An Optimist's Guide to Heartbreak (Heartsong #1)(25)

Leaning into me, he dips his lips an inch from my ear. “Sorry.”

The word is scratchy like sandpaper, sending a whispering of tingles down my spine. As he says it, his palm slides off me in slow motion, just missing a brush with my backside.

One touch.

One touch and one word, yet it feels like my insides have detonated and I’m choking on the residual smoke.

What is going on?

I finally brave a glance at him, partly horrified for having such an intense reaction to something so insignificant, and praying he didn’t notice.

But looking at him is a mistake because he’s still so close, too close, and his eyes are drinking in the reaction I desperately hoped he’d missed. “It’s okay,” I breathe out, slicking my tongue along my newly dry lips. Cal drops his gaze to my mouth, lingering there as I finish, “I understand. I won’t talk about her again.”

The veins in his neck strain as he draws back up. “I just need to get over it.”

“That’s not true. Some things aren’t meant for us to get over.”

His eyes slant, unconvinced.

“I just mean…not everything that makes us hurt needs to be forgotten or banished. It hurts because it mattered. And things that mattered once, will always matter,” I tell him. I’m not sure if I’m making any sense, but he’s not cussing me out or stalking away, so I take that as a win. Resituating myself on the stool, I twist toward him until my knees are skimming his leg, just barely. “We need to find a way to carry those things with us in a positive way—instead of letting them bring us down, they should move us forward. Inspire us. Help us grow.”

Maybe it’s the buzz of the bourbon. Maybe it’s the mood music, a lullaby to his inner demons.

Whatever it is, Cal opens up.

He gives me a crumb, and I inhale it like a gourmet feast.

“I think about her every goddamn day,” he confesses, low and haunted. His finger taps along the side of the glass as he stares down into the melting ice cubes. “She’s my personal black cloud. Follows me around, so any trace of joy is rained out.” Lifting his eyes, he skims his gaze across my face, brows bending in that typical Cal scowl. “And now you’re here.”

The statement punctures me like a hot poker.

It’s not hard to read between the lines: I’m making it worse.

“I never meant to upset your life, Cal. I just…” Nibbling my cheek, I shift away. “I missed you.”

He makes a grouchy “hmmph” sound, scoffing at the very notion. “You missed a boy you used to know. You missed a fairytale life before it was stripped away by the villain.”

“We can start over,” I try, knowing I’m pushing my luck but wanting nothing more than to keep him talking. “We can be friends again.”

“Friends,” he mutters through another scoff. “No. You live in a little bubble with your head in the clouds, and I’m still…there.”

There.

I know where “there” is because, some days, I live there, too.

Folding a section of hair behind my ear, I reach for my wine glass and take a slow sip, peeking at him over the rim. I gulp it down and say, “Then…why did you come out tonight?”

His frown deepens as my implication registers.

Surely, he came to see me. He came because he misses all the same things I miss, but he’s too guarded and closed off to admit it.

There’s no other alternative. It couldn’t have been a coincidence.

Realizing he can only admit it or avoid it at this point, Cal withdraws, swallowing back the final sip of liquor. A long, tapered sigh tells me he’s done talking as he sets the glass down and rises from the stool. He tosses a twenty-dollar bill atop the bar counter as he stands, and before he turns to leave, he swipes up the napkin that holds Nash’s note and crumples it in his fist.

Then he turns to me.

He turns to me ever so slightly, the musk of his cologne fusing with the spell of his next words.

“You sing like a fucking angel.”

A sharp exhale bursts from my lips, the wind knocked out of me.

My knees wobble, my heart in a tailspin, but he doesn’t stick around to steady me. He storms away, leaving me painfully rattled. “Th-thank you for coming out tonight,” I stammer as he retreats, wringing my hands together so they stop shaking. “It means a lot.”

The clamoring of bar noise drowns out my wimpish voice, but he still looks back at me. Just a quick cast over his shoulder, paired with a slow blink. No smile, no nod.

Nothing but a falter.

And then he’s gone, tossing the wadded-up napkin into the trash before he walks out the door.

He’s gone, but I still feel him everywhere. Those words are crawling all over my skin, heating me like a midday sun.

Not five minutes later, Alyssa rushes through the entrance and bolts toward me, apologies and exaggerated stories about her marketing meeting drifting to my ears.

I hardly hear it.

Just like I hardly hear Nash when he refills my wine glass and inquires about the elusive stranger who came to watch me perform.

I’m pretty sure I provide some sort of answer, but I don’t even hear my own response.

All I hear are the words of a young boy, sprawled out on the pavement, staring up at me with a look of awe and wonder in his eyes as the sun sets my hair ablaze like a halo.