It was Friday night and Elijah and I were kicked back in a booth at the club, while around us music blared, people laughed, glasses clinked. Elijah was reclined in the seat, smoking a cigarette, eyeing a cute little blonde who was on the dance floor. She’d been flashing him a glance every now and again but no matter how many times I had told him to go out there, he hadn’t budged from where he sat.

“Billy called today,” he yelled over the music, blowing a wisp of smoke into the air. “Said he was bored as fuck and he was coming out here next week.”

I laughed. “What makes him think things are much better here?”

Elijah shrugged. “I told him to get Dom out here. We’ll give Sean a call and see if the five of us can’t get into some trouble.”

“Shouldn’t be too difficult.”

He suddenly cocked his head to the side and sat up. “Hey, isn’t that… ah hell, what’s her name? The fish chick… “

“Victoria?” I looked at Elijah blankly then followed his gaze across the club. Yep, it was her, looking slightly different out of casual clothes and in a short black dress, her dark hair hanging down around her shoulders. I felt a smile tug at the corners of my mouth. “It is Torrie.”

“Torrie is it?” Elijah was eyeing me, taking another drag on his cigarette. “What’d I miss?”

“Nothing, Lij. Ignore it.” I tried to focus my attention on my drink but my gaze kept straying back to her. There was a man at her side, tall, broad-shouldered, black hair. I frowned. Her fiancé, obviously. I quickly convinced myself that the reason I took an instant dislike to him was because he was obviously not right for her.

I could have beaten Elijah then because he stood up and put his fingers to his mouth, whistling loudly across the club. When he caught Torrie’s attention, he waved her over to the table. Fuck. My hand itched to smack him. Fuck. Here she came, with her fiancé, some big jock-looking guy in a gray silk suit that seemed to scream he thought he was better than everybody else. I didn’t even know his name and I hated him.

“Orli, Elijah! Hi!” Torrie came up beside the table and Elijah scooted over, inviting her to sit down. I flashed her a smile but my gaze drifted back to Brutus. Everything about him rubbed me the wrong way. “Guys, this is my fiancé, Steve Rubin. Steve, this is Orlando Bloom and Elijah Wood.”

Steve reached out and shook our hands. I think he tried to break mine, I couldn’t be certain. Even Elijah seemed to wince. Asshole.

“Actors, huh?” Steve said. “Sorry, can’t say I’ve seen any of your movies.”

Now why wasn’t that surprising? I wondered. Maybe because both of us had yet to star in a Steven Segal flick.

“So how’s the fishing business?” Elijah asked Torrie, completely disregarding Steve’s presence. I wanted to do the same but his cologne was too strong to ignore. I swallowed down the rest of my scotch and considered going for another but Torrie’s next comment caught my attention.

“Well why don’t you find out? I already told Orli he was invited to join me for an expedition.” She glanced over at me and I flashed her a smile. “You’re both welcome to join my uncle and I tomorrow.”

Elijah raised a brow in question at me and then looked over at Steve. “What about you, Steve? You fish?”

“No.” A flat, short answer. His tone clearly implied that something like fishing was completely beneath him. I had no doubt that his hobbies included stealing candy from babies and kicking puppies.

Stop it, Orli, I chided myself mentally. You don’t even know this guy!

“So what about it?” Torrie persisted. “You up for it or not?”

“Sounds cool,” Elijah replied. “Right, Orli?”

I wished the seat would swallow me up. How much laughter would Elijah enjoy at my expense if he knew I had asked Torrie out, only to learn she was engaged? I wouldn’t have minded so much if only Torrie had been there and maybe we could have talked some more about her work and laughed again over my fall off the pier. But with Steve there, all I could wonder was what she had told him about me and did they laugh about my asking her out and for the life of me I could not figure out why I even cared. It wasn’t as if I was really interested in Torrie – she wasn’t even my type! And still, I felt uncomfortable and embarrassed and I really wanted a way out of there and here Elijah was saying I was supposed to spend the next day with her. Dammit, dammit, dammit.

“I see a client of mine over there,” Steve said suddenly. “Be back in a moment, babe.”

Babe. Inwardly I made a gagging noise or two as Steve kissed Torrie’s cheek then stood and moved off without another glance at Elijah and me. I noticed that Elijah was watching him as he walked away too, then his gaze immediately flickered over to Torrie. I steeled myself for what was coming. With Elijah, one never knew. Sometimes he had a disarming way of being completely and totally honest.

“So, how long you and Steve been together?”

