“In that case…” Joslyn took off her seatbelt. “You’ve got yourself a date.”
*
Two glasses of wine and a filet mignon later, Joslyn looked much more relaxed as she told Caleb about the two problem children in her preschool class, trying to sound exasperated but failing miserably.
“And so I had to separate them for the rest of the day. Over a crayon!”
Caleb grinned. “What did you do with the crayon?”
“I hid it in my desk. Not that it helped, because at recess they argued over a rock someone found on the ground, and at lunch there was a dispute over who got to sit at the end of the table. And I finally figured out that their first argument hadn’t been about the crayon at all. Henry was upset because Jared said his Mickey Mouse backpack was for babies. So I had them talk it out, and by dismissal they were best friends again. We’ll see how long that lasts.”
He chuckled at Joslyn’s skeptical tone.
Her eyes went wide. “Oh my God. I just realized how long I’ve been babbling. You shouldn’t have let me go on for so long.”
“I was enjoying it. It sounds like you’re a great teacher.”
She went red—two patches in the middle of her cheeks that were…cute. “I’m only doing my job.”
The real problem is, there’s no spark. I saw the way you looked at that woman, and you were not thinking about banging her.
Caleb gulped down some wine, trying to drown Liv’s voice. Cute was a start. He could build on cute.
“Enough about me,” Joslyn said. “Tell me something about you.”
The standard getting-to-know-you question snapped him into hyperawareness. He sat up straighter, scanning all the way from the wood-paneled bar to the floor-to-ceiling windows in search of the threat he sensed, even as his mind told him it was coming from the woman sitting across from him. The woman who was probably expecting him to say something at some point this year. “I’m a detective. I joined the police department right out of college and worked my way up.”
“I know.” Joslyn took a sip of wine, but her gaze didn’t leave his. “Jen already filled me in on all the basic stuff. I want to know what you’re passionate about. What you want out of life.” She smiled at him, sweet as could be, even as her words made his stomach quiver. “Who you really are under that buttoned up shirt.”
He cleared his throat, trying to come up with something to say, because he didn’t feel passion. He didn’t let himself.
Except… “Family is the most important thing to me.”
Joslyn smiled at him encouragingly, and he forced himself to go on. He wanted a relationship, and sharing some of himself was part of that. “The thing is, I was an accident. My parents didn’t want kids. They never would’ve gotten married if I hadn’t come along, and I guess they figured they’d done their part by putting on those rings, because they didn’t bother doing much beyond providing me with food and shelter. I figured that was normal. But then I met the Vorettis. They were so loving. So involved in each other’s lives. They showed me what a family is supposed to be like. So that’s what I want. To be part of a family like that.”
Joslyn met his gaze in a moment of perfect understanding that calmed the frantic beating of his heart. “That’s what I want too. My parents divorced when I was young, and it was hard. I won’t do that to my children. When I get married, it’s going to be right. It’s going to be forever.”
For the first time, he could actually see it. A baby with his dark hair and eyes. With a wife like Joslyn, he wouldn’t have to worry about repeating his parents’ mistakes. She’d know what to say, what to do, to make sure their kids grew up knowing they were loved and cherished. So that they’d never question who they were the way Caleb did.
Joslyn reached across the table and threaded her fingers through his. He squeezed her hand, and for a brief moment all was right with the world. Then Joslyn spoke, breaking the fragile peace. “Why did you become a police officer?”
Because I needed to do something good with my life. Something to make sure I won’t end up like my parents. “I don’t know. I’d wanted to be one ever since I was a kid.” His throat tightened, working better than the Miranda to warn him to shut his mouth before he incriminated himself. He’d already shared more than enough.
“Yes, but…” She gave him that look that seemed to reach right inside his brain. “When my parents divorced, I felt abandoned by both of them. My teacher, Mrs. Katz, was the only constant in my life. That’s a big part of the reason I went into teaching. Because I wanted to nurture other children, the way she did me. Was it like that with you?”
