An Optimist's Guide to Heartbreak (Heartsong #1)(41)

“Sure.”

Sure, fine, okay.

We’ll wade in the shallow end where nothing can nibble at our ankles.

We’ll stay behind the yellow tape so we don’t see things we can’t unsee.

Slowly, I turn around, hoping my eyes aren’t raw and puffy. Hoping the smile I’ve slapped on looks authentic. “What do you want?” I ask him, referencing his dinner request.

The melancholy in his eyes flickers into something more biddable. He crosses his arms, focus skipping over my shoulder before panning back to me. That’s when a tiny little smirk blooms. “That’s a loaded question.”

Flush settles into my cheekbones as a glimmer lights up his face. Not quite a shimmer, but more than a gleam.

Since we’re floating in the shallow water, I choose not to drown in his innuendo. “How about Thai food?”

“That works.” Cal gives me a quick nod and pivots away, flipping on a table lamp as he stalks through the living room and into the adjoining kitchen where the dogs are sniffing around like pirates on a treasure hunt. I follow behind him, tucking my now-loose hair behind both ears. The mood has lightened, but it’s far from light, and I don’t know what to do with myself. It’s different at work when I have job-related blather I can fall back on.

Unless I’m talking about clitometers.

But here, it’s personal.

Here, it feels…intimate.

There’s history, and things unspoken, and a piano-shaped elephant in the corner of the room, and there’s also— A kitten.

There’s a kitten sitting on the countertop in his galley kitchen, almost camouflaged by the cream laminate. I knew this, yes, but amid all the heaviness, it managed to slip my mind.

Cal glances over his shoulder as he finally deposits my duffel on his dining table. “Told you I had a kitten. She’s still a little shy, so don’t take offense.”

“Oh my God, she’s precious.”

And then—and then—Cal scoops her up, this itty-bitty ball of ivory fur held snugly in his vein-lined, ink-spattered arms of steel, and I swoon.

I actually, legitimately swoon.

“You’re swooning,” Cal says.

The kitten wiggles from his grip to climb his chest, stretching her chocolate-speckled paws over his shoulder. My eyes are surely shaped like animated hearts as I watch them interact. “I – I’m sorry, I just…you didn’t strike me as the type of guy who had—”

“A beating heart?” he provides in his typical deadpan way. “Well, surprise, I do.”

“That’s…not what I meant,” I grin, ducking my head.

“It is, but it’s fair. I need to stop being an asshole, or you’re never gonna like me.”

When I pop back up, Cal is staring at me like it was a question. There’s a kitten digging its sharp little talons into the cords of his neck, but he doesn’t seem to notice—he’s just watching me. Waiting for an answer to the non-question.

I wet my lips and say, “I already like you.”

It was supposed to sound sweet and reassuring, like, “hey, you’re not an asshole,” but it comes off like I just told him to tie me to his bedpost, strip me bare, and call me his very good girl.

Oh.

And now I’m imagining that scenario in vivid detail.

Cal inches closer, peeling Cricket off his shoulder as he levels me with a look that falls somewhere between playful and heated. “Yeah?”

His tone matches the look in his eyes, and I moisten my lips again, watching as he tracks the gesture before slowly sliding his gaze back up. Warmth trickles through me, twisting my nerves into a tingly feeling that has me squirming where I stand.

Our text messages from the night before spring to mind, and I start to fidget with the ends of my hair. “Your text last night…” I begin, gnawing on my lip, knowing I’m opening a can of worms or Pandora’s box. Possibly my legs, but probably not. Something is opening; that’s all I know. “You said you missed me while I was out on leave.” I brave direct eye contact. “Did you really?”

He doesn’t hesitate to nod, stuffing one hand into his pocket while the other holds Cricket underneath his arm. Then he says, his voice threaded with a deep timbre, “Yeah…I do.”

I do.

Not did.

Cal misses me.

Those tingles race through me, lighting me up like a thousand enchanted fireflies as Cal moves out of the kitchen with a kitten tucked under his armpit and two corgis trying to climb his legs like a tree trunk.

He glances back at me standing frozen in his kitchen and mutters, “I’ll pull up the menu for that Thai place off Broadway. What do you want?”

I smile and join him, even though I’m mentally racing toward my hidden stash of wine.

That’s a loaded question.





I finished the wine.

I don’t exactly regret the decision because I feel fantastic, but I’ll probably regret the decision in the morning when I don’t feel fantastic and am forced to replay every embarrassing, tipsy thing I did in front of Cal—who is sitting beside me on the couch, a few beers deep. He had a glass of wine, too, but I think it was only to prevent me from having it.

I hiccup.

His two long legs stretch out across the carpet as we attempt to watch a movie in his finished basement beside his collection of work-out equipment. I say “attempt” because I haven’t caught a single minute of it. I’m too busy staring at Cal beside me, my cheek propped up by my fist, and a slap-happy grin on my face.