Cali rounded the corner just as Bernadette’s laughter carried down the hall. She could see the two of them as she washed the mug. Ethan stood with his library card in hand, nodding along. Nothing scandalous, but it still burned like a spark under her ribs.
“Anytime,” she finally heard Ethan say. “Have a good night, Bernadette.”
Bernadette smiled, waved, and walked out into the drizzle, an umbrella shielding her head. The door slammed once, and Cali expected it to slam again when Ethan left. Suddenly they were back in her office, together.
Ethan cleared his throat. “You okay?”
“Fine.”
“You sure? That didn’t seem—”
“I said I’m fine.” She stacked some paperwork she didn’t need to stack, too neatly. “You don’t have to charm me, Ethan. I’m not trying to be one of your clients.”
That stopped him cold. “I wasn’t trying to make you one.”
“Then maybe stop treating every woman in this town like she’s your next client. Mrs. Ellery’s gazebo. Bernadette’s cat tower. And God knows what else you’ve offered to fix.”
Ethan blinked, like she’d slapped him. The silence stretched, thick and sharp as the rain starting to drum against the windows. “You really think that’s what this is?” he said quietly.
Her voice cracked. “What else could it be?”
Ethan shook his head once, something tight and unreadable flickering in his eyes. “You’ve had a hell of a way of keeping me guessing, Cali. But this time I’m stumped.”
He gathered his folder and his keys, smoothing down his gray shirt like tidying up was the only thing left he could control, and walked out before she could find the words to stop him.
The sound of the door slamming echoed too much like another night long ago—her ex-fiancé leaving after she’d confronted him about cheating, his suitcase half-zipped. The silence then had been thicker than mud, and she’d waded through it alone until dawn. The memory hit hard, heavy, leaving her chest tight.
Fantastic, she thought.As if I needed that rerun.
She took a breath, slumped in her chair for 15 minutes, and stared at the ceiling as she listened to the rain. Then she grabbed her purse and got up and turned off the lights and headed for the front door. The rain had turned steady, slicking the streetlights into hazy gold halos. She told herself she didn’t care if Ethan was halfway home already. That this was exactly what she wanted—for it to be over, for her not to want anything more from him, for him and Max and the rest of this stupid, stupid year to just fade away.
She turned the key in the lock and stepped into the chill and the rain, shoulders hunched. Then she saw him, leaning against the side of his truck, hands shoved in his pockets. Soaked and stubborn. His head lifted as her heels clicked on her long walk down the ramp. In the distance, thunder rumbled. Maybe he was waiting for her. Maybe not. But she couldn’t shake his questionYou really think that’s what this is?and the feeling she was about to find out.
Chapter 21
The night air hit her like a wall as she stepped into the drizzle. Figures. Nothing likedéjàvu and bad weather to make a night complete. Cali quickened her pace toward the lot, the damp scent of asphalt filling her lungs, the word “regret” lingering on the tip of her tongue. Her car was parked not far from Ethan’s, but theirs were the only two remaining, the pavement glossed dark by the sprinkles. She tried to pass by him without a word, but he reached out and closed a gentle hand around her arm.
She stopped. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said.
“Cali, please,” he begged. “What’s the ‘it’ you don’t want to talk about? Was it me confiding in Minka? The overdue library books? Is this about Max? I just need to know where to start.”
She exhaled long and slow, her breath fogging the air between them. “All of it. And Bernadette,” she said. The rain spat against their cheeks.
“But Bernadette paid me,” he insisted. “So did Mrs. Ellery. Contrary to what you may think, I’m not flirting with every cat owner in town. The only one I’ve been flirting with is you.”
His hand glided down to her elbow, where he tried to draw her close, but she wasn’t having any of it. “Well, I’m not a cat owner anymore, so I don’t count,” she insisted. She kept glancing over at her car. “Look, Ethan, what you do is your business. I don’t care anymore. It doesn’t matter. Now can we just both go home before I’m soaked through, too?”
Thunder lit up the clouds off in the distance, a low rumble rolling toward them. Water pooled beneath their feet. A flash of lightning caught his gray eyes, bright enough to burn it into her memory. He licked his lips and shifted under the weight of his soaked clothes and frustration.
“We’re gonna get struck by lightning if we stay out here,” she warned.
But Ethan wouldn’t relent. “You keep saying it doesn’t matter, but you wouldn’t look at me like that if it didn’t.”
She closed her eyes, trying to check herself, trying to erase the image of his hair plastered to his forehead and rivulets running down the line of his jaw. Trying to extinguish the small, traitorous flex she felt low in her belly. But it wasn’t working.
Finally she said, “The gala’s in two days. Can we just act civil until it’s over?”
Behind her speckled lenses, she watched his gaze burn at her, steady and determined. “Look, Cali. Max still sleeps by the front door each night, waiting for you. He doesn’t even come to bed with me and Catsby. You’re all either of us think about.”
