“And I convinced you not to,” she said.
He sighed, shaking his head. “No, you didn’t.”
“Whatever. You still owe me an explanation.” She grabbed his arm and started dragging him away. He gave me a look that said,I’ll be right back.
Danny rolled his eyes at Sofia’s outburst. “Damn, she really needs to get over it. Eli has been talking about picking Calla as a partner since we got here.”
Why did everyone keep saying that like it was something absolutely everyone knew?
“I, for one, hope he takes her back,” Grant said.
Danny snorted. “You’re only saying that because you don’t want to be partnered with Sofia.”
“Can you blame me?” Grant asked. “She’s exhausting. She only talks about herself.”
Trace and I locked eyes and smirked. The only time Grant wasn’t being self-centered was when he made an inappropriate joke. The two of them had probably exhausted themselves trying to have a conversation with each other when they each only wanted to talk about themselves.
“Eli isn’t going to pick Sofia again. He isn’t going to be giving up on Calla that easily,” Rachel said.
“Can we talk aboutanythingelse?” I begged.
Arnie eyed me nervously. “I was wondering if maybe the two of us could talk?” he asked me.
“Sure,” I said, more than ready to clear the air.
We moved to the other side of the room, over by the windows. From this angle, I could just make out Sofia outside, screaming at Eli as he held up his hands in the air in exasperation.
“I’m so sorry, Calla,” Arnie started. “I never meant to hurt you. I just really like Rachel.”
“I know. And you tried to tell me at dinner. I’m sorry I didn’t want to listen to you,” I said. “I was so caught up in how comfortable I was with you that I lost sight of everything else. It wasn’t right to ask you to stay as my partner and not explore other things. Especially not when you could have something great right in front of you.”
Relief radiated off of him. “I’m so glad you said that. I still care about you as a person. I didn’t want this to come between us.”
“It won’t,” I insisted.
“And all those things you just said, I feel the same way about you. I didn’t want you to be stuck in this friendship-partnership when there could be something more out there for you.”
We both looked outside. Eli shook his head defensively at whatever Sofia had said.
“I’m still not convinced there’s something here for me,” I said.
“Because of his past?” Arnie asked. “Or because you’re not ready to move on at all?”
I honestly wasn’t sure which it was, but one thing crept to the forefront of my mind. Moving on hadn’t felt quite so impossible in the moments I’d spent with Eli.
“I think I’m scared to move on, but I’m even more scared to move on with the wrong person.” I blew out a breath. “I’m not fully healed and I’m worried about what would happen if I gave my heart to the wrong person. Because they could just squash it in their fingers like it was nothing. And if that happens, how long would it take me to get over it, y’know?”
I leaned back and groaned. I hated how fragile I was.
“I know I can’t relate completely, but I get it. When my ex cheated on me, I felt worthless. Like no one would ever want me, and that I wasn’t deserving of love. My family and friends would try to set me up, but I just couldn’t put myself out there. What if the next person just did the same thing? Why was I worth staying with?”
My heart broke for him a little at his confession. I touched his arm. “Because you’re smart. And you’re caring in a way that always comes off as genuine. As soon as I saw your eyes, I gravitated toward you. In this sea of phoniness, you stood out as being trustworthy. And this is just from me knowing you for a few days.”
He ducked his head.
“Thanks, Calla. You have no idea how relieved I am that you don’t hate me now. I wanted to tell you at dinner, so badly, but I didn’t have the guts. And to be fair, I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to do at that point. Then Shay finally convinced me that I had to take a chance for myself.”
Shay. Of course.
