Chapter 22
LIV
Caleb drives in silence as I watch the lights of our little town zoom by out the windows and wonder where he’s taking me.
At first I assumed it would be one of the trendy little local restaurants. But we’ve passed most of what passes for a downtown in tiny Bluevale. There isn’t much left except the diner. And I happen to know firsthand that he’s not allowed in there.
The idea makes me smile to myself. I wonder if Robert would lift the ban if I told him that Caleb and I are friends again.
But now we’re turning onto Magnolia Lane, and there’s no place we could be going but back to Hall House.
I feel a twinge of regret. I guess he didn’t really want to have a talk. Or maybe the plan was to talk in the car, but we both got quiet.
He pulls up and parks on the street and we both unbuckle our seatbelts.
Before I can touch my door, Caleb is out of the SUV and opening it for me.
“I really wanted to take you someplace special,” he admits, his blue eyes intense. “But my phone is buzzing like crazy and I don’t think there’s a public place in the state of Pennsylvania where we could have a private talk.”
“Oh,” I say, catching up with what he’s saying. “Okay. I guess we can talk another time. You’ve had a long day.”
Maybe he’s wanting an invitation into my apartment, but Hailey just texted me that she and Tessa were planning on stopping by The Barn to congratulate Van and the team after the game. That means it would just be the two of us, and I don’t feel ready for that.
“No,” he says immediately. “I had another idea.”
“Okay,” I say.
But instead of telling me what it is, he goes to the back of the SUV and grabs a blanket before coming back around to me.
“In case it gets cold,” he says.
I’m completely lost, but when he reaches out his hand, I take it and allow him to lead me across the front lawn and around the side of Hall House.
“Where have you been all week?” he asks softly as we approach the stone benches at the edge of the lilac hedge that encircles the upper part of the grounds.
“Hailey and I have been staying at her parents’ place,” I say.
He nods, but the way his head hangs gives me a twinge of guilt, like he knows I was only avoiding him.
“It’s easier to bake a lot of cupcakes over there,” I add, wondering why I feel so bad for him when it’s one hundred percent right that he’s ashamed of his own behavior.
I force myself to picture his look of disgust from the other night, and my feet keep moving.
“You have some really great friends,” he says.
“I do,” I agree. “They’re the best.”
It hits me that I’ve never seen him hanging out with a friend of his own. As far as I know, he hasn’t even gone out with the team except for that one night. I guess having a child at home changes things.
Or maybe it’s the life he led as a kid, being shuffled from one training to another without time to hang out. Maybe he’s just a loner by nature.
Caleb doesn’t stop when he gets to the bench, but instead leads me down the stone steps of the hillside.
The air is cold and still, rich with the scent of damp soil and the last of the leaves that crunch underfoot. I can see the boxwood labyrinth in front of us, and the sea of rosebushes that surround the moonlit pavilion.
“I’ve always loved this garden,” I admit out loud. “I never realized how beautiful it would be at night.”
“I walk here sometimes when I need to think,” he admits. “I spent a lot of time out here this last week, thinking about you and how I ruined everything before we could even begin.”
His words land on my heart, and I swallow as he leads me down around the labyrinth, then up the steps of the pavilion.
The top of Hall House is still visible from here, and in the other direction you can see all the way down past groves of trees and open meadows to the distant wooded bank of the creek that meanders along the border between Hall House and the park on Fern Avenue.
One day, I’ll finally explore the whole property, and maybe even find the pond and the statue garden, if they really exist.
“Here,” Caleb says, gently wrapping the blanket around my shoulders.
It’s warm and fuzzy and it smells like him, masculine with a hint of his spicy aftershave. We stand together without talking for a minute, just looking out over the grounds. It’s peaceful here, like the rest of the world can’t touch us.
“I know I blew it,” he says, breaking the silence. “I blew it as a stupid, selfish teenager who thought he was being cool. And I blew it again in that parking lot.”
“Why did you let her do it?” I hear myself ask him.
