Tell Me

by Strom, Abigail

  “That’s how you answer the phone?”

  He sounded amused, which was irritating.

  “Only when it’s you, and only when I’m in bed.”

  “You’re in bed, huh? And you answered my call. I guess that means you’re alone. If not, Horn-Rims must be pissed right now.”

  She gritted her teeth. Then she took a deep breath and counted to ten.

  “Very funny. Why are you calling, Caleb?”

  “You said you’d talk to Sam about dinner, but she says she didn’t hear from you.”

  It was true; she’d forgotten to call Sam. But, still—

  “That’s not a good enough reason to call this late. And you guys are in the city for a few weeks, right? Before your next trip? That’s plenty of time for the three of us to get together. What’s the rush?”

  There was a short silence.

  “No rush,” he said after a moment. “But when Sam mentioned you hadn’t called her, it occurred to me that you might have been, uh, distracted. By Horn-Rims.”

  Caleb had already found an insulting nickname for him. Great.

  “His name is Dan.”

  Another short silence.

  “So, you’re on a first-name basis? Fast work, pipsqueak. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

  “You’re impressed that I found out his name? A minute ago you wondered if he was in bed with me.”

  “That was a joke. Truth is, I figured things with Horn-Rims would stay where your real-life opportunities always do.”

  She was going to regret asking this question, but she could never leave well enough alone when it came to Caleb.

  “And where’s that?”

  “In your head.”

  She was lying flat on her back, staring up at the ceiling. There was a water stain she kept meaning to paint over that looked sort of like a male profile, and it was easy enough to imagine it was Caleb’s.

  She stuck her tongue out at it. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You never go after what you want. You think about things, but you don’t do them. You have this big imagination, but your reality is . . .”

  He trailed off without finishing.

  “What? My reality is what?”

  Boring. He was going to say boring.

  “Not everything it could be,” he said after a moment.

  Okay, that was more diplomatic than she’d expected. But even so—

  “You’re only saying that because I don’t climb mountains or BASE jump or go over waterfalls in a barrel.”

  “I’ve never gone over a waterfall in a barrel.”

  “But not everyone wants to do those things. I like my life, even if you think it’s boring.”

  “I didn’t say your life was boring,” he said quickly, which probably meant that was exactly what he thought.

  She didn’t agree, but she also knew she’d never convince him otherwise. Because what she found thrilling was exactly what he dismissed as unimportant.

  Caleb Bryce was a doer. An adventurer. A man of action. To him, only what you could see and touch and taste was real. How could she ever explain to him that her thoughts and dreams were as real to her as the physical world? That her imagination was as precious to her as anything in his life was to him?

  She couldn’t, of course.

  “This conversation is pointless,” she said after a moment. “We’re too different. We’ll never agree on what makes an interesting life. Or anything else, probably. So I guess it’s a good thing you’re always jumping out of an airplane or scaling a mountaintop, and I don’t have to see you that much.”

  Another silence. This one went on long enough that she checked her phone screen to make sure the call hadn’t disconnected.

  “Caleb? Are you there?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’m here.”

  Chapter Three

  He didn’t know why her words bugged him so much. One of the benefits of teasing the people you cared about was not taking any of it seriously. God knew he didn’t hold back when he was teasing her.

  But this time, the line between teasing and touching a nerve had gotten a little hazy.

  “Caleb?”

  “I’m here,” he said again.

  Unlike Jane, he wasn’t in bed. He was in the living room of his Washington Heights apartment, his home base between expeditions—which meant it was a place he didn’t see very often.

  His aunt Rosemary had wanted his home base to be in Colorado, near his childhood home, but that was the last place he would have picked. He loved his aunt, but even she couldn’t get him back to the ranch more than once or twice a year.

  When his brother was picked for NASA’s astronaut candidate program, he’d tried to convince Caleb to make his home base in Houston. Caleb would have been okay with that, but Sam had pointed out (rightly enough) that they didn’t know how long Hunter would be in Texas once the training program was over. She’d wanted their headquarters to be in New York City, where she and Jane had grown up and where Jane had returned after inheriting her grandparents’ bookstore. She was also willing to consider LA, where they’d moved when they were teenagers and where their parents still lived.

  Sam had left the final choice to him, and he’d gone with New York.

  “Your parents have each other, but Jane’s on her own,” he’d said to Sam.

  “We’ll be away at least half the time. It’s not like she’ll be able to count on us being there.”

  “Sure, but she still needs us more than your folks do.”

  “You better not tell Jane that. She hates the idea of anyone trying to take care of her.”

  “She hates it when you try to take care of her,” Caleb had corrected. “I’m more subtle about it, so she doesn’t notice as much.”

  “You’re not subtle. And I thought you hated New York.”

  “I’d hate living there all the time. But it’s not a bad place to visit, and I know how much you love it. That’s a good enough reason to make it our home base.”

  Sam had a studio in the East Village, and he’d found a one-bedroom he liked in Washington Heights. If money was tight, they could sublet their places when they were on expeditions, but when business was good he preferred to leave his empty. He always scoffed at the idea of settling down anywhere, but the truth was, a part of him liked the idea of having a place somewhere that was his, waiting for him to come home to.