“Little over a year,” Torrie replied. Her gaze flickering over the both of us, almost nervously. She was playing with a discarded straw, twisting it around her fingers. “He’s a broker. Very smart. Played college football.”

“Really?” I tried to act interested and even surprised. I don’t think it worked because she gave me a strange look but didn’t say anything.

“You two come here often?” Elijah questioned, studying Torrie quietly.

She shook her head. “No. Steve hates dancing. Guess he’s in a congenial mood tonight.” She flashed a quick smile. “Not that he’ll dance but the atmosphere is nice.”

“Orli’ll dance with you.”

Dear Lij, I am going to kill you when this night is over. Signed Orli.

I fixed him with my sternest gaze but he just seemed to ignore me or he saw it and was pretending it wasn’t there. For all I knew, Steve would come over and punch my face in if I was caught dancing with Torrie. Even she seemed hesitant about it, looking at Elijah uncertainly.

“I don’t think – “

“Oh, come on,” Elijah interrupted me. “Orli’s being completely picky this evening and not dancing with anyone and you came here specifically to dance, knowing that you weren’t going to. What’s it going to hurt either of you?”

I’d kill him. I really would. But right now I couldn’t leave Torrie sitting there, looking pathetically uncomfortable and ready to bolt at any given moment. Perhaps tomorrow would be a good time to go fishing. Then I could use Elijah as bait. No one would miss him. Not for days. I slid out of my seat and stood at Torrie’s side.

“Cmon, love. Before Lij decides to get anymore bright ideas in his head.”

She smiled and took my hand and allowed me to pull her out to the dance floor. Of course, the moment we reached it, “I’m Like a Bird” by Nelly Furtado ended and was immediately replaced by The Calling’s “Unstoppable”. So I had to pull her close and hold her against me and we swayed slowly to the tune and I found myself hating the fact that she was the perfect height against me. Tonight she smelled like spice and yet the softest hint of coconut still lingered there in her skin and her hair was incredibly soft against my cheek.

“Come and lay right on my bed, sit and drink some wine

I'll try not to make you cry

And if you'd get inside my head, then you'd understand

Then you'd understand me

Why I've felt so alone, why I kept myself from love

And you became my favorite drug

So let me take you right now and swallow you down,

I need you inside”

And I was beginning to hate this song.

“If we had this night together

If we had a moment to ourselves

If we had this night together, then we'd be

Unstoppable”

Over the next minute or so, Torrie seemed to relax, and rested her head against my shoulder. I held her a little closer, allowed myself to enjoy it a little more. After all, it was just a harmless dance. There was no reason to stress over it. She was engaged and wasn’t my type anyway and sure we got along well and I enjoyed spending time in her company but this was just a slowly emerging friendship and friends could dance and enjoy it without having to worry too much. Right?

I rested my head against hers and slowly lost myself in the song and the feeling of her against me. I couldn’t really explain at that moment how I felt except to say it was peaceful. For just a moment there was no pressure, no worries, just the two of us moving to the music, no talking, no need to impress. I closed my eyes, felt her heart beating against my own – or was it the bass from the music?

“Do you think that this is right, or is it really wrong

I know that this is what we've been wanting

And all this is burning in my soul, it fills up to my throat

It fills up till my heart is breaking”

“You’re a good dancer,” Torrie spoke against my neck.

Her voice was slightly husky, soft. I liked the sound. Opening my eyes, I was about to reply – you know, say something witty about really having two left feet or something equally stupid like that – but I caught Steve watching us and anything I might have said was lost. He was glaring, looking slightly pissed. What was the man’s issue, anyway? A part of me felt like placing my hands on her ass but I doubted Torrie would have appreciated that much. So I refrained from doing so and instead flashed Steve a sickeningly sweet smile. Elijah appeared beside him and was saying something, probably explaining how he knew Torrie wanted to dance and I was up to dancing with her and most likely making it sound as if it were completely my idea. Hell, it wasn’t as if he owned her or anything so why the evil eye? Deciding to ignore it, I closed my eyes again and lost myself in the music and the feel of this very soft woman against me once more.

“Now, we can both learn

Somehow, you'll see it's all we have

Love, it keeps us together

and I need love”

It was obviously the wrong thing to do. Next thing I knew, Steve was standing beside us, his hand on Torrie’s arm, giving me that “I’m bigger than you so you’d better watch out, punk” look and I found myself very much wanting to punch his lights out but knew I would only succeed in hurting myself and looking like a complete idiot.

