Chapter 14
Fourteen
“Why didn’t you stop me from nearly hugging a stranger?” I asked once I’d sat.
Caleb’s eyes were bright with laughter. “Would you have stopped me?”
The rough timbre of his voice was the same, as was the startling gray of his eyes, much more obvious now that they weren’t
hidden behind glasses. I always thought some people looked better in glasses, and I would have pinpointed Caleb to be one
of those people before today. “No,” I admitted.
“There you have it. We both agree the opportunity was too good to pass up.”
“But your hat! He was wearing the hat you wore every single day your senior year.”
A waiter came by and silently presented the menu. The staff here mimed their communication unless otherwise needed, one of
the quirks of this place. I pointed at their version of a greyhound cocktail. While Caleb scanned the menu, I let my eyes
rake over him, trying to figure out what else I’d forgotten. He liked picking pepperoni off my pizza, he could run a mile
in less than seven minutes, he was freakishly good at drawing spotted turtles. Further back, he had taken forever to figure
out how to ride a bike without training wheels, but had been embarrassed about it, so his parents would bring him to the high
school track in the next town over to practice.
The waiter nodded and disappeared after Caleb pointed to his drink choice.
Caleb tapped his empty water glass. “Nerves make me thirsty.”
I raised a brow. “That bad, huh?”
“How could I not be freaking out a little?” Somewhere during the last decade-plus, my mind had misplaced the way his left lower lip pulled
in when he smiled, the right one curving. The way his face had looked, hovering above mine, washed in basement-egress-window
moonlight. We had been hazy with fatigue that last night, him nervous about leaving, me sad about being left, and the feelings
I’d snagged were so unexpected I had no idea what to make of them.
It was yearning. Teenage longing, sure, but a deep craving for another person I’d never experienced. As senior year fall bled
on, as I waited and waited for him to text or call or anything, as he answered my texts with brush-offs, I realized things really hadn’t gone smoothly, or without awkwardness. I learned
things are never truly good when you have to say we’re good, right?
At least I hadn’t forgotten how mad I’d been the last time I’d seen him, and most of the times I’d thought of him since.
“I was a little edgy before I almost hugged that guy,” I said. “Now I’m just flustered.”
Honesty had always been easy between us. It was a feeling I’d forgotten, the way you drive down a street you haven’t been
on but remember its crests, its bumps, the tactility of the pavement beneath the rubber. There was a time in my life when
I would tell this man anything. Everything. I could babble without fear, without worry he was going to judge me. All I’d wanted
then was for him to notice me as someone other than a childhood best friend, so I told him my fears and my wants and my irrationalities,
handing them to him with every exhale.
It was different once I was in an actual relationship, though it wasn’t that I lied to Wells.
It was that I handpicked what I revealed to him.
It felt like he’d accept anything I’d give, but part of me had been afraid that if I peeled back too many layers of myself, I’d flip our future like a traitorous backyard hammock.
“Where did you go just now?” Caleb asked.
“I was just remembering how I used to be afraid of the ocean at night.”
He laughed. “No, you weren’t,” he said. “That was me.”
Not how I remembered it, but I decided to let it slide. It was very strange to meet someone you already know. “How are your
parents?”
“Dad’s great. Still flying.” A divot appeared between his brows. “Mom is . . . the same. Trying to keep up with every Jones
on the planet. How are Sally and Harold?”
I once heard my mom call his mom the definition of a piece of work. The woman cared only about social status in a way that better befitted Wells’s family. “Same, too. Dad’s still fishing.”
“I miss them.” Caleb narrowed his eyes. “My tooth gap is gone. Is that what you’re staring at?”
I blushed. “I wasn’t—I didn’t know you wanted it fixed.”
“I didn’t,” Caleb said. “But my foolish college self sat on the trunk of my buddy’s parked car one night. Imagine my shock
when my face met the pavement.”
“No!” I shuddered. “Imagining teeth exiting mouths makes my insides freak out.”
“You and me both.”
My drink was pale yellow-pink, tall, in an icy glass with flecks of green mint. Sweet, acidic. Perfect. The waiter gave us
the kind of bow a barbershop quartet might bestow upon its audience. “What brought you to New York?” I asked, when what I
really wanted to say to this objectively handsome figure from my past: Who the hell sponsored your glow-up?
“My friend was moving out of his apartment, but didn’t want to break the lease, because—”
“Wait. Let me guess. Rent control?”
