Along Came Trouble(90)
“I don’t understand,” he said for the second time.
He would never understand.
Picking up the contract off her lap, she prepared to go back to work. “Buh-bye now, Richard. See you around.”
It took a full minute, but eventually he did get up and amble off. No doubt he’d pick up Cassie’s phone number on the way out.
Cassie could play the part of his new lodestar if she wanted to. Ellen no longer saw the appeal in being any man’s guiding light.
Caleb picked at his falafel and stared out the windshield of his mother’s car.
He tried not to think about what Ellen had been doing around the back of her house with her ex-husband. Tried not to think about the quick glimpse he’d caught from Carly’s driveway of the two of them inches apart and leaning toward each other.
Of Ellen with her eyes closed, waiting to be kissed.
“Eat, Caleb,” his mother said firmly. “You need to keep your strength up.”
She’d brought him the sandwich and some cookies—lunch at four o’clock—and insisted he consume them in her presence. He took another bite, but he couldn’t taste anything. It was like eating cotton balls. He forced it down with a long swig of iced tea.
Ellen wouldn’t kiss Richard. Wouldn’t. No matter how pissed she was with Caleb, she flat-out disliked her ex.
Except she’d looked a hell of a lot like she was going to let him kiss her.
His mother craned around in the driver’s seat to observe the crowd milling behind them. Since Callahan had given the press conference and declared his intention to lay siege to Carly’s house until she let him in, he and Carly had been waging their battle over Twitter, with Jamie posting sweet compliments in exchange for every bitter, nasty thing she could think of to say about him. All three or four hundred people now behind the barricades were dividing their attention between the two houses and their phones. As Jamie set up his equipment on Carly’s lawn, they watched the action unfold and greeted each new online development with excited chatter.
Caleb wanted very much to punch Jamie Callahan. One solid whack in the jaw would go a long way toward evening the scorecard. The man was making his job hideously difficult. Come to think of it, it would be nice to give Carly a little shake, too, except of course you couldn’t shake a pregnant woman. Or any woman. Couldn’t even chew her out, because she had the blood pressure thing. Shortie had complete immunity at the moment, the little brat.
Callahan’s record label spoke through Breckenridge, and Breckenridge had been riding Caleb’s ass all day long. This is suicide for his image. Get him inside and keep him there. Take away his phone. Force him to see reason.
As if Caleb were Callahan’s jailer. The truth was, he didn’t have the least bit of influence over the guy. He’d tried talking to him. He’d tried talking to Carly. Both of them had batted him away like a gnat.
So what the hell did Breckenridge think he should do, tie them up? They were grown-ups, at least technically. If they wanted to air their dirty laundry on television and on the Internet and in every newspaper in the country, they had the right. All Caleb could do was make sure they didn’t come to any harm in the process.
Also, keep the photographers away from the windows, prevent fights from breaking out at the barricades, confiscate alcohol, refuse to let anyone sit down, make sure he had patrols running around the fence line, arrange for porta-potties to be delivered, check and double-check every vehicle that came through, coordinate with the local police to pick up troublemakers, watch over the shift changes, field dozens of phone calls and e-mails and text messages, track who was supposed to be showing up to help Nana take care of Carly, rescue Ellen’s tulip tree, check in on Henry now and then, and suppress the urge to tell Breckenridge to back the f*ck off.
Oh, and coordinate for Jamie Callahan to give a public concert for Carly on her front lawn in the hope of getting his foot in the door. Even though green-lighting this asinine gesture might well be the move that cost Caleb his job.
He’d only agreed to help—or at least not actively hinder—because he was a sap, and Carly loved Jamie, even if she was too stubborn to admit it.
All of which meant he really had better things to do than devote 98 percent of his attention to wondering if Ellen had something going with her jerk-off ex-husband. And if Caleb had blown his chance with her this morning or sometime before this morning. If Katie was right and he’d botched this thing with Ellen so bad from the beginning that he wouldn’t be able to fix it.