“C’mon, babe. We need to get going,” Steve was telling her, drawing her away from me.

Completely rude, if you ask me. Even Torrie was flashing me an apology with her eyes and all I could do was smile in return. Damn straight I was showing up for that fishing trip.

“What time tomorrow?” I asked before he could pull her off the dance floor.

Steve glared. Torrie smiled. “Four o’clock.”

“In the morning?” I squeaked in disbelief.

She nodded with another smile before disappearing into the crowd.

Four fucking o’clock in the morning? Ah hell.

****

When I had told Elijah what time we had to be there, he had looked ready to go into a fit of apoplexy. Then he had told me I was lying. Then he had tried to back out of it. I was okay with that. I was going no matter what, for no other reason than because Steve knew I was planning on going and after the looks he had given me on the dance floor…

So there I was at four am in the frickin’ morning with a sleepy Elijah standing beside me on the dock in front of the “Dolphins Cry”. There were a couple of fisherman ahead of us already, boarding the boat. It was pitch black out still and the breeze coming in from the ocean was a cold one. I could hear the sea lions barking in the distance and up and down the pier engines roared to life.

“I need coffee,” Elijah yawned beside me.

“You already had some.”

“I need more.”

“Come on, you should be used to this. Just pretend you’re about to get your Hobbit feet put on.”

“Ugh.” Elijah made a face. “I’ll be sleeping in the car.”

“Whatever.” I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him forward. Uncle Tony was standing at the edge of the pier, his dark brows raising as we drew near.

“Well, here for another swimming lesson?” He asked.

“Preferably not,” I replied. Elijah yawned again. “Torrie invited us.”

“She’s in the cabin,” Tony told us, nodding us onboard. He glanced at Elijah. “You might want to put a lifejacket on him, just in case he falls asleep into the water.”

“It would serve him right,” I replied to Tony’s laughter as I hauled Elijah over the edge of the boat with me. He immediately found a bench and dropped onto it, his head leaning against the back and eyes closing.

“Wake me when we find some fish,” he called out to me as I walked off.

Entering the cabin, I found Torrie sitting in the captain’s chair, turning the engines, flipping a few switches here and there. “Hey there,” I called out.

She glanced over her shoulder and smiled. “Hey back. Surprised to see you made it.”

I moved over to her. “What? D’you think all us Hollywood types sleep all day and play all night?”

“Well don’t you?”

I laughed. “You’ve got a point. But, Lij and I did go home last night at about 11:30 in anticipation of meeting you here at this god-awful hour of the morning.”

“Ah, but did you go home alone?”

“Ouch!” I placed my hand over my heart in mock pain. “That hurt.”

“And?”

I hung my head. “Unfortunately, yes.”

Torrie laughed. “Poor baby! Lack of choices or outright rejection?”

“Yes.” I grinned.

Shaking her head, Torrie slid out of the chair and moved past me. I frowned as she did so, reaching out to grab her arm and stop her. She looked at me in confusion as I touched her left cheek where a dark bruise was visible in the low light.

“How the hell did you get that?” I asked.

Torrie smiled. “You know me. Klutz. This morning I overslept and, in my hurry to get out of bed when I saw the time, I got tripped up in my sheets and fell into the nightstand. Slick, huh?’

I shook my head with a grimace. “Do you have a life insurance policy? You need one.”

“Yeah, well I try to stay away from highways and such.”

“Good thing, too.”

I followed her out of the cabin back onto the deck where the last of the passengers had gathered. The crew was busy untying the ropes from the moorings and raising the anchor, while Tony moved past us into the cabin to take the chair Torrie had just vacated. I stumbled a bit as the boat pulled away from the pier, waited while my body became used to the motion then moved to join Torrie who had sat down beside Elijah.

“Got any coffee?” He was asking Torrie as I took the seat beside her.

“Sorry, hon. Uncle Tony and I can’t stand coffee. I’ve got Coke if you want one.”

“Maybe later.” He closed his eyes.

“Ah, to be twenty-one and lazy once again,” she quipped, causing Elijah to train one eye on her for a moment before closing it without arguing.