  He was there now, sitting in a leather chair by the window, staring at the moon above the Manhattan skyline.

  “It’s almost midnight,” Jane was saying. “I’ll call Sam tomorrow, okay? We’ll figure out dinner then. There’s plenty of time.”

  She was going to hang up. It was late, and she probably wanted to get to sleep.

  But he was wide awake and as restless now as he’d been before he’d called her. He wasn’t ready to say good night.

  “So did Horn-Rims ask you out, or what?”

  “Dan. His name is Dan.”

  If that’s what it took to keep her talking.

  “Fine, whatever. Did Dan ask you out?”

  A short silence. Then: “No. But he’s coming by the store tomorrow.”

  There was a small tug in his stomach, like someone had pulled a rope knot a little tighter.

  “Yeah? Good for you. Did you give him your digits?”

  “I just met him today. Why would I give him my phone number?”

  “Are you serious? Damn, Jane, you’re worse off than I thought. How do you think relationships start?”

  “Meeting someone. Talking to them. Finding out you have things in common. And—”

  “They start by giving a guy your phone number.”

  “It’s too soon for that. I think it’s better to talk in person first.”

  “But if you have someone’s phone number, you can have late-night flirting calls.”

  “Late-night flirting calls?”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve never done that.”

  “Well, I haven�
�t. I mean, I’ve dated, obviously, and spoken to boyfriends on the phone—”

  “What are you wearing?”

  “What?”

  “I said, what are you wearing?”

  “Right now? Pajamas. Why are you—”

  “Jane. You don’t say pajamas.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  She sounded genuinely bewildered. What the hell was he doing, anyway?

  “If a guy asks you what you’re wearing when he calls you at bedtime, you say nothing.”

  “I don’t say anything?”

  Jesus.

  “No. You say nothing. As in, you’re wearing nothing. As in, you’re naked.” He paused. “Okay, let’s try this again. What are you wearing?”

  Silence. Then: “Oh my God, Caleb. This is nuts on so many levels.”

  She wasn’t wrong about that.

  “I’m just trying to—”

  “First of all, I am wearing pajamas. I always wear pajamas. To bed, that is. And second of all, you’re not a guy.” She paused. “I mean . . . damn it, you know what I mean.”

  Yeah, he did. But it didn’t feel great to hear her say it, which was also nuts on many levels.

  “I was just giving you a chance to practice.”

  “To practice what?”

  “Late-night flirting calls. In case you want to make something happen with Dan instead of just thinking about it.”

  “You make it sound like I’ve never dated anyone before. But you know I have. I—”

  “How long has it been?”

  Silence.

  How long had it been, anyway? Since he’d heard Jane talk about a guy?

  “I went on a date three months ago,” she said after a moment, sounding defensive.

  “A date, singular? What happened?”

  “We didn’t go on another one. Obviously.”

  The phone felt warm in his hand, as though it were working harder to get a signal. Caleb shifted in his chair, stretching his legs out in front of him and hooking one ankle over the other.

  “Why not?”

  He could almost hear her shrug over the phone. She shrugged a lot—when she was annoyed, when she was uncomfortable, when she was feeling shy.

  “I don’t know. No chemistry, I guess.”

  “For you, or for him?”

  “For both of us. What’s with the inquisition, anyway? Why do you care how my last date went?”

  Good question.

  “I’m just trying to help you out here, pipsqueak. You seemed pretty excited about ol’ Dan today, and I’d hate to see you screw it up.”

  “Thank you so much,” she said drily. “That’s very encouraging.”

  His head was tilted as he relaxed back in the chair, and now he smiled up at the ceiling. “So go ahead and practice on me.”

  “Practice . . .”

  “Your late-night phone flirting skills. They might lead you to a second date someday.”

  “Even if I accepted your premise that I’m bad at flirting, which I don’t, I wouldn’t practice on you.”

  He could almost feel her glaring at him. “Why not?”

  “Because it would be embarrassing, you moron.”

  “But I’m not a guy. You said so yourself. Go ahead, Jane, let me hear you flirt. What are you wearing?”

  “Pajamas.”

  He smiled again. “Okay, fine, we’ll go with that. What kind of pajamas?”

  An audible sigh. “Harry Potter pajamas.”

  He blinked. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Of course I’m serious.”

  “Wow. Okay, you really are worse off than I thought.”

  “You know, Mr. Smug Pants, there’s every chance that a fellow Harry Potter geek would find them adorable.”

  Mr. Smug Pants. That was pretty funny.

  “Does that mean your dating pool is limited to fellow Harry Potter geeks?”

  “Why not? Your dating pool is limited to Amazonian athletes with buns of steel and big tits.”

  He sat up a little straighter. “Hey! That’s not true.”

  “I’m quoting Sam. That’s what she said about you the last time you guys were in town.”

  “I see. And what did she base that conclusion on?”

  “I’m thinking she based it on reality. We were at a bar at the time, and Sam and I were watching you hit on an Amazonian athlete with buns of steel and big tits.”

  Damn. Who in the hell—?

  Oh, right. Rita.

