Chapter 18
“I like what you’ve done to the place,” Cal said, looking around Carrie’s tiny home, and he wasn’t just giving an idle compliment or being polite because she’d invited him over for dinner after asking how his “job” with Vic had gone and his one-word answer, “Fine,” had tipped her off that it hadn’t been what he was hoping for.
“You’re just saying that. You think it’s a sardine can, remember?”
Actually, what she’d said was, “I had the big family house with the two-bay garage, a bathroom for each bedroom, a den and a rec room, and a kitchen and dining room made for entertaining—and I thought I had the family to go with it, but it was all a big lie, wasn’t it? This is my new dream house.”
“Well, you’ve made it a very cozy sardine can,” he said.
She handed him a cola. “I have wine for with dinner—if that’s okay with you? We can stick to soda.”
“It’ll be nice to have wine. Thanks for checking though. Can I help with anything?”
“Nope, but I should warn you, it’s nothing fancy, Chef.”
He laughed and settled into her raspberry-colored velvet loveseat, putting his feet up on the matching ottoman.
Across from him, separated by a dark walnut coffee table that looked solid but had a hinged top that raised to create a desk with storage in the trunk below it, was a plush mustard recliner with jewel-toned velvet throw pillows, complete with tassels, including one in the same color as the couch.
It should be too loud for him or something, but it wasn’t.
Three heavy brass candle holders of differing heights in the corner of the room held chunky vanilla candles.
Cal would’ve sworn their homey flicker and glow made the room warmer.
The kitchen/dining room was part of the same space and had an L-shaped counter with upper and lower cabinets on the far wall. Carrie had found a small, round four-seater table in the same dark walnut as her coffee table, tying the room together.
The total effect was both warm and slightly glamorous—something that could describe Carrie too, he supposed.
“Have you finished up your bedroom and the bathroom too, then?” he asked.
Carrie half-turned from the fragrant sauce she was stirring on the stainless-steel stovetop. “Wow, it has been a while since you were here. I’ll show you after we eat.”
Cal nodded and a few minutes later, Carrie motioned him to the table and laid out a feast, as he’d suspected she would, despite her earlier words to the contrary.
A basket held chunks of thick, crusty bread. There were bowls of assorted olives and a platter of thinly shaved prosciutto and Italian cheese to share, plus small plates of roasted peppers on lightly dressed greens.
“Dig in,” she said, pouring them each a glass of Chianti.
“I sense a theme. Italian by any chance?”
She grinned. “You do know me, big brother. Thanks for giving me a reason to cook.”
“Well, it’s a sacrifice for sure, but what’s a guy to do? Family is family.”
“Guess what we’re having as our main course?” She sounded as excited as she had when they were kids and their mom let her take real food from the kitchen for one of her regularly thrown tea parties.
Cal didn’t want to guess in case he was wrong and have her think, incorrectly, that he was disappointed by whatever it really was.
“Italian Braised Chicken thighs.”
Cal’s mouth watered. “My favorite, as you know.”
“Next to pizza.”
They munched on the appetizers, finished a glass of wine each and started on another.
Carrie served them generous portions of the garlicky chicken and olives in hearty tomato sauce.
They weren’t Italian, but she followed the traditional way of serving the dish with potatoes to sop up the sauce, not pasta.
“I’m not going to be able to move to get out of here,” Cal said, digging in. “I’ll be too sedated.”
Carrie rubbed her hands together like a maniacal cartoon villain. “My plan is working.”
“Your plan?”
“Yeah. If you think you’re leaving tonight—or crashing on the pullout bed—without telling me what happened at Vic’s, you’re out of your tree.”
“Out of my tree? What are you, a 50s hipster?”
Carrie plucked a plump olive from the plate, popped it into her mouth, and waited.
Cal tried a different mode of distraction. “I shared the work list to you. I’ll tackle each task individually between bigger jobs, and you can invoice her separately for each one. She knows that’s the plan.”
“C’mon. You were excited about going to see her. It wasn’t just a quote for work. Admit it.”
Cal was glad Carrie had waited until after the meal was almost done for the inquisition. He suddenly felt too full. Uncomfortable. He folded his heavy cloth napkin and rested it beside his plate. Took a sip of wine, finishing his glass, then shrugged when Carrie offered another fill.
“Is your offer to crash here for real?”
“Yep.” She grinned and waggled the bottle.
“And you have Ibuprofen and Vitamin C?”
“Yep!”
He held his glass up. “Let’s get this party started.”
