Page 29 of Free to Dream
“How” I demand. “How do you bring this up in a conversation without destroying something so new, it hasn’t even been defined yet? I haven’t even gotten her to agree to go out on a date with me. I had to bargain with her for a phone call.”
Matt smiles and shakes his head at me. He reaches into his apron before grabbing a note pad and pen. He scribbles something quickly on it. So quickly, that if I didn’t know his former profession was being a doctor, I would be able to tell just by the way he’s writing. I just hope I can read whatever it is.
Matt tears off the sheet and hands it to me. Then he stands and holds out his hand.
Standing, I shake his automatically. “Try that. I have faith in my girl. A pleasure to meet you, Caleb. Drop by any time.”
He ambles away, back to the kitchen, before I read what he wrote.
I recognize it’s a quote from Thomas Paine.
“The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.”
On the other side of the paper, he wrote, “You’ll figure it out.”
I fold the scrap and put it with the one Cassidy wrote earlier in my wallet before walking out of the coffee shop.
10
Cassidy
Caleb, as promised, called me that night.
It was the first time a man outside of my family called me for any reason other than work.
When the phone first rang, I stared at it like it was a snake. It almost went to voicemail before I picked it up.
After a few minutes of stilted conversation, Caleb decided to let me know he was going to download a romance novel to his Kindle.
I laughed at him.
“What? I need to be able to get inside your mind, Cassidy. I need a playbook of sorts. Don’t these things help a guy out?” he teased.
I think I might have crushed him when I told him that the real reason we read them was because of the hot guys on the cover.
We spent the next few minutes debating whether or not Caleb would get disowned if he decided to take up cover modeling as a profession.
By the end, I was laughing and recommending a few romantic suspense books I didn’t think would traumatize him for life.
They also didn’t have models on the cover.
“So, Cassidy, given any more thought to what I asked earlier?” Caleb tries to sound nonchalant, but I can hear the cautious optimism in his voice.
Friday night. A date. Any more thought? How about all my thoughts?
I hear a low chuckle.
“Crap, did I say that out loud?” I can feel the blood rushing to my face, I’m so mortified.
Caleb laughs harder.
I desperately search the room, trying to find anything to extract myself from this humiliation, and find the clock. “Oh, look at the time. I have to get some sleep. I guess I better go.”
Still chuckling, Caleb says, “Wait, Pixie. Hold on a second. I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing because it’s all I’ve thought about all day too.”
I pull the phone away from my ear and stare at it. Seriously?
“Oookay.” I have no comeback to that.
