An Optimist's Guide to Heartbreak (Heartsong #1)(17)

Mom finally gets control of the other leash, stepping around me with Lemon secured. “Are you dating someone, Lucy?” she wonders while Lemon barks her frustration that her sibling managed a thrilling escape and left her in the dust.

Shaking off my surprise, I mutter, “No…that’s Cal.”

I catch the widening of her eyes as she stares at me for a quick beat, then marches over to where Cal is bent over, trying to pet Kiki as she flits around him. My dog is shameless as she paws at his legs, hopping up and down like a bunny starved for attention.

“Callahan,” my mother greets.

Her voice has a breathy sort of wonder to it, having not seen him since the summer of 2013. She always called him by his full name—Callahan. And Emma was always Emmalee.

“Just Cal,” he says, standing upright as his eyes flick over to me for a moment, then swing back to my mother. “Good to see you, Mrs. Hope.”

“Goodness, how you’ve grown. I never would have recognized you. How is Dana?”

“She’s fine.”

Mom doesn’t notice the telltale flexing of his biceps or the twitch of tension in his jaw—but I do. Jumping between them, I lean down to seize Kiki’s leash and hand it back to my mother with an overenthusiastic smile. “The zucchini bread! Do you think it’s burning?” I usher her toward the house while mouthing, “We’ll talk more later.”

She shoots me a weird look paired with an eyebrow wiggle, like we’re both in on some sort of juicy secret, then sends Cal a wave with her elbow since both hands are occupied with two corgis trying to wrestle and play-fight around her ankles.

Chaos.

Cheeks heating, I turn to Cal once my mother has successfully disappeared into the house. I wring my hands together, taking a careful step forward as a few more raindrops escape the smog. My hairline starts to frizz thanks to the humidity, so I smooth it back, fiddling with my long ponytail while Cal stares down at me, mute and stoic. “What are you doing here?” I ask him.

His eyes are unreadable, a melding of gold and stone, and the drizzle feels icy against my skin when my blood pumps hotter.

It’s then I realize that he just caught me gallivanting around the neighborhood with my dogs and my mother, a picture of health, after I called into work this morning and left him shorthanded.

He probably came over to fire me in person.

“I promise, I really did have to go to the doctor,” I add, newly panicked. “My doctor put me on some medication, and my mom stopped by because she was worried, and the dogs needed to—”

“It’s fine,” he cuts me off. Cal pulls a baseball cap off his head and ruffles his hair—mystical hair that seems to be immune to humidity—before returning it to a forward-facing position. “You didn’t sound like you had a cold, and I know you’ve had some asthma problems, so I figured I’d stop by and make sure everything was good.”

My heart warms.

Cal and Emma never knew the truth about my medical issues while we were growing up—I always just told them I had asthma because it was easier that way. More understandable. More palatable, I suppose. After a traumatizing moment as a young child that had me feeling like I was abnormal, I made my parents promise not to say anything in fear of my friends not wanting to spend time with me anymore. The worst thing would have been that they looked at me differently, or treated me like fragile glass, or excluded me because they thought I was too sick.

I couldn’t bear it.

Finally, I say through a smile, “You were…checking on me?”

He frowns as if the notion is completely off the mark, but it doesn’t offset the brief flash of candidness in his eyes that glints within the gold. “It’s not a big deal,” he says, looking down at his feet. Then his eyes shift over to the little ranch house sitting before us, the bricks still made of honey, the shutters still white. The giant maple tree stands tall and proud in the backyard, sprouting over the roof, and three thriving rose bushes continue to line the front of the house, just like they used to.

“It looks the same,” he murmurs, the words tinged with something softer. “I haven’t driven past it in years. Haven’t been able to.”

Cal stares at the house with haunted, glazed-over eyes, and I can’t help my tears from welling.

I want to invite him inside.

I want to show him Emma’s diary.

I want to laugh with him, cry with him, reminisce with him.

Inhaling an uneven breath, Cal glances back at me as a sharp breeze blows through. It carries with it the scent of his skin. Something crisp and smoky; bourbon and oak, and a touch of spice.

It carries memories, too. The taste of rainwater on my tongue as the three of us splashed around the flooded backyard. The static of untouchable innocence carved into laughter.

And then, with our eyes still locked, lightning flashes in streaks of pale yellow, and the sky untethers the rain.

It starts pouring.

Hard, fast, relentless.

Cal tips his head skyward, adjusting his cap and scrubbing a hand over his face. “Fuck,” he whispers, hardly audible over the storm.

I can’t tell if he’s cursing the rain, or the memories it brings with it like an uninvited guest. Part of me wants to laugh, part of me wants to sob. All I end up doing is staring at him with my lips parted and trembling, chest heaving, and heart galloping so fast I should probably be concerned.