AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Being able to see the door from the table was a lot easier.
Not that she would get to go to the bathroom alone. About halfway through lunch, she needed to. Elsie went with her, practically bouncing in excitement all the way. I suspected the people in the bathroom were about to hear all about the day’s audition whether they wanted to or not.
Elsie’s enthusiasm was great to see. And I really like how much she’d warmed to Callie. It felt…right.
I knew she’d be leaving once the threat was over. And it would probably be sooner rather than later. Many threats fizzled out over time, but more ended when the people responsible messed up and got caught.
She’d be leaving, which would be a relief on the one hand. She’d be safe, the threat gone. But it also meant she had no reason to be away from Austin or to sleep in my bed.
I kept telling myself not to get too comfortable. She was still the governor’s daughter, and had every reason to run back to Austin and restart her dance career. Staying in a podunk small town with an older man couldn’t hold a candle to that, I was sure.
“Whatcha thinking about?” Jessie asked, then sucked soda through her straw with wide eyes.
At that very moment, I’d been thinking about how much I’d miss Callie next to me in bed when she left. I wasn’t going to tell my sister that.
“Elsie really did a great job, didn’t she?” I shoved a fry into my mouth.
“She did. Thanks to your girlfriend.”
I shook my head. “You know that’s not—”
“Blake,” my mother said, “you can drop all that ‘just a job’ business right now. Maybe it started out that way, but it’s pretty obvious that’s not still how it is.”
“You’re in love with the girl!” Jessie said, shoving my shoulder. “It’s as plain as the nose on your face!”
“Jessie—”
“You don’t have to admit it, bro. But you might as well stop denying it.” She beamed at me, and I couldn’t help but smile back. A little.
“I haven’t seen you smile this much in years,” Mom said.
“I smile all the time.”
“You don’t. You smile and laugh with Elsie, sure. Beyond that?”
Mom and Jessie looked at each other and shook their heads.
“I approve,” Jessie said. “And Elsie absolutely loves her.”
Mom nodded. “And idolizes her.”
I ate another fry. “She’s okay.”
That earned me another shoulder shove as they laughed. And then Elsie and Callie came back to the table. I had to stop looking at Jessie altogether because every time I did, she widened her eyes, threatening to make me laugh.
29
CALLIE
Lunch and pieafterward at the bakery were so wonderful, it proved a distraction from me thinking about the date Blake wanted to take me on.
If it had been an ordinary day, I’d have obsessed about it for hours. But thanks to Elsie’s audition and her family, I didn’t think about it until after he dropped me off and went to take care of some things at work.
Of course, I obsessed about it the rest of the afternoon. The only formal wear I had with me was my bridesmaid dress for Mac’s wedding. I didn’t think our one real date, or as I’d started to think of it, our “One True Date,” was going to require anything too formal, but I still wanted to dress up a little more than usual.
I made do with a clingy, short spring dress and low heels dressed up with a scarf tied like a belt. The tracking necklace I still wore also dressed it up and made it seem less like a spring dress and a scarf I’d thrown together, at least.
I heard him come in and run up the stairs. When I went down the hall, I could hear the shower running. Since I was ready to go, I went downstairs to wait for him. I sat on a stool in the kitchen, but thunder boomed across the sky, so I went to a front room window to look out and see if there was an obvious storm on the horizon.