They put away the leftovers and did the dishes together very inefficiently—drinking and chatting—not about Vic—and listening to a playlist called “Friday Night Chill.”
Then Teddy Swims’ “Bad Dreams” came on. Its opening lyrics were a little too on-the-nose.
Cal sighed.
“Take a load off?” Carrie asked, pointing at the comfy living room chairs a few strides away.
“So, we kissed,” Cal admitted without preamble and without Carrie having to push him for details again.
Carrie leaned in from her perch on the mustard chair. “That’s great! Tell all. When are you seeing her again?”
“I’m not. Nothing’s going to come of it.”
“What? I don’t understand.”
That makes two of us, Cal thought.
“Start at the beginning,” she demanded, waving her wine glass for emphasis. “Spill.”
Cal and Carrie were close. They always had been.
He’d heard some dysfunctional homes drove wedges between siblings.
In their case, the opposite was true. Their parents’ multiple issues and obsessive, consuming dislike of each other brought them together and made them allies.
In fact, Carrie was the closest thing he had to a best friend.
Scratch that. She was his best friend. Still, she was also his sister and had her own relationship demons to deal with, so he normally mildly censored, or at least was highly selective, about how deep he went into some topics with her.
Tonight, though, while nowhere near drunk, the wine—and the music—loosened his tongue.
Obediently, Cal did as he was told and spilled.
He told her how the evening started, how easy and natural it was to talk to Vic, how great it was to laugh and eat together.
How they hadn’t, like, bared their souls or anything, but they also had touched lightly on things that were real, were deeper than favorite colors, foods, and movies or whatever.
Then he shared the fallout after the kiss.
Carrie’s face crumpled on his behalf. “That sucks, Cal.”
He nodded.
“Is it . . . possible that maybe your kiss—or the kiss, I mean—just didn’t do it for her?”
“I don’t know.” He slowly rolled the stem of his nearly empty wineglass between his palms. The movement reminded him of Vic’s fidgeting. He stopped abruptly, swallowed the dregs, and set his glass on the coffee table.
“She seemed into it, and it was, well, sweet at first, but then pretty steamy—” He smiled at the memory.
“Gross,” Carrie teased.
“And I would’ve been happy with just the kiss, over the moon, in fact. So, I don’t understand why she made the move to come over for the night and—”
“Maybe she got cold feet, or maybe it is exactly like she said. She’s not in a good place for a relationship and doesn’t want to lead you on.”
“Yeah.”
Carrie looked at him for a long time, then refilled their glasses.
“Last one,” he said, leaving his on the table for now.
“Sure, sure,” she grinned, but it fell from her face, no doubt taking in his gloom. “Okay, that’s not what’s really bugging you. Your heart isn’t broken after one unofficial date and one kiss, no matter how hot it was.”
Cal cracked his knuckles, then moved his head side to side. His old-man neck cracked and popped, too.
“What’s bugging me is how easy I am.”
“What does that mean? That like every other guy on the planet, you’ll take it if you can get it?” She threw a sapphire blue cushion at him. He caught one-handed and lobbed it back.
“I’m serious—and I’m not talking about sex. I . . .” How to put it into words. How?
He picked up his wineglass and took a big mouthful. Carrie had switched from Chianti to something called Jammy Red Roo from the Australian winery Yellowtail. It was jammy—sweet and delicious, a perfect after-dinner treat instead of dessert.
“I did all this work on myself, you know? After Mel and I split for good.”
Carrie made a face, and Cal knew if they were outside, she would’ve spit.
Literally. He had a lot of animosity and bitterness toward Mel, but his feelings were layered and complicated, shifting from time to time, and not without threads of his own guilt and regret.
Heck, half the time, a huge part of him—that he hated and felt ridiculous for—still wished things could be different. That they could still be together.
Carrie’s feelings weren’t remotely so complex or ambiguous. She hated Melanie and made no bones about it.
“Okay?” she said. “You did the work and?”
“I thought that if I was ever ready to start dating again—and I have felt ready—that this time I’d do it right.”
“Right?” Carrie looked confused or skeptical, one or the other.
Cal wished he’d never opened his big yap, but he pushed on. “Yeah—not fall for someone with huge, clearly unresolved issues.”
“The mom!” Carrie said, like a lightbulb appeared over her head.
“At the very least.”
“Trauma.”
“Up the kazoo, I’m sure.”
Carrie chewed the side of her lip, then took a sip of wine, not saying anything.