by Liz Isaacson
“Uh, yeah. Unless you want Avery MacGuiver to get her hooks in him.”
“Oh, no. Not Avery.” Cami rolled her eyes. While Avery was one of the best singers in the church choir, that was about as far as her niceness went.
“See? You’d be saving him from an unsavory woman,” Carole Anne said. “But not if you don’t call him.” She sang the last two words, and Cami couldn’t help laughing with her.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll call him.”
“When?”
Carole Anne knew her too well. “I don’t know.”
“Tonight.”
“Really? Tonight?” It was Friday night. What would he think of her calling then? Would it show him she had nothing going on? What if he was out with someone else and didn’t answer?
“I think tomorrow,” she said.
“Nope,” Carole Anne said. “I think you should call him tonight. Think of it as a challenge.”
“This is not kick-boxing,” she said.
Carole Anne laughed again. “You’re always beating me at that,” she said. “And I’d like to see you squirm for once.”
“Carole Anne.”
“Call him tonight,” she said.
Valentine kept walking, oblivious to the argument happening around him. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll call him tonight.”
A couple of hours later, she sat on her back deck, thank you very much, and clutched her phone in tight fingers. It was barely five o’clock, and she wondered if Dylan was even off of work yet.
Her backyard could probably be mowed one more time before autumn took completely over, and she thought about doing that. Maybe weeding the north side of the house. Maybe going down to the animal shelter and getting a dog.
Anything to keep herself busy until it was too late to call Dylan.
All at once, an idea hit her. “The church.” There was always something going on over at the red brick building on the weekends. Even if it was the knitting club, it would keep her fingers busy, keep them away from the phone icon on her screen.
Why was it so hard for her to admit she wanted to call Dylan? She lifted her phone and tapped on the texts they’d exchanged. She sure liked texting better than calling, but he’d called her and she felt like she owed him more of a response.
So she tapped on the call icon and lifted the phone to her ear.
Chapter Seven
Lord Vader barked on the other side of the door, and Boone’s muted chuckle came through the door. A second later, the door swung in and Lord Vader, a very solid yellow lab, came barreling onto the porch, his whip-like tail whapping against the porch railing and then Dylan’s leg.
“Hey, buddy. Hey.” Dylan laughed as he scrubbed the dog down. He glanced up at Boone. “Cubs tonight.” He lifted the six-pack of Mountain Dew he’d brought. “It’s been a long week. I think I might drink all of these myself.”
Boone stepped back, his eyes searching Dylan’s. “Rough week? I thought you won the Saddleback bid.”
“I did.” Dylan stepped into Boone’s house, Lord Vader right at his side. The dog panted, perpetually wearing a smile that Dylan couldn’t resist. He felt all the negativity that had been swirling inside his mind and staining his mood lift away. Maybe he should get a dog.
Then he’d have to move, as his building didn’t allow pets. Dylan thought, not for the first time, that perhaps it was time for him to settle down. Buy a house. Find someone to live in it with him.
His job was pretty stable now, especially after Asher had said he’d train Dylan through every aspect of his duties, and Dylan sighed as he put the soda on Boone’s kitchen counter.
“So why the rough week?”
Dylan gave his best friend a look and reached for a piece of all-meat pizza. “My mom said to invite you to dinner on Sunday.”
“Can—?”
“Yes, Nicole is invited.” Dylan tried not to sound upset about it. He wasn’t, not really. He went into the living room and sat on the couch. Boone followed with the entire pizza box and all the soda.
“So this is a woman problem,” he said as he sat on the other end of the couch. The baseball game Dylan had come to watch was already on the TV in front of them.
Dylan had never kept his dating disasters a secret from Boone, and he didn’t see a reason to this time either. “Yeah, this is a woman problem.” He slid a glance at Boone, who cracked the lid on a can of soda with a crackling hiss!
“I sort of, maybe, went out with Camila Cruz earlier this week.”
