An Optimist's Guide to Heartbreak (Heartsong #1)(16)

“Speaking of conditions,” she adds, reaching over and snatching Kiki’s leash. “You shouldn’t be over-exerting. I’ve got her.”

“I’m feeling better. She’s not even pulling me.”

“God forbid you collapse right here on the sidewalk, and I have to resuscitate you while trying to wrangle two corgis and dial 9-1-1, just as this inevitable thunderstorm hits us. Better to be safe.”

Dramatic.

I forgo arguing and tip my chin toward the leaden gray sky. Smoky clouds glide over mature treetops, hindering the final remnants of daylight as a crack of thunder rumbles in the distance.

It reminds me of a similar sky on a late-August afternoon, more than a decade ago. A friend from school was having a pool party. She’d invited me, but after a recent scare at the community pool that triggered an episode and landed me in the hospital, Mom wouldn’t let me go.

I stared out the window all day, feeling sullen, imagining all the fun my friends were having.

Then, right around dinner time, the doorbell rang.

“Come on, let’s go,” Emma proclaimed, decked out in her bathing suit, rain boots, and a dinosaur inflatable around her waist. “The weather is perfect!”

Actually, it was pouring.

Rain bucketed down, drenching my smiling friend who stood on my uncovered front stoop. Droplets fused with freckles as rivulets of water trickled down her cheeks and nose.

“Go where?” I wondered, bewildered. “It’s raining.”

“Right? It’s great, isn’t it?” She looked up at the sky, her smile only broadening. When she faced me again, licking water from her lips, she said, “I know you weren’t able to go to that pool party, so I figured we could make our own.”

My heart leaped with joy.

Five minutes later, we were stomping through puddles and mud in the backyard, soaking wet, laughing until our bellies ached. Cal joined us with his water gun moments later, chasing us around the grass until we all collapsed into the lake that started forming near the tree line.

Swallowing, my eyes burn with sentiment as the memories roll through me, and I swear I hear her distinct laughter echoing along with a hiss of wind.

“How is he, Lucy?”

My mother’s voice pulls me from the moment. I shake away the lingering emotion, turning to face her as we coast down the sidewalk. “Cal? He’s…” Searching for the perfect adjective—gruff, quiet, dismissive, darkly attractive, closed-off, tattooed, anti-social—my brain finally latches onto one: “Different.”

I study her expression as it wilts. Strawberry blond hair, now shaded with silver and white, stops at her shoulders, tucked behind two bejeweled ears. My mother, Farrah Hope, wears a pair of earrings shaped like golden angel wings that haven’t left her lobes since the day my father passed.

Her eyes pan over to me, glittering light blue. “It kills me that Dana never kept in touch. Everything was so sudden.”

My throat stings as I drop my head, fixating on the sidewalk cracks as we skip from one square to the next. “He’s changed. A lot. I’ve only spent a week with him, but he hasn’t opened up at all. He hasn’t talked about his mother, and he refuses to talk about Emma.”

“Refuses?”

“Adamantly. It was his one stipulation if he were to hire me.”

“Good heavens,” she whispers into the warm gust that blows through. “I always wondered what had happened to him. He was such a bright boy. Handsome and kind.” Chuckling to herself, she tugs at Kiki’s leash before my dog veers off toward the family of geese crossing the road. “You know, I’d convinced myself that the two of you would become a couple one day…once you grew up some more.”

Oh boy. I clear my throat, giving my ponytail a tug. “You were just imagining things, I’m sure.”

“Well, he was always protective of you. It was sweet.”

“Yeah, like a sister. He was protective of Emma, too.”

She shrugs a little, glancing up at the clouds as a few raindrops leak out. “It was different during that last year. I saw the way your eyes would light up around him, and the way your cheeks would turn all red when he’d call you that nickname.” Mom pulls her lip between her teeth, chewing thoughtfully. “What was it again?”

On cue, my cheeks turn all red.

Sunshine.

I feign memory loss and pick up my pace, walking slightly ahead of her. “I can’t remember. Too long ago.” Then I change the subject. “I bet the zucchini bread is done. Let’s head back.”

As we turn the corner onto Maple Avenue, my driveway comes into view—along with a motorcycle parked right in front of it. I blanch when my eyes land on the hulking figure leaning against the bike, his arms and ankles both crossed.

“Who’s that?” Mom mutters from behind me, almost ramming into me when I come to a dead stop on the sidewalk. The dog leashes tangle around my legs as my mother makes an “oof” sound and tries to gracefully unravel them.

She fails.

Kiki breaks free and dashes toward my friend-turned-boss, her stubby little legs moving so fast, it looks like the stormfront is carrying her through the air like an autumn leaf.

Cal straightens from the bike, watching as the dog charges at him. He’s probably watching in horror, but his expression doesn’t move from its usual impassive state, so he just stands there waiting for thirty pounds of sable and white to ambush him.