Chapter Ten

Zara still wasn’t sure about the elephants. Of course, since Caleb had left right after she’d gone to town on his face and she had been avoiding his texts for the last two days, she’d been overthinking everything, so maybe this was more of that. Just a normal, everyday mental freak-out. That was all.

Perfectly normal.

Yep.

That was her and her mini elephants.

The miniatures scene was straight out of a fantasy, a parade of miniature rainbow-colored elephants marching up a waving ribbon of EEG readings. Each elephant followed the up-and-down path of the brain waves readings. The elephants and the ribbon got smaller and smaller the higher the EEG ribbon went until they disappeared into nothing. It was one of her earlier works when she did an entire series on idioms. She and Gemma were pulling the whole series and more out of her building’s storage vaults so she could pick ten to display as part of the ultraexclusive cocktail party to celebrate the opening of ticket sales for the Friends of the Library ball next month.

“An elephant never forgets?” Gemma asked as she set another scene on the kitchen island.

“Yeah, but I’m not sure if it’s right for this show.” Zara looked around, her gut doing a very uncomfortable version of the Cha-Cha Slide. “I’m not sure if any of these are right for the show. I just need to rethink this. Keep working on it. Maybe next year.”

“What is this gibberish? These are awesome.” Gemma took Zara by the shoulders and turned her so they were facing each other. “This is what you want. What you’ve been working toward—a chance to show the world what you can do, to share this joy.”

“It’s not good enough.” Every miniatures artisan she followed on Insta showcased work that just blew her away. Each piece was an amazing fantasy. However, when she looked at her own pieces, all she saw was the work that went into it and never the joy she felt when she looked at other artists’ work. “I can do better.”

“So can we all.” Gemma pulled her in for a quick hug and then walked over to the stove and poured boiling water from the whistling kettle into the two mugs on the counter. “That means your work will continue to evolve and continually be fresh.”

Zara took out the tea bags from the cupboard and handed two to Gemma. “I want it to be perfect.”

“If you wait for perfection, then you’re never going to do it.” After adding the tea to the mugs, she handed one to Zara. “That’s not a dig, it’s an acknowledgment of the fact that perfection is unachievable.”

She didn’t want to admit that. Life was too messy as it was. Part of the reason why she’d even begun working in miniatures was because the ability to control every last detail spoke to the need deep in her soul for order and stability. Exposing that to someone else’s eyes and asking for that judgment when every time she looked at a scene she saw something else to tweak or adjust made her palms sweaty.

“If I put it out there and it gets shot down, then I’ll have to accept that all of this has just been a silly dream as dumb as my dad’s get-rich-quick schemes.” She took a sip of Earl Grey as she turned a skeptical gaze toward the ten scenes on the kitchen island. “Looking at this, all I can think is that I’m being an idiot for thinking that getting a face-to-face with Helene Carlyle at the ball would make any kind of impact—I’m just not ready.”

“There’s a big difference between showing your amazing art or talking to an influential collector and your dad’s plan to start a cat-walking business.”

Despite the emotion making the tip of her nose itch, Zara had to giggle. Her dad had gone so far as to buy professional walker leashes that would let him walk ten cats at once. The first time he’d tried it—with only five cats—had been an epic disaster. Her dad had taken the failing with a shrug and started work on his next scheme.

Zara shook her head. “That idea was almost as inane as this whole Bramble dating thing.”

“Well, since you brought it up, have you seen Caleb’s latest interview?” Gemma said with enough fizz-bang excitement in her voice to show just how much she’d been wanting to bring up this topic. “This one was just him and his mom, no Asha.”

Zara’s tea became incredibly interesting—okay, the smell wafting up from her mug was amazing, but the contents itself were not. It was just that looking down was a lot better than making eye contact with her bestie, who would be able to read her thoughts and therefore know what happened the other night. She could play this cool. She could. Really.

She didn’t bother to look up from her mug because she knew that was a lie. “I haven’t seen it.”

“Oh, honey.” Gemma dug her phone out of her purse, brought up the video, and hit play. “Take a look.”

