Ayla: Always an Alpha

Chapter 35 - Sorry, Trout

~Peter~

2 Weeks Later

After casting a line into the ocean, I closed my eyes to the feeling of the spring sun on my face. The landscape behind me was still covered in a few inches of snow, but at least the white piles were starting to slush. It was barely above freezing for the first time since I'd arrived in Alaska, but after surviving through the coldest time of year, anything above 30 degrees Fahrenheit felt like summer. I'd even ditched a layer of clothing in order to enjoy the uncharacteristically warm day.

As soon as I heard the rapid thuds on the wood deck, I turned and braced myself for the landing impact of Charlie.

"Peter!" he exclaimed after a quick look into my cooler. "You got a fish!"

Charlie was still wearing all of his winter wear, including his favorite beanie, a blue and yellow one with a pom pom almost as large as his head. His mother, however, had ditched her hat, which allowed the wind to whip it into a billion different directions as she jogged towards me to catch up with Charlie.

"Sure did, kiddo," I replied.

Charlie and his mother had been at the pier almost every Sunday since I'd first seen them, and I was beginning to appreciate the kid's boundless energy. He was predictably unpredictable, and as he made a fish face with his mouth, I realized his antics were the only thing keeping my weeks from blending together.

I guess it was a little weird that instead of being social with any of the guys I worked with at the construction site, I befriended a kid with a single digit to his age, but it made sense. He didn't ask the types of questions I couldn't answer.

"A real fish!" Charlie exclaimed. He crouched and leaned so far into the cooler that his whole head, massive hat and all, disappeared from view.

"Well I'd hope so," I said, chuckling.

Steph was giving me an eye. Even people that didn't fish knew it was too early in the year to catch anything in the oceans here.

"What kind is it?" Charlie asked after pulling his head out of the chest.

"It's a trout."

"Trout." Charlie's lips puckered with the word.

Behind him, his mom was trying to cover up her laugh with a cough. It seemed she knew enough about fish to know that you couldn't find trout in this ocean. "Trout, huh? What a catch."

I winked at her.

"It's got reallyyy big eyes." Before he even finished his drawn out sentence, Charlie's index finger went deep into the fish's eye socket.

While I'd thought Charlie would get a kick out of the fish I'd hauled in from my lake spot the day before, I certainly had not been expecting that.

"Charlie!" Steph exclaimed. "You..." At a loss for words, he threw up her hands. "Should apologize?"

Charlie must've heard the lack of confidence in his mom's voice because he did not remove his finger from inside the fish.

She turned to me then. "This is just so morbid."

I shrugged. All I knew about kids was that they tended to be annoying and generally gross. I certainly did not know what level of gross was normal.

"You should apologize to the fish." She decided, grabbing Charlie's little hand out of the ice chest.

Wide-eyed, Charlie looked at his mom. "The trout?"

"Yes, Charlie, the trout. He may have just been a fish, but we should treat his body with respect."

"Sorry, trout."

It was the most reluctant apology I'd ever heard.

Steph pulled a small bottle of hand sanitizer out of their picnic basket and proceeded to coat Charlie's hands in it.

"He was slimy," Charlie announced.

"Yes, Charlie, I can imagine he was." Steph's lips curled up as she rubbed the sanitizer into Charlie's hands with her own.

"Can we catch a trout?"

"Maybe another time."

"Did you hear that, Peter?" Charlie turned to me. "We're gonna catch a trout too."

"Oh yeah? I bet you two will find a big one."

"The king! Ours is gonna be the king of the trouts."

"Alright, that's enough of that. Sit down Charlie." Steph handed Charlie his sandwich after he plopped onto the bench beside me. Then, she grimaced, took his sandwich back, and sanitized his hands again.

I chuckled. "He's already touched it."

"I know. I know. It's just..." She shivered. "Yuck!"

After Charlie received his sandwich a second time, his mother handed one to me and then sat on the opposite side of Charlie.

"You really don't have to keep giving me your other sandwich."

Steph took a bite out of hers before responding. "Oh, I only ever eat one sandwich."

"Then who's the third one for? Charlie barely eats half of his."

In fact, the kid had already put his sandwich down onto the bench in order to chase a gull off the pier.

She sighed as she picked the remains of his meal off the wood and then placed it gently back into the container. "His father."

"Who is?"

I expected her to say he was dead and that picnicking had been their thing. The ham and cheese I was handed was some weird memorial sandwich. Instead, she surprised me.

"A deadbeat."

I raised an eyebrow.

She continued. "I invite him here to see Charlie every Sunday, and he always either dips out at the last minute or just never shows up."

"But you make the sandwich anyway."

"One day, he might come." There was hope in Steph's voice. I wasn't sure if I found that admirable or pitiful.

"Lives around here?"

"He could walk here if he really wanted to."

"Sorry."

"Ehh, I try not to let that man get to me."

I didn't sense a lot of truth in her statement. "When'd he leave?"

"He never really stayed. It wasn't a very serious relationship. I was a different person before I had Charlie."

Trying to picture what she'd been like before having Charlie, I surveyed her for a moment. "And the person you are now?"

She smiled. "Someone I actually like to be around."

~~~

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I am so so close to finishing writing all the chapters, and I'm SO excited! As soon as that happens, I'll be able to stop worrying that I'll want to add a crucial plot point into a chapter after I've posted it and instead post chapters much more often.

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