The sign said that there were 212 stairs leading down to the Quivre River shore. I was constantly two steps behind his peach short clothed legs as we walked down them, him with fishing pole in hand. We walked together, but alone. If I had lost pace behind him, he would not have noticed, but just gone about his way. We finally arrived at the bottom of the steps and I sat three steps before the platform dropped off into a muddy, grassy, area that to him, looked perfect for fishing.

“Can you hold this for a sec?” He turned to me and asked.
My face must have shown a flicker of annoyance at his improper grammar as he quickly corrected himself.
“I mean, will you hold this for a sec?”
“I didn’t say anything.” I said my tone sounding defensive.
“Yeah, but I had a feeling you were going to correct me, and I wanted to beat you to it.” He said, smiling out of what I assumed to be accomplishment.

He removed his pole from its case. The apple red color of the pole reflected the bright afternoon sun, blinding me as he fiddled with it. It was divided into two pieces that he quickly put together before handing the case to me. I sat down holding the black cloth case in my right hand and brushing my black hair out of my eyes with my left. It felt like as soon as we crossed the state border into Missouri the temperature went up 20 degrees.

He jumped off the wooden platform and as his sandals hit the ground I heard a squishing sound as the mud rushed up to cover is feet. I looked down at them and smiled seeing as how the already mud colored birthmark that is located between the third and fourth toes on his left foot was now the same color as the rest of it. I highly doubt he even knows that I know this birthmark exists. He did not ask me to join him, but I was not expecting him too. It would not quite fit our dynamic.

Realizing that his bait was in the case I was holding he called back to me “Can you bring me my case?”
“Sure, give me a sec.” I said, laughing to myself that this time, he did not catch his grammatical error.
I had not real interest in getting my also sandaled feet muddy, but I am also not a huge fan of saying no to him. I walked down the steps and warily jumped off the platform as well landing with the same squishing noise as the mud filled the crevices between my toes. I walked over to where he was standing and handed him the case. He rifled through it for a second and then brought out a plastic container containing what looked like a rubber fish.

“What is that for?” I asked, half playing dumb in order to break the ice, half actually curious why he was using a small fake fish as bait.
“It’s bait.” He responded simply as he attached it to the end of his pole.

He shoved my shoulder as if trying to get me to move and I said
“Yes?” I responded, my eyebrows raising. I knew he did not have the best manners, but I was still going to make him ask me to move instead of forcing me.
“Will you move over? I don’t want to hit you when I cast out.”
I moved to his left and thought to myself; well it’s probably good that he doesn’t want to hit me. Only in our relationship would I think that was progress.
He cast his line in silence as I watched, mesmerized by his every motion. I had never been, or seen, fishing before and so the way he was expertly going about it was curious, not to mention the fact that everything he does is curious to me. There was something so elegant about the way he brought the rod back before letting the line fly out into the murky green blue water.
He kept jerking it around until I finally said “I thought you were supposed to leave it still in the water.”
“That’s only if it has a bobber.” He replied looking amused at my lack of fishing knowledge.
I wasn’t a hundred percent sure if I knew what a bobber was or not, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of knowing that.
“What are you trying to catch anyway?” I asked, mentally preparing to kill him if he answered fish.

“Large small mouthed bass.” He responded looking over at me. His eyes were the same color as the water and I felt myself swimming in them, fishing for something funny to say in response.

“Isn’t that kind of an oxymoron?” I replied. Not the funniest response ever, but still a damn good question.

“That depends on what and oxymoron is.” He said.
“Oh well you know. Like Jumbo shrimp.” I replied.

He looked back at me in utter confusion.

“Ok, well because jumbo means big, but shrimp means small. So for large small mouth, since large means big, and then it has a small mouth then it is and oxymoron.” I said.
“Leave it to you to turn fishing into an English class.” He said smiling at me before reeling in his line.

I looked down into the water and my heart jumped into my throat. Slithering towards our feet was a small black water snake. I resisted the urge to scream, but I instinctively grabbed on to his strong muscular forearm and pointed open mouthed at the creature. He first looked at me, my nails digging into his tan skin and then looked down to see the cause of my fear.

“It’s just a water snake.” He said.
“Well you know I’m terrified of snakes, land or water.” I replied.
“Ok, here. I’ll scare it.” He replied and he then stuck the tip of his rod into the water right next to where the snake was swimming. Instead of slithering away from us however, it started to charge towards us. I gripped his arm tighter and he just maneuvered his pole so that it was under the snake, and then threw it up into the air. It landed about 6 feet away with a splash and with that I let go of his arm.
“Thank you.” I said, trying to recover some of my dignity.

He shrugged and then said “So, have you never heard of small-mouth bass before?”

“No, I’ve never even gone fishing before.” I replied.

“Well here.” He said, holding the pole out for me to take.

“No thank you. I don’t really see the fun in throwing a small fake fish out into the water and waiting for some other fish to try and eat it in and attempt to catch and it that fish. The whole idea of it seems a little bit fishy to me.” I said

He gave me a small smile and then grabbed my hand, forcing the rod into it. “You’re going to love it, I promise.”

I was amused at the fact that he thought I was going to love fishing. The only reason that I even wanted to come with him in the first place was to have some alone time with him. Also the last time I told him I loved something, it was him, and he wasn’t too happy about it. I was amused that he thought I would be able to figure it out just form him handing me the pole. I looked at him with a blank stare.
“Ok, so you have to hold this button down. Then you will cast the line by throwing the end of the pole behind you and letting the button go.” He explained.

I did as he said, but instead of the line sailing out over the open water I felt the pole stiffen in my hands. I looked behind me to see that I had somehow gotten the hook stuck on one of his belt loops.

I laughed it off and said “Looks like I caught something.”

He laughed his high pitched broken laugh and then walked closer to me. He unhooked himself from my line and then came up behind me.
“Ok, let’s try that again, but this time I’m going to hold on to guide you.”

The idea of this made me very nervous as I didn’t really want him getting that close to me. He put his hand on the poles handle so it was slightly overlapping with mine. I love the way his skin felt pressed up against me. I could feel his warm breath on my neck as I held down the button. He then helped my throw the pole back behind me and throw the line about ten feet away.

He then went back to his spot, the mud splashing under his feet. We waited there for five more minutes with me bobbing the pole up and down when suddenly I felt what I presumed to me a tug on the line.

“Hey!” I said ushering him over to me. I handed him the pole as let him reel it in. There on the end of the line was a small silver scaled fish.
He turned to me and said “Nice catch!”

I know you are but you never tug on my line was immediately what came to my head to say, but instead I just said with a smile “Thanks, I had a pretty good teacher.”

We let the small mouthed bass go just as the sun was starting to set. He took apart the pole and I handed him his case and with that we started to walk up the steps again this time I kept pace with him and we made pleasant conversation about out day on the river. I was expecting to sit on that step three steps up from the bank where he would stand there fishing and we wouldn’t speak. We would spend our two hours in an awkward silence. After thinking of the likely hood of that happening, which was very high I said to myself maybe I should go fishing more often.