  “Fine. Even assuming you and your sister have a point, tits is a demeaning word. I prefer breasts.”

  “Wow. You’re a true feminist hero, Caleb.”

  “I know. That’s one of the many reasons chicks dig me.”

  “Okay, I’m going to bed. In my Harry Potter pajamas. Ravenclaw house colors, if you’re interested.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “You’ve never read the Harry Potter books?”

  She sounded more horrified by that than by anything else he’d said.

  Had he read them? “In elementary school, maybe.”

  “But you don’t remember them? See, this is why we’d never be friends if it wasn’t for Sam. Those books were my whole life for a couple of years.”

  “Geek.”

  “Jock.”

  “Four-eyes.”

  “Muscle-head.”

  He was grinning now, picturing Jane sitting up in bed as they traded insults. Her long brown hair would be down, and she wouldn’t be wearing her glasses.

  “Hey, Jane? Take a selfie and send it to me.”

  “So you can make fun of my pajamas?”

  “Nope. So I can see what Ravenclaw house colors look like. I don’t want to be an ignorant muscle-head, after all.”

  He heard her chuckle. “I don’t think one selfie will help with that, but okay. I’m hanging up now, and then I’ll send it.” A short pause. “Good night, Caleb.”

  “Good night, Jane.”

  Silence settled over his apartment after the call ended. Outside, the moon had risen a little higher. Earlier there had been ragged clouds chasing across it, blown fast by the October wind, but now it shone clear and bright. He stared at it, thinking of the night skies he’d seen on the Big Island of Hawaii and the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro.

  Places Jane would never go with him.

  His phone buzzed, and he looked at the picture she’d sent.

  She was sitting up in bed, cross-legged, her back against the pillows. Her sheets were white, and her comforter was pale blue. Her bedside lamp had one of those stained-glass lampshades. What were they called? Tiffany.

  But the only thing in the picture he really focused on was Jane.

  Her hair was down, like he’d imagined. He’d seen it down before, but he’d forgotten how long and thick and satiny it was and how the word brown really couldn’t do it justice. Because there were a thousand colors in there, threads of bronze and gold and red, like leaves in mid-November.

  His hand tightened on the phone.

  Without her glasses, her eyes were big pools of dark blue, as deep as the ocean. And he had proof that she didn’t use mascara or anything to make her eyelashes so long and thick, because she wasn’t wearing any makeup now and there they were.

  There she was.

  His honorary kid sister.

  A sudden rush of guilt made him switch off the phone, and he levered himself up and out of the chair. It was time for him to go to bed, too.

  But even with the phone off he could still see Jane, her cheeks pink and her skin glowing, her soft lips curving up in a smile and those dark blue eyes gazing into the camera.

  Chapter Four

  Jane and Sam worked out their dinner plans via text the next morning.

  Sam: How about the place around the corner from your store? The one where they do the fancy hamburgers and have all that Star Trek stuff on the walls?

  Jane: Caleb hates that place. He thinks it’s pretentious.

  Sa
m: He thinks everything is pretentious. We haven’t started caring about that, have we?

  Jane: Good point. Kobe-yashi Maru it is. 7?

  Sam: 7

  Jane slid her phone back into her pocket and went back to what was really important: deciding what top to wear for her second meeting with Handsome Dan.

  She’d already decided on her favorite jeans because they made her butt look good. But her butt always looked pretty good, while the same couldn’t be said for her top half. She’d teased Caleb about preferring women with big breasts, but the fact was, most men did. She’d read somewhere that it was biological—big breasts signaled that a woman was fertile and able to nourish a baby, so men were hardwired to be attracted to that.

  Which meant they weren’t hardwired to be attracted to her.

  But she did own one padded bra, and it ratcheted her up from an A/B to a B/C and gave her something approaching cleavage. Pair that with the right top and she’d be in business.

  She decided to go with a bookworm T-shirt—the one with a zombie librarian saying BOOKS . . . BOOKS . . . BOOKS instead of BRAINS . . . BRAINS . . . BRAINS.

  There were three good reasons for her choice: wearing a T-shirt meant you weren’t trying too hard; this particular T-shirt had a V-neck that would accentuate her artificial cleavage; and it was funny. Not to people like Caleb, maybe, but to people like her and Dan.

  She usually needed only one employee to close with her, but she’d asked Kiki to double up with Felicia today so she’d be able to focus on Dan even if there was a rush of customers . . . which, as a small business owner, she supposed she ought to be hoping for.

  But to be honest, on this particular day, what she was really hoping for was to see Dan again.

  And that this time, he’d ask her on a date.

  On the subway from Brooklyn to downtown Manhattan, she found herself thinking about last night’s conversation with Caleb. Remembering it sent odd sensations running through her, little ripples of . . . something.

  Was he right about her flirting abilities—or rather, her lack of them? It was true she didn’t do a lot of flirting with guys she was interested in . . . she was usually more focused on finding shared interests and in trying to have a real conversation.

  A wave of depression made her slump down on the plastic seat. Across from her, a young woman—a student, judging by the backpack—was angry-texting on her smartphone, glaring at the screen like it was the boyfriend Jane was certain she was fighting with.