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chapter
twenty-eight
Ellie didn’t come.
Cal frowned down at his phone as he left the hospital. He’d fully expected her to be here when they released him.
Why wasn’t she here?
Panic tried to rear its ugly head, but he squashed it down. There had to be a perfectly reasonable explanation. He dialed her number and got dumped straight into her voicemail.
Was she avoiding him again?
Jesus, he hoped not. He didn’t think his heart could handle it.
He thought they were past all that. He thought they were something more now. What kind of something more? He didn’t know. Something real, something good, something that lasted forever.
He shoved his phone back into his pocket and strode toward the parking lot. Zak and Donovan had brought his car over for him last night, and he found it easily enough among all the sedate sedans. He slid behind the wheel and powered up the engine, a low growl echoing in the early morning hush. As he pulled out of the hospital’s grey concrete parking lot, his thoughts were as turbulent as the rolling waves crashing onto the Northern California coastline.
All right, it was time to hammer out their relationship once and for all. He was all in. He needed to know if she was, too.
He drove to Ellie’s bungalow, a charming little piece of property nestled between towering redwoods and the salty Pacific. He parked outside, and just as he was about to knock, he realized he could hear music—cheesy 80s pop music, to be precise.
He paused with his hand poised to knock, his anxiety softening into bemusement.
Well, this was unexpected.
His fingers rapped gently against the worn wooden door, though she probably wouldn’t be able to hear over Cyndi Lauper’s strident insistence that girls just wanted to have fun.
No answer.
He tried the knob and found it unlocked.
Pushing the door open, he walked into a scene so wildly unexpected that his brain took a moment to register it.
Ellie was dancing.
No, not just dancing.
She twirled, bounced, and shimmied with the kind of abandon that only comes when you think you’re alone. She held a hairbrush like a microphone and sang into it. Puzzle pranced around her legs, his tail knocking into everything, as he gleefully joined the dance party, leaping and bounding with unbridled joy.
And there was the girl.
True sat on the couch, watching Ellie with something close to wonder on her face.
Ellie twirled and spotted him and fumbled the hairbrush. “Oh. Cal!” Then her eyes widened. “Oh, no. They released you already? I’m so sorry I wasn’t there. The nurse told me they weren’t going to until this evening.”
“I got an early release for good behavior.” He moved farther into the room and sat down in a chair. “Please, don’t stop on my account.”
Color infused her cheeks, making her freckles stand out. “I was just teaching True about the art of dancing to 80s music. And, you know, how to properly use a hairbrush as a microphone.”
“All very important life skills,” he said gravely.
Ellie pointed the brush at him. “Exactly. I knew you’d get it.”
As the song changed to Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer,” he pushed out of his seat and took the brush from her. “You also need to know how to play a proper air guitar.” He bounced around to the music, banging his head and strumming on the brush. Ellie joined in until all three of them—him, her, and the dog—were howling out the lyrics.
True giggled.
