead silence, Caddie thought maybe he had.

“Hello?” she said.

It was Brian’s turn to laugh. “Ha!” he said. “You missed me.”

“Listen, chum,” said Caddie.

“No,” Brian interrupted. “You listen. How about meeting me at the aquarium this afternoon? Say around four? Then we can hang out for a while.”

“I don’t know,” said Caddie, pretending to be hesitant. “Oprah’s supposed to have a really great show today. I’m not sure if I can tear myself away.”

“Well, I hope you and Oprah have a good time,” Brian replied. “I’ll just sit here with my fish parts and think about you.”

“Don’t even go there,” said Caddie. “Where should I meet you?”

“Come in the front entrance,” Brian told her. “Tell them you’re meeting me, and they’ll tell you where to go.”

“You carry that much weight around there, huh?” said Caddie.

“Hey, in the land of the fish, the guy with the chum is king,” Brian said proudly.

Caddie said good-bye and hung up. She still wasn’t sure exactly what she thought of Brian. He was cute, and funny, and nice. Pretty much everything that would usually send you screaming, she told herself. Especially the nice part. Nice guys generally weren’t that interesting, mostly because there was no challenge there. Perversely, she tended to go for guys who either didn’t show enough interest in her or showed enough but showed just as much in a couple of others girls as well. Nice was hard for her.