“The gift of New York,” Caleb confirmed. He steepled his fingers and rested his chin on them, an act that nearly sprang tears
into my eyes. It was his old thinking-face, the one he’d adopt at my kitchen table when we were figuring out what to do, in
the library while studying, or at the downtown café if he was going to spout off some nerdy thing or another. It was something
I hadn’t consciously noticed back then, but now all I could see was the past catching up to me, though this time his jawline
sported an impressive amount of scruff.
I mentally flipped through what to say, until I landed on something safe. “Tell me about this magical bite of taco you had
in LA?”
He raised his hands in surrender. “Green chiles. Paper-wrapped tortillas. I could move back just for those, but talking about
food someone else isn’t tasting might be boring.”
“Move back?”
Caleb nodded. “Went to grad school out there.”
“What’d you study?”
He reddened. “I got my PhD in Archival Studies.”
“You’re kidding.” I arched a brow. “And what does one do with that?”
“I work at the Museum of Natural History.”
“You do? I love that place.” Natalie and I used to go all the time, especially after the last Ben Stiller movie in the trilogy
came out. Then we’d get tea and croissants at Malvo’s, which used a special Greek butter that made us want to lie down in
bliss. My stomach rumbled. “What do you do there?”
“I’m a curator.”
“You are?”
He nodded, his eyes crinkling in the corners.
“What do you specialize in?”
“Mostly ocean-related exhibits. If we do a series on import-exports and ports, I’ll run an exhibition on the kinds of goods that were traded.
When we did a history of widows’ walks, I set up old sea captain artwork and got a mock walk built for people to try themselves.
We did a collab with the science museum on the breakdown of chemicals in ocean water a couple years ago that was pretty popular. ”
“I remember it!” I sat back against the booth. “I can’t believe that was you. It sounds like it was made for you, even though
my mental picture of a curator is admittedly one of stereotypical grandparent-style professors.”
“I’m not grandpa demographic just yet.” He hitched a sip of his drink, letting it mull in his mouth before he swallowed. “My
trajectory was lucky. I hit it kind of big in the alt-academic circles when I made a TED Talk about pairing up oceanographers
and historians to counteract climate change a while back, so I became their younger-guy recruit.”
“That’s impressive.” I made a mental note to find his TED Talk.
He waved his hand. “Your turn. Tell me exactly how one becomes the face of the biggest sea change in our working memory?”
“One point for your pun. And I’ll tell you once I figure it out,” I said. “It’s been the weirdest U-turn of my life thanks
to a huge disruption to our working world order. Definitively knowing who your soulmate is . . . just never felt like something
that could happen.”
“Yep. It’s removed free choice from the equation. Unless you choose not to open it.” Caleb tipped his head toward the not-Caleb
I’d approached at the top of our evening. “And now you’re a household name for guys like hat boy over there.”
Free choice was exactly why mine was left unread. “I have to assume that’ll blow over,” I said, shrugging.
He leaned forward. “You mean when the Soulmails end?”
I shook my head slowly. “I don’t know what’s going to happen with those. No one does.”
“But you really think they’re real?”
I hesitated, thinking about Dola and Trent. About Samantha and her sweet little baby. The government confirmations. “I didn’t.
And then things started happening—coincidences that got too big. To people I know personally. I witnessed two people finding
out about one another, for one.”
He nodded. “Two of my coworkers, too. It was the thing that made me start to question it not being a scam.”
I took a deep breath and continued. “The government confirmation was a huge one. They were frank about what they were able
to confirm and what they still don’t know. The whole thing is surreal, to be honest, but that’s where we’re at.”
“I guess it’s where the whole world is at. We’re living history.”
“Good for your career.”
“Definitely got the art-imitating-life thing going on. And yeah, we’re already collecting stuff for a living exhibit.”
“I bet.” I paused. “And you still haven’t opened yours?”
“Never going to. You?”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to know. Besides, I’m pretty sure I’m my own soulmate at this point.”
“Better that than Micah Kimiko’s,” he said. “I saw your interview with that guy who ditched the NDA?”
I nodded. “That was wild. Our trust index went way up after that, too.”
“Jeez. Trust index.” He tilted his head. “I never pictured you growing up to become a national news personality.”
I squeezed my glass. “How’s your trust index scoring that one?”
“It might be rising.” He clanked his drink on the table, his face tightening. “But I have a confession to make.”
My heart thudded. Here it was. Our sticky point.
