Trying to Survive (The Kiser #1) (11 page)

    
“Excuse me?”
 
I said, my
irritation returning after the shock of hearing his voice.

    
“I’m sorry.
 
That was very rude of
me to assume you knew who I was.”
 
Damn straight,
it was rude!
 
I realized with a start
that I had cussed more today than I had the last year of my life.
 
However, with his apology I felt my anger
draining out of me.

    
“Fine, you’re forgiven.
 
Thanks
for calling.
 
Bye now.”
  

    
“Wait!”
 
I put the phone back up
to my ear, wondering what he would say next.
 
I half wanted to hang up, and half listen to him.

*****

    
I paced around the living room.
 
I
had never had any woman talk to me the way
Carlana
just had.
 
She still acted as if she
didn’t know who I was.
 
Could it be
possible?
 
Just because everyone in New
York knew me, doesn’t mean that everyone else did.
 
However, my name a face always found
it’s
way to the cover of some magazine several times a
month after being voted most eligible bachelor last year.
 
Every woman I knew read those magazines.
 
There was something about this woman, I
couldn’t get her off my mind and she had just called me an asshole.
 
Okay, I am an asshole, I always have been but
nobody besides Matt would ever tell me so.

    
Grabbing my phone, I started to type her another message but somehow I
knew she wouldn’t answer.
 
So instead of
texting, I dialed her number.
 
While it
rang, I decided I would apologize.
 
I
never do that but it should work.
 
She
will get over it and then we can get the pretending out of the way.
 
“Hello?”

    
“Sorry,” I muttered.

    
“Excuse me?”
 
She still sounded
irritated.
 
Racking my brain for
something to say, I said the first thing that came to mind.

    
“I’m sorry.
 
That was very rude of
me to assume that you knew who I was.”
 
There, that should do it.
 
All
women like apologies even I know that.

    
“Fine, you’re forgiven.
 
Thanks
for calling.
 
Bye now.”
 
The smile left my face and I panicked.
 
She should be talking, flirting with me by
now.

    
“Wait!”
 
I said in a rush and then
chastised myself for sounding anxious.

    
“What?”
 
She certainly didn’t
sound very friendly.

    
“Can we talk for a few minutes?”
 
I started pacing again until I saw the bottle of Scotch sitting on the
bar.
 
Walking over, I poured some in a
glass and took a seat on the couch.

    
“That depends, can you not be an ass?”
 
I found myself smiling at her comment.

    
“I’m not sure, I’ve been told on several occasions that I am one.”
 
I hoped she could hear the humor in my voice.
 
It worked, I heard her snicker on the other
end.

    
“Don’t worry, I’ll be sure to point it out if you start acting like one
again.”
 
 
Amusement clear in her voice.

    
I couldn’t help but chuckle at her boldness and quirky personality.
 
“Good, I might not realize when the
assness
comes out.”
 
I heard her chuckle and it made me smile in
return.
 
“Did I interrupt anything
tonight?”
 
I leaned back on the sofa and
rested my feet on the glass coffee table while I sipped my scotch, effectively
making me more relaxed with ever sip.

    
“As a matter of fact, you did.
 
I
was taking a nice hot bath while reading my kindle.”
 
She sat down in the recliner and sipped her
rum and coke.
 
It was making her feel
more relaxed as well.
 
She grabbed a
blanket and covered up with it.

    
“Sorry to pull you from your bath.”

    
“It’s alright.
 
Soo… I know you
think I know you, but where are you calling from?”
 
I was starting to believe that she really
didn’t know who I was.

    
“Can we please not talk about that, at least for now?”
 
I waited, and then she finally let out a
breath.

    
“I guess we can, but I
gotta
tell
ya
it’s
kinda
weird.”
 
I laughed, I couldn’t help it.
 
She had the most adorable southern accent.

    
“Thank you, even if it is weird.”

    
“So why are you at home tonight and not out with your friend?”
 
I asked, curious why such and attractive lady
would be sitting at home on a Friday night.
 

    
“I could ask you the same question, why are you at home and not out to
dinner tonight?”
 
I laughed outright, I
couldn’t help it.
 
She was good, almost
as good as I was.

    
“You did not answer my question.
 
Okay, I’ll go first and since we technically don’t know each other, I
think we should be completely honest.”
 
Now she laughed.

    
“Hmm… our very own therapy session.
 
Okay, I agree.”

    
“My friend Matt is busy with his girlfriend tonight, and to be quite
honest I’m trying to avoid this girl my mother keeps trying to set me up with.”

    
“How old are you?”

    
“I’m thirty-five.”

    
“Don’t you think you’re a little old for your mother to be trying to set
you up?”
 
I chuckled again.
 
I was really enjoying talking to her.

    
“Yes, actually I do.
 
I keep
telling her this but she won’t listen to me.”
 
