Page 109 of Mixed Signals
I want to rub my thumb against them until they disappear.
I want him to leave my kitchen and pretend like this morning never happened.
I don’t know what I want.
“Why can’t you be honest with me?”
“I am being honest with you.”
I flinch at the end of my sentence. I am absolutely not being honest with him. I’m taking the coward’s way out, over and over again.
Caleb’s hands squeeze and then release. “Are you upset that you saw me with Emma?”
“No.”Yes. “I wish you the very best of luck with her. I hope you employ the dating tips and tricks you learned during our time together.”
I feel sick even saying it. It’s rude, and mean, and not how I feel at all. But I’m all jumbled up. I feel like I’m on tumble dry, spinning around and around. Caleb takes a half-step back and looks at me like I just punched him in the face.
“Is that what you think?” His palm scrubs at his jaw. “You think it’s that easy for me to just find someone else? That all I wanted from you wastipsandtricks?”
“Wasn’t it?” I move around the countertop until there’s a mixing bowl and three feet of solid kitchen island between us. “You said you wanted to be better at dating. Have at it. Get out there and—” I do something weird with my hand. “Do your thing.”
His jaw clenches tight, eyes blazing. He doesn’t say anything for a long time before he finally tells me, voice low and barely contained, “That’s not all I wanted from you.”
“What?”
He walks around the countertop—chin up, shoulders back. Breathtaking in his calm, quiet confidence. “That’s not all I wanted from you,” he repeats quietly, moving forward until I have to tip my head back to stare at him. “I didn’t ask you to start this whole thing because I wanted tips, Layla. I likedyou.From the very start.”
“I—”
“Emma has a crush on another teacher at school—Gabe,” Caleb interrupts. “She’s been trying for weeks to work up the courage to say something to him. His classroom is two doors down from mine. She would stop in my room when she got nervous and find something to talk to me about. She happened to be outside when I was coming into the bakehouse this morning and thought she should apologize for all her visits. She finally talked to Gabe on Friday. They’re going out to dinner this week.”
Relief makes my knees weak. I find something over his shoulder to look at as embarrassment climbs over my cheeks. Caleb reaches up, cups my face with his hand, and guides my eyes back to his.
“Stop treating me like I’m the guy with the lint roller or the guy at the tiki bar. Stop acting like you’re someone I can move on from. I don’t want to be anywhere but right here with you.” His thumb drags across my blush and his eyes soften. “Don’t underestimate how long I’ll wait for you.”
“I don’t—”
“Please don’t lie to me either.”
My mouth snaps shut.
His hand slips to the back of my head. He watches me carefully—quietly—eyes tracing every inch of my face. He sighs and tugs me forward, a firm kiss in the middle of my forehead. My arms hang at my sides. My heart sits somewhere in my throat.
“I miss you.” He tucks the words against my skin in a rough whisper, almost like they were never meant for me to hear. A sigh loosens from his chest and he drops his hand. He takes two steps back and looks towards the door.
“This part is up to you, Layla. What happens next.” He drags his knuckles against the center of his chest and then pats once over his heart. Like he’s trying to rub something away. He looks back to me and gives me a sad, half-smile. “It’s up to you,” he says again.
And then I get exactly what I was hoping for when I first saw him on that path with someone else. The thing I thought I wanted, but I don’t really want at all.
Caleb walks away, and I’m alone.
TWENTY-SIX
CALEB
I wakeup to the sound of pots and pans clanking in my kitchen.
For a single, heartbreaking moment, I think it’s Layla, using the key I keep under the edge of my front mat. The one I showed her two days before everything went to hell in a hand-basket, telling her in stumbling, stuttered words that she could use it whenever she liked.
