Change of Heart (15 page)

She nods, still smiling. “I figured as much. Of course you can work out your two weeks.”

“Thank you,” I say, standing up.

“You’re welcome, Casey. I’m going to miss you around here this summer. It’ll be strange not having you around that long, but I’m so glad you’re spending some time back home. It’ll be good for you.”

I nod, hurrying out of her office and down the short hallway to my desk in the file room. My inbox is empty and no paperwork needs to be filed. I lean back in my chair and sigh. I know I’m not indispensable by any means, but it’s still a bit depressing knowing you’re so easily replaceable.

***

Kate’s working tonight, so after work I take Decker to one of mine and Kate’s favorite Italian restaurants in San Francisco. As much as I love some good South Carolina cuisine, I’m going to miss the food here this summer. And the wine. And the Ghirardelli chocolate.

“Where’d you go just now?” Decker asks as he sops up the last of his marinara sauce with a piece of Italian bread.

“Just thinking about how I’ll miss this food,” I tell him with a small smile. “Kind of a silly thing to be thinking about.”

“It’s not silly. But I’m sure you haven’t forgotten about all the food Charleston has to offer.”

“No, I haven’t forgotten.” All I can think about is how rich and delicious it all is, and how I’ll have to seriously pace myself.

“What’s the first think you want to have when we get back?”

I twirl the pasta on my fork as I consider his question. “Shrimp and grits,” I say with a smile. “Your momma’s shrimp and grits.”

His responding grin is huge. “Now that we can arrange. What else?”

“Lowcountry boil.”

“My dad’s?” he asks, still grinning.

“That would be amazing, but I can’t expect your parents to cook all my meals.”

“As if they’d mind. I think they’ve been waiting for you to come home as much as your parents.”

I frown at his words. It’s
parent
. I only have one parent now. Singular, not plural. I set down my fork and push my plate away.

Decker sighs, frowning for the first time since I’d said I was going home. “I’m sorry, Casey. I wasn’t thinking.”

I shrug. “It’s okay, Decker. It’s only been a couple weeks. It’s not something you just get used to.”

“But I ruined this,” he says, referring to the good time we’d been having.

I give him my best forced smile. “You didn’t ruin anything. How about we get out of here and get some gelato?”

“Now you’re speaking my language!” His bright smile instantly returns.

I laugh at his enthusiasm as he flags down our waiter and asks for the check. He’s always had a sweet tooth—a chocolate sweet tooth. He leaves some cash in the folder and hurries me out of the restaurant. We walk the quick two blocks over to the closest gelato place—well, I try to walk, but since he’s holding my hand and practically running, I’m being dragged.

“Let me guess what flavor you want,” he says, browsing the labeled tubs inside the glass display. The shop is loud and full of other patrons desperate for a cool treat on this unusually warm night. “I want to say vanilla bean, but I think you’re going to go with amaretto.”

“And you’d be right,” I say, winking at him.
Wait, why did I just wink at him?

He catches it and smirks. “And I’ll get the double chocolate.”

“Of course,” I say, rolling my eyes.

“What? Don’t knock the chocolatey deliciousness.” He gives me a pretend offended look, and I laugh. I miss playful Decker.

“I miss playful Casey, too,” he says with a small smile. Whoops, I guess I said that last part out loud.

“I’m sorry, Decker,” I say, but he shushes me with his finger to my lips. I freeze at the contact, yet still feel warm all over.

“Not tonight. Tonight we have fun.” Slightly frozen from his touch, I nod my acceptance. He slowly, almost seductively, removes his finger from my lips, and we order our gelatos.

Decker and I walk the dark streets of San Francisco, eating our gelatos and laughing at stories from when we were kids and when we’d been apart. He tells me more about his injury and the surgeries he went through, what it had been like to stop playing ball. I tell him a bit more about school and my life in San Francisco, careful to leave certain parts out.

All in all, it was a great night with my best friend.

Yeah…Decker’s still my best friend.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Casey

A couple days after our Italian night in San Francisco, Decker declares he wants to cook me dinner. I’d just gotten home from work, and he practically plowed me over, grabbing my keys and rushing out the door. I stood in the entryway in a stunned silence.