She laughed.

    
“Well, I haven’t seen you so maybe you have something weird going on,
like six or seven fingers on one hand or something.”

    
“Nope, I have five fingers on each hand.”

    
“Well there you go, you have no thumbs.
 
Your poor mother, she must be very upset and is just trying to help
you.”
 
I burst out laughing, almost
spitting scotch all over myself.

    
“Now you’re just being a smartass!
 
Okay, now you.
 
Why are you at
home on a Friday night?”
 
It suddenly
became silent as the seconds passed so slow it felt like minutes.
 

    
“Honestly?”

    
“Yes, honestly.
 
We don’t know
each other so it’s okay.”
 
Although I
have plans to get to know her.
 
I haven’t
enjoyed talking to a woman or actually anybody since… ever.

    
“My husband died two years ago and I haven’t dated anyone since his
death.”
 
What!
 
What the hell do I say to that?
 
I sat there racking my brain for the
appropriate response when I heard her sigh.
 
“Please don’t say anything. I’ve heard it all before and it’s really
just empty words anyway.
 
I’ve heard so
many people say I’m sorry, that sometimes I wish that word would disappear from
the English language.”

    
“I’ve never lost anyone that I care about so I wouldn’t know what to say
anyway.”
 
I try to put myself in her
shoes, but I couldn’t.
 
I never cared
very much for the people in my life.
 
Matt would be the closest thing to family for me, and I’m surprised to
find out that I’m sadden at the thought.
 
Would anyone miss me if I died?
 
Mother and father wouldn’t.
 
They
would probably use it for their advantage somehow.
 
Then another thought rushed through my mind,
Am I like them?
 
Am I as uncaring as they
are?
 
My heart started pounding as sweat
beaded over my brow.
 
I can’t be like
them, they’re awful to everyone unless you can do something for them.
 
That’s the moment I realized, I knew…
 
I had to change.
 
I want to care about people, and I want to be
missed if something ever happened to me.
 
Carlana
hasn’t dated for two years because she
misses her husband that much, and I want someone to care about me like that. I
realized she’s talking and I haven’t been listening.
 
Too caught up in my own revelation.
 
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”

    
“I said that it’s a good thing that you haven’t lost anyone you cared
about.
 
It’s a horrible thing to go
through.”
 
I almost told her that I
didn’t really care about anyone but Matt, but decided against it.
 
I really enjoyed talking to her, and I didn’t
want to give her a bad opinion of me, well anymore that I already have.
 
“Okay, enough of this.
 
I’m getting depressed so we’re just
gonna
talk about something different.”
 
I never really liked southern accents; normally
the people that used them talk slow.
 
However, she talked fast and her accent drew me like a magnet.
 

    
“What would you like to talk about?”
 
I asked, glad for the subject change.

    
“Well, we could talk about where you live?”
 
She sounded hopeful.

    
“No.”
 
I was enjoying this too
much to ruin it by her finding out who I am.

    
“How about the woman your mother is trying to set you up with?”

    
“No.”
 
There is no way I’m giving
Maria one ounce of my time while I’m talking to
Carlana
.

    
“Why did you ask me what I wanted to talk about if all you can say is
No
?”
 
She huffed and I laughed.
 
“You’re
being an ass again!”

    
Laughing I said, “Let’s talk about you.
 
Where do you live?”
 
I knew the
state and which side of it she lived on, but that’s about it.
 
I wonder if she even thought about googling
my number.
 

    
She started laughing, and not just a little giggle, but belly laughing
and even though I liked it, it puzzled me.
 
“Do you really think that I’m going to tell you, some man I’ve never met
before, a man that I have no idea how he got my number, where I live?
 
It’s like watching a movie and screaming
‘Don’t go outside or you’ll be killed’
and they do it anyway.
 
All you can do is
shake your head and wonder why you watched such a stupid movie.
 
And in case you’re still wondering, I’m not
telling you.”

    
“A simple
I’m not telling you
would
have been plenty.”

 
   
“Okay, I’m not telling you.”
 
Shaking my head at her, I couldn’t help but
smile.
 
She was so different from anyone
I had ever met and I liked it.
 
I liked
her.
 
Hearing her cough a few times, I
wondered if she had a cold, and then I heard her cover the phone as I heard her
muffled voice.
 
I waited a few seconds
and then she was back, “I need to go, but it’s been nice talking to you.”

    
“Why do you need to go?
 
Who’s
there?”
 
I was surprised to find that I
really wanted to know who was with her especially if it was another man.
 

    
“Because it’s getting late and my son just got home and I want to talk
to him.
 
I’ll talk to you later
Colin.”
 
I sat there looking at my phone
because she just hung up.
 
It felt good
to talk to her, I felt good.
 
After thinking
about her for the last couple of months, I now knew that it would just get
worse.