“Back then?” he asks. “I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, and this isn’t an excuse, just an explanation.
But I think it’s because no one ever noticed me until she did.
Angel put me on a pedestal. I wasn’t sure how I got there, but I knew I didn’t want to come down. I thought I was king of the world.”
I nod, thinking about that. I’m not sure I could have resisted Angel’s magnetism either, not back then.
If she’d decided to take me under her wing, to put me on the other side of the taunts, would I have been the one laughing?
It’s easy to deny it now, but back then, when high school really did seem like the whole world…
“I know better now,” he says. “It was just one more box I put myself in. Obedient son. Best hockey player. Most popular boy in school. All of it was just a machine that reinforced my self-important, asinine behavior.”
He’s got that right. But I keep quiet, wanting to see where he’ll go with all this if I don’t weigh in.
“And the other night?” he says. “I was so horrified at Daisy making that noise, and so shocked to realize who you were, and what I had done to you… I just froze up. There’s no excuse.”
“You were upset because of Daisy making her piggy noise?” I echo.
“Well, yeah,” he says, shaking his head, that same awful look in his eyes again. “It took me right back to high school with Angel’s henchmen making that same sound. I can’t imagine what it did to you.”
“It did nothing to me,” I tell him simply. “Daisy is a little kid. She loves to make her animal sounds, and she’s really good at them. She wasn’t making fun of me.”
“Why did you think I was upset?” he asks quietly, turning to me like my real reason is just occurring to him.
It will hurt to say it. But I’m tired of hiding my feelings. I’m Olivia Williams, and I’m not going to be invisible anymore.
“I thought you were upset because I had tricked you into dating Twiggy the Piggy,” I tell him simply.
He opens his mouth and closes it again, and I can see the restraint he’s showing by the way his hand locks around mine, like it’s all he can do not to scream.
“That’s fair,” he bites out after a moment, turning his eyes to the rose garden and nodding. “Based on my past behavior, you had every reason to feel that way.”
“Caleb,” I murmur.
“No, I mean it,” he says. “Now I get why you didn’t check your messages and you didn’t want to talk to me.”
“It’s not true?” I venture out loud.
His reaction is too genuine to be anything but real, but I still need to hear him say it.
“Of course it’s not true,” he says turning back to me, his blue eyes flashing like diamonds. “You’re important to me, Liv. I don’t care how things used to be. I care about you. I love you. Do you understand that?”
I want to believe him.
Sucking in a deep breath, I decide that if he wants to be with me then he can handle some simple truths. And if he can’t, it’s better to know now.
“I didn’t lose weight to look pretty,” I tell him. “I did it for my health, full stop.”
Caleb nods, his expression serious, but also interested, like he wants to learn more about me.
“A lot of people who haven’t had weight issues themselves seem to think my weight problem is solved because I lost some weight,” I continue.
“Maybe you think so too. But that’s not a real thing.
Keeping the weight off when your body tends to be bigger is a lifetime struggle for many people, and I may not always succeed. ”
He nods and I can tell that he’s really listening.
“Right now, I’m using a medication that makes it a little easier,” I tell him. “But the medicine may not work forever. I could be heavy again one day. I could even be heavier than I was back in school.”
He nods again, like it’s no big deal.
“I don’t want to be with someone whose ego is wrapped up in my dress size,” I say. “Even a little bit.”
“I don’t care about your size,” Caleb says simply. “Your looks are not what I love about you.”
“That’s easy to say now,” I tell him. “When I look normal.”
He looks at me for a minute, his eyes intent.
“Okay,” he says, nodding to himself. “Okay, Liv. I hear you. Hang on.”
The next thing I know he’s turned away from me, hands to his face.
When he turns around again he smiles to reveal that two of his front teeth are missing.
“How’s that?” he asks me. “No guarantees I’ll be keeping the rest of them either.”
He grins at me and I can’t help giggling.
“You have fake teeth?” I ask.
“A lot of hockey players do,” he says. “When I retire, maybe I’ll get implants. If I can afford them.”