The earth-toned walls of the restaurant pressed in on him. “It was just the standard story, I’m afraid. I wanted to help people.”
She didn’t look satisfied. “I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me.”
Damn it. He never should’ve told her about his parents. This was a first date, not a therapy session. “Of course there is. I have to leave some mysteries so you’ll come out with me again.”
In contrast to his forced smile, hers looked genuine. “Okay, here’s an easy question. Tell me your first memory.”
He clamped the lid down on his subconscious, but it was too late. The familiar memory was playing inside his head like the world’s most depressing home video. His mother’s face contorting into a grimace. Her shrill scream ripping into his father. I know you slept with her! Admit it!
He shook his head, throwing off the weight of the past. “The first thing worth talking about was when I started kindergarten. I’d forgotten my lunch, but Rafe’s mom had packed him twice what he could possibly eat, so he shared. We’ve been best friends ever since.”
“So that’s…what? Twenty years?”
“Yep.” He’d dodged the bullet, but he was still on edge, like it was about to ricochet back and finish him off. “Rafe and I spent almost as much time together as if we’d been brothers.”
“It sounds like you could’ve been a Voretti, as far as Antonio and Francesca are concerned. And I’m sure your parents felt the same way about Rafe.”
Aaaand there it was, coming back around for another pass.
“Mmmh.” He forced a grin even though his memories were anything but happy. His parents had barely known Rafe’s name. By unspoken agreement, he and Rafe had always hung out at the Voretti house. “Who was your best friend in Elementary school?” he asked, before Joslyn could get another question in.
“Sheryl Peterson. We were close all through high school, but she went to a college on the east coast and I went to San Diego University, and we lost touch.”
“You went to SDU?” He grabbed onto the safe subject like a life raft. “I did too.”
“Your parents must’ve been glad you stayed in the area. Mine were convinced that if I went to an out-of-state school I’d fall in love with the first guy I met, get married, and they’d only see me twice at year at holidays.”
He shrugged, fiddling with his collar, but it was still too tight. How were they back to his parents again?
“Did you live in the dorms or at home? My parents really wanted me to live at home, but I wanted to pretend I was all grown up.” Joslyn laughed self-consciously.
My parents didn’t care what I did as long as they weren’t paying for it.
He tried to respond, but the words he’d been going for came out as a grunt. He scanned the room for the waiter who had taken their dessert order. How long did it take to slice a couple of pieces of cheesecake? Apparently a while, because there was no sign of the man.
Joslyn was talking again. He couldn’t follow the words, but he knew by the way her voice rose at the end that she was asking another question. He reached for his wine glass, fingers twitching. He needed her to be quiet. Just one minute of peace so he could—
His phone rang, the standard tone like a chorus of angels. Joslyn fell silent.
He couldn’t answer it—only a real jerk would take a call in the middle of dinner a
t Michael Saka—but he retrieved it from his pocket as slowly as he could in an instinctive effort to buy himself a little time.
Livvy.
He’d put her number in his contact list under that old nickname to remind himself of the way he was supposed to think about her—like a pesky little sister. But, for once, she’d interrupted him at the right time.
He rose from the table. “I’m sorry, but I really need to take this. I’ll only be a minute.”
“Of course.” Joslyn, unlike the couple at the table next to them, didn’t even look pissed about the call. She probably though it was a work emergency.
By the time Caleb found a quiet space near the restroom, Liv’s call had gone to voicemail. Before he could call her back, she called him again.
“What’s up?” he asked, like they were regular phone buddies.
“Thank God.” Her voice held a hint of a sob, and he forgot all about Joslyn. Forgot about everything except the woman on the other end of the line. “I need your help.”
CHAPTER 8
LIV HAD FIVE weeks until the final episode of Design Divas would be filmed. Which seemed like plenty of time to put the finishing touches on her collection until she actually thought about it. Once she added in her work schedule at Hannigan’s, the stag and doe weekend, the rehearsal dinner, other miscellaneous bridesmaid responsibilities, and the wedding itself, she had significantly less time.