Boone tried to breathe while he was drinking, which resulted in a coughing choke that took several seconds for him to clear from his throat. “Dude, some warning would’ve been nice.” He wiped the front of his shirt, where some soda had spilled. “This is a new shirt.”
“I said it was a woman problem.” Dylan handed him another paper towel, a bit of amusement running through him at Boone’s stained shirt.
Boone tossed the paper towel down. “How do you ‘sort of, maybe’ go out with someone?”
“She took my number, wouldn’t give me hers, and hasn’t texted or called me since.” Dylan sighed and slumped back into the couch. “I did call her, but just got her voicemail.”
“How long has this been going on?” Boone swiped off the cowboy hat he wore all the time and ran his fingers through his hair before putting it back on.
“Since Tuesday.”
“And I’m just hearing about it?”
“I didn’t want to bother you.”
“Dylan,” Boone said in his not-this-again voice. But instead of telling him he was welcome anytime, that Nicole didn’t mind, blah blah blah, he said, “I thought you didn’t like Camila Cruz. She’s the plumber, right?”
“I don’t, I mean, yeah, she’s the plumber, and she’s….” Truth was, he’d never looked Cami’s way because of their first altercation. But maybe he’d misjudged her. Maybe he simply thought she was pretty.
“You like her,” Boone said. “When did that happen?”
“Maybe on Monday?” Dylan guessed. “I don’t know. She was putting in a bid when I was, and she was the only friendly face there, and…I just—I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her since.”
Boone handed him a can of soda. “So you maybe went out with her on Tuesday, when you won the bid.”
“She won too, for Rogers Plumbing.”
“Oh, good for them.”
Boone was completely missing the point. “We have nothing in common.” He heard the words in her voice, and the soda tasted like weak tea. “She even said so, and today, at the build site, she was all crabby with me. Like we hadn’t even driven to Amarillo, or eaten her gourmet veggie-only pizza, or held hands on the way back.”
“Whoa, hand-holding on the first date.”
Dylan ignored him. He’d always moved faster than Boone had—at least until he’d met Nicole. Boone had fallen fast then.
He stared at the TV, not even seeing who was up to bat or who was pitching. He wasn’t sure how Cami had penetrated his life so quickly. First, he was giving up meat on pizza and now he didn’t care about baseball.
“Maybe you should call her,” Boone said.
Was he not listening? “I already have. She didn’t answer, nor did she call back.” He popped the K on the last word, proud of himself for using a word like “nor” too.
“You have an emergency after-hours number for the plumber. Who do you think answers that?” Boone reached for his laptop, which sat on the coffee table where Dylan rested his feet.
“I don’t know,” Dylan said.
“Let’s find out.” Boone clicked and typed, a smile taking over his whole face in a way that Dylan found half annoying and half hopeful.
He turned the computer toward Dylan. “One way to find out.”
“I’m not calling that.” Dylan looked at the screen though, the numbers right there for their twenty-four-hour service line.
“Your loss,” Boone said, stretching his feet out in front of him and f
ocusing on the TV. He even closed the laptop and put it on the coffee table. “I really hate the Cubs.”
“Yeah, me too,” Dylan said, his thoughts still revolving around Cami and sneaking through a back door to talk to her tonight.
He didn’t notice the outs, the strikes, the home runs. Nothing. Maybe an hour passed before Boone said, “Call her. You’re no fun when you’re not even paying attention to the game.” He stood up and stretched. “You want to keep the dogs?”
“What?” Dylan glanced up at him.
“I’ve asked you about ten questions.” Boone grinned at him. “Call. Her.” He fished his keys out of his pocket. “And keep Vader for a couple of nights.” He started for the door.
“Wait.” Dylan jumped to his feet and followed his best friend toward the exit. “Are we going out to Three Rivers tomorrow?”
