Chapter 4
CAL
Ihaven't been on a date in at least a year.
For most of my life I've preferred not to date where I live, because I believe that most people think of me as the kid in school who lived on the wrong side of the tracks.
My dad was an alcoholic who had the cops called on him more times than I can count, and my mom sat by and watched it happen.
Both of them have since passed. I didn't have it on my bingo card to be alone in the world by the age of twenty-five, but we don't ask for the life we get, it's handed to us, and we have to work with it the best way we know how.
That's why I pay attention to my boss. He's more of a father figure to me than my own dad was.
I absolutely do not want to disappoint him, and I refuse to fall back into habits that I've worked very hard to break.
Hazel and I texted last night, and set this date up.
I'm more nervous than I care to admit, but as I finish running a comb through my closely cropped hair, I admit I've cleaned up nice.
It takes me fifteen minutes to leave my apartment and make it over to Hazel's.
She's a block from Butter My Biscuit, in an old building that has a lot of charm.
I'd looked at the place when I'd been looking for a place to move.
It has brick walls, and hardwood floors.
It fits her, and it would've fit me too, but at the time I couldn't afford it.
I take her steps two at a time, until I'm standing in front of her door. Before I can even knock, she's opening it, a smile on her face.
"I have one of those doorbells that lets you know someone is there," she explains as she turns to lock up.
"That's good to have, especially since you're a woman living alone."
She turns back to me, her eyebrows raised. "I firmly believe it's good for anyone to have, regardless of their gender."
I hold my hands up. "You've got me there. Even though Whispering Pines is usually pretty quiet, it seems as if crime is increasing every where these days. All of us should be a little more attentive when it comes to our surroundings."
"So where exactly are you taking me, Officer Sutton? You never really said when we texted last night."
I purposely kept where I want to take her to myself, because I wasn't sure if she'd want to stay in town or not. "Thought we'd go to The Pizzeria if that's okay with you?"
"I love their food, and don't get to eat it enough because I usually have to go to sleep so early to open the bakery. We're closed tomorrow, so I can stay up late tonight if I want to."
I get exactly what she's saying. "Typically I do things late, but it's only because I work the overnights.
During the evenings when everyone else is doing something, I'm working.
They gave me the next few nights off, though.
So I'm excited. But I get it. Having weird work hours really affects everything about your life. "
"That it does."
Even though I'm trying to keep my cool, I need to tell her how hot she looks. "You look amazing."
She glances down at her bare legs. Cut-off shorts hug her hips and thighs, a t-shirt hugs her torso, showing off how stacked she is.
A pair of Converse encase her feet, and her long blonde hair is pulled into a ponytail atop her head.
There are tendrils hanging down, and I want to reach out and tuck them behind her ears, but I'm not sure that's appropriate right now.
"Thank you," she says, and there's a blush working up her neck that I like way more than I should. "You clean up pretty well yourself, Officer."
"Off duty tonight. I’m just Cal, the same as I was in high school."
"Just Cal," she repeats, like she's testing it out. "I think I can work with that."
I offer my arm, feeling a little ridiculous, but she takes it without hesitation, and we walk down the steps together. My truck's parked at the curb, and I open her door before she can reach for the handle herself. She raises an eyebrow at me.
"What? I can't be a gentleman?"
"Didn't say you couldn't. Just wasn't expecting it from the man who put me in cuffs less than twenty-four hours ago."
I groan, dipping my knees. There’s no way I’m ever going to live this down. "Low blow, Monroe."
"Fair's fair, Sutton."
The drive to The Pizzeria only takes about ten minutes, but it's long enough for the radio to fill the silence and for me to notice the way she hums along under her breath without realizing she's doing it.
I don't say anything about it. I just enjoy it, and join in when I feel like I know the words enough.
The Pizzeria sits on the corner of Main and Oak, red awning faded from years of sun, the same checkered tablecloths they've had since I was a kid sneaking in with birthday money.
Sandra, who's run the front of house since before I was born, greets us at the door with a look that tells me she already knows exactly why we’re here.
"Well, look at this," she says, grabbing two menus. "Never thought I'd see the day."
"Sandra," I say, low, hoping she'll let it go.
She doesn't. "I'm just saying. Whole town's talking about you two." She winks at Hazel like they're in on something together, then leads us to a booth in the back corner, away from the front windows. I could kiss her for that. It’s a small thing, but I’m so grateful.
We settle in, and Hazel picks up the menu even though I'd bet money she's ordered the same thing here a hundred times. "Do you have something you like to order from here?"
I don’t even have to think about it. I answer quickly. "Gotta be pepperoni and mushroom. Every single time. What about you?"
"Same, actually. But add extra cheese."
"Of course you'd say extra cheese."
"Don't judge me, I run a bakery. Sugar's basically my love language, but cheese comes in a close second."
The waitress comes by, and I order for us both without really thinking about it, then catch myself and glance at Hazel to see if that bothered her.
It doesn't look like it did. If anything, there's something in her expression that makes my chest feel tight. It occurs to me that maybe she makes all the decisions in her life because she’s single and a business owner.
