Wish I May (7 page)

I
NEED
to get back to the hotel, but instead I’m sitting on my dad’s front porch, looking up at the stars through the trees and listening to the river run beyond them. The house may be shit, but I’ll give him credit for the location.

When my phone rings, I’m so sure Drew is calling to ask when I’ll be back that I don’t even look at the screen before taking the call. “Miss me?” I ask with a smile.

“More than you can imagine.” That voice is definitely not Drew’s.

Cold dread steals through me at the sound of the deep, familiar voice. “Brandon? Is that you?”

“Guilty.”

Fuck
. I swallow, preparing to tread carefully. “What a surprise. How did you get this number?”

“Baby, you know you can’t hide from me.”

“I wasn’t trying to.” Not a complete lie.

“I miss you,” he murmurs, dropping his voice to that low whisper he used to use in bed. Four years later and I still remember.

“Surely you’ve found someone better than me by now.” I force a smile to my face as if he can see me.

His low hiss slithers through the phone line and then I hear a hard
clunk,
as if he just threw something against a wall. “Jesus, Cally. You know I don’t want anyone else.” His voice softens, the anger floating away as quickly as it came. “You’re my girl.”

I don’t reply. There’s no response I could live with that won’t just piss him off.

“I thought you’d come to me when your mom died. I know you need money. Your sisters need money. Let me help.”

At what price? “We’re fine,” I lie.

“I blame those college classes, making you think you’re less of a woman if you take money from your man.”

You’re not my man
, I want to scream. But it doesn’t matter. Brandon has only been back in Vegas a couple months, and soon he’ll remember I’m no longer his “type” and he’ll find someone who is. In the meantime, I just need to let him feel like the one in control.

“Do you have everything you need?” he asks softly. “Whether you’re with me or not, I don’t want you going without.”

“You’ve already done enough.”

“I’d do even more. For you….” Again, that low whisper. “Damn, I miss you girl.”

“What about Quinn? Don’t you miss her?” God bless that girl. Finding out about her visits with him gave me the perfect excuse to cut ties while he was gone. Or cut them as much as I dared.

“Cally, baby, please.”

I look up at the stars. When did I lose sight of mine? My father raised me to believe in magic, in wishes, in beautiful destiny. And then life went to shit and destiny played second fiddle to just getting by.

“Come see me when you get home. We’ll talk about what we can do for your sisters. We’ll talk about us.”

“Okay,” I lie. I won’t go to him willingly again. Not if I’m left with a choice. But if I say no, he’ll think I’m playing hard to get, and that will make him want me more. “Goodnight, Brandon.” I end the call before he can reply.

I catch my breath in the darkness, trying to let the adrenaline fizzle out and my heart rate slow. Just the sound of his voice makes me crave a hot shower and a scouring pad. Or maybe just the touch of a man who makes all the ugly go away.

I scroll through my sent texts to find Lizzy’s number. I punch it in and hold my breath while I wait for an answer.

“Cally!”

My chest warms with the enthusiasm in her greeting. “Hey, Liz. I was wondering if you had William Bailey’s phone number.”

The gym is nearly empty tonight except for Max, who’s working behind the counter, and Sam, who’s spotting for me as I attempt to channel my frustration into the weights.

My phone buzzes, and I open the latest text from Meredith, detailing exactly what she’ll do with her tongue and certain parts of my anatomy.

Our grandmothers have been doing their best to set us up, and I’m beginning to think I made an epic mistake by sleeping with her. I thought we were on the same page, though. We both wanted something casual. Companionship. A good time.

Or so I thought. But these texts are becoming more frequent and when I was at her place last week, she slipped and asked how soon I wanted kids.

I’m about to throw my phone back down when it buzzes again with another message from her.

“Meredith?” Sam asks.

“None other,” I mutter. I tap out a quick excuse and toss my phone down.

“Why do you suddenly seem so uninterested? She’s fucking hot. And smart. And she’s got her shit together.”

