Cal doesn’t seem to notice my awkwardness. He brightens like a bulb turned on high. “Molly, that would be amazing. Of course they’d want you to. Can you think of anyone who’d be more thrilled to be written about than Mrs. Dahl?”
He’s right, and I find myself smiling back.
His gaze returns to the windshield, because if you’re not looking on this road, you will run into something. Still, even though he’s not looking at me, I can feel his focus.
“I don’t want to influence you either way, though,” he’s quick to add. “Your career is important, but…”
Another stolen glance, his eyes so warm and full of affection, and I’m momentarily pissed at Kate Jeffries for her stellar work ethic and the Saturday email, because I’d like to stay lost in this man.
“I’d like it if you stayed in Asheville,” he says. “I can’t think of anything I’d like more.”
He drops me off at Maisie’s house with a kiss, a soft kiss, full of promise.
“That’s it?” I tease. “I know I said I have to write, but give a girl some sugar.”
“Haven’t I already?” he says with mock offense. “I meant it when I said I have work to do too. I have to finish a fireplace mantle that we’re installing on Tuesday, and I still have several more hours of work on it.”
He doesn’t say he was supposed to work on it this weekend but decided to spend it with me instead. But I know, and that knowledge feels like biting into a caramel apple at Halloween.
“Tomorrow, though,” he adds. A grin stretches across his face. “We can pretend the last day has been a particularly long blip in our plan not to have sex again until we go on a real date.”
He’s teasing, but I say, “I’d rather not.” Because it’s true. The last day with Cal is maybe the best day I can remember having. Still, I’d know I’d truly lost myself if I didn’t torment him a little, so I add, “I’ve thought of another three good non-bed locations to add to our sex bucket list.”
He groans. “You’re killing me, you know.”
Grinning, I turn toward the house and wave over my shoulder. “That’s the idea.”
He doesn’t drive away until I’m inside, and I find that I rather like this piece of gentlemanly behavior. I give my butt an extra sway just for him.
“Tomorrow, Molly,” he shouts out the window, and I turn around and flash him, lifting my shirt and bra, just because. Then I run inside, laughing to myself, and hug the dogs.
My phone rings a second later. I’m still laughing as I answer. It’s him, of course.
“Did you seriously just flash me?”
“Are you seriously calling me when your truck is right outside?”
“I don’t trust myself to come in right now,” he says with a groan that tells me just how much he’s suffering.
“Good,” I say with a smirk, peering out the sidelight window so I can watch him in his truck. He’s leaning over the wheel as if in pain. “I wanted to give you something to dream about.”
“Trust me, I already had plenty,” he says, his voice husky. “Tomorrow, Molly.”
It sounds like a promise of wicked things. Thank goodness.
“Tomorrow,” I say, feeling a tingling at my core that makes me want to run out and suggest that a truck is a perfectly reasonable place for two people to have a quickie. But he has to work, and so do I.
And honestly, these feelings I have for him…they’re a little out of control. Whatever decisions I make about the future, I can’t make them because of him.
So I hang up, give him a jaunty wave through the window, and then back away.
I wait until his truck has left before letting the dogs out to pee.
Before I sit down with my laptop, I send Maisie an update text assuring her that both the dogs and I are alive and well, then tap my phone, debating, and decide to text Tina: What’s your roommate situation?
Her answer: I live with my brother and Dee. And her two kids. They may be temporarily gone, but desperation does not begin to say how much I would like to move. ARE YOU STAYING IN ASHEVILLE?
My mouth twitches up. Maybe. Would you live with me?
Does a fat Italian man eat pasta?
I’ll assume that means yes. I have a LOT to tell you.
Good, because nothing exciting has happened to me since we saw that old lady bust a pipe, and I’m bored as hell. I REALLY hope this means Mrs. Dahl’s and my matchmaker attempts worked out for you? Xx
I guffaw and type out, Let’s just say trees aren’t the only interesting places to have sex.
YESSSSSSS. We’re on for Tuesday, right?
Right.
After grabbing a beer from the refrigerator—I find myself going for a lemon, the taste I assigned to Cal as a joke—I sit down at my laptop and crack my knuckles. Ein gets into his bed with a long-suffering groan and Chaco curls up at my feet, as if they both know we’re in it for the long haul.
It’s time to get down and dirty.
If Augusta wrote her fake rules in a flow state, then I write my article the same way, stopping only to check my notes and send texts and make calls to my sources.
Her rules were fake; my article is true, yet it feels incomplete to me.
I know why.
I hit send anyway.
The next morning I have my answer:
It’s a good story, Molly. We haven’t received the other applicant’s article yet, but we’re going to publish yours regardless of whether you get the job. Before we do that, you need to ask Augusta for a comment. Both sides need to be acknowledged, even if you have documented proof she’s a liar. If she doesn’t get back to you by the end of the week, we’ll proceed without her. –K
Well, shit. The possibility that she’d ask me to reach out to Augusta, and I’d have to deliver, had obviously occurred to me. It’s why I collected Augusta’s contact information from Nicole. The thing is, I don’t actually want to talk to the woman. She’s manipulative. She’s a liar. And she knows Cal’s secret, which I’d much rather find out from him.
Still, I have little choice, so I email the article with an invitation to talk. There’s a good chance Augusta won’t answer, or that Nicole passed me bad information. In either case, I can just shrug my shoulders and say, Well shucks, I tried. Because one thing is clear to me after last night: the record needs to be set straight.
Call me a convert and a cultist and a hypocrite if you will, but I believe in the Bad Luck Club.
And yeah. I believe in Caleb Reynolds too.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Cal
Before we move forward, ask yourself truly: do you deserve to be happy? What will you do to earn it?
—Augusta Glower, Bad Luck Club
“I’m not sure why I have to be here,” Willow says.
“Because you’re the design assistant.”
I’m here to personally supervise the counter installation for Wendy Jenkins’s kitchen island. The slab that was supposed to be installed on Friday, but which was canceled because the piece she’d chosen after many hours of second-guessing had already been sold to someone else. The salesperson had forgotten to mark it correctly in the system.