Zara tried to watch the right corner of the screen instead of Caleb’s face. Then he started talking, and there was no way she could turn away. Her belly shimmied in that good-things-are-coming way as she took in the crooked line of his nose that she’d spent way too much time thinking about while thanking the universe that she hadn’t broken it again when she’d come hard enough to make her ears ring.

Caleb and his mom sat next to each other, pivoted so they half faced each other, on the couch in the Harbor City Wake Up set.

“You actually cooked for your third date? I didn’t think you’d go through with it,” Britany said, her eyes wide with shock. “Did you burn the place down?”

“Very funny.” He pulled a face at his mom. “But yeah, I was a little worried about that.”

“I still remember that time when you were in high school and the fire department had to come because you got distracted by the hockey draft while making a grilled cheese,” Britany said with a smile. “Of course, I did end up dating one of the firefighters for a while, so that almost made up for the smoke marks that went up to the ceiling.”

“I’m never gonna live that down.” He said it as if he was laughing with his mom, but there was a tension in his jaw that belied his tone.

“Doubtful.” She did a good-natured one-shoulder shrug. “So what was it like cooking with Zara?”

Caleb’s smile went from perfunctory to genuine, and it was enough to make Zara’s heart beat faster.

“It was really fun,” he said. “She has a way of making things that I would normally not be into really fun.”

“So dinner and then what? A movie?”

“Sorta.” The tips of Caleb’s ears turned pink, and he looked down at the coffee table in front of the couch that someone had decorated with oversize photography books about Harbor City. “We watched some TV.”

His mom, obviously picking up on his telltale body language, leaned in. “And that’s it?”

Zara stiffened.

Hello, Miss None of Your Business Even Though He’s Your Son, you can just back off now.

Caleb must have been thinking the same thing because he didn’t mince words. “I’m not having this conversation with you, Mom—especially not when it includes the entirety of Harbor City.”

Britany Stuckey, though, didn’t seem to be fazed. “Because you like her?”

It was just another invasive question from Caleb’s mom, who didn’t seem to understand personal boundaries very well, but it came out different than the others. Softer. Concerned. Hopeful.

Zara couldn’t have looked away from Gemma’s phone screen if Anchovy had started eating the just-finished, one-twelfth-size doll of Kamala Markandaya. She held her breath, not wanting to miss a syllable of his answer.

“Because it’s the right thing to do and, yeah, because I like her,” he said, the words coming out strong and sure. “She’s really amazing. I just want to hang out with her as much as possible, even if that means learning to cook. Zara’s special.”

For a few seconds, Caleb and his mom just looked at each other, saying so much without uttering a word. Zara’s skin was hot, and her lungs felt ready to burst, but still, she couldn’t look away. If she had, she might have missed the quick one-two-three tap of Britany’s finger on Caleb’s forearm.

“And to think, I was the one who set up this play,” Britany said with a wink.

Instead of rolling his eyes at his mom’s outrageousness, though, he just said, “Thanks, Mom.”

The tip of Britany’s nose turned red, and a bright splotch of color appeared at the base of her throat as she stared at her son for a moment, speechless. It was the first time Zara had ever seen Caleb’s mom like that, but Zara could understand the feeling completely. Her own brain was in meltdown mode while her body was in heat-up mode, a totally inconvenient and unacceptable reaction to watching her not-dating partner talk to his mom about her on a video stream.

The video ended and the logo for Harbor City Wake Up appeared on the screen. Zara looked at Gemma, whose eyes were as big and round as saucers.

“Oh. My. God,” Gemma said. “You slept with him.”

Cheeks. Burning. Lava. Flames. “I did not.”

But only because Caleb was the type to give orgasms and run, which was followed by a string of texts over the past few days that she’d ignored because she was a big, embarrassed chicken. What do you say to someone after you come all over his face like a woman who hasn’t had a non-self-induced orgasm in literally forever? Was she supposed to text back “WYD?” Pour her heart out? Tell him her clit was usually broken when other people touched it? Demand he gets back to her apartment so she could tie him to the bed?