Maybe she has decision fatigue, and she appreciated me doing that for her.
"So," she says, once the waitress walks off. "Tell me something. Why law enforcement? You could've stayed in construction. That’s a steady paycheck, no one calling you names on the internet."
I turn my glass in a slow circle on the table, thinking about how honest I want to be.
"Guess I wanted to be the kind of person who shows up when somebody's in trouble.
Nobody showed up for us much, growing up.
I used to think if I ever had the chance to be that person for somebody else, I'd take it. "
She doesn't say anything right away, just watches me, and I brace myself for pity, because that's usually what I get when I let this much slip. Instead she just nods, like she understands it plain and simple, no drama attached. "That's a good reason."
"Doesn't feel like it lately." I sigh heavily, nodding toward my phone.
I hope she knows I’m talking about the Facebook group. I just don’t want to talk about it out loud. It gives them power.
"The Facebook group doesn't know you. They know a video and a nickname. That's not the same as knowing somebody."
"You knew me in high school and you still had a crush on me," I say, testing her, watching her face go pink.
"Tiffany has a big mouth."
"I didn't hear it from Tiffany."
"Then who—" She stops, narrows her eyes. "You're bluffing."
"Maybe." I grin at her, and she throws a napkin at me across the table, and just like that, whatever tension had settled in my shoulders since yesterday afternoon eases up.
The pizza comes out hot, and we spend the next hour talking about nothing in particular.
Her bakery, my job, the teachers we both hated in high school, the fact that neither one of us can stand cilantro.
She tells me about the cakes for the event venue, how they turned out, how relieved she was when the photographer said they were exactly what he wanted.
I tell her about my dog, a rescue mutt named Biscuit that I adopted two years ago, and she laughs so hard at the name that she nearly chokes on her soda.
"Biscuit. You named your dog Biscuit? Did you name him for my bakery?” She raises her eyebrows as she tilts her head to the side.
I shake my head. "He came with the name. I just kept it."
"Sure he did."
It doesn’t sound as if she believes me.
"I'm sticking with that story,” I say, crossing my heart.
By the time we're done eating, the restaurant's mostly cleared out, and Sandra's started stacking chairs up front, a not-so-subtle hint that it's closing time. I pay before Hazel can even reach for her wallet, ignoring the look she gives me, and we walk out into the warm night air.
"I had a really good time," she says, once we're back at my truck. "Better than I expected, honestly."
"What'd you expect?" I’m really interested, because so many people have expectations about who I am, and most of them are completely wrong.
She tilts her head back, rolling her eyes heavenward. “Oh you know? An awkward apology, some stiff conversation, and you checking your watch every ten minutes, hoping like hell you’d be able to get away from me.”
"I wasn't checking my watch."
"No," she says, smiling up at me. "You weren't. You didn’t check it once, actually. Not until you saw that they were starting to stack the chairs."
I open her door again, and she climbs in, and the drive back to her place is quieter than the one there, but it's a comfortable kind of quiet.
When we pull up outside her building, I cut the engine and walk her to her door, same as I would've wanted somebody to walk my mother to her door, if my father had ever been the kind of man to think that way.
"So," I say, standing on the top step with her, close enough that I can smell whatever she's got on, something like vanilla and something else I can't place.
"I know we said dinner was the apology. But I'd like to see you again, if that's alright.
Lunch tomorrow, maybe. Nothing official, nothing for the group to comment on. It can be just us."
"I'm closed tomorrow," she says. "So I'm free whenever."
"Noon?" I ask, hoping that it doesn’t have to be any longer than that. I’ve really enjoyed our time here tonight. I want to see her, and I’d prefer it to be sooner, rather than later.
"Noon works,” she agrees, her head tilting slightly to the side, biting her lip, almost as if it’s an invitation.
Neither one of us moves. She's looking up at me, and I'm looking down at her, and I know I should say goodnight and walk away like a gentleman, but there's something about the way she's chewing on her bottom lip that makes it impossible for me to do the smart thing.
"Cal," she says, her voice breathless and quiet.
"Yeah?"
She gusts out a breath. "You gonna kiss me or just stand there?"
I don't need to be told twice. I reach up and finally tuck that piece of hair behind her ear, the one that's been driving me crazy all night, and then I lean down and kiss her.
She tastes like the Coke she drank at dinner, and she kisses me back like she's been waiting on this for longer than just the last twenty-four hours.
My hand finds her waist, and hers fists in the front of my shirt, and for a few seconds, there's no Facebook group, no boss breathing down my neck, no history of me being the kid nobody expected much from.
There's just me her, and this kiss, in the dim light at her front door.
When we finally pull apart, she's a little breathless, and so am I.
"Noon," she says again, like she's reminding herself.
"Noon," I agree. "I'll see you then."
I wait until she's inside with the door locked before I head back down to my truck, and the whole drive home, I can't stop smiling like an idiot.
And when I get home, I walk inside, whistling for my dog. When he comes trotting over, I kneel down, petting his head. “Dude, I think the date I just had is going to change our lives.”