Chapter 16
CHAPTER 16
ARLAND
M uch to my surprise, Mariam answered my text with a phone call just a few minutes later. I sat up in my bed, reaching out to flick my lamp back on. It was just past two a.m. here, which meant it was past three in Austin.
I felt my eyebrows tug into a frown, but I wasn’t that worried. If she was in trouble, she wouldn’t have been reaching out to me, which meant that it was unlikely this was a regular, middle of the night call. Those were almost always bad news.
This was more of a pleasant surprise.
Sliding my thumb across the screen, I hit the speaker button and held the device in the air as I leaned back against my pillows.
“Hello?” I sounded tired even to my own ears, but I smiled, wondering what she was doing up so late. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”
“I needed to ask you if this means you’ve decided that you just can’t stay away from me?”
I laughed. “And if I have?”
“Prove it.” She paused before she tacked on, “Why aren’t you sleeping?”
I shrugged, regardless of the fact that she couldn’t see me. “I’m a night owl. What have you been doing that kept you up so late?”
“I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you. You’d probably also think that I’m ridiculously immature.”
“Well, now you have to tell me. You’ve piqued my curiosity. There’s no way I’ll be able to sleep if you don’t. I’ll lie awake all night wondering what on earth you got up to.”
I felt like a teenager, lying here talking to a girl at some obscene hour in the morning, but it felt good. With her, it felt like something inside was unfurling, awakening.
All my life, I’d moved from one day to the next, purpose driven and goal oriented. Even when I’d started dating Lisa, it had been a step. A rung to climb on the ladder that would get me to where I wanted to be.
Usually, I only really felt alive when new business ventures were born and when they started to take off. This was new for me, feeling that same spark come to life with a person.
Mariam let out a playful sigh before she chuckled. “Have you ever TPed a house before?”
My eyebrows arched. “Uh, yes. Who hasn’t, right? My friends and I kind of prided ourselves on our skills back in junior high. Why?”
“Well, uh, I hadn’t ever done it,” she said slowly, but there was a new undercurrent to her voice. An excitement that made me smile. “I did it tonight for the first time.”
I blinked hard, genuine surprise washing over me. “ Tonight , tonight?”
“Yep. We just got home a little while ago.”
Okay, then.
I was a little taken aback by her admission, but I also thought it was pretty cool that she was going out doing things that she’d never done before. “I sense a story here. Do you want to tell me about it?”
“Not tonight.” There was a promise in those words, though. An unspoken implication that she would tell me about it at some point. Probably when I proved that I was done staying away from her. “Do you think I’m horribly juvenile now?”
“Nope. I think you’re a lot more fun than you seem to think you are, Mariam Walker. Besides, a little immaturity now and then is good for a person. It keeps us young.”
I heard a smile in her voice when she spoke again. “Yeah, it really was fun. I wish I could take the credit for it, but it wasn’t my idea. It’s something that my friends and I have been meaning to do for years. We just, uh, well, I suppose you can say we were waiting for the opportunity to come along.”
“You still took it when it did,” I pointed out. “Opportunity comes knocking every damn day. Taking it is what matters. I’m glad you didn’t let it pass you by.”
She hesitated briefly. “So am I. Goodnight, Arland Stone.”
“Good night, Mariam Walker.” A smile curled my lips. She hung up and I lay back down, switching my light off once more but not immediately drifting to sleep.
I dropped my phone on my stomach in case she texted me again, but by the time my eyelids grew heavy, nothing more had come in from her. But it still felt like we’d taken a big stride forward tonight.
Mariam now knew that I had no intention of staying away from her anymore, and we were actively moving into the realm where we would be hiding the connection between us from her brother. A bad idea if I’d ever heard one, but I was banking on my mom being right.
Brian would understand—if we ever even got to the point where he would have to. For now, I wasn’t getting ahead of myself.
I had come to the conclusion that I liked her and that I wanted to spend more time with her, and that was all I was doing. It wasn’t like I was considering proposing tomorrow.
After getting a few hours of sleep, I met my brother and sister for breakfast. It was a tradition of ours on Black Friday, since none of us worried much about getting to any stores. Our other brother, William, was out of town with his family for Thanksgiving, but Grant, Lillian, and I wouldn’t miss this. We always got together at a little cafe near Mom’s house, a trendy but comfortable place situated on a farm that served everything organic and fresh.
As usual, it was quiet this morning, flames dancing in the fireplace and soft Christmas music playing over the speakers. A few other patrons came in and out to buy coffee and pastries, but only a couple tables were occupied aside from ours.
Lillian grinned at me, her Eggs Benedict devoured and a fresh coffee in her hands. “Are you going to tell us about her yet?”
“About who?”
She cocked her head, her expression droll. “You know exactly who.”
“Uh, I don’t know who,” Grant volunteered from his side of our square table, the seat Smith should’ve been occupying as conspicuously empty as it had been for decades. My brother widened his eyes at me. “There’s a ‘ her ’ worth telling us about?”