“I’m renovating the back room of the animal hospital.” He rolled his eyes. “The city provided the funding and says it needs to be done by the new year. Nicole and I are just getting it done as fast as we can.”
“All right,” Dylan said, wondering if Cami ever rode a horse. Being from Amarillo and all, she’d surely be at least a bit familiar with the animals.
Boone left, and Dylan really couldn’t concentrate after that. All he wanted to do was hear Cami’s voice and sit across from her as she told him about the old specs and how so much of her time had been wasted.
His heart squeezed. He’d have been so mad if he’d been operating on outdated plans and lost the time he could’ve used to take care of other jobs.
“Come on, buddy,” he said to the dog. “Let’s go for a walk.” He leashed Vader and snuck him down the stairwell and out onto the street, leaving his phone sitting on the coffee table.
He made it about a block before he wanted to go back. While autumn had arrived, the air was still oppressively hot and while Dylan didn’t mind hard work, he also didn’t appreciate walking dogs.
“Oh, they’re so cute,” a woman said, causing Dylan to blink to focus on the one in front of him.
She crouched down in front of Vader, who licked her face as if she were a delicious ice cream cone. But Dylan knew Ebony Price, and she was only sweet to a point—usually until she found out how much money someone had.
She’d never targeted Dylan, and he wondered if she really was just happening by or not. She straightened, and she was wearing workout clothing—yoga pants and a tight lycra tank top. Her hair was back in a ponytail, and earbuds dangled from her ears.
Pulling them out, she said, “What’s his name?”
“Vader.” Dylan looked at her, trying to be attracted to Ebony, at least a little bit.
He felt nothing.
He wanted to call Cami now, more badly than ever. “Come on, Vader,” he said, pulling on the dog’s leash. “We’ve got to go.” He put as much kindness into his smile as he could. “Sorry, just getting him out for a minute before I meet someone.”
“Oh, okay.” Ebony played with the end of her ponytail and didn’t move out of his way. So Dylan turned around and went back toward his apartment, every step urging him to go faster and get back to his phone quicker.
“You can’t have that animal in here,” Mrs. Charles called to him from down the hall as he hurried Vader toward his apartment.
“I’m just here for a minute,” he called back, fumbling with the doorknob. Inside his apartment, he filled a bowl with cold water for Vader and picked up his phone to check if he’d missed any messages or calls.
Of course he hadn’t. Why did he want to talk to Cami so badly when she obviously didn’t feel the same?
“One way to find out,” he said, echoing something Boone had said earlier. Dylan flipped open his laptop and punched in the number for the after-hours plumbing line, hoping he wasn’t making the biggest mistake of his life.
Chapter Eight
Cami’s phone rang with the tweet-twirp! of a forwarded call. Someone’s toilet was out on a Friday night. Great. Just great.
She sighed as she reached for the phone on the edge of the bathtub, where she’d retreated after chickening out and not even letting her phone connect to Dylan’s.
“Rogers Plumbing,” she said in the most business-like voice she could muster while in a bubble bath.
“You’re kind of hard to track down, you know that?”
Cami’s heart beat triple-time and water sloshed as she sat straight up. “Dylan?”
“I have a leak at my place,” he said, his voice on the outer edge of flirtatious.
She relaxed back into the tub, a smile playing with her mouth too. “You do not.”
He sighed, any playfulness that had been there before gone now. “No, I don’t. I just…hey, so what happened today?”
Cami pressed her eyes closed as the way she’d treated him replayed behind her closed lids. She’d been a jerk today, that was what had happened. But she’d wasted half her day digging those wells, and the rental fee for the excavator had been several hundred dollars. Several hundred dollars she couldn’t get back.
Still, she needed to learn how to control her temper. “I’m sorry,” she said. “That wasn’t my finest moment.” She started to slip in the tub and she sat up, pushing the water dangerously close to her device.
“What was that noise?” he asked.
“Nothing.” Her face heated at the very thought of him knowing she was in the tub. “This was an emergency call, you know.”
