Dirty Thoughts - Megan Erickson Page 0,41
certificates or get businesses to offer free services. As a way of giving back.”
She actually hadn’t thought that far yet, but it was a great idea. “Like a raffle.”
“Yeah. I’ll donate a free inspection or tune-up or something.”
“Really?”
“ ’Course.”
She smiled. “Wow, thanks. That’s a great idea.”
“I’m sure you would have come up with it on your own.”
She shrugged. “Maybe, but you saved me the brainpower.”
He laughed. “Don’t count on that happening too often, Sunshine.”
She reached out and laced her fingers with his, squeezing, as she held her tongue so she didn’t bring up the future.
“Did you miss Tory while you were in New York?” he asked softly, his eyes on their clasped hands.
She thought about that. “Sometimes. I’m not sure it ever felt like home. I was kind of a long-term visitor. It was odd being back in Tory, but now that I’m here, I feel . . . more like myself again. Does that make sense?”
He nodded slowly, his gaze still on their hands, his thumb rubbing hers. “I do think it makes sense.”
“And the older I get, the less I feel like pretending to be something I’m not.”
He didn’t say anything to that. His brow was furrowed, and she let him think. She took a sip of her coffee, felt the caffeine invade her system, and held Cal’s hand like this wasn’t the last day she’d get to touch him.
Like there wasn’t a past. Like there wasn’t a future. Only today.
Chapter Thirteen
THEY HAD LUNCH at an ice cream place that sold burgers, two for three dollars. High school kids worked there, faces flushed from the heat and the rush of a summer paycheck.
The umbrella over the picnic table shielded them from the sun as they ate the greasy burgers and dipped their hand-cut fries in ketchup. Cal told Jenna about Brent’s latest hook-up, a woman who ended up being nineteen rather than the twenty-nine she’d told him, which Brent only learned about when her roommates tried to wake her up before the dining hall on the community college campus closed.
Brent wasn’t amused.
Cal was. And Jenna laughed.
The Cal who sat across from her was a far cry from the tense man she’d seen at the garage that first week she’d been in town. This Cal smiled and laughed and didn’t press his lips into a thin, irritated line.
They sat there for two hours, drinking Cokes with melted ice, as Jenna told him about the job she had in New York. He listened intently, and she believed he truly cared about her professional success. That’s what she’d missed in New York. Hell, that was what she missed now—a partner who was as invested in her life as she was.
But as the conversation wound down, she pushed those thoughts aside. She’d be fine for a while. She knew how to be single and content. Or at least, she used to know how to be. Now, all she felt was this ache in her heart, this looming deadline when Cal would no longer be hers.
In one day, he’d seemed to erase the confidence she had that she was over him.
She’d never be over him, she realized. She’d have to learn to live with that.
When they hopped back on his bike, they didn’t head toward the direction of her house, and she didn’t ask why or what or where. She wrapped her arms around his waist and burrowed against the soft fabric of her own T-shirt that covered his back, and she enjoyed the ride, the vibration under her, the scent of Cal.
When they pulled down a dirt road, she raised her head, peering through the visor of the helmet he’d insisted she wear.
In front of her was a small two-story wood home. Cal’s old truck sat in the driveway, and a warmth spread through her chest.
He’d brought her to his home. He wanted her to see it. When he stepped off the bike and helped her, he didn’t meet her eyes, and she understood he was a little nervous to show her. She laid a hand on his forearm. “I like your house.”
He squinted at it, like he was trying to picture it through her eyes. “Yeah, me too. It needs work, but it’s private, and it’s better than the apartment I shared with Brent.”
He took her hand led her inside. The place looked utterly masculine, with beige walls and neutral furniture, but there were a lot of touches that were uniquely Cal—a series of family photographs in the hall, a cluster