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She wraps an arm around my neck and drags me away from my family and into a corner. “Okay, tell me you can come out tonight.”
Visions of how Cal is going to make up for missing my show tonight come barging into my brain like a bright neon light. As much as no is on the tip of my tongue, I have to play it somewhat cool and not like I have plans that don’t include leaving Cal’s bed till morning. Or ever. “Out…where?”
“Come on, you’ve barely been out in weeks and today was the last day of school until after the New Year! Tell me Daddy Cop is going to let you out.” Cal and I hadn’t spent much time out of the house the last few weeks because out here we couldn’t be us. Cal couldn’t touch me, he couldn’t look at me the way he can’t help but look at me. He couldn’t run his hand down my back and cup my ass. He couldn’t trace my neck with his tongue. He couldn’t kiss me. All things both of us relished in doing, often. So, no, I hadn’t really been out of the house.
“I just…” I search my brain for an excuse, but come up pretty empty, “I’m so tired, Sash.”
“Bullshit, you can sleep tomorrow. You’re coming out. No questions. I’ll be at your house in one hour. Please be ready.”
I sigh in defeat. “Where are we going?”
“Just to grab some dinner!”
I know my best friend well enough to know, there is more to the story. “With…”
“Mike…” She looks around and gives me a smirk and a shimmy, “and the hot lacrosse guy.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, knowing that this is going to be complicated as fuck to get out of. How am I going to explain to Sasha that I can’t go on a date?
I see the look she’s giving me and let out a sigh.
Okay, how am I going to explain to Cal that I’m going on a date?
Cal’s still not home an hour later and I’m starting to feel antsy about leaving the house without seeing him first. I pick up the phone to call him and he answers on the first ring.
“Hey, Maddie.” Translation: I’m around people. Hi baby.
I swallow as I run the lotion up my bare legs, wishing it were his hands touching me. “Hey… umm…Sasha wants to hang out.”
“Now?” Translation: I want you home when I get there. Don’t go out.
“Yeah, I just…don’t know how to get out of it.”
“I don’t know that I want you going out this late.” I hear someone speaking in the distance and then a voice I recognize coming into the receiver.
“Don’t let this old man keep you from going out and living your best life, little G.” The voice of Ryan Burns, Cal’s right-hand man, comes over the phone. They’ve been best friends since the first day of Academy and genuinely one of the best guys I know other than Cal. He started calling me little G, as in Little Grayson, because to him that’s what I am. Cal’s daughter.
I squeeze my eyes shut, knowing that never in a million years is Ryan going to let this go and now Cal has to be careful about what he says next because Ryan always knows when something is off. It’s why he was promoted to Detective at twenty-six.
“Hey Ry, are you guys staying out of trouble?” I reach for my jeans and pull them up over my legs as I cradle my phone against my shoulder.
“You betcha. Now go have fun. But not too much, alright?”
“Ummm…yeah, sure. Can…I talk to Cal really quick?”
“Where are you guys going?” Cal says as his voice comes over the phone.
“I don’t want to go, but you’re not exactly giving me an out,” I tell him. “And I know Ryan just made it ten times harder.” I sigh, knowing he can’t respond to any of what I just said. “I just want to see you.” I sigh, when he doesn’t say anything. “Dinner. I’ll text you where we go.”
“Alright, have fun, Mads.” I can hear the smile in his voice that he’s probably putting on for Ryan, though I know his heart isn’t in it.
“I love you.”
“Talk soon.” Translation: I’m fucking pissed.
“Can you at least pretend like you’re excited?” Sasha says as I slide into her Toyota Camry. It was an early birthday present from her parents, both for turning eighteen and for getting into college. Sasha is brilliant by nature, not by studying, and despite the fact that she skipped more than half of her classes every week, she is still maintaining a good enough GPA to get her early acceptance to a handful of schools.
“I don’t want to go out with the lacrosse guy. Speaking of which, does he have a name?”