“I was in crisis.”
“Oh?”
“I…miss you.”
Cami didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t possibly miss her. They’d barely spent any time together before the bid on Monday, and they’d gone to dinner once. For a few hours.
She shook her head, though that didn’t translate over the phone. He couldn’t possibly miss her. Could he?
“What are you doing tonight?” he asked.
She glanced down at the bubbles drifting across the surface of her bathwater. “Nothing.”
“Want to do nothing with me?”
She did, but not this kind of nothing. “I need a few minutes to get ready.” More than a few, but maybe he wasn’t available—
“I’m on my way over.”
“I—no—” But the line had gone dead, leaving her in the bathtub holding the phone.
A beat of silence filled the bathroom, the house, her soul. Then she flew into action, standing in one swift motion and sending water flowing over the edge of the tub and onto the floor. She nearly went down when she stepped onto the wet tile, but she gripped the vanity and managed to keep herself upright.
Her hair dripped down her back, and she needed a lot more than a few minutes to be ready, especially if she was going to go anywhere with a man. Let alone Dylan, who was a man among men.
Thinking fast, she wrapped herself in a towel and used the only thing she had to buy herself some time: her phone.
She’d wanted to text Dylan every night after work since their date on Tuesday. She’d turned the device off to keep herself from staying up all night, texting and giggling like a teenager.
She texted him now, though. I need thirty minutes to be ready.
And even that was a stretch with the current state of her hair—and her house. Should she invite him to come in? Make him wait in his truck? It did have leather seats….
Maybe I can meet you somewhere?
Fact or false: you’re blowing me off.
False. I just need more time to be ready. I’ll meet you anywhere you want.
Downtown park. We can walk around the duck pond. I’ll bring you something.
Her stomach fell at what he’d bring. A dog? A sandwich? Something could be anything, but Cami couldn’t dwell on that right now. She had an outfit to choose and hair to dry and the exact right pair of shoes to find for walking around the duck pond.
Fact: She needed more than thirty minutes.
But she couldn’t be late, so she flung open her closet door and reached for the clothes closest
to her.
She left her house forty minutes later, which meant she was already late to meet Dylan at the downtown pond. Didn’t matter. Ten minutes later, she found him sitting on a bench on the edge of the park, a leashed yellow lab panting at his feet.
“Hey,” she rushed forward, glad she’d gone with the more sensible footwear of her white leather sandals. She’d paired them with a pair of white shorts and a navy blue blouse. She’d managed to pull her hair into a low, slicked ponytail so it didn’t matter that some of it was still damp.
“Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?” He stood and moved toward her, taking her right into his arms. He dipped his head and inhaled. “Mm, you smell like my favorite kind of soap.”
She couldn’t help the giggle that escaped her lips. “What kind of soap is that?”
“Whatever kind you use.” He pulled back and grinned at her, taking her hand in one of his and picking up the dog’s leash with the other.
“One of Boone’s?” she asked.
“This is Lord Vader, and yeah, he belongs to Boone. He lets me take him when I’m—” He cut off suddenly, and Cami looked at him to find him gazing across the grass. “He lets me take him sometimes.” Dylan ducked his head, a vulnerability about him that made Cami see a side of him she hadn’t before.
She’d seen it on Tuesday too. It was the vulnerability, the softness of him, that had prompted her to maintain her distance. She could see herself falling for him way too fast, and that simply couldn’t happen.
At least she didn’t think it could, but as they strolled in the setting sun, finally reaching the duck pond on the far end of the park. With the water glinting on their left, and the soft panting sound of a dog beside them, she wondered why she couldn’t be with him.
They didn’t work together. She wouldn’t lose her job if they broke up.
Maybe it’s time to think about dating again, she thought. She’d been so closed off to the idea, it took a long time for the door to open, and even when it did, a loud, creaking sound reverberated through her mind.