Page 105 of I Wanna Text You Up

Caleb sits up behind me and I turn to look athim.

“Yeah?” His eyes light up. “That’s amazing,Zoe.”

“Thanks.” I duck my head, surprised by how much I love his enthusiasm and encouragement. “Now, is what you were talking to my dad about what you really want todo?”

“It is. Well,nowit is. With baseball gone, it’s kind of my onlyoption.”

“And will you be happy doingthat?”

He stares off into the distance, a look of longing on his face, and I know he’s thinking about the career he could have had. Finally, he peeks over at meagain.

“Iwill.”

I regard him with searching eyes, trying to see if he’slying.

He’snot.

“Good,” I tell him. “That’s good. And what about the…obligations you have here? Your mom anddad?”

Caleb lets out a sad laugh. “My dad isn’t in the picture,Zoe.”

“He’snot?”

“No, it’s just me, my mom, and my brother. That’s the way it’s alwaysbeen.”

“That’s…” I take a shuddered breath. “Wow. I’m sorry to hearthat.”

“It’s justlife.”

“I never knew that about you. You realize you never tell me anything about your family or past, right? That’s the first time you’ve even talked about your brother before. I didn’t know you hadone.”

“Is itreally?”

I nod. “I think the only things you’ve told me are you’re a huge comic nerd because you could get them for cheap, you lived in a trailer park, and as I’ve just discovered tonight, you don’t know your father and you have a brother. That’sit.”

He scratches the stubble covering his cheek. “Oh.”

“Yeah.Oh.”

We don’t say anything else and eventually I return to my position, resting against him again. We listen to the sounds of the sea, the noise nearly lulling me to sleep, then Caleb finallyspeaks.

“I’m sorry, Zoe. I’m not trying to hide anything from you, it’s just not something I like talking about. I prefer to keep that life separate from my life here. I don’t want to blur thelines.”

“That sounds nice in theory, Caleb, but your lines were crossed long ago. Being gone every Sunday, sometimes not coming back until the next day, rushing to take phone calls in the middle of thenight…”

“You’ve heardthose?”

“Sortof.”

I heard the one when we fell asleep on the couch that one night, and then there have been a few times I’ve noticed him responding to texts at ungodly hours of thenight.

“Shit. I’m sorry,Zoe.”

“It’s fine. I just want you to know that if this thing is going to work between us as more than roommates, meaning our newly minted boyfriend-girlfriend status, you’re going to have to talk about itsometime.”

He exhales a shaky breath. I can feel his heartbeat against my back, a sure sign he’s nervous to openup.

“I suppose that’s fair, but not this week, okay? Let’s just enjoy this time together. Trust me, you don’t want to hear about itnow.”

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