Page 45 of A Moment In Time

Booker rolled down his window. “Is everything okay?”

Gage nodded. “Yeah.”

Clementine got out of the passenger seat and walked around the front of the vehicle, then Booker continued down the street to the sheriff’s office.

Clementine sat next to Gage. “What’s wrong?”

“Why do you think something is wrong?”

“You’re sitting out here on the bench instead of working. And you look sad.”

“I am sad. Sydney just quit.”

“Her job?”

“Yeah.”

Clementine turned toward him. “Why?”

Gage shrugged. “It wasn’t me this time. Not directly, anyway. Apparently, she has feelings for me. Like, you know. Feelings.”

“Right. We all know, Gage.”

He looked at her. “You all know?”

“Of course. We’ve just been waiting for you to figure it out. She just decided to tell you?”

“Well, yeah. After she kissed me last night.”

Clementine got to her feet. “She kissed you?”

“Yeah. It was weird and unexpected, and I wasn’t sure what to say to her. So she got all embarrassed. And now she wants to quit.”

“Maybe she’ll get over it. This is just a gut reaction to the kiss.”

“I don’t think so. I think she means it. She’s tired of waiting for me to come around.”

Clementine sat back down. “How do you feel about her?”

“I don’t know. I think if I was in a place in my life where I was ready to start something. She’d be the one I’d want to start it with.”

“That means you like her.”

“But I’m not in that place. There’s too much other stuff going on. I don’t understand how you and Booker, Remy and Bryn, and Pax and Elaina all managed to fit a relationship into your lives. You’re all just as busy as I am.”

She patted his knee. “You don’t fit it in. You let it in. And everything else fits around it. The relationship is the priority. That’s the only way it can work.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think I’m made the same way as you are.”

Clementine put a hand on his chest. “You’re a Calaway. And this right here is a Calaway heart. You are capable of loving someone, just like the rest of us. You just need to let go and let it happen.”

“With Sydney?”

“With anyone. But Sydney would be a very good choice.”

He leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Clementine rubbed his back. “Nothing is wrong with you. Have I helped at all?”

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