“What the hell just happened?”

Kate starts laughing at me from the kitchen. “He’s been like a caged animal all day. Practically bouncing off of every surface in this place. We played two games of Monopoly, Casey. Two! Do you know how much time it takes to play two games of Monopoly? I was about to ask Dr. Vasquez if he had any ketamine.”

Dr. Vasquez is our neighbor across the hall. He’s a veterinarian. I highly doubt he has any ketamine on hand in his apartment, but the thought of Decker being tranquilized makes me laugh nonetheless. Growing up he was always pretty hyper, but I never minded. I fed off of it.

“Thanks for hanging out with him today,” I tell her, finally shutting the front door and setting my purse and keys down on the side table. She smiles sympathetically. She knows why I didn’t want to leave Decker alone in the apartment.

“You know, you could just tell him.”

“No, I can’t,” I say with a sigh.

“What’s the big deal?” she asks, and I glare at her. “Seriously, Casey. You can use all the support you can get.”

“That’s the thing!” I shout, raising my hands and slapping them down on my hips. “I already get babied enough by you and my mom. I don’t need anyone else tiptoeing around me. I’m fine.”

“You’re
not
fine. But whatever. You know I’m not going to say anything. But
you
should. He deserves to know.”

“Whatever,” I shake my head and storm over to the couch, flopping down with a thud.

A few minutes later, Kate sits beside me. “That was dramatic,” she says, taking one of my hands in hers. “You know I only care about you and want what’s best?”

I don’t feel like speaking, since I have nothing nice to say, so I just nod.

“Decker cares about you and wants what’s best for you, too.”

I yank my hand back. “Drop it.”

She huffs. “Fine.”

She starts filing her nails and I take the moment to change the subject. “So what’s up with you? You’ve been acting weird lately.”

She pauses in her task for a moment, then continues. “Nothing’s up with me.”

Right
.

“You can play nonchalant all you want, but something’s up with you.” I grab the file out of her hand and start doing my own.

“I was using that,” she whines.

“Start talking,” I say.

She starts chewing the inside of her lip.

Kate’s nervous!? Oooh, this is gonna be good.

“I’ve been talking to a guy,” she finally says, so quietly I almost don’t hear her.

“What?!” I ask, dropping the file and turning on the couch to face her. “Tell me everything!”

She rolls her eyes at my exuberance. “It’s nothing,” she says. “He’s totally not my type.”

I tip my head to the side. Kate has never indicated that she had a type, though I guess I’d always assumed he’d be a handsome, studious bookworm—like she is. Well, except for the handsome part. Women shouldn’t be described as handsome. Maybe the guy would pre-med, like her, or pre-law even. Pre something.

“He rides a motorcycle. He’s a mechanic.” She says it so matter-of-factly and then just shrugs; my eyes widen. There’s nothing negative about a motorcycle-riding mechanic, it’s just not as clean-cut as the future doctor or lawyer I’d imagined in my head. “He came into the restaurant a couple months ago. We talked a little bit but he was there with his friends so we couldn’t talk much. He gave me his number before he left, and we’ve sort of been texting ever since. Sometimes we talk on the phone.”

Whoa.

I’m not even sure what information to tackle first. Kate, my roommate who has always been more introverted than me, has been talking to a guy, secretly, for months now. A guy who may be a bad boy. And she’s blushing.
My
Kate is
blushing
!

“Say something!” she shrieks, slapping my arm. That kind of stung, chick’s got strength. I rub the spot on my arm and scowl at her.

“You’ve been busy!”

If possible, her blush reddens even more, and it makes me laugh. “It’s not like that,” she says quietly.

“Then what’s it like? Are you trying to tell me you guys aren’t sexting?”

“Casey!” she exclaims, slapping my arm again.

“Ouch! What?”

“Stop it!”

“Not until you tell me more. Where does he work? What’s he look like? I don’t even know where to begin!” We’ve never had conversations like this before. We were both always single and focused on academics. It was the same for me in high school. Decker was the only guy in my life, and I’d never talked about him with Jane, and she was really my only female friend.

