Inspire (20 page)

I suppose the fates might still be here too, but they've never been the type to mingle with humanity. They were always isolated … from everyone and everything. There are descendents, too. But the bloodlines are so watered down now that there are unlikely to be any mortals out there with significant ties to deity. Oracles, perhaps, might be the rare exception. I've never met one myself, but I heard rumors of them long after the greater gods withdrew from the world.

“Kalli? Are you still there? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry.”

“No … no, it's fine. I'm sorry. I got a little lost in my thoughts. And to answer your question … it's just me. I don't see any of my family anymore.”

He's silent for a long time on the other end. Maybe waiting for me to say more. Or perhaps unsure of how to reply. Other people never are. They usually apologize or offer sympathies or attempt to pry. When Wilder does reply he only says, “I wish you were in my arms right now.”

“Me too,” I answer without thinking.

We stay on the line a little longer, not really saying anything. But I can hear him breathing on the other end, and it somehow helps with the emptiness I always feel when I think about my sisters. A part of me knows that we would have had to split up eventually, even if things with Mel hadn't gone so wrong. We couldn't have all lived and gone unnoticed together in the modern world. But that doesn't mean I don't miss them, that I don't feel the barely there tug of our intertwined fates behind the larger more vibrant thread that I'm currently feeling with Wilder.

“I should go,” I finally say.

“Okay.”

“Can I call you tonight? Before I go to bed?”

He pauses for a moment, and I imagine him smiling.

“I'd like that.”

After we hang up, I text a few people in the group again, trying to see if anyone has any free time or is working on anything interesting. No one is available. I didn’t text Jack yesterday since he was the last person I had contact with as a muse and I’m trying to space them out, but I’m desperate enough to see Wilder, that I text him anyway.

He replies almost immediately. He has tomorrow evening off. And he wants to know if I’d pose for him again.

I waver, knowing that Wilder probably wouldn’t like the idea if his reaction to Jack on Christmas is any indication. But I don’t have much of a choice. And besides … that was before we talked, before I made my decision. He knows now how I feel. And really, Jack isn’t even remotely a threat to him. No one is.

I text him back,
yes
. And we make plans to meet the following evening at his apartment.

Chapter Eighteen

Wilder

Kalli calls late that night while I’m going through some files for work. I smile when I see her name on the caller ID, and I start packing up my work as I lift the phone to my ear.

“Hey you,” I answer.

There’s a long silence, enough that I pull the phone back to make sure I didn’t accidentally hang up or lose the call.

“Kalli? Are you there?”

“I’m here. Sorry.”

Her voice is soft. Warm. It reminds me of caramel for some unfathomable reason. Christ, this girl turns me into a total idiot.

“How did your work go?”

“Um. Okay. I’ve got some more that I need to do tomorrow, but I think I could take some time off the next day.”

I run through my schedule in my head. That’s a Monday, and I’m working through most of the day. And I think Mom has a night shift, so I’d have to be at her place that night to keep Gwen, but I could swing something in between.

“How about dinner?” I ask. “I could pick you up around six-thirty?”

“You got your car back okay?”

“Yeah. Mom took me by to grab it. So, six-thirty? We good?”

She hesitates again, and I wonder if she’s trying to keep me away from her place. I don’t have the slightest clue where she lives. “We could meet somewhere if that’s easier?”

“Yeah. Yeah, that would be great.”

“Any requests on where or what we eat?”

I can almost hear her shake her head on the other end. “How about you take me to one of your favorite places.”

I rack my brain for a moment, but come up empty.

“I’m not sure any of the places I frequent are good first date material.”

“I don’t care. This hardly counts as a first date anyway. And I’d rather go somewhere that will teach me about you than a first-date-appropriate restaurant.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. I don’t want either of us to feel like we have to impress each other or be something we’re not. I’d rather skip over all that posturing and just get straight to what matters.”