“There is, but don’t get too excited. To be honest, there’s not much to tell yet. I did speak to her last night, though. Hopefully, I made my intentions clear.”
“Hopefully?” Lillian scoffed. “It’s not like you to leave things to chance. Who is she, and why are you only hoping that you’ve made your intentions clear?”
“It’s a little complicated, but the gist of it is that I was going to stay away from her. She’s much younger and she’s related to one of my friends, so I was going to let it go. She knows now that I no longer plan on doing that.”
“Please tell me that by related , you don’t mean she’s the daughter of one of your friends?” Grant asked.
“Ugh, no. I’m not a monster.” I glared at him and shook my head. “It’s his sister.”
He let out a long, low groan. “May the force be with you, man.”
Lillian rolled her eyes at us and took a sip of her coffee before she fixed me with one of those annoying, knowing looks of hers. “Screw the force. What did she say when you told her you weren’t staying away from her anymore?”
“She told me to prove it.”
My sister looked impressed. “Sounds like she’s got spirit, throwing the gauntlet down like that.”
I nodded. “And you know I love a challenge.”
“Then why on earth are you here with us instead of proving it?” she asked. “Take the girl a croissant and a cappuccino for breakfast, for heaven’s sake. Do you really need courting advice from me ?”
“No, but I also can’t take her any breakfast because she’s gone back to Austin for Thanksgiving. I’ll see her when she gets back.”
Lillian scoffed, her head shaking from side to side before my sentence was even finished. “Don’t wait until she gets back. You should fly down to Austin and surprise her. That’ll prove that you’re serious about pursuing her.”
I pursed my lips at her. “She’ll literally be back in the city tomorrow.”
“That’s irrelevant,” Grant said, surprising me by taking our sister’s side. “You need to go. Show up and prove it. Like she told you to.”
My eyebrows hiked up a little higher. “You’re serious? Both of you are actually suggesting that I fly to Austin today after telling her just a few hours ago that I’m done staying away? I doubt she meant she wanted me to prove it to her today.”
“If not today, then when?” Lillian asked with a dreamy quality to her voice. “None of us are promised tomorrow, big brother. She told you to prove it. So why would you wait?”
That’s a damned good question.
I laughed but made my decision on the spot. “Okay, I’ll go, but both of you are drinking with me tomorrow if she sends me right back here for acting like a stalker and simply showing up.”
“She asked you to show up, bro,” Grant said, shrugging before he nodded. “If she sends you packing, I’ll drink with you, though.”
“Don’t go buying any tequila just yet,” Lillian warned him with a smug smile. “This is Arland we’re talking about. He’s never been sent packing in his life.”
“Uh, does the name Lisa ring any bells to you?” I asked dryly.
My sister shuddered. “That soulless beast doesn’t count. Now book a damn flight.”
Chuckling, I picked up my phone and tapped the flight app I had installed. A minute later, I had a first-class seat on a plane leaving in a few hours. My siblings were right—as much as I didn’t want to get romantic advice from them.
I’d never been the type to let grass grow under my feet. After exiting the app, I pulled up my internet browser, looked up a nice restaurant in Austin, and made a quick reservation online.
With all that done, I clicked into my texting thread with Mariam and typed out a message.
Me: Jefferey’s. 5:30
Within moments, three dots appeared under my message, jumping in that little wave that told me she was writing her reply. It popped up a second later.
Mariam Walker: There’s no way you’re really coming to Austin for the night.
Me: Let’s see if I prove it.
Lillian grinned when I looked up from my phone. “All set?”
“All set.”
Grant reached out and patted me on the back. Smirking, he signaled our server for the check. “It’s good to see you back in the saddle, bro. It’s about fucking time.”
“I’m going to have to agree with that.” My sister leaned across the table, her eyes on mine as she squeezed my forearm. “Now you go and get this girl, Arland. Don’t let anything hold you back. I don’t care how much younger she is or who she’s related to. This is the first time in a long time that I’ve actually seen a light in your eyes, so whatever you do, don’t mess it up.”
I smiled. “I’m not planning on it, but thanks.”
A little surprised by how enthusiastic and encouraging they were, I paid our check since it was my turn, and then I went home to pack an overnight bag. The logical part of me still thought that this was a little bit crazy and over the top.
She would be back here tomorrow, after all, but I could afford to get down to Austin for the night, take her out for a nice dinner where we wouldn’t have to worry about someone seeing us and word getting back to Brian, and satisfy my curiosity about her just a little bit more.
A few hours later, I’d checked into my hotel in Texas and I was getting ready for dinner. The city was vibrant and alive on the streets below, the traffic crazy thanks to Black Friday, but the energy of it all seemed to seep into my veins even fifteen stories above ground level.
I was ready to see Mariam. She was beautiful, intriguing, and she made me look forward to what lay ahead. Meeting her seemed to have opened up a world of possibilities for me, and it had alerted me to how stunted I’d been before.
Now that my eyes were wide open and my veins were filled with a different kind of drive than I was used to, I was going to jump in with both feet—and hope that opening myself up to all this again wasn’t the biggest fucking mistake anyone had ever made.