These deadlines wouldn’t sneak up on you if you’d look at a calendar once in a while.
“Mind your own business,” she snarled at the dress form, which was wearing her take on a vintage flapper dress. It was fabulous. Except that it totally clashed with the ultra-modern pantsuit next to it.
Half her collection was retro, half modern, and if she didn’t find something to tie them together, she was screwed. Why hadn’t she gone with one or the other? Why had she thought she could pull this off?
She paced her tiny bedroom, which was hard, because she’d crammed five dress forms, her sewing machine, and countless bolts of fabric between the twin bed and the closet. She’d gotten tangled up in the flapper dress for the sixth time when it came to her. The scarf!
Nonna Hazel had given her the vintage scarf on her sixteenth birthday. Ella had laughed her ass off at the idea of a used scarf as a gift, but Liv had loved the history behind the fabric almost as much as the flowering grapevine pattern embroidered onto the silk.
And she must’ve had the scarf in her mind subconsciously, because she’d riffed off the pattern in several of the dresses. Others shared the vivid jade and navy color scheme. All she needed to tie the whole collection together was one more piece. A fiercely modern dress that incorporated the scarf itself into the bodice. Old inexorably woven into new.
Liv ran to her dresser. The scarf wasn’t in the top drawer where she expected it to be, mixed in with her bras. She went through each drawer, folding everything so neatly Annabelle would’ve cried with joy, but the scarf was nowhere to be found. It wasn’t in her closet or her dirty laundry pile.
She stopped in the single square foot of free space at the center of her room. She couldn’t have lost it.
Think, came Annabelle’s practical voice. When did you last wear it?
It had been a while. The last time she remembered putting it on was…
When she’d gone to CJ’s place, the night before the tattoo debacle.
Crap. Crap, crap, crap.
Okay, she needed to come up with a different plan. She’d find some other scarf or a scrap of vintage fabric. Except, it wouldn’t have the same pattern and color scheme. It wouldn’t draw her whole collection together.
She sighed. She was going to have to call CJ and make nice.
She’d banished his number from her contact list, and it took several long minutes of searching through emails before she found it. She forced herself to punch the digits into her phone. It rang five times, then, finally, CJ picked up.
“I’m at work,” he said, over the buzz of conversations and glasses clinking. “Can’t talk.”
Before Liv could even say hello, he’d hung up.
She forced in a deep breath and redialed. This time, he didn’t pick up. Funny how he’d always been able to find the time to talk at work back when she’d been blowing him.
She left a message, trying to impress the urgency of the situation on him, but as soon as she’d disconnected she realized she’d made the wrong move. Now that he knew how much she needed the scarf, he’d string her along for days.
Unless…
She grabbed her hemp bag. She still had the key to CJ’s apartment. She could drop by, grab the scarf, then leave the key under the mat for him before he finished his shift at Play Hard bar. Really, she’d be doing him a favor.
*
CJ’s apartment was on the fourth floor of the newest Gaslamp Quarter high-rise. Liv had never thought about it while they were dating, but as she used her key fob to get past the locked lobby door and waved to the security guard in the booth, it occurred to her that a part-time bartender would never be able to afford the rent. CJ was totally mooching off his upper-middle-class parents.
The hypocrite.
The inside of his apartment was exactly as she remembered it, down to the empty pizza boxes, beer bottles, and wrinkled clothes scattered near but not inside the laundry hamper. She picked her way across the floor, trying not to step on any dirty socks. How had she slept here for so many nights without getting sick? She was going to have to sterilize her scarf if she ever found it.
Finally, she made it to the low futon bed. She bent down and peered under the wooden slats that supported the mattress. Another sock, a rhinestone-studded thong that definitely didn’t belong to her, and then—
“Hah!” She rescued her scarf from the army of dust bunnies trying to smother it.