God, this girl. I can tell already that I’m going to fall so damn hard for her. It’s not a certainty I’ve ever felt before, and it freaks me out. But that doesn’t change how inevitable it all feels. And I like the idea of us just getting to know each other for real. Normally, the first few weeks of dating someone are filled with dinners I can no longer afford and small talk carefully balanced so as to be interesting, but not tipping into dangerous zones. It’s like walking a damn tight wire, trying to get to the other side where you figure out whether this is a person you’ll actually want to be with when real life sets in.

I already know that I want her for more than a first date and a second and a tenth.

“I like you Kalli …” I trail off, realizing I don’t even know her full name. “What’s your last name?”

She hesitates again, and I have to fight a sigh. It’s the only thing I don’t like about her … that inability to open up without thinking about it first, weighing her options.

“Thomas,” she finally says. “My name is Kalli Thomas.”

It’s not what I would have guessed for her. It seems too plain and ordinary for this girl that is anything but that.

“Well, Kalli Thomas. Tell me something I don’t know about you.”

She laughs. “That game again?”

“It’s a good game.”

“You start.”

I sigh. One day, we’ll get past that. “Fine. I’ll reveal one of my biggest secrets to you.”

“Oooh. A secret?”

“No one outside my family and my best friend Rook know this.”

She perks up on the other end, her voice raising an octave as she says, “Tell me.
Tell me now
.”

“You promise not to judge me?”

“I am
so good
at being non-judgmental.”

I leave the living room for my bedroom, and settle down on my mattress with a smile. “Okay. The secret is … I don’t really like chocolate.”

“
You don’t like chocolate
? Who are you?”

I chuckle, and she continues, “No, seriously.
Who are you
? We’ve discussed my massive sweet tooth before. I’m not sure I can trust a person who doesn’t like chocolate.”

“I mean, I can eat it. It’s not like it’s awful. But I could take it or leave it.”

She makes a noise on the other end somewhere between shock and horror.

“Is this our first fight as a couple?” I joke. “Over the merits of chocolate?”

A pause.

“
Are
we a couple?”

My smile stiffens and then drops completely. “We did say we were in this. Is that still the case?”

“No. It is. I just … wasn’t sure what exactly that entailed.”

I sit up in my bed, dragging a hand through my hair. “Then let me be as clear as possible. I like you, Kalli. I want to be with you and no one else. I want you to be with me and no one else. By my definition, that’s a couple.”

“Then I guess we’re a couple because I want that, too.”

The ache I always seem to feel around her flairs up again, and I wish she was here or I was there. Either way, I just want to touch her, to run my fingers over her cheek and her neck, and make her say those words again. To taste them on her lips.

“Your turn,” I say, a new rasp of want in my voice. “Tell me a secret about you.”

I count the seconds before her reply. Five. Five seconds. The longest pause so far.

“I don’t have any good secrets.” The lie is obvious in her voice: the flat tone, the carefully clipped words.

“So then tell me a bad one.”

“Wilder, I—”

“I’m not asking for your deepest and darkest here, Kalli.” Though I had told her about my dad already, and that’s not something I ever care to talk about.

“Okay. Let me think. Um … my name, my full name is actually Kalliope.”

“Kalliope.” I say it a few more times, liking the way the complicated name rolls off my tongue. It fits her exotic, striking appearance. Then it occurs to me, “That’s why you don’t like Greek mythology, right? I think I remember a goddess named that.”

She makes a barely audible noise of affirmation on the other end.

“So were your parents historians or something?”

“My parents were …” She drifts for a moment before finishing, “Complicated.”

And we’re back to dodging the questions.

“Okay. No more secrets. How about you just tell me something that makes you happy.”

She considers for a moment and then answers, “I like simple things.”

“Like?”

“I don’t know. Sunrise. Warm weather. Ice cream.” We both laugh. “Watching a movie on a couch with you and Gwen.”

My chest tightens. “That makes you happy?”

“It does. Like I said, I’ve had a whole lot of complicated in my life, and not nearly enough moments like that.”

“I think I can give you more of those moments.”

“I think you can, too.”

