It was all utter nonsense.
“I’m sorry,” Maggie said the moment she stepped into the kitchen, hungover, maybe still slightly drunk. Some time had passed. “Where’s my husband?”
“In the shower.”
“You know we’re going home tomorrow?”
Cal closed the laptop and stood from the barstool. “Do you still like Florida?”
“Yeah, actually, I do.” Maggie smiled. They’d moved several years ago, to be closer to John’s father. “But you know I’ll always be a West Coast girl. Why don’t you come down? I know he’s been asking you for months ... since Sam—”
“I can’t leave Mom.” Shrugging, he put his hands in his pockets as Maggie shot him her infamous glare. The Cat stare. “I’m alone, Maggie. There isn’t anyone. Is that what you need to hear? It’s only been a few months.”
“Do you still talk?”
“No.”
“Why couldn’t you consider giving Sam a ba—”
“Do you want to fight with me again? It’s been”—he glanced at the clock—“a couple hours since the last round.”
“No.”
“Then stop trying to micromanage me. I haven’t seen you in—”
“Too long.”
The words hung in the air. Cal peered at Maggie. He’d missed her. Actually, he missed Maggie and Samantha. He pinched his toes into the floor.
“There’s no one.” He paused. “I’m done.”
“With what?” John entered the room, gray hair slicked back and damp.
“With women, apparently,” Maggie replied, chuckling.
“Laugh all you want. I’m done being in love.”
“You’ll find someone special,” John added.
“What does that even mean, old man?” Cal asked. “Special?”
Cal was done. With relationships. With trying to please another person in a million impossible ways. With compromising and forgiving. Done.
Sex wasn’t even a sport anymore.
It was all utter nonsense.
Relationships. Women. Sex.
He was alone. No one came over. No one slept in his bed. It was righteous. No one nagged or judged him or complained.
Maggie stepped forward and put her arms around Cal.
It had been months since he’d experienced a woman’s touch. The embrace felt secure but also somehow not secure. There was always something missing. Safety was a moment. A fleeting breeze over the ocean.
Cal’s throat started to tingle, becoming scratchy. His chest felt tight.
His enough hadn’t been good enough after all.
His love couldn’t keep.
Maybe he was meant to be alone. Lonely even with company, with Samantha, with anyone. So, why not simply be alone?
Without even a plant.
Standing in the practically bare kitchen with John and Maggie, her arms still wrapped around him, Cal felt almost safe. He closed his eyes, swallowing past the lump in his throat, breathing through the heaviness. He was twenty-two, surrounded by choices and ambition and Jocelyn.
He blinked.
Could he be forty-two?
Had Maggie been right about that? Was he the same?
The same searching young man, now forty-two, still waiting for the perfect wave to break over the horizon.