Chapter 25
chapter twenty-five
Charlotte
Caleb’s phone alarm goes off, starling both of us. I’m not letting a “saved by the bell” situation happen here. While he checks his phone, silencing the alarm, I say, “This is the second time you’ve said that, you know. Are you just trying to push my buttons?”
“Never,” he says with a grin. “I mean… not any more than I normally like to push your buttons. It’s time for me to walk Rex. Since it gets so hot in the summer, I like to walk him at night when it’s cooler.”
I stand up. “Well, let’s go.”
“You sure?”
“Rex and I are cool, but you and I are not cool until you tell me why on earth you keep saying I have a boyfriend.”
“It was on your phone at the donor dinner.”
“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”
He motions for me to walk down the porch stairs first, and he follows me as we walk toward Rex’s kennel across the property.
“Your phone was plugged into the projector screen and you got a text from ‘my love’,” he says, sarcastically saying the last two words.
“Right then and there, I knew to put a stop to my little crush on you.”
“Wow,” I say. “So that’s why you were so cold to me the next day? You know you could have just talked to me.”
“I know…” he says slowly, kicking at a rock on the gravel walkway.
“But it was also a good thing. It made me realize I can’t just flirt with every beautiful woman I see.
I’m not that guy. I’ve got a business to run and a charity to run, and dogs that depend on me.
I’m not into settling down and all that crap that Ethan wants, so me thinking you had a boyfriend was good. Trust me.”
“Right,” I say. All these mixed feelings in my body swirl around, kind of pissing me off.
Do I want to date Caleb? No. Right? He said so himself—he is not into dating.
Not into settling down. I’m a settling down type of girl.
I want that. Not with my jackass of an ex at WLB Construction, but with someone.
I kind of want to dump Rex’s bowl of cold water over my head. Maybe that’ll help.
Caleb reaches into the kennel and gets a leash. Rex is overly delighted to go on his nightly walk. His butt swings so hard side to side as we let him out of the kennel.
“So who is saved into your phone as My Love?”
Rex walks so fast I have to power walk to keep up. “My cousin, Tia. It’s a joke. I think I’m saved into her phone as Hulk Hogan.” He tilts his head curiously. “Long story,” I say. “We give people weird names in our phones.”
“So what am I saved as?” he asks, nudging me with his elbow.
“What makes you think you’re saved?”
“Oooh, okay.” He laughs. “I see how it is.”
“You’re saved as Caleb Alden.”
“Boring. Are there at least some little heart emojis around my name to signal how handsome I am?”
I roll my eyes. “Absolutely not.”
“Ow.” His hand grips his chest. “You do think I’m handsome, though, right? Most people do.”
“You know you’re handsome. You don’t need my confirmation.”
“No, but I would like it. I call you beautiful like a hundred times a day. You can’t return the favor?”
“No you don’t,” I say, pushing him with my hip and shoulder as we walk. “You’ve said that like three times.”
“In my head I do.”
A flirtatious silence lingers in the air.
Sounds weird, but that’s the only way I can describe it.
Rex sniffs everything he walks past, and his giant paws smack against the grass, but between Caleb and me, it’s a light, flirty silence.
I know he’s watching me, but I can’t bring myself to look at him.
As much as I don’t want to, I do have a stupid little crush on him.
I’ve never been like this with a man I wasn’t actually dating. It’s fun.
It’s dangerous.
“So why do you refuse to settle down?” I ask.
Rex must smell something really good because he presses his nose to the grass, then pees on it. After sufficiently covering up the smell with his own mark, Rex takes off in the direction of the giant oak tree.
Caleb draws in a deep breath. “I don’t know. Fear, I guess.”
“Fear of what? Living happily ever after? Not being able to flirt with women anymore?”
“Of getting hurt again,” he says. All that former flirty silence turns stone cold somber.
“Ah…” I say a moment later. “I understand.”
“High school sweetheart,” he says after a long while.
“We’d been together since junior high, actually.
I thought we’d be together forever. My Grandma Nat loved her, and when she died, the whole family was shocked to learn that she left me her wedding ring in her will.
Me. The second oldest. I thought it was a sign to marry that girl, so I proposed at nineteen years old.
The crazy thing was, my entire family supported me.