Gemma narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms, giving Zara a long, hard look. “You did something more with him than hold hands.”

Zara folded like cardboard in the rain. “I might have ended up naked.”

“You might have?” Gemma clapped. Literally. As if Zara had just won a spelling bee. “What about him?”

“Totally dressed.” The work that zipper must have done, though…judging by the hard length of him that she’d dry humped.

God, her cheeks were burning even more just thinking about it—in both a good and a bad way.

“And what happened while you were naked and he was fully clothed?” her bestie asked, because she, too, had never had a question she didn’t need to air.

“He went to town downtown.” Her core clenched just remembering the feel of his tongue against her.

“And…?”

Zara waited for a beat, screwing up her face, and prayed for courage because this next admission was going to cause shock waves. “I had an orgasm.”

Gemma set down her mug on the counter with a loud thunk. Her jaw dropped, and she just stared at Zara, blinking occasionally as the truth of the matter sank in.

“Oh my God. Oh m-my God,” she finally sputtered. “This is huge.”

It wasn’t like Zara went around telling everyone that she’d never had an orgasm with another person before. That kind of humiliation didn’t need to be shared. Really, who wanted to know that her body was defective unless she was by herself grinding out a toe-curler? The only person she’d ever told had been her best friend. Together they’d pored over sexual health books, the internet, and Gemma had even tried to get her to go to a therapist. None of it had worked.

The fact was that the more time she spent during the deed thinking about how to have an orgasm or telling herself that she should have had one by now, the further away her climax felt. So she just let it go, figuring that she had a shy clit that only wanted to play when she was by herself.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” Zara protested, without really putting her heart into it. “It just means I probably should have had more sex with my other boyfriends while I was still half asleep so that my brain would stop spinning and I could actually experience the event instead of feeling like I was giving a barely listened-to guided tour in hopes of maybe getting a tip in the end.”

“So that’s what you’re going with?” Gemma raised an eyebrow and tilted her chin down. “Hazy brain equals orgasms when you’ve never had one with other people before? Girl, forget your history of solo-only orgasms, if a dude is willing to get you over without even getting a handie, then you’ve found a keeper. That kind of giving is not found in a majority of the male population.”

“We’re not really dating,” Zara said, not wanting to deal with the rest of that statement because really, what woman who was dating in today’s world didn’t deal with selfish lovers? “It’s just a means to an end for both of us. Don’t you have other friends you can pester about getting into relationships with people with whom they are not compatible?”

Gemma let out a loud cackle of a laugh that startled Anchovy from his midafternoon nap. “No one else who is dating Caleb Stuckey, first of his name, destroyer of vagina cobwebs, and bequeather of non-solo orgasms.”

“You are so weird,” Zara said with a laugh.

Her bestie shrugged and lifted her mug of tea in a toast. “And that’s why you love me.”

“True.” She clinked her mug against Gemma’s and snuck a peek at her own phone on the counter.

There were eight text message alerts she’d been pretending weren’t there. She didn’t need to hit the text icon to know who they were from, but she wished she knew what in the hell to say to him.

…

“Stuckey,” Coach Peppers yelled. “Get in my office.”

Caleb heard Coach even though he had in his earbuds so he could listen to the video of Zara’s dad interviewing her about the last date. He’d been waiting for a hint that Anchovy had eaten her phone or that she’d been under a tight work deadline and that was why she hadn’t texted him back beyond a couple of emojis—whatever the fuck they were supposed to mean. Of course, he didn’t really care that she was blowing him off. Whatever he’d been dumb enough to think was maybe a possibility obviously wasn’t. She’d set him straight on that by ignoring his messages.

He pocketed his earbuds and his phone, then pulled on his shirt and headed into the coach’s office. Surprising no one, Coach wasn’t alone. Zach Blackburn lounged against the window ledge, his tatted-up arms crossed and the eyebrow piercing he took out for games and practices back in place. The team captain looked every bit like a man about to take a chunk out of whoever pissed him off that day, which was pretty much Blackburn’s usual expression.