I leaned back and lost myself in the sound of the engines and the churning of the water as the boat sliced through it. Everything around us was darkness, as if we were moving through a gigantic void and I avoided looking at the water because it seemed slightly sinister, black as it was. Beside me, Torrie was quiet as well, her gaze focused out on the water, her attention drifting only once as we passed by the rocky island filled with the very loud sea lions. I surreptitiously studied her profile in the growing dawn, thinking to myself once more that she was much prettier than I had thought at our first meeting. She had a youthful appearance, though now that her thoughts were unguarded, I noticed a ghost of darkness, a haunted expression, flicker briefly through her eyes. Its appearance sent a tremor through me and without thought, I reached out and clasped her hand in mine. She did not react, did not turn to me, only squeezed my fingers, her gaze remaining on the sea. Inwardly, I gave a sigh of relief. I don’t know what had drawn me to touch her like that and I sure as hell didn’t know what I would have said if she had questioned me about it. Torrie seemed to read me better than I could read myself though, and spoke nothing of it.

The sun was beginning to appear over the horizon, casting its light across a now blue ocean when the fishing boat finally slowed and the passengers around us began preparing their poles, pulling out packets of bait and sinkers. Torrie pulled her hand from mine – I don’t know how long I had held it but Elijah saw it and raised an eyebrow at me which I ignored – and stood.

“I’ll be right back.” She moved off toward the front of the boat.

Elijah scooted over beside me and I waited for the inevitable.

“So what was that all about?”

“What was what?” I asked innocently.

“You were holding her hand. An engaged woman’s hand.”

As if I didn’t know. I shrugged. “It was nothing, Lij. Just two friends holding hands.”

“Speaking of, exactly when did this ‘friendship’ thing happen?”

I sighed. “Lij – “

“I obviously missed something somewhere. I mean, you didn’t seem the least surprised when she introduced that fiancé of hers last night.”

“Don’t you have some more sleeping to do?” I asked irritably.

Elijah laughed. “Yeah, man. Okay. I get it. Stop prodding. I’ll just wait until next week when the rest of the guys are with us.”

I grimaced at the thought. Great. Four hobbits plying me with questions about the engaged woman who I was holding hands with on a fishing boat and had danced with at the club and there was absolutely nothing about her that typically drew me to a woman except that she was very sweet. I liked blondes; she was brunette. I wanted someone who needed me; Torrie seemed extremely independent. It only made sense that I would end up with someone in the “business”; Torrie was about as far removed from Hollywood as anyone could be. I told myself I was only interested in getting to know her because she led such a different life and I wanted to see what that was like. Besides, she had invited me in. She could have easily let me walk away from her without another word and that would have been that.

God, I was becoming defensive, actually resorting to arguing with myself. What did it matter to anyone if Torrie and I became friends? She was cool and a lot of fun to hang out with. Fuck.

“Hey you two!” I glanced up to see Torrie waving us toward the front of the boat.

Elijah jumped up in front of me, almost causing me to trip and I gave him a dirty look which he completely ignored, and we walked toward the bow, joining Torrie. She handed us each the end of a pole, the lines of which were already sunk deep into the water. I peered over the edge, holding the pole beside me.

“We’re at about a hundred feet right now,” Torrie told me, leaning over to follow my gaze.

“You mean I have to reel up one hundred feet of line?” Elijah exclaimed unhappily.

Torrie laughed. “If you get a bite, yeah.”

“Well shit.” He shoved the end of his pole into the holder and leaned back against the railing, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans. I looked over at Torrie and we grinned at each other.

The next few hours passed quicker than I would have imagined. I got three bites on my pole, the limit per person, while Elijah didn’t get one. In the end, I couldn’t tell if he was happy or sad at the outcome. The first snag Torrie coached me through, her arms occasionally wrapping around me to either increase or decrease my pressure on the pole. She grabbed the net as the salmon neared the surface of the water, swiftly scooping it up onto the boat. I was impressed with myself when she declared it was so far the biggest catch of the day, weighing in at twenty-six pounds. Not that I had much to do with its capture other than holding onto the pole. I didn’t see how people considered this a sport. And then when I had asked if we could put it back, Torrie had glanced at me with a grin and for a moment I thought she was going to do exactly that but then Tony showed up and hauled it away from us, clapping me on the back and telling me I had two more to go. Torrie had shrugged her shoulders as she passed by me, whispering that if we ever came out by ourselves, we could spend all day letting the little buggers go. I laughed. Getting into the spirit of things, I caught two more, this time without Torrie’s assistance. I considered giving them away, especially since I didn’t have the slightest idea how to cook one, then Elijah reminded me that Dom, the ex-chef of the group, was going to be in town the next week and he could cook up a nice meal for all of us. I couldn’t wait to see his face when I told him I caught these myself.

