An Optimist's Guide to Heartbreak (Heartsong #1)(44)

A laugh slips. “Funny.”

I try to keep as still as possible as he clips away, his unoccupied hand anchored at my waist. As he moves higher, his hand lifts, trailing up the length of my body until he’s gathering my long mess of hair in a gentle fist and layering it over my shoulder to avoid potential chopping.

I shudder at the feel of his fingers gliding through my hair. For as rough as he comes across, his touch is gentle. Almost loving. Instinctively, I move into his hand, and instinctively, he keeps threading long fingers through my hair, over and over, until the shirt falls loose off my shoulders.

We both go still for a moment, his hand falling to my bicep, then skimming down to my elbow. I hear his breaths unsteady. I feel them heating the nape of my neck as his nose kisses the back of my head. I realize I’m sitting beside him in only a bra and leggings, right off the cusp of a lusty encounter on his basement couch. Tingles shoot and spark inside me as I anticipate his next move.

But all he does is inhale a deep breath, drop his hand, and stand.

“Get dressed and meet me on the deck.” That’s all he says before leaving me half bare on the bed, my shirt in shambles beside me.

I forgo the onesie, too wracked with embarrassment to add any more to it, and instead slip into a pair of skinny jeans and a sweater I had planned for tomorrow’s work day.

When I tiptoe through the house and out the patio door a few minutes later, I discover Cal swinging languidly on a swing, front to back, back to front. Cricket is snoozing in his lap, a little ball of ivory and cream, while Kiki and Lemon are passed out on the wood planks near his feet. Kiki is sprawled out on her side, Lemon on her tummy with her snout tucked between both paws.

It’s an image that won’t ever leave me.

Picturesque and permanently ingrained.

I move forward, taking a seat beside him as he looks over at me with a half-finished beer tucked inside his palm. We don’t say anything for a while. Only the sounds of a light breeze, our steady breaths, and wispy animal snores serve as a nighttime soundtrack.

Finally, I speak.

“You said I was an adventure,” I note wistfully, sparing him a glance as I tug the sleeves of my sweater down over my palms. “I always thought the same thing about you. We’d get into so much trouble together, but it never felt like chaos. It was always…fun. Exciting. Those last few years before—” Emotion snags in the back of my throat, and I swallow it down. “Those were the best years of my life.”

Cal makes a humming noise, rocking us forward and back with the soles of his shoes as he gazes out over the chain-link fence. “I think that’s the difference between a disaster and an adventure,” he says. “It’s the people you experience them with.”

Smiling, I nod slowly, soaking up his answer.

I can’t help but inch closer to him until our shoulders brush together, my chest tight with the whispering of ancient memories. The remnants of my wardrobe malfunction fall away, as does the lingering heat of our lap encounter.

I just feel warm.

Content.

Safe.

Nostalgia grips me when I catch his eyes fixed on the star-studded sky. “Emma used to name the stars,” I tell him, resting my head against his shoulder. I worry Cal will pull back, maybe leave me alone on the deck at the mention of his sister, but he doesn’t.

He glances down at me, his face bathed in half shadow, half moon. “Let’s name them, then.”

A startled, overjoyed breath bursts from my lips, and my ensuing smile is organic, eyes misty. “Okay.”

We name as many as possible while I curl up beside him on the patio swing and soon fall asleep. With my temple held up by the breadth of his shoulder, I drift into hazy dreams beneath the stars.

They aren’t fireflies…

But they still give us a little light.





Chapter 13





It’s a golden morning when I awake amid soft quilts and cool sheets. Cal’s guest room drinks the daylight pouring in through the lone window beside my bed that serves as a much more tolerable alarm clock to the obnoxious jingle that came with my cell phone.

I dig the heels of my palms into my eyes and rub the sleep away before surveying the sun-drunk room. It’s sparsely decorated and hardly furnished, but the bed is comfortable, and the pillows are top tier. They’re the feathery down pillows that lull me to sleep the moment my head meets them.

I have an extra pillow if you need it.

I smile at his words. He wasn’t just being casually hospitable—he was remembering. I always used to sleep with two pillows; never one, never three. It needed to be two, or I’d be restless and sleepless all night. With the amount of sleepovers shared between Emma and me, Cal became very aware of my strict pillow requirements.

Does he remember everything about me?

Like how I’d always put my shoes on the wrong feet?

Like my aversion to horror movies and how he’d force me to watch them while holding my hands away from my eyes during a scary scene, so I had no choice but to giggle and squeal?

Like my love for the Christmas season and how I’d always wear a light-up jingle bell necklace every day in December?

Like my addiction to lime-flavored things, such as Jell-O and Skittles? I used to pick out the green candies and pop them into my mouth all at once. Honestly, I’m pretty sure the last time I felt truly betrayed was when I discovered the green Skittles had been changed from lime to green apple.