It was the thing that no one wanted to do: take that wrong turn down memory lane.
He’d explain why his mother had closed the door in my face that Thanksgiving weekend, why he’d let this massive divide come between us after we’d made one mistake after a childhood spent together. “Oh?”
Redness crept along his neck, ringing his black T-shirt. “After seeing you on TV this week, I sort of Googled you.”
I swallowed. “How does one sort of Google?” I winced at my attempt to joke, but my mouth kept going. “Did you use Yahoo, or
Bing, or—”
“AOL, obviously,” he shot back. His eyes crinkled. He traced a line on the table. “I saw that first viral video you made.
Also, you’re a fashion icon right now, you know that? And . . . I saw an engagement site.” He reached across the table and
rubbed his fingertip on the bridge of my empty ring finger. “But I don’t see a ring.”
His touch sent a crackle of energy up my arm. My breathing quickened, and I fought to regulate it. My new life was a definite
distraction from what could have been my future, but my insides still felt blistered and hollow when I thought of my previous
one.
Even with the looming wedding episode, I’d publicly given zero acknowledgment or affirmation of my breakup since Soulmail
dropped. My breakup was precisely that—mine. I hadn’t posted a picture of Wells since our ill-fated Fourth of July weekend a few weeks ago, and I’d hidden my hand in
my new posts. I’d hoped our relationship would just fade into the night. It didn’t feel like news.
I made a low sound in my throat. “There isn’t one. Anymore.”
His mouth parted.
“I took the site down a few days ago,” I said quietly. “It’s over. It imploded—we did.”
“Because of all this? Does he have a different soulmate or something?”
I shook my head. “Natural causes.” Cambrey Coyle x Wells Stratton, a collaboration that doomed my future.
“There were articles speculating about the two of you. He’s some kind of . . . heir?”
Air huffed from my nose. “He wishes. But not exactly. He’s a child of new money. His dad’s the bigshot in the family. And
I’m his ex-fiancée, though my work doesn’t know the ex part. Yet.”
Caleb studied me. “I’m sorry.”
I twisted my mouth as if to say, that’s life. “So am I. Wedding was supposed to be in five months. Just—” I shook my head. “Unexpected.”
He shifted. “I hope you’re okay. You already back on dating apps?”
Okay. The word spun in the center of my chest. I brimmed with so much. My nerve endings were raw, my mind pinging on memories
that shook out like seasoning. Like Honey O’s box tops. “Ha,” I said weakly. “I’m interviewing that HeartString guy tomorrow,
actually.” I paused. “And, yeah, I’m okay. I’m moving on—and moving out of Nat’s soon, too.”
“Did you get the new place?”
I nodded. “Well. Hopefully. I applied for one near Gramercy Park.”
“No kidding! I’m five blocks from there. Near Union Square, before you get to the Strand. Let me know if you get it.”
He launched into a story involving his moving truck breaking down on the GW bridge—he was stuck on it for ten hours, which freaked me out almost as much as his teeth-meeting-pavement story.
We split a mezze platter overflowing with whipped feta and two kinds of olive tapenades and roasted red pepper hummus.
To my surprise, I found that I was laughing so hard and for so long that I decided to let myself have this.
I wouldn’t ruin it by ripping into what drew us apart.
At the end of the night, we waited outside for our separate rides, which was how I figured out that he’d had a growth spurt
sometime after high school. “How the hell did you get so tall?” I asked.
“HGH,” he said.
“Seriously?”
“Nah. I blossomed once I left my parents’ house.”
“Ouch,” I said wryly.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something all night.”
I tilted my head. Here it was. “Yeah?”
He bent low, bracing himself on my shoulder so we were eye-to-eye. “Why did you order that drink if you hate grapefruit?”
A laugh sprang from my throat. “That is not the direction I thought you were going here.” I straightened. “But if you must know, it wasn’t grapefruit I hated. It was
the fact that my mother ate half of one every morning with a serrated spoon and only allowed herself to put sugar on it once
a week.”
“God bless the two-thousands.” He paused. “I don’t want this to end.”
A pang in my chest. “This?”
“Tonight. Us. It’s great to catch up. Dinner soon?”
“I’d like that,” I said. Next time, I’d dig into our past. “I can’t believe you’ve gone and grown up on me, Caleb.”
“I could say the same, Livi.”
Livi. The use of my nickname curled against my spine like the warm embers of a coal fire.