She straightened up, hugging the scarf even though it smelled like sweaty sock. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
She was twisting CJ’s key and fob off her hot pink robot keychain when she heard a sound that almost made her drop her precious scarf. The unmistakable snick of a key being inserted into a lock.
CHAPTER 9
“WHAT’S WRONG?” CALEB gripped the phone harder. “Where are you? Why are you whispering?”
“Because I don’t want CJ to hear me. Or CJ’s girlfriend. Hookup. Not really sure what to call her, since we haven’t been formally introduced. All I know about the woman is that she bedazzles her thongs.”
He knew he was making a mistake, but he couldn’t stop the words from leaving his mouth. “How do you know what her thong looks like?”
“It’s actually kind of funny. At least, I’m sure it’s going to be tomorrow.” She launched into one of her elaborate stories, voice still barely louder than a whisper. Something about a scarf she needed to find, which, in typical Liv fashion, had landed her on the balcony of her ex’s apartment while he got it on with some chick in glittery underwear.
“And, I know I shouldn’t be watching,” Liv finished, “But they have every single light in the place on. It’s like a movie set in there. I. Can’t. Look. Away.”
Caleb scooted into an alcove, so that he wasn’t blocking access to the bathrooms. “You’re watching them have sex right now?”
“Did you miss the part about all the lights?”
He swallowed back a lecture. “Where do I come in? I’m assuming you didn’t call to share the play-by-play.”
“I was going to wait them out. CJ was never much for foreplay, so I figured I’d hang around until they finished. Then they’d go out drinking, and I’d go home. Only they didn’t. Well, they finished, but then they fell asleep. I started to open the door, but the sound woke CJ up, and they started all over again. And I heard them talking afterward. I think there must be something wrong with the seal on the door, which is ridiculous, because these are not cheap apartments. You’d think they would take more care with the workmanship.”
“Liv.”
“The
point is, they’re not leaving anytime soon. CJ has the next two days off, and he doesn’t want to leave his bed until his dick is broken from overuse. His words, not mine.”
“Uh…”
“I can’t stay here for two days! If I’m not at Aunt Celia’s to assemble wedding favors in two hours I’m going to be permanently disowned. And I can’t walk inside now and fess up. They’re in the middle of round three, and there is no good way to explain to your ex that you watched him doing another girl doggie style. Multiple times.”
“I’d love to help, but I’m in the middle of…” He stopped when he remembered how that sentence ended. With him getting interrogated by Joslyn.
“Please, Caleb. I know you’re busy, but I really need your help. I’ll make it up to you, I swear.”
“I still don’t understand where I come in.”
“You have that magic police badge. If you flash it at the security guard downstairs, he’ll let you up. Then you can knock on CJ’s door and distract him.”
“Distract him how?”
“I thought maybe you could…you know. Arrest him for a few minutes?”
“It’s not a crime to be a hipster asshole.” Unfortunately.
“Right.” She drew in a noisy breath. “I guess I’ll wait it out then. It’s not that cold. And no way is CJ really going to make it forty-eight hours. He doesn’t have that kind of stamina.”
A strange clicking sound came over the line. Liv’s teeth chattering.
“You can’t stay on the balcony all night,” he barked, somehow even more pissed off than when he’d left the table.
“You’re right. I definitely didn’t dress for this.” Before he could respond, she continued in her bright, every-day-is-a-new-adventure voice. “I’ll climb down.”
“No!”
“Don’t worry. If I hang from the railing, it’s only a few feet to the next balcony down. And I promise not to tell my brothers you knew about this if I end up dead or in the hospital.”
He clenched the cell phone like it was Liv’s hand and if he held it tight enough he could keep her on solid ground. “I’m not worried about your brothers. I’m worried about you, you stupid idiot.”
Pretty in Ink (Voretti Family Book 3) Page 7
