Chapter 8 #2
“You ready?” Calder asks. Was his voice always that low?
I spin and nearly hit Junie with my bag. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry!”
Ben laughs. “You had inches to spare.”
Calder looks between Sam and me. “Sorry to make you wait.” He unclips a towel from the side of what must be his bag hanging on the fence and wipes his brow. His phone sits in the side pocket.
“Here.” I point to it and hold out my palm.
He freezes. “What?”
“Hand me your phone.”
His brow furrows, but he pulls it out and gives it to me with the screen locked.
I sigh. “Open, please.” I want to say something about how his phone would never recognize me because my face wouldn’t do the whole permanent scowl thing, but people are still milling around us. I don’t want to embarrass him.
Calder hands it back, open, and I tap on his contacts.
“This is so you can text me next time. I don’t typically check my email outside of work hours,” I say. He raises an eyebrow, and I give him a look. “Okay, that was an anomaly.”
Sam’s eyes narrow. “What was an anomaly?”
I wave her off. “Nothing. I just happened to see a message. About the lessons.” My cheeks heat. Calder’s eyes seem to bore into my forehead, so I focus harder on typing in my number since I seem to have forgotten the last four digits. How long had we email chatted the other night?
Giving him my number wasn’t about that, it was practical. What if he’d needed to cancel tonight? I would’ve been ticked to drive all the way over with no notification.
I hand the phone back to Calder, and grab my bag, purposefully not watching as he reads his screen. I wasn’t planning to write out my full name, but it only felt right after seeing “Frederick” in my emails. You show me yours, I’ll show you mine.
Mabel Alecia Monroe. At least as embarrassing as his first name.
Who names their kid Mabel? Did my parents expect me to come into the world loving polyester and hard candy?
I may have teased him the other night, but I, of all people, know what it’s like to grow up dreading roll call on the first day of school.
Calder catches my eye as Sam and I say our goodbyes to the disassembling group. He’s still holding his phone. I expect him to look away, but he doesn’t, so I laugh a little too loud at Ben and Junie, then ask, “Which court?” in Calder’s general direction.
“Six,” he says.
Calder hasn’t warmed to me, which would normally be fine. However, this isn’t a normal situation. I very much want him to give a good recommendation to his friend, but no matter what I do, it only seems to sour him further.
My heart is still racing after that look he gave me, but bringing it up now would be weirder than just letting it go. First my wine-emailing and now this? Damn it. He probably thinks I’m trying to hit on him or something.
I replay the woman walking past the court, then me asking for his phone. I should’ve said it more formally. Something like, “Perhaps I should give you better contact information so you’re able to apprise me of any schedule changes.” How many times had he told me he wanted to be professional?
“What’s happening right now?” Sam whispers as we walk to the bench at court six and drop our things.
“Nothing.” I smile. “Just thinking.”
“About a pap smear? You look like you’re going to crack a tooth.”
I blow out a breath. “Calder isn’t my biggest fan.”
“What? That’s not true.”
I turn my back to Calder so he can’t lip read. “He never smiles when I’m around, Sam. Watch.” I grab my paddle and get on the court. As soon as Sam joins me, Calder herds us to the kitchen line.
“Dink warm-up,” he says. “No swings. Thirty-ball rally.”
“Oh, is that all?” Sam smiles sweetly, and Calder’s mouth turns up.
That! Right there! He never does that to something I say!
I try to catch Sam’s eye so I can throw my arguments telepathically. She doesn’t notice since Calder is throwing her a ball, and she’s wholly focused on tapping it over the net to me.
I did it again. Somehow managed to ruin his mood without even trying. The whole name thing was supposed to be a kind gesture, but here he was looking like someone just spit in his coffee.
Acknowledge it. That was the only option. If he’d gotten the wrong impression, I just needed to set it right.
“I think I bring out the worst in you,” I say, shuffling to get the ball, sending it back to Sam.
“Me?” Calder’s brows pinch.
“Who else? It’s not Sam.”
Sam grins. “Well, I wouldn’t say that.”
I scoff and hit a ball into the net. “You think I’m a bad influence?” I bend to get it, then toss it over, and drop back into my squat.
“Not a bad influence, just a . . . you know. An unrealistic influence.”
I cackle. “What have I done that’s unrealistic?”
“Oh, I don’t know, believe you can pick up a sport in a week and a half? Believe I can pick up a sport in a week and a half?” Her breathing quickens as she darts for a ball. It’s not pretty but she gets it over.
“Pfft. Look at you. You are picking it up.”
“Don’t lean. Use your feet,” Calder says, and Sam points as if to say, “See? Someone agrees with me.”
