Awakening (Lily Dale #1)(39)

Calla finds that unusual, because back in the beginning with Kevin, she always got nervous when she ran out of things to say. Not that she’s thinking this is any kind of “beginning” with Jacy.

Still . . . back when she and Kevin first started hanging out alone together, without Lisa as a buffer, Calla used to chatter about anything and everything just to avoid awkward silence.

With Jacy, even though he’s pretty much a stranger, somehow the silence wasn’t awkward. Maybe because that’s such an obvious part of his introspective nature.

“Evangeline came over looking for you,” Odelia says. “I thought you were over at the Taggarts’ all this time, but she said you’d been there and left.”

“I just felt funny hanging around with her aunt, waiting for her.” And now I feel guilty that I was down by the lake with her crush.

“Ramona is great. I’m surprised you felt uncomfortable with her.”

“It wasn’t her, really . . . it was . . . I just felt like taking a walk.”

“So how was it?” Odelia asks directly, and something in her expression—and her tone—tells Calla that she doesn’t buy her story.

Yeah, it’s pretty hard to pull one over on a psychic. Poor Mom. What must it have been like for her, growing up?

“It was a good walk,” Calla tells her, relieved when Odelia doesn’t call her on it.

“Well, you had company while you were gone.”

“Evangeline. I know. You said.” And in this town Evangeline will probably hear about my fishing with Jacy—or, who knows, have a vision about it—any second now.

“No, not just Evangeline. Someone came and brought you these.” Odelia lifts a vase filled with wildflowers from a small table near the stairs.

Calla’s eyes widen. “Someone brought me flowers? Who was it?”

“Blue Slayton.” A smile quirks the edges of Odelia’s hot-pink mouth.

Flustered, Calla just stares at the vase. Why would Blue Slayton bring her flowers?

“He said to call him when you got back.”

“I . . . uh, I don’t have his number.”

“Triple five four-seven-eight-two,” Odelia recites.

“You have it memorized?”

“Honey, this is a tiny town, and everyone here knows everyone else. Plus, Blue’s dad and I used to be good friends.”

“Used to be?”

Odelia snorts a little. “Back before old Dave went Hollywood.”

“Blue’s father lives in Hollywood?”

“Not officially. But he spends most of his time in L. A. these days. Psychic to the stars, and all that.”

Something tells Calla her grandmother doesn’t approve.

“What about Blue? Isn’t he in school?”

“Oh, he stays here when his dad’s away.”

“With his mother?”

“No, the housekeeper. His mother took off a long time ago and she never looked back. Not even for her son.”

Odelia sounds bitter. Oh. She’s probably thinking of her ex-husband, Calla realizes. He did the same thing to her—and my mom—that Blue’s mother did.

Which also means Blue Slayton can join the sad little motherless club, with her and Evangeline. And Jacy, who told her, in his quiet way while they were fishing, that his parents are both alcoholics. Abusive ones. It wasn’t so bad when they lived on the reservation, he said, because he had neighbors who would look out for him. Then his parents moved to an apartment down in Jamestown. It wasn’t long before Social Services started showing up, and they finally removed him from his home, which, Jacy added, his parents didn’t protest.

He didn’t say specifically what his parents did to lose custody of him, and Calla didn’t push him to explain. She could tell it was a painful subject for him. She felt privileged that he had shared as much as he did.

“Here you go,” Odelia says, and holds out the phone. “You can call Blue.”

Still reeling from her breakup with Kevin—oh, all right, mostly from her afternoon with Jacy—she doesn’t really feel like talking to another guy.

Then again, she should at least thank Blue for the flowers. It would be rude not to.

She accepts the phone from Odelia. “What did you say his number was?”

Moments later, her grandmother is back in the kitchen, clattering pots and pans, and Blue Slayton is making small talk, then interrupting himself to ask, “You went fishing with Jacy today, huh?”

“How did you know?”

“You can’t get away with anything in the Dale,” he says casually.

Wow. Did he have a psychic vision of her and Jacy, or what?

“Listen, you want to go out sometime?” Blue asks. “For coffee, or something?”

Coffee? She doesn’t drink coffee. But she can hardly say, How about milk and cookies?

You could just say no. But that might hurt his feelings. Anyway, Blue Slayton is really cute. As cute as Jacy, in a drastically different way. Plus, it’s not like Jacy said anything about seeing her again when they parted ways by the lake. He just waved and said, “See ya.”

Yeah, and she was kind of disappointed by that. Despite Evangeline.

“Coffee sometime would be great,” she hears herself tell Blue.