Chapter 12
His social butterfly sis was busy with friends again all weekend, so once more Cal was looking at a solitary Saturday and Sunday. He didn’t begrudge Carrie her social life, however. The opposite, in fact. It did kind of underscore his own lack of plans yet again, though.
“You could come with,” she texted early Saturday morning.
“Pass,” he texted back. Then softened it. “I’ve got my regular routine to keep me busy. Thanks though.”
She sent a smiling emoji, and he knew she understood anyway.
Carrie loved a crowd and small talk and noise.
Cal generally enjoyed his own company, even if he occasionally craved depth, connection .
. . The few times he’d taken Carrie up on her attempts to include him in pub crawls, karaoke nights, and the like, he’d come home feeling lonelier and more isolated, not less.
Going over to Vic’s and assessing her needs—the house’s needs, he meant—must’ve popped into Cal’s head about a hundred times over the weekend while he distracted and busied himself with chores, but he kept second-guessing himself.
He thought they’d both flirted a little. Maybe. But man, talk about something he was out of practice at. So, nah, she was probably just being friendly. Anything more than that, he was pretty sure that was all his imagination. But what if . . .
And as for his initial read of her that first day they met .
. . He felt a bit guilty. It had been all wrong.
Her mother was a handful, no doubt about it, and Vic obviously struggled with their relationship, but who wouldn’t?
He needed to mind his own gate and make sure he didn’t let his messed-up relationship history color how he saw every woman that he came across, or he was going to be a lonely man. Or, rather, an even lonelier man.
Still, it was better to adhere to his normal workweek. Making an exception and seeing Vic on a weekend would tweak Carrie’s curiosity and she’d interrogate him again.
Despite his best intentions and resolve, however, he couldn’t keep Vic’s smile out of his head or stop hearing her big laugh that sometimes rang out before she caught herself, stifled herself—he thought, then frowned briefly.
She really did seem to rein herself in a lot, but then again, with such a critical mother, of course she did.
And he also couldn’t stop replaying their conversations.
Was she really a bad cook? Did she actually love pizza as much as she claimed to?
He hoped he got to find out. And her comment about enjoying watching people do work they were good at .
. . It didn’t feel like a line. It felt genuine.
As the weekend churned on and Cal did laundry, including his bedding, made a menu and grocery shopped for the upcoming week, and did his weekly deep cleaning of the house, a feeling snuck up on him that he had to think through in order to recognize.
Anticipation. Yeah, that was it. For the first time since Melanie, despite having dated a few women who were perfectly nice, just not for him, he felt .
. . excited. Like there was something to look forward to, not just a treadmill of work and household chores, broken only rarely by an evening out with Carrie or his friends.
He wasn’t a complete dope, of course. He knew nothing might come of his optimism, but dang it was nice to feel it for a change.