I can barely concentrate the next day through my work shift because I'm so damn eager to see her again. I spend the day clenching my teeth, trying to stop myself from glancing at the clock every couple of minutes. And as luck would have it, something big comes up right before end of day, and I end up having to stay over.

By the time I'm done, there's not enough time to run home and change before meeting her, not unless I push back our date. And there's no way I'm doing that. I head toward the restaurant where we made plans to meet. I'll be there a little early, but what the hell.

Caught at a red light, I take a moment to unbutton the cuffs on my gray work shirt, and roll the sleeves up a few times. I lose-the tie too, popping the first couple buttons so I feel a little more like myself.

About twenty minutes later, I pull into the small parking lot next to Chords. The restaurant is in an old brick building, one of those places that looks vintage not because someone designed it to look that way, but because it's been around forever. This was the first place I ever played my guitar and sang in front of people. The café serves home cooked country food, and instead of playing some radio station over the loudspeaker, Cordell, the owner, used to play his guitar from open until close. First time Rook and I came here was in high school because we'd heard they were a little lax about checking IDs. Both of us ended up spending more time watching Cordell pick away at his guitar than drinking beer we were too young to buy. The guy was so absorbed in the music, like no one else was even there. It wasn't until we came back again and again that we realized he was like that
every night
. Playing wasn't about attracting customers for him. It was love, plain as day. And it made it so fucking easy to fall in love with the place, peeling paint, creaking floors, and all.

Cordell was diagnosed with cancer about a year after it became our regular haunt. The chemo wore him out so much that he couldn't play all day like he used to. Hell, some days he was lucky to play at all. That's when Rook and I made a deal with Lori, his wife. We'd play shifts whenever we could in exchange for free food. Cordell passed about two years ago, but Lori still has the place going strong.

I've been avoiding Chords for a while now, since I quit music. It was just too hard to think about being here when I couldn't play. But when Kalli said to take her some place that I loved … well, I couldn't think of anywhere else but here. I want her to like it for reasons I can't even parse out in my head, considering me and music are no more. But it feels important all the same.

I park my car and jump out, intending to run in and say a quick hello to Lori if she's here before Kalli arrives. But there parked in the row right behind me is Kalli's sedan.

Her head droops down onto the steering wheel, and she's huddled into a little ball like she's cold. I blow out a breath, the air just barely fogging in front of my face. I wonder if maybe her heater is broken, and the stab of pain I feel at the idea of her sitting in that cold car shocks me. I take a few steps toward her, and rap my knuckles lightly against her window.

She snaps up quickly, her head whirling around toward me, and I smile at the look of shock in her eyes. For a moment, she just sits there, frozen, before fumbling for the door handle.

She pushes it open harder than I expect, and it whacks into my knees. I step back, wincing, and hear her call out, “Oh crap. I'm sorry.”

“It's fine.” I move aside, and she opens the door all the way, and a wave of heat pours out. I frown. So she definitely wasn't cold.

“You're early,” I say.

She starts to get out of the car, then remembers that she's still got it turned on, and she wrestles with the keys for a moment before pulling them free, grabbing her purse, and rising to stand in front of me.

“Yeah. I wasn't sure exactly where I was going, and I didn't want to be late.”

I bite my tongue against the suggestion that she should have let me pick her up, and instead gently close her door for her. We stand there for a moment looking at each other awkwardly. I feel so connected to her, but at the same time, we've only seen each other on a handful of occasions, and none of those have been purposeful. This is entirely new territory for us. I lift my hands to touch her arms, running them up and down over the sweater she's wearing, and say, “Come on. Let's get you out of the cold.”

She nods, her lips pressed tightly together, and while I'm deciding whether or not it's presuming to drape my arm around her, she begins walking off toward the restaurant entrance. I jog to catch up, but I've missed my moment to hold her. She's walking too fast now for me to coolly slide my arm over her shoulders. I do get far enough ahead to open the door for her, and she gives me a brief smile before ducking inside.