Then while I was in police academy she hooked up with one of the firearms instructors. "
“Wow.”
Rex sniffs his way straight to a ball in the grass. “How did this get left out here?” Caleb says.
Rex sits in his most handsome, perfectly well-behaved sit, begging for him to throw the ball. “Does Charlotte mind if you go off leash?”
“It’s fine,” I say.
When Rex has a ball, all he cares about is that ball. We’re all safe here with a ball around.
Caleb unhooks the leash and flings the ball through the air. The happy German Shepherd takes off after it.
“The heartbreak sucked but the worst part is that the ring is now tainted. She gave it back, but it used to symbolize my grandparents’ fifty year marriage. Now it’s the symbol of a broken engagement by a teenage idiot.”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“It is what it is,” he says, peering at me in the moonlight. It’s magical how quickly the sky goes from a sunset to pure darkness. Rex brings the ball back, dropping it at Caleb’s feet.
“Can I throw it?” I ask.
“Be my guest.”
I pick up the ball. “Ew! This thing is covered in slobber!”
“That’s why I typically use the ball flinger thing.” Caleb laughs.
I pull my arm back, then toss the ball as hard as I can. Rex takes off after it, passing it up and having to screech to a stop and turn back around.
“I guess I don’t throw as far as you do,” I say, holding up my hand. “And now I’m gross.”
Caleb takes my hand and presses my palm to the side of his jeans. He drags it down his thigh. “All better.”
My heart does a backflip.
Rex drops the ball again. “All yours,” I say, letting the experienced K9 handler take back over the game of fetch.
This time he leans back, doing a windup like a professional baseball player as he pitches the ball further than before.
Rex charges across the open field, nothing but a shadowy blur in the moonlight.
“Thanks for letting me come over here and freak out on you,” I say. “I swear I don’t do this with all my clients.”
“Just the hot ones?” he says playfully.
“Yep. Just the hot ones,” I agree.
The look on his face is so hard to make out in the darkness.
Is he smiling as he steps closer to me? I hear Rex’s heavy breathing before I feel him.
He drops the ball then crashes right into the back of my legs, sending me stumbling forward.
Caleb’s steady hands catch me—almost as if he and the dog planned this little trip and fall situation.
“Careful, Rex,” he says softly, just inches away as his hands slide up my arms, resting on my shoulders.
“We wouldn’t want Miss Charlotte to fall on top of me.
Not out here in the romantically dark field, underneath the glittering starry night sky.
” He’s so close I can smell the toothpaste in his breath.
“We wouldn’t want that,” I breathe.
“Of course not,” he whispers.
Chills prickle across my skin, and in this stupid skimpy tank top, I’m sure he felt every single one on my shoulders.
His warm hands slide up my shoulders, thumbs caressing my collarbones.
We definitely should not be doing this, but every part of me wants to.
His hands slide down my back, resting on my hips.
Rex barks.
I startle, jumping backward. For the first time in what feels like ages, I breathe.
“I should probably go,” I say over the sound of my heart pounding in my ears.
“I’ll walk you to your car.”
I don’t remember my dreams, but I wake up feeling euphoric.
My coffee tastes sweeter this morning. My outfit looks incredible as I stare at myself in the mirror, all rosy cheeked and bright eyed.
I practically float to the office, no longer bitter about Jenny’s promotion. I’m no longer bitter about anything.
Jenny calls my name the moment I set my purse down on my desk.
“Yes?” I say.
“My office.”
“Oooooh,” Alicia playfully murmurs under her breath. I roll my eyes at her.
When I enter Jenny’s office she tells me to close the door. The pinched look on her face sends an instant rock into the pit of my stomach.
“Good morning,” I say cautiously.
“Got any job offers yet?”
“I’m sorry, what?”
Jenny’s lips press together. “I monitor all my employees’ internet activity, Charlotte. I am fully aware that you’ve been searching for a new job, while on company time.”
My mouth opens, but she keeps talking. “If you take this small amount of success and try to leverage it into a new job, I will leave you a scathing reference to anyone who calls. I will make sure no event planning company in the entire state will hire you. You work for me. You learned from me. Every skill you have is one I helped you attain.”
There is no point in saying anything.
“And if you even try to take a smidge of credit for the Alden event? I’ll sue you.”
I swallow.
“Get out of my office.”