Calder doesn’t respond to my comment, so I double down. “How unrealistic do you think it is for me to get Garrett’s attention?” We both know why I’m here. Maybe Calder just needs to be reminded that I’m solely focused on that goal so he doesn’t make assumptions and get pissy.
“Garrett’s attention isn’t hard to capture,” Calder says, and my jaw drops.
“Okay, ouch.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. I meant—”
“That he doesn’t stay with women for long,” Sam finishes. “We’ve covered that.” She gives me a pointed look.
“Just because he hasn’t stayed with someone for a long time yet doesn’t mean it can’t happen. People change.” Hopefully with me and not Megan. “He’s just been so career focused. You really can’t blame him.”
“Like I can’t blame him? Or the proverbial you?” Sam asks.
I smirk. “Either, or both. Also,” I turn back to Calder. “I hear you’re into pickleball skorts.”
His face reddens, but he plays it off. “Who isn’t into pickleball skorts?”
“Well, we’re both wearing them. And you haven’t said a thing.”
Calder rolls his eyes and focuses hard on the ball.
After much effort, Sam and I finally string together twenty-one not-the-worst cross-court dinks before Calder finally gives us a break.
Then he does some training on paddle angles.
Wrists. Anticipating. Using our legs. I swear my brain will break playing this sport before my body will.
“Let’s try seven-eleven,” Calder says. “You and me. Sam will rotate in. Kitchen versus baseline. Your goal is to drop the ball into the kitchen and not give me an offensive shot.”
“So you’re going to smash it at me. That’s what you’re saying.”
He shrugs. “You have control over whether I do or not.”
I roll my eyes and take my place on the baseline. “You do remember I’ve been playing for a week.”
Calder’s eyes drop to my thigh where there’s still the remnants of a blotchy pattern on my skin from the hit I took on Friday. “I’m not going to hit you.”
His voice is soft, intense in that way that I’m realizing is uniquely him. It’s like he’s more tuned in than other people, but on a completely different frequency.
Calder taps his paddle to the net. “You only have to get seven points to win. I have to get to eleven.”
“And what do we get if we win?” I purposefully say “we” so it doesn’t sound flirty.
But the fact that I have to think about it makes me realize I want to be a little flirty with him.
Not because I’m into him, of course. He’s like Mr. Darcy or Han Solo.
Someone who needs a woman to kick them in the pants and get them to loosen up.
Maybe if I could crack that thick shell of his, he’d realize I’m not some flighty party girl after his friend.
After the ice pack incident, I know he has a softer side, and that’s the side I need if I want an ally in Operation Garrett.
“You get the satisfaction of winning.” Calder’s expression is unimpressed.
“But I like prizes. Or treats.” Okay, so that wasn’t helping with my public image.
“She loves treats!” Sam plops on the bench between the courts.
Calder blows out a breath. “Fine. You can have a sucker.”
I scoff. “There are suckers in the bowl at the front. I can already have a sucker.”
He wets his lips. “Not if I tell them you can’t.”
The temperature ticks up a few degrees, and my head goes a little fuzzy. I swallow hard, then laugh off my sudden heat flash. “Fine. A sucker it is.”
Damn, Frederick. He needed to save that banter for his girlfriend. Wait, did he have a girlfriend? “Are you dating someone?”
Calder serves the ball, and I do my best to reset it. It goes too high, but he doesn’t take full advantage. Expecting a faster shot than what he sends me, I knock it into the net.
“This is a lesson.” He scoops the ball under the net with his paddle.
“We’ve already crossed your weird professional line,” I mouth more than say out loud. I wonder if he heard me over the music, but then he says, “No.”
“No?”
“I’m not dating anyone.” He sends the ball back.
I swallow my pride and try another reset, getting it a few inches lower. When I hit it into the net on the next shot, he calls out, “Two to zero.”
Perfect.
“Why aren’t you dating?” I ask.
“Too busy,” he shoots back, serving me the ball.
“But that’s in your control.” I get lower and successfully get a ball to drop into the kitchen. I make a new victory noise that I swear has never left my lips, and Calder misses the shot. “Ha! New strategy!”
Calder doesn’t look amused. “Why aren’t you dating someone?”
I grin. “Well, I’m not yet, but I’m putting forth effort.
” I return the serve, sending the ball wide.
Somehow he still gets it, sending it straight to my feet.
I miss it and have to chase it back to the wall.
“That’s the problem,” I call a little louder.
“I don’t get to choose whether I date someone or not. They have to agree to it.”
“Preach!” Sam shouts.