“He works at a repair shop in San Jose. He’s tall, dark and handsome.”

I roll my eyes at her generic description. “What’s his name?”

She shakes her head at my obvious disapproval of the lack of details. “Jay.”

I nod, unable to immediately come up with any serial killer’s named Jay. “Do you like him?”

She looks down at her hands in her lap, and nods. “Yeah. But it’s never going to be anything, so it doesn’t matter.”

I take her hand and nudge her to look at me. “Why would you think that? You’re amazing, beautiful, smart…”

She laughs. “Yeah, but we’re so different. He’s totally hot, and he knows it. He and his friends are boisterous and out of control. He’s my complete opposite.”

“Hey, you’re hot, too. And you know what they say, ‘opposites attract.’”

“That’s so cliché.” She sighs and starts digging in her little bag of nail polish. She’s putting up a good front, but I know better. I don’t like seeing my friend so defeated.

“If it’s meant to be, it’ll be,” I say with a smirk, making her laugh.

“Ha-ha.” She pulls two colors out of the bag. “Passion Pink or Radiant Rose?”

I point to the brighter of the two pinks. “Look, if he doesn’t appreciate what’s right in front of him, that’s his problem. You’re a great catch and it’s his loss.”

“It’s complicated, Case. I just don’t know.”

I narrow my eyes at her. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing. I told you everything that’s relevant.” She starts painting her nails, obviously trying to put an end to the conversation.

“Kate?”

“Yeah?” she asks, not looking up.

“What aren’t you telling me?” I repeat. After a few moments of her silence, I add “You really like this guy, don’t you?”

She takes a deep breath and looks up at me. “More than I can even explain.”

I nod in acceptance, “Okay. That’s good. If you care about him, then he can’t be a bad guy, right? You’re an excellent judge of character.” And she is, she really is. You’d think
she
was the psych major. “I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions.”

She visibly relaxes. “Thank you. He’s a really great guy.”

I smile at her. “Good. He better take good care of you.”

She frowns.

“What is it?”

Shaking her head, she says “It’s nothing.”

“Kate?”

She sighs. “Jay–”

We’re interrupted by the front door banging open and Decker coming through carrying about ten grocery bags. I stand to help him, but quickly turn back to Kate and point at her.

“We’re not finished here,” I promise her.

“I figured,” she says grudgingly, before gathering up her nail supplies and hurrying off to her room.

I look down the hall at her closed door for a minute, dying to know what she was about to tell me. Eventually, I follow the sounds of ruckus and head into the kitchen where Decker is standing at the table unloading the grocery bags.

“What the heck did you buy?”

He smiles that mischievous smile. “You’ll see.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Decker

“I can’t believe you made biscuits and gravy,” Casey says in between moans of delicious delight. “And I can’t believe how good it is,” she adds, shoveling in another bite.

“Hey, now. Be nice.” I scowl while pointing at her with my fork. “My mom taught me a few things in the kitchen.”

“What other recipes do you have up your sleeve?”

“Have patience, little one. You’ll find out soon enough.” I reach over and pat her head in a placating manner, causing her to glare at me.

“Who knew? Decker Abrams can cook.”

I sigh. I hate it when she starts with the “Decker Abrams” shit. I know she’s mocking me when she says that. “Give it a rest, Case. Yes, I can cook. Had nothing better to do when I was holed up for a semester recovering from my shoulder injury.”

She frowns and sadly looks down at her plate.

Shit. That may have come out ruder than I intended. “I’m sorry, Casey. The wound is still a little raw, I guess.”

She meets my eyes, her brown eyes almost black. “No, I’m sorry Decker. That was really insensitive of me. I shouldn’t be surprised that you know how to cook. Your mom and dad are great cooks. I should have known that would have rubbed off on you.”

“That and I
am
awesome,” I smirk at her. She rolls her eyes and laughs at my cockiness, picking her fork back up. Mission accomplished. I’d never liked seeing Casey sad.