Chapter 49 Caleb
A few days later, the weight of Xander's offer still ping-pongs in my head, keeping me up at night in some kind of insomniac's fever dream.
The Drafting Table smells of clam chowder and questionable life choices, which is exactly why Jules picked it.
This place is old-school Boston—wooden booths that've probably hosted three generations of Red Sox arguments, a bartender named Sammy who pours with a heavy hand that makes happy hour actually happy, and a jukebox that only plays songs from when people still bought CDs.
I slide into our usual booth, loosening my tie like I'm some kind of real adult with actual responsibilities. Which, terrifyingly, I apparently am now. Even if I can't make a simple decision about moving back home or staying here.
Jules appears five minutes later, rain droplets still clinging to her shoulders, having ditched her jean jacket somewhere between the office and here. Her purple hair's in a high ponytail, wet strands plastered against the nape of her neck.
"Sammy!" she calls, massaging her temple with two fingers as she slides into the booth. "I need something with an umbrella, and enough alcohol to make me forget I spent nine hours staring at code that refuses to comply."
"Long day, huh?" Sammy grins, already reaching for the good rum. He's got a soft spot for Jules—probably because she tips like someone who actually worked in food service.
"The longest." She slides into the booth across from me, immediately stealing a pretzel from the basket. Her fingers are stained with ink from where she was probably chewing on her pen during the afternoon meeting. "And you got a Sam Adams because you've transformed into a walking Boston cliché."
"It's reliable," I say, taking a sip. "Like me."
"Ew, gross. Since when?"
"Since Xander started paying me to be reliable."
"Valid point." Jules accepts her drink—something electric blue, with enough fruit speared through it to count as dinner—and takes a long sip, leaving a smudge of her remaining lipstick on the glass.
"Speaking of workplace disasters, Leo's presentation today was epic.
Forty slides of corporate word salad, then he somehow deleted the entire thing mid-demo. "
I snort, nearly choking on my beer. "Xander's poker face was incredible. I thought his eye was going to start twitching."
"He was texting me under the table the whole time." Jules digs through her bag and pulls out her phone, showing me a meme of a cartoon character in a burning room with the caption "This is fine."
"We're terrible human beings," I wheeze between laughs.
"Absolutely awful," Jules agrees with unholy glee, tucking a stray curl behind her ear. "Almost as bad as your first-week coffee machine flood."
I groan, hiding my face in my hands. "Why are we friends again?"
"Because I'm the only person who witnessed your caffeine-related crime scene and still thinks you're worth keeping around." Jules takes another sip, studying me over her glass. "Plus, you've somehow managed to become a functional human since then."
"Gee, thanks."
"No, seriously. Those Hamilton tickets you snagged for Xander's birthday? Legendary."
"Sarah's cousin owed me a favor after I helped him move." I shrug. "Figured Xander deserved something good after I nearly destroyed the office infrastructure."
"What about stepping in for Matt at Sarah's cooking class last weekend? That was legitimately nice."
"That was . . ." I search for the right word. "Educational."
"Sarah said you set off the smoke alarm twice and got banned from using the stand mixer." Jules's laugh is sharp and genuine. "But you went anyway. Even knowing it would be torture."
The observation hangs in the air between us, heavier than her usual teasing.
"Boston's been good for me," I say finally. "Really good. I just—"
"Just what?"
I shrug, suddenly fascinated by peeling the label off my beer bottle. "Sometimes it feels like something's missing."
Jules opens her mouth to respond, but freezes mid-thought, her attention snagging on something behind me.
"Okay," she says slowly, her voice taking on that matchmaker tone I've learned to fear. "Two o'clock. Leather jacket, great smile, legs that go on for actual days. She could totally be your type."
I don't lift my eyes from my beer.
"Caleb."
"Mm?"
"You didn't even look."
"Wasn't planning to."
Jules blinks at me like I've announced my intention to join the circus. The tiny freckle at the corner of her right eye disappears momentarily as she narrows her gaze, studying me with suspicion. "Are you dying? Did you hit your head? Should I call someone?"
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine. This is the opposite of fine. I've known you for four months and I've literally never seen you so much as glance at a woman. Are you having some kind of quarter-life crisis? Did you join a monastery and forget to mention it?"
I finally look up, raising an eyebrow and pushing my hair off my forehead. The curls are getting too long and falling into my eyes every time I bend over. "Done with your psychological evaluation, Dr. Jules?"
"No, actually. Because now I'm wondering if you have a crush on Xander."
I choke on my beer so hard I'm pretty sure I damage something important in my throat. It dribbles embarrassingly down my chin and onto my wrinkled button-down, which has already survived a coffee spill and an unfortunate encounter with a leaky pen today. "What the hell, Jules?"
She's cackling now, actually pounding the table with her fist. "Oh my god, your face! Worth every second of that panic."
"You're insane," I manage, still coughing and wiping at the wet spot on my shirt. "Completely unhinged."
"Maybe. But for the record, we're not doing that thing where someone assumes you're into me, right? Because we established pretty early on that you're not."
"Yeah, when you tried every classic workplace flirt in the book during my first week and I didn't bite."
"I wasn't flirting with you, you moron. I was trying to get Liam's attention." Jules groans, throwing her head back against the booth. "Fat lot of good it did me."
"Pretty sure Liam's scared of you."
"I don't scare him."
"You cornered him in the copy room and asked if he had a favorite safe word."
"It was a joke!" Jules protests, but she's grinning. "He blushed for twenty straight minutes. It was adorable."
"Seriously?" I level my gaze at her, tapping my fingers against the scarred wooden table.
