Chapter 3 #3
Looking flustered, Diana went on, “We should start to pack up. The mosquitoes will be out soon.”
Calvin nodded. “Just let me know what you need me to do.”
Under Diana’s direction, the three of them got to work, passing the next few minutes in companionable silence.
As Calvin was peeling the lemonade-sticky tablecloth off the table, Diana suddenly spoke up.
“Oh, Ash, your dad called me this morning.”
Calvin froze for the briefest of moments, before throwing the dirty tablecloth into a box full of dirty jugs.
It’s none of my business. Absolutely none of my business.
But he couldn’t help but listen in – it wasn’t like he could walk off or stick his fingers in his ears, after all.
“What did he say?” Ash replied, sounding mildly curious.
Diana’s smile was evident in her voice. “He wanted to know if you’d like to go to the beach when you have your vacation with him next month.”
Part of Calvin’s mind took in the way Ash’s face lit up – while he wasn’t reacting nearly as exuberantly as most kids would at the idea of a beach vacation, Calvin was pretty sure that this was Ash’s equivalent of jumping up and down and waving his arms around in excitement.
The larger part of Calvin’s mind, however, was whirring at a hundred miles an hour.
Are Diana and Ash’s father no longer together?
He didn’t want to jump to conclusions. And, if it was indeed the case that they had separated, he certainly didn’t want to revel in the fact that the separation must have been painful for both Diana and Ash.
But there was definitely a small flame of hope that had been rekindled in him.
It was more like a raging inferno as far as the wyvern was concerned, and Calvin tried not to wince as it demanded that he get to one knee and propose right this second.
Cool your jets, he told it, reminding himself to continue with the cleanup process rather than just stand there and stare. We still don’t know the full story.
“Well?” Diana said, and Ash nodded excitedly.
“Yes, please.”
Diana gave him a quick hug, before pulling back.
“Would you like to call him this evening when he’s finished work?”
Ash nodded again, and Diana gave his hair another quick ruffle, before turning back to Calvin.
“Ash’s dad lives a few hours from here,” she said, in a relaxed voice that didn’t seem to indicate that this was a source of tension.
Calvin’s stomach did a slow roll of anticipation.
Could it really be that she’s not together with Ash’s father anymore?
Oblivious to his inner turmoil, Diana went on, “Girdwood Springs is wonderful and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else, but it does make beach vacations a bit more challenging.
I’m more of a mountain girl at heart anyway, so if Ash’s dad wants to be the one dealing with sand getting into everything, then I’m more than happy to let him. ”
“That sounds like it’s rough,” Calvin said sympathetically. “Ash living away from his dad, I mean. Not the sand.”
“It does have its downsides,” Diana said.
“Obviously in an ideal world, Ash would see both his parents every day and everything would be wonderful. But his dad and I are better apart than together, and I know he’d have felt stifled in Girdwood Springs – he’s the big city go-getter type, loves socializing and climbing the career ladder.
” She shook her head. “Our differences were causing too much stress for Ash – for all three of us, really. This way, he gets two happy parents who both see him regularly.” Smiling slyly, she added, “And two lots of birthday presents.”
Calvin nodded mutely, his head in a whirl.
She’s single. Diana is single.
Inside his chest, his wyvern soared high in the air, doing a little pirouette. Which turned into a full loop-the-loop, and several barrel rolls.
“That’s good to hear,” he said inanely. It was about all he felt safe saying right now – the news had come as such a shock that if he opened his mouth again, he wasn’t quite sure what would come out.
Better to just concentrate on the task at hand, he decided, channeling all his concentration into picking up lemon peels alongside Ash and Diana.
Between the four of them they had everything tidied in record time, with Bella contributing by bringing a different stick out of the woods than the one Calvin had thrown for her.
But quickly, a problem became apparent.
Am I going to be able to get all of this stuff into her car without making it break down? Not that I believe in curses, but there’s obviously something going on with me today, and the last thing I need is to destroy my mate’s car.
The wyvern sent him a mental image of him carrying the table, ice box, sacks of lemon peels, and various sundries back to Diana’s house like a pack mule, and Calvin studiously ignored it. Not that he wouldn’t be willing to do that, of course, but he knew that Diana would never allow it.
He supposed that it was possible that the curse – I’m just going to think of it like that from now on – only affected objects that he touched. Diana’s fan had been working up until the moment he touched it, after all.
So as long as he could manage to get the items into the car without physically touching it, it would be fine.
Probably.
With that in mind, he set to carefully sliding the folded-up table into the trunk, taking the utmost care not to touch anything as he did so.
“Oh, you don’t have to be so gentle with this old rust bucket,” Diana laughed. “After everything it’s been through, getting knocked around by a table is the least of its concerns.”
