Tying flies also brings my father back to me, because fly fishing was something I usually did alone with him. Gabe never loved fishing the way I did. He liked hunting better. So when my dad and I went together, there was no Gabe to upstage or one-up me. There was just the river, the line, the fly, the fish—and me and my dad.

Wrap, wrap, wrap, wrap.

Rap, rap, rap.

When I open the door, she’s standing there, absolutely beautiful with her hair down and her I’m here if it’s no trouble smile. I want to pull her into my arms and make love to her all night. Fuck telling her this story. Fuck everything except the way she makes me feel. Instead, I hold the door open, and she steps inside.

She looks around my apartment, and smiles. “This is very you.”

My eyes follow hers, trying to see what she sees. I keep it simple: a comfortable couch, an equally comfortable recliner, a flat screen TV, a coffee table.

She steps to the wall, looking at the framed posters hanging there. One for A River Runs Through It, the 1992 movie that my dad made me watch as a kid for the fly fishing. If she’s ever seen it, it’s probably because someone told her Brad Pitt was hot in it.

She stops in front of my three national parks posters, side by side—Yellowstone, Zion, and Olympic National Park. “These are beautiful. My parents aren’t much for the outdoors, so I haven’t been to many parks.”

“We’ll have to fix that,” I say, before I can think better of it. Because who knows if Rachel and I will ever hang out together again once her visit home is over.

One of my hands closes into a fist.

“I’d like that,” she says, shyly, and I can’t decide if that makes it better or worse.

Just more confusing, maybe.

She runs her hands across the spines of the few books on my small shelf. Mostly mysteries and thrillers. “Loved this one,” she says, pointing to Tana French’s In the Woods.

“Me too.”

“I didn’t know you liked to read.”

“I’m slow,” I admit. “But I don’t mind when it’s not for school. When no one’s riding my ass about it.” I shrug. “Fly fishing’s slow, too. I like slow.”

She smiles in a way that makes me picture kissing her, leisurely and languid, while I move in her. Maybe she’s picturing it, too, because her cheeks pink up.

But before I can take a step towards her, she says, “Justin’s so cute.”

Right. We have things to talk about.

I offer her a seat on my couch and a cold beer. She settles on the couch but says she just wants water—“I drank way too much beer already today.”