"What?"
"If you like him, just tell him. Be straight with him. You're not as terrifying as you think you are, and the worst he can say is no."
Jules pauses, studying me with those sharp eyes that miss nothing. The slight furrow between her brows deepens as she tilts her head. "Look at you, giving actual functional relationship advice. Look at Dr. Love over here dropping wisdom bombs."
"The bombs were always there. You were just too distracted by the explosions to notice." I shrug, but her smirk deepens.
"Too bad you can't take your own advice."
I frown. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You know exactly what I mean." She shifts in her seat. "That girl back home? The one you were pathetically texting at two in the morning after I got you plastered on our first night out?"
My heart stutters, then kicks into double-time.
That night. Fuck. Jules had practically forced shots down my throat to celebrate my first month at Pixel Dreams. Five tequilas later, she'd caught me staring at Ivy's contact, thumb hovering over yet another message that would never be read.
She'd pried until my defenses crumbled like wet cardboard.
I try to keep my expression neutral, but Jules notices the shift anyway. The slight narrowing of her eyes tells me my poker face is garbage.
"Can we not, please?" I say, aiming for casual, and landing somewhere around desperate.
She takes a slow, deliberately smug sip of her drink. "You're not even denying it."
"Jules—"
"No, no, this is fascinating." She leans forward, resting her sharp chin on laced fingers. "I've seen this movie, Caleb. Guy leaves a small town, reinvents himself in the big city, but still carries a torch for the girl who got away."
"Life isn't a movie."
"No, but you're acting like you're trapped in one and someone lost the remote." She taps a finger against her chin with exaggerated thoughtfulness. "What was her name again? Iris? Irene?"
"We're not doing this."
"Isabel? Ingrid?" Her eyes spark with mischief. "Oh wait—Ivy."
My entire body goes rigid, shoulders tensing under my button-down. Even my breathing hitches.
Jules's grin turns triumphant. "Ha! I knew it. Your face is like an open book with very large print and helpful illustrations."
I groan, burying my face in my hands. The stubble I couldn't be bothered to shave this morning scratches against my palms. "Kill me now."
"You know, after everything you told me that night, I thought you'd be over her by now." Jules continues, swirling the ice in her glass. "But here you are, four months later, still looking like someone shot your dog whenever I mention her name."
"Can we not psychoanalyze my emotional damage tonight?"
"Why not? It's my favorite hobby." Jules signals Sammy for another round. "So what's the plan? Pine forever? Or actually do something about it?"
"What's there to do? She blocked my number." I drag a hand through my hair, making the curls stand up at odd angles. "Which I totally deserve, by the way."
"So?"
"So that's pretty much the universal sign for 'fuck off forever.'"
"Or," Jules says, pointing at me with her cocktail pick, "it's the universal sign for 'prove you're not the same selfish dickhead who broke my heart.'"
I stare at her. "That's the most optimistic interpretation of being completely shut out that I've ever heard."
"Look, I don't know this Ivy girl, but I know you.
" Jules fixes me with that unrelenting stare, like she's scrolling through my soul's Yelp reviews.
"If she's really it for you—and clearly she is, since you're basically a monk now—then stop wallowing and do something about it.
Because some other guy is going to realize what an idiot you were to let her go. "
Jules gets up to pay our tab, and I sit there turning her advice over in my mind. The bar noise fades to background static as I trace patterns in the condensation on my glass.
She’s right—Ivy's it for me. Every woman I've encountered since I left Hallow's End might as well be wallpaper.
They laugh at my jokes, and all I can think is how it doesn't sound like wind chimes mixed with mischief.
They touch my arm, and my brain immediately catalogs all the ways their hands are wrong—too soft, too cold.
I haven't looked at another woman because no one else exists in the same universe as her.
How the fuck am I supposed to be interested in some random girl at a bar when I know what it is to have Ivy trace patterns on my chest in the dark?
When I've seen her cry over a documentary about sea turtles, then immediately start researching marine conservation efforts?
When I know she hums old Disney songs while cooking, and leaves sticky notes with positive affirmations on her mirror because "everyone deserves to wake up feeling loved"?
They're not Ivy, with her ridiculous collection of vintage teacups, and her habit of reading three books at once because "each mood requires different words"—something I've always adored about her.
They don't have eyes the color of deep water that seem to see straight through every defense I've ever built.
They don't bite their bottom lip when they're concentrating, or get that little crease between their eyebrows when they're trying not to laugh at one of my terrible jokes.
They don't smell like lavender, and something green I could never identify, but would recognize in a crowded room.
None of them know that the trick to calming me down when I'm spiraling isn't talking or fixing, but just existing in the same space until my brain stops ricocheting off every wall it can find.
They don't make me want to be the kind of man who remembers anniversaries and brings flowers for no reason.
I ruined the best thing that ever happened to me because I was too scared to admit I was already completely gone for her. Too scared to risk being vulnerable with the one person who'd seen every ugly part of me and somehow still thought I was worth loving.
The worst thing? Somewhere out there, she's probably healing.
Moving on. Learning to trust someone new with all that softness I was too much of a coward to protect.
Some other guy will figure out what I was too stupid to hold onto, and he's going to spend the rest of his life grateful for my monumental fuck-up.
Jules returns, dropping a twenty on the table and shrugging into her jacket.
"You coming?" she asks.
"Yeah."
I still don't know if I'm the kind of man who can earn a second chance. You can't exactly go back in time. But you can go back . . . better.
Maybe that's what growing up really is. Not running away from the scary parts, but running toward them head-on. Even if they might break your heart all over again.