“All the more reason to be careful with it,” Calvin replied, as he carefully stepped back. He would have really loved to offer to give the car a little TLC and get it back to its best at some point, but right now, he couldn’t even touch it. He’d have to save the offer for later.
If there is a later. I really hope there’s a later.
Examining the area, Calvin nodded. Everything had been successfully tidied up, a few scrapes in the dirt and his backpack the only signs that anyone had ever been here.
“Done.”
“Thank you so much,” Diana said fervently, the pinkness in her cheeks and thin sheen of sweat on her forehead from all the exertion almost making her glow. She bit her lip.
“Um, so, are you going to hop in?”
He blinked. “Hop in?”
“I mean, I can’t just let you go wandering around when I spilled lemonade all over you,” Diana said, her words getting faster and starting to run together.
“The least I can do is take you home and get your shirt off. I mean,” she stuttered, her cheeks turning a more interesting shade of pink, “please come back to my place and get yourself washed off. Then I’ll let you go.
It’s not like you’ll be a prisoner or anything.
Ha ha! I mean… that wasn’t meant to sound like a threat.
Because it wasn’t! I promise! You know, I think I’m just going to stop talking now. ”
Calvin stared, feeling the slightest hint of burning in his own cheeks – was this what it felt like to blush? – and somewhere behind him, he thought he heard Ash give the tiniest of sighs. It was the most rebellious thing Calvin had heard out of him yet.
Poor kid, he thought. We should put him out of his misery.
Diana fidgeted, looking like she wanted the earth to swallow her up.
And Calvin wanted to take her up on the offer – really, there was nothing in the world he wanted more.
But if he got in the car, it would potentially die a swift and brutal death. And he wasn’t about to do that to her.
As his eyes flickered down to the windows, he recognized his salvation.
“I don’t think I’d fit,” he said.
And it was true – it was a small car to begin with, and it was now packed to the brim with lemonade-making paraphernalia. Throw in his not inconsiderable height, and the massive backpack he was carrying… there was no way they were all fitting in.
Tell her that you will fly her and her progeny and animal companion back to her domicile! the wyvern roared. Do it, or doom us both to live in the eternal purgatory of a mateless existence!
I shall do no such thing, he snapped, even as the idea did hold a strange allure.
He definitely didn’t want to miss out on his chance with Diana… but he also didn’t want to freak her out and cause the locals to report him to animal control. That didn’t feel like a good way to potentially start a relationship.
Maybe I can ask her to meet up later, he thought. Like a date.
The wyvern, at least, seemed to perk up at that thought.
“Oh…” Diana, on the other hand, was looking a lot more crestfallen about the idea that he wouldn’t fit in the car than the wyvern was.
She leaned into the car, shoving at a few of the boxes in a way that wasn’t very effective at creating any kind of space.
“I…I could shuffle some things around… I mean, Bella has to go in the back as well, but I’m sure we could…
well, I mean, maybe… or the backpack could –”
“It’s really not a problem,” Calvin said – and honestly, it was actually a bit of a relief to have a legitimate excuse not to get in the car. “I can just walk – I walked here, after all, and I’m pretty sure I can find my way with directions.”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t ask you to do that,” Diana stuttered out after a moment of staring at him.
“It’s really no trouble, I promise – well, less trouble than rearranging your entire car would be,” Calvin assured her.
“Well… if you’re really sure, we actually don’t live far from here at all,” Diana said slowly, still looking at him as if she couldn’t quite tell if he was being for real.
“The only reason I took the car is because we had so much to carry. You could walk to our house in under ten minutes.” She hesitated. “If you’d like to, that is.”
He could almost see her thoughts: Does he not want to come back with me? Am I making it too awkward for him to turn down my offer?
That decided it. He wasn’t about to miss out on getting to know his mate better because the two of them were both too concerned about stepping on the other one’s toes.
He smiled.
“If you’d both like to have me around, I would love nothing more than to come visit.”
Diana visibly relaxed, her shoulders sagging a little as a smile broke out over her face. Ash nodded slightly. Bella gave his hand a slobbery lick.
“That settles that, then,” Diana said briskly, falling back into her earlier no-nonsense attitude. “It’s really easy – just follow the sidewalk until you get to the house with the yellow fence and the long driveway. You’ll probably only get there a couple of minutes after we do.”
Calvin nodded and gave them all a brief wave as they piled into the car.
On the outside, he looked like the picture of calm – or, at least, he hoped he did.
On the inside, his heart was beating at about a million miles per minute.
My mate. I’ve found her. I’m going to go spend time with her.
The day had suddenly gotten a whole lot better.