“I don’t know how to feel about it either. She scares me.” I laughed.
Harper didn’t. Instead she brought tears to my eyes when she said, “I think she’s brave.”
Twenty-nine
Fred Russo was in the middle of showing me new curtain fabric that he’d ordered, and I was oohing and aahing over the beautiful shimmering silk taffeta, when my cell rang. “Stella,” I told Fred, giving him an apologetic look before walking to the other end of the storeroom for some privacy.
“Stella, I’m at Fred’s,” I said as a greeting. “Is everything okay?”
“Ask him for an update on my order for Lola Perera.”
“I will.”
“I’m just calling to let you know your handsome friend popped by the office five minutes ago, seeming very anxious to see you. In fact, he was under the impression I was lying about you not being here. Trouble in paradise?”
Caleb had come by the office? During his workday?
My stomach churned at the thought of facing him. What did he want?
“He said since he can’t get you on your phone, he’s left a message on your office phone and would you please do him the courtesy of returning his call.”
“Thank you,” I said, my voice flat even to my ears. “I really better get back to Fred.”
“Ava—”
But I rudely told her I had to go and blew out a shaky breath. I stared at my cell for a minute or two, trying to decide if I was ready to hear his voice. Since I’d spent the entire morning convincing myself that I was ready to face my fears, I really had no option but to dial into my office voice mail.
“You have three new messages.”
I impatiently waded through the first two messages from clients and then it felt like my heart stopped at the sound of his deep voice. He sounded pissed.
“Ava, where have you been? I stopped around your flat on Saturday and Sunday … We need tae talk. Call me immediately.”
I replayed Caleb’s message. I didn’t know it was possible to feel so much from just hearing someone’s voice. Guessing at why Caleb wanted to see me was too dangerous a game to play, so I refused to allow my mind to go there.
I did, however, play the voice mail a second and third time, rubbing at the ache in my chest as his voice rumbled in my ear.
“Everything okay?” Fred called to me.
No, I thought. No, it’s not okay.
But one day it would be.
I snapped my phone shut.
It had to be. Because the alternative was not an option.
Despite my best efforts, I could not get Caleb’s voice out of my head, and I agonized over whether calling him back was a good idea or not. Even as I sat in a quiet café with a client, I wasn’t fully focused on discussing the redesign of his bijou apartment. Part of me was pondering the Caleb problem. Did I meet with him, let him say whatever he needed to say, so I could move on? Or did I decide he didn’t deserve that chance and cut him out of my life entirely?
Since both options made me feel sick with uncertainty, it was proving a very difficult decision.
After the client meeting it was lunchtime. Nervous about heading back to the office in case Caleb turned up again (and also because I didn’t want to answer Stella’s inevitable questions), I stopped at the Earl of Sandwich in the Common and grabbed a tuna melt and iced tea to go.
I hadn’t eaten much the last few days, but I was determined to nibble through the wave of nausea that had clung to me since my conversation with Caleb. Lost in my thoughts as I strolled from the Common toward the Public Garden, I was jolted back to my surroundings when a man blocked my way.
“Ava?”
Blinking in surprise, I needed a moment before recognizing him. And honestly, I didn’t know how to feel when I did. “Leo?”
He gave me that handsome boyish grin and waved a half-eaten sub at me. “I’m on the go too. Where you off to?”
I gestured toward the Charles Street entrance into the gardens. “Just walking. Eating.”
“Can I join you?”
Something about the interest in his eyes made me exclaim, “I’m no longer looking for just sex. You should know that.”
Leo, thankfully, laughed good-naturedly at my embarrassing too-much-information declaration. “Well, I just thought we’d walk and eat and talk. If that’s okay?”
I blushed and nodded as he fell into step beside me. “How have you been?”
“Good.” He bit into his sandwich and waited to speak until he’d eaten the bite. “After we discussed the whole casual relationship thing, I decided it was the right move for me and I’ve just been … you know … having fun.”
I grinned. In other words, he was slutting himself up all over Boston. “Having fun. Right.”
“Obviously, things have changed for you.”
Despite my weird announcement to him, I really didn’t want to explain it to Leo. “I decided casual relationships aren’t for me after all.”
“I knew it was too good to be true.” He chuckled.
“What do you mean?”
Leo shrugged as if it was obvious. “You’re the kind of woman a man marries. You’re not the kind of woman he casually sleeps with.”
“Can I ask what the hell that means?”
“There are women you want to marry and women you just want to have sex with.”
“What’s the difference between them?”
If he heard the agitation and growing annoyance in my voice, he pretended not to notice. “Smart, successful, witty, and beautiful and doesn’t need your money. You know, if she falls in love with you, she’s actually fallen in love with you and not the kind of lifestyle you can provide for her. Dumb or pretends to be dumb because she thinks it makes you feel like more of a man, focused a lot on her looks, and not interested in anything but stroking your ego and other sensitive manly areas, then she’s just a casual sex partner.”
“You know, before you said all that I was actually feeling pretty good about being your best buddy.” I scowled at him.
“What?” He shrugged before wolfing down the last of his sandwich.
“That’s chauvinistic crap.”
Leo wiped his mouth with his napkin and gestured to a bench on our right. I reluctantly followed him, hoping he was going to save himself. We settled onto the bench and I continued to nibble at my tuna melt, waiting for a response.
“It’s not crap. I wish it were. But there are a lot of women out there like that in my experience. Some guys see her as the marrying kind because that’s all they want. Someone to stroke their ego, etc. But men like me, if we’re smart, we learn from that lesson and move on.”
Understanding dawned. “Your first wife?”
“Interested in nothing but my family money.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well, now I know better. If I’d done it the right way the first time, the thought of marriage wouldn’t make my balls jump back up inside my body.”
I’d just taken a sip of my iced tea and it promptly exploded out of my mouth in my shocked amusement. Leo threw his head back in a rich, deep laughter, and I coughed and laughed along with him. As our hilarity faded to gentle mirth, Leo handed me a clean napkin so I could wipe the iced tea off my chin.
It was as we were sharing a smile that I felt the burn on the side of my face.
I knew that sensation.
Tense, I followed it, and my breath stuttered at the sight of Caleb standing in the middle of the path. I didn’t have to wonder how long he’d been there, because the furious glower on his face told me it was long enough to have witnessed my camaraderie with Leo.
“Caleb.” My voice came out in a surprised croak. I cleared it and stood up, sensing Leo stand too. He shifted his body, almost protectively, close to mine. “Uh, what are you doing here?”
“Stella told me you take your lunch in the gardens when the weather is nice.”
Damn Stella.
His glacial stare suddenly fixed on Leo.
“Uh … this is my friend Leo. Leo this is my … this is Caleb.”
Caleb’s nostrils flared at the introduction and I cursed myself for forgetting that I’d told him Leo was the guy I was going to date when I thought he wasn’t returning from Scotland.
“Nice to meet you.” Leo stepped forward and stuck out his hand.
Caleb stared at his hand like it was a piece of dung.