“She’s getting too serious. I think she’s going to want something…long-term.”

Sam lifts a brow. “So complains the Mayor of Commitment-Land?”

“Shut up,” I growl. “That’s not what I want right now.”

“Hey, I heard Cally Fisher’s back in town,” Max calls from behind the counter.

“Cally Fisher?” Sam asks. “You shitting me?”

I grab a pair of forty-pound dumbbells. “Yeah, I saw her already.”

Max grunts. “Did you tell her to fuck off?”

I drop the weights and turn on him. “Don’t.”

Max lifts his palms up in surrender. “Message delivered and received, man, but you do remember that she totally burned you, right?”

How could I forget? “It doesn’t matter anymore. That was a long time ago.”

Sam chuckles. “Who knew she could still have a hold on you, what, six years later?”

“Seven,” I mutter, dropping down to the bench to rest my head in my hands. I swear my mind hasn’t stopped spinning since I spotted her lost outside my house.

“You still want her,” Sam says softly. It’s not a question.

Max heads over to join us. “Is she sticking around?”

“Her mom died. She’s here to move her sisters in with her dad, then she’s heading back to Vegas.”

“That sucks,” Max says.

One look at my eyes, and Max is backing up. “Fuck. And I thought you had it bad for Maggie.”

My phone buzzes again.

“Meredith again?” Sam asks.

“Probably.”

Before I realize what he’s doing, Sam scoops my phone off the ground and reads my text, his eyes going wide.

“That shit’s private,” I protest, but I really don’t care. There’s nothing worth protecting about my relationship with Meredith. But then Sam lets out a low whistle that has me whipping my gaze back up to him.

“‘This is Cally,’” he reads. “‘Is your offer still good for tonight?’”

I snatch the phone away from him, half convinced he’s screwing with me, but sure enough, Cally’s message is staring back at me. I punch the
call
button without hesitation.

“William?” I would recognize that sweet voice anywhere.

“Cally?”

“Yeah. I hope you don’t mind. Lizzy gave me your number. I didn’t want to call in case it was a bad time.”

Max smirks, but he and Sam head to the other side of the gym so I have some privacy. We’ll give the assholes credit for that much at least.

“Of course it’s not. Is everything okay?”

The line is silent for a few beats too long, and I look at my phone to make sure it didn’t disconnect. Then finally, she says, “If you seriously don’t hate me, I’d like to go to dinner with you tonight. That would be…amazing.”

“Can I pick you up in an hour?”

“Okay.”
Pause.
“William?” I love the way my name rolls off her tongue. She takes my very corn-fed, middle-America name and makes it sound almost exotic.

“Yeah?”

“Could we go for dinner somewhere outside of New Hope? I just remember how people talk and I don’t want that.”

There’s more to it than that, but I’m not going to push. Not now. “I know just the place. I’ll see you in an hour.”

“You look cheap,” Drew says from behind me as I take in my muddled reflection in the old mirror. “Do you really have a date, or are you planning to stand on the corner and give five-dollar blow jobs?”

I spin on her. “Watch your mouth, missy! You think Mom would want you to talk like that?”

She lifts a brow, unimpressed by my wrath, and returns her attention to her cell phone.

With a long, deep belly breath, I turn back to the mirror. She’s right, of course, which just pisses me off more. I brought clothes suitable for cleaning, unpacking, and sleeping. Nothing for a date with the sexiest man I’ve ever met. And as much as I tell myself it doesn’t matter, that’s just a bunch of crap. I was forced to open a box of Drew’s clothes and borrow her black cotton dress—a “favor” she only allowed when I promised I would send her money for a new dress. But Drew is shorter than me and less curvy, so something that looks sweet and sophisticated on her makes me look like a floozy showing more leg and cleavage than the showgirls on the strip. I’m tempted to call Lizzy and see if she has a dress I can borrow, but Will’s going to be here any minute, so there’s no time for that.