It takes him a minute to work up to it, his toes flexing on the wet concrete. But when Calder leaps, he leaps. I half expect him to curl into a cannonball.
I shriek and turn away as the splash hits me, soaking me up to my waist. And when I turn to see Calder's expression, I can't stop laughing. He looks like a little kid who just touched slime for the first time. Both disgusted and a lot intrigued. I snort trying to catch my breath and clap a hand over my mouth.
"Are you laughing at me?"
"No. I—” I can't stop. The scene keeps playing in my mind on repeat.
The door to Smash Point swings open, and one of the staff members runs out, covering his head with his bag. He doesn’t even notice us.
It’s enough of a distraction, I’m finally able to string words into a normal sentence. "Was it fun?"
He considers this. Then nods his head once and says, "I think so."
The streetlight bathes us both in a dreary glow through the gray. With the deep shadows it’s casting, Calder looks a little like an actor in a Halloween corn maze. I can only imagine what my face looks like now that I’m doing what Sam always calls my “kid on a roller-coaster” smile.
“What?”
I laugh. “I totally win.”
“Win what.”
I grab his hand and pull him out onto the non-flooded asphalt. "At life!”
“Because that’s a competition?”
I adjust my shirt as best I can, but it just suctions back to my skin. “I know you don’t like me. Or I’m annoying to you or something, and I get that I sometimes come across as naive?—”
“When did I say I don’t like you?”
I gesture to his face. “You didn’t have to say it. But it’s fine, I get it. I’d probably be annoyed by me, too, but I think you could use a little more of me in your life.”
Calder’s lips part. A drop of rain slips over his Cupid’s bow and into his mouth.
I shiver and swallow hard. “I mean my personality. Since you’re helping me—and we both know I’m getting the better deal here with the lessons and tips with Garrett—I just thought I could help you.” This was good. I didn’t want things to be awkward the next couple of weeks. Plus, if we were friends, there was less likelihood of him spilling all of this to the G-man himself.
“By making me jump in contaminated water?”
I reach out and boop his nose. “By making you have more fun.” I spin and retrieve my bag from the pavement.
“Sam’s right. You’re a bad influence.”
I grin, swiping the hair from my face. “Watch out. With that attitude, you just might end up being my best friend.”
ten
My cursor blinkson a half-written email but my brain isn’t functioning, so I stack my folders for the GoodBarrel account into neat piles.
Since the company pickleball night, Garrett’s been friendly. Notflirtyfriendly, but slightly more interested. Since we’re moving from barely above a zero on the spectrum, it has to be at least three hundred percent growth. We talked about how the foam-core signage came in late from a vendor, and he laughed—full-body laughed—when I commented that the delivery driver’s eyes reminded me of Bluecifer, the demonic blue bronco statue greeting travelers at DIA.
That tiny crack in the armor, along with Calder’s advice, gave me hope. I’d pondered on my options since the night before. I needed to make Garrett believe I was interested in someone else, but he wasn’t sitting over there checking off my mannerisms on a notepad (as far as I knew). He wouldn’t notice if I was running my fingers through my hair or pinching the bridge of my nose, so I’d kind of need to smack him in the face with it.
But bringing up a random guy wouldn’t feel natural in our current small-but-growing relationship. However . . . I couldbring up a guy he knew. A guy who’d been at our pickleball night. A guy I met and knew he was friends with.
Calder wouldn’t mind, would he? He was the one who gave me the advice.
I grab a file from my desk and march toward his door before I can overthink it.
When I knock, his voice filters through, warm and easy. “Come in.”
