An Optimist's Guide to Heartbreak (Heartsong #1)(5)

Cal folds his arms, his biceps flexing. I do my best not to stare, quickly shifting my gaze from his remarkably muscled forearms to the unreadable expression staring down at me.

His face has a roughness to it, but it’s not weathered. Long, curving eyelashes and full lips soften the sharp angles of his jaw and jaded look in his eyes. There’s a smudge of grease smeared across his cheekbone that I want to erase with the flick of my thumb, but I keep my hands occupied by playing with my hair some more.

The silence has lasted painfully long, so it feels like word vomit is the only way out at this point. “So, yeah,” I continue, my voice wobbly. “Enjoy your banana bread. And your day, of course. It was…really nice to see you again, Cal. Maybe we can—”

“Good to see you, Lucy.”

His words are pleasant enough, but his tone is distant and his interruption a clear indicator that he wants me to scram.

I nod my head half a dozen times through my dying smile and pivot toward the door. I feel his eyes on my back when I push it open and step outside, but he doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t stop me, and I feel like the jingle bells sound far less cheerful on my way out.

Deflating with defeat, I shuffle to my Volkswagen, my sandals slapping in time with my thumping heart. I collapse into the driver’s side seat, closing the door and dropping my forehead to the steering wheel.

I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that.

It wasn’t that cold, brutish version of the sweet boy I grew up with and thought I’d marry one day. They were childlike fantasies, of course, but they held merit at the time. Cal was adorable, kind and fun, never treating me like the annoying neighbor or his little sister’s pesky friend.

He was my friend, too.

Now he’s a complete stranger—and I suppose that’s what happens when you lose contact with someone for almost a decade, but I did try to find him. His mom uprooted their lives in the wake of what happened, putting their house on the market and moving within months. No goodbye, no contact information. I tried looking Cal up on social media over the years, but have always come up empty. Sometimes I wondered if he was nothing but a ghost. Emma and Cal were just imaginary friends I’d made up to quell the loneliness that came along with growing up as a sick kid.

Smack!

I almost hit the ceiling when a palm slaps against my driver’s side window. Pressing a hand to my chest, I turn my head and discover my resume staring back at me, smashed up to the glass. When Cal pulls it away and twirls his finger in the air—signaling for me to roll the window down—I catch my breath and do as he says.

I swear he looks even more fearsome beneath the hazy August sun, but it could be the fact that the time of day is causing his shadow to stretch out like Goliath.

Also, he’s really mad.

“What the hell is this?” Cal barks, waving my resume in front of my face. He plants his opposite hand along his hip, his stare accusing.

“M-my resume,” I stammer. “I know my references are a little dodgy, but I promise I—”

“Not that.”

I blink, wetting my lips. “Okay, so, Mr. Garrison isn’t actually a former boss. He watches Key Lime Pie and Lemon Meringue for me sometimes. My dogs. I usually call them Kiki and Lemon, but they’ll respond to—”

“Not the goddamn references, Lucy. The address.”

Oh.

Swallowing, my hands immediately start trembling as I fidget in my seat and pull my eyes away from his death glare. “Right. You noticed that.”

“Yeah. I noticed that,” he says, his voice dipping so low he kind of sounds demonic. “What were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t. I mean, not really,” I sputter. “I’ve been looking to buy a house with my inheritance, and everything was wrong. Nothing felt like home. And then your old house went on the market, and I just got this feeling—it called to me, you know? There was this…pull. I knew it was the one.” My lip quivers pathetically, so I chomp on it. Then I add with a touch of hope, “You looked over my resume?”

The cords in his neck strain as he pinches the bridge of his nose. It feels like he’s about to say something, but he lets out a long sigh instead, taking a step backward and refusing to look at me. With a final glance at the resume, Cal grits his teeth, spins around, then stalks away.

I watch the planks of his back ripple beneath a tight sleeveless shirt, his tattoos looking more menacing with each angry stride. When he disappears around the side of the building, I let out a breath and sit there for a while, idle in the parking lot.

It feels like I’m in trouble.

I suppose telling a man I haven’t seen in almost ten years that I bought his old house while simultaneously tracking down his business and applying for a job there, might throw up some red flags.

But, I meant well.

Cal has no idea what it’s been like living in that house. The memories. The sentiment radiating from the same taupe plaster walls. Emma’s diary entries, detailing a beautiful childhood.

A childhood filled with him.

My Cal.

As I billow my cheeks with air and get ready to pull out of the parking lot, voices float over to me from the side of the building where another well-built man is working on a car.

“Who was that? The Mazda I’m working on?” the man clips from beneath a hood.