In between my impressive bouts as a fisherman – little joke there – Torrie, Elijah and I chatted comfortably with one another. Elijah and I kept her laughing with stories of our antics in New Zealand and she told us equally hilarious tales of some of their past passengers on the boat. Elijah soon began plying her with questions about her work, much as I had done earlier in the week, and Torrie quickly became animated in her replies. I soon discovered I loved watching her talk about her work, her love for the animals positively glowed in her eyes and her smile. I grew silent as I listened, as she and Elijah talked about Southern California and places I had not yet seen or even heard of. They even learned that they shared a few mutual friends and I found I was jealous that he had so much in common with her that I did not.

No. Wait. It wasn’t jealousy. It couldn’t have been jealousy. That would have denoted that I was interested in her as something more than a friend and I wasn’t. She was engaged. And she wasn’t what I wanted. I wasn’t jealous. I just found it annoying that while I was the one to befriend her, Elijah was the one with whom she had so much in common. They even ended up talking about his remake of “Flipper” and I couldn’t think of anything to say except that I had seen it, once, while in New Zealand, when we were all busy watching each other’s movies. Besides, I’m not the jealous type. Even if Torrie and I were dating. Which we weren’t. Nor would we ever be. Damn. Why was I obsessing over this?

Elijah ended up asking her about the bruise on her cheek and after a hilarious recounting of her dash out of bed, he in turn told her about some of our injuries on the set of ‘Lord of the Rings’. We ended up comparing scars which somehow led to tattoos and I was surprised to find Torrie had a dolphin in the exact same spot I had my sun, right below her belly button. Elijah, being Elijah, commented that she had a nice belly button and I swear Torrie had turned a brilliant shade of red all the way to her ears before she finally muttered a quick ‘thank you’. I wanted to know why he was looking at her belly button but refrained from asking in front of her.

We pulled back into dock around noon. I didn’t want to leave and even Elijah seemed to continue to hover while the other passengers disembarked. Tony walked past, clapping me hard on the back and congratulating me on getting limits, then flashed Elijah a pathetic look that made me laugh. Torrie, who had disappeared for the last half hour, finally emerged from the bow, handing me a sack that I almost dropped it was so heavy.

“Your catches, master fisherman,” she told me with a smile. “I cleaned and filleted them for you. All you need to do is cook them.”

“Correction, Dom gets to cook them,” Elijah replied, peering into the bag.

“Thanks, Torrie.” What else was I supposed to say? Hey, I’d love to see you again but I don’t know if your fiancé would like it. No, that wouldn’t work. And then, leave it to Elijah…

“You should join us next week for dinner,” my ever-trustworthy young Hobbit told her, all innocence and adorability. “You can meet the guys and help me convince them that Orli actually caught these on his own.”

I couldn’t decide if I wanted her to say yes or no. I was actually holding my breath as we waited for her answer. She seemed to consider it for a long moment then smiled.

“Steve will be out of town on business so that should be okay.” I started breathing again. “Of course I don’t want to intrude… “

We both quickly assured her it would be no intrusion at all. Elijah gave her his phone number (Damn gutsy! Why didn’t I think of that?) and then, being the gentleman I was, I offered to pick her up from work that evening and give her a ride to Elijah’s where we were meeting so she didn’t have to try to follow his half-ass directions. He only got me lost twice.

“I’d like that, Orli,” Torrie replied with a smile for me. “As long as it’s no trouble.”

“It shouldn’t be,” Elijah answered before I could and I gritted my teeth, knowing that some smart ass comment was coming. He didn’t let me down. “Orli’s good at picking up women.”

Torrie laughed at that and I allowed a smile, hoping my embarrassment didn’t show. Elijah elbowed me in the ribs with a grin then threw his arms around Torrie in a big hug, thanking her for such a fun time.

Being more reserved, I just gave her a smile. “Thanks again, Torrie. It was… an experience.”

“At least you didn’t fall in,” she teased.

“Yeah, well, I haven’t exactly made it back to land yet, have I?”

She laughed. “Goodbye, Orli. See you next week.”

“Bye, love.”

I followed Elijah back to the car, quiet, thoughtful. He didn’t say much either, until we got in and closed the doors.

“Sucks, don’t it?”

I glanced at him as he turned the key, revving the engine to life. “What does?”

“That women like that are always taken.”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to. I tried to picture myself becoming friends with Torrie and Steve. Hanging out with both of them at a bar or meeting them for dinner or inviting them to a premiere.

I failed miserably.

Dolphin's Cry Home