Caleb stepped farther inside Coach’s office. “You wanted me?”

“Sit down,” Peppers said without looking up from his computer screen.

That didn’t bode well. Usually, Coach just had little chats with his players in the locker room while he drank coffee spiked with enough sugar and milk to give only the barest hint of what it had been originally. Caleb went for an air of cocky confidence, but on the inside, he was that too-skinny kid with buck teeth in front of the classroom trying to read from the assigned chapter.

“Do you know why you’re here in this facility and wearing that team logo?” Peppers jerked his chin toward the Ice Knights logo on Caleb’s T-shirt.

“To play hockey,” he said, not understanding where this was going but not liking it.

“Damn straight.” Coach leaned forward, propping his elbows on his desk. “And what else?”

Beads of sweat popped out at the base of his skull, and he tapped his fingers on his thigh, an old trick his mom had taught him to stay grounded when anxiety started to wind up in his belly. “To be a team player.”

“Just a player or a leader?” Blackburn asked, his tone gruff and his expression inscrutable beyond his perma-glare.

He straightened in the guest chair. “A leader.”

“Good, because that’s what I see when I look at you, which is why your fuckup in the off-season hurt us so badly.” Peppers exhaled a harsh breath in obvious frustration. “The new guys look up to you. The old guys want to play with you. The fans love you. More importantly, the boys thought they could depend on you to show the team in a good light and not to cause distraction or disruption.”

“I know that.” Caleb couldn’t talk for other organizations, but with the Ice Knights, there was a sense of team that went beyond the logo on his jersey. Maybe it was because they’d fought their way out of the standings basement together, and none of them wanted to go back into the never-could bracket. “I’m willing to do whatever it takes.”

“Like let your mom take over your Bramble app so the front office wouldn’t trade you and Petrov?” Blackburn asked.

“Petrov’s working his ass off.” The center had put in so many hours to get back to the game that he’d practically worked an eighty-two-game season already. “He deserves to play for the team he’s dreamed about being on since he was in juniors.”

“Yeah, well, he’s playing in tonight’s game,” Peppers said, then took a drink from the sugary concoction in his Harbor City Dental mug. “The front office has decided against trading him.”

All the air whooshed out of his chest in relief. “Good.”

“They’re not trading you, either, but we’re making a change to your jersey,” Blackburn said as he tossed a piece of fabric into Caleb’s lap.

He looked down at the blue A, picking it up with the reverence that the letter denoting the alternate captain deserved.

Brain still processing what this meant, he looked up at Blackburn and Peppers. “But I fucked up.”

“Are you gonna do that again?” Coach asked.

He shook his head. “No.”

“Then take the A,” Blackburn said.

“And don’t worry about the Bramble thing,” Peppers said. “I can talk to Lucy to get you out of it.”

In a heartbeat, everything slammed back into action: his heart started beating again, his mental abilities caught up with the situation, and he almost jumped out of his chair—stopping himself just in time.

“No,” Caleb said, the single word coming out like a curse. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I’ll see it through.”

“Might as well finish up the last two dates, eh?” Coach steepled his fingers and tapped them against his chin. “I like it. Shows you finish what you start. The front office will appreciate that.”

That was nice but was not the reason Caleb was doing this—not that he was about to say it out loud. Still, the amused tilt of Blackburn’s smirk meant Caleb wasn’t entirely successful in keeping that information to himself. He glowered at his defensive partner, who just shrugged and flipped him off while Coach wasn’t watching.

Yeah, Blackburn could suck it. Caleb had had to watch the other man fall like a boulder through thin ice for Fallon Hartigan last year—the last thing Caleb needed was for Mr. I Know Everything About Relationships Now to think that’s what he wanted for himself. It wasn’t.

This thing with Zara? It was just fun. No strings. No feelings. No commitment. Those were the rules. That’s what they’d agreed to, and she was obviously sticking to it even if he had been starting to waver. He wouldn’t be that dumb again.