“That’s wild,” I tell him.
“Do you like me any less?” he asks.
I shake my head. And it’s true, I really don’t. Honestly, it’s endearing that he would show me this, and it makes him seem a little less intimidating.
His phone buzzes and he rolls his eyes and pulls it out of his pocket, even though he’s been ignoring it all night.
“I’ve got a special buzz for my parents,” he explains. “I just need to make sure Daisy is okay.”
Of course he does. I wouldn’t expect anything less. I nod. And he smiles as he looks down at his text messages, showing off that big gap in his teeth again.
“The Icy Edge Razor guys are all in,” he says, shaking his head in disbelief. “Even though I won’t go back to Philly. My dad says it’s a good monetary offer, and they’re throwing in free razors for life.”
“Congratulations,” I tell him, meaning it. I know how much financial stability means to him with Daisy in the picture.
He slips the phone back in his pocket and turns away from me to pop his teeth back in, which tickles me all over again. I just told him I don’t care about looking cute for him or anyone else.
But he sure wants to look his best for me.
“Anyway,” he says, turning back to me. “While we’re disclosing stuff, I’ve already got a bad hip.
I’m working on it in PT, but I won’t be a superstar forever, even for the Stallions.
Will you still want to be with me when I’m a thirty-two-year-old former hockey player, walking with a cane, and coaching peewee hockey for the local church group? ”
“Caleb—” I begin.
“No, wait,” he says. “There’s more. I have literally no other skills, just hockey. I put away most of what I earned in Philly in a trust for Daisy, and I want to keep saving now. So I can’t really offer you a rock-and-roll lifestyle, even while I’m lucky enough to still be playing.”
I nod, but manage not to interject.
“And then there’s my personality,” he says, his voice deepening.
“I’ve gotten a lot better since a certain someone came into my life.
But I’m the one who got hit by the ugly stick, Liv.
I’ve had an ugly attitude, I’ve literally hit other guys with my stick, and here I am, toothless and soon to be using a cane like one of those little old men at the diner. ”
“At least you’ll never have to worry about buying razors,” I hear myself say.
There’s a terrible pause, and then he starts laughing.
I start laughing too, and I know I don’t have to say all the other things I want to say. We’re good. We’ve said all we needed to.
But I decide to say them anyway.
“Daisy is worth every sacrifice you could make for her,” I say. “Obviously. It makes me happy that you’re putting her first. I would hate to think that she would be in trouble if something ever happened to you.”
“She will be well taken care of, no matter what,” he says firmly. “Her trust fund is the only luxury that’s ever mattered to me.”
“Then it was money well invested,” I tell him. “And I don’t care about a rock-and-roll lifestyle. I mean clearly, based on the lifestyle I have and love right now.”
“Right,” he says, nodding with a thoughtful look on his face like that hadn’t occurred to him yet.
Does Caleb Stone really wonder if money is the only thing he has to offer in a romantic relationship? Maybe I’m not the only one who needs to work on my self-esteem.
“And yes,” I say. “It’s important to control your temper on the ice. But I know you can do it, because you’ve been doing it since the season began and it shows. And also because I see how patient and positive you are with your daughter every single day.”
He smiles and I can see that last statement hit home.
“And as far as your hip?” I say. “Honestly, I think it would be kind of glamorous to date a man with a cane. You could get a really cool one, like a wolf’s head, or something with a sword inside to frighten prowlers.”
He laughs, and his eyes light up, and I feel like I could float away with happiness at the sound.
“Does this mean you’re giving me another chance?” he asks.
He tugs me closer so that I have to tilt my chin up to look him in the eyes.
I know I should make him grovel, make him earn it, maybe even make him beg…
But something tells me that Caleb Stone has already learned his lesson.
And I really can’t wait to start our life together.
So I just nod and let my chest fill with butterflies from the look in his eyes as he slowly bends to kiss me.
When his mouth finally claims mine, fireworks don’t begin to describe it.
I feel like the whole world is lighting up around us.