Page 29 of Almost Perfect
Oof.An odd impact hit me, worlds colliding. Sarah, a woman who was essentially a surrogate little sister to me for years when she and Wilder were together in high school, and Calla, a woman I…well. I couldn’t quite finish that sentence, but she was certainly someone new and surreal.
“You seem familiar to me for some reason,” Sarah said with a tilt of her head.
Warning lights blinked in my head.If she recognizes Calla, then others will too, and she’ll leave.
It didn’t make sense—I’ll be the first to admit, it didn’t—but in this moment, I couldn’t stomach the thought of her having to leave early.
“She grew up here but has been gone a long time. Anyway, we have to run—back up the canyon. You know how it goes.” My words were rushed, and I set a hand on Calla’s back to guide her away. She glanced at me like I was a crazy person but didn’t say anything. “See you around, Sarah.”
Sarah bid us farewell and went her way, and we went ours, tromping down the sidewalk, across the street, and around to the parking area where I’d parked hours earlier. My heart beat quick in my chest, which didn’t make sense. Still, I moved us along until we’d arrived at the truck. I swung the door open, then offered her a hand.
Her dark eyes hit mine, and my stomach dropped. She looked at me like I was a puzzle instead of an oddly flustered man holding her gloved hand.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice low and soft.
I nodded, though the impact of those words hit me like a gust of icy air, almost cutting in their strength for some reason. I shut the door after her, blowing out a breath and all the insane tension that’d piled up in the last few minutes over absolutely nothing.
No.Not nothing. Over the prospect of Sarah recognizing Calla and that somehow making this totally out of my league woman have to leave.That’s not something I’m going to think about.Not the hammering, sudden response to Sarah’s potentially recognizing her, and most especially not how much I didn’t want her to leave.
The truck rumbled to life, and I cranked the heater, then pulled out and headed home. In any other situation, I’d try to talk to the person next to me in the cab. But talking with Calla just didn’t come easily to me. It was like that with some folks, and I’d long accepted I wasn’t a chatty man. Not like Warrick, though Wilder made me look downright loquacious.
But with her, I wanted to pry. I wanted to know what she’d done today and how she felt about the town now. I wanted to know about her life as a musician and how she was doing with her mom’s death, and if she was still with that popstar. But I had no right to any of that.
“So…” she said on an exhale, breaking into my thoughts.
“So?”
“How was your date?”
I glanced at her, then back at the road. “My date?”
“Weren’t you on a date just now?”
I dared to peek at her again, but she’d fixed her attention out the passenger window. Debating whether to tell her the truth of what’d happened, I took a moment. Evidently, I took a little too long, because before I could speak, she did.
“Sorry. I don’t mean to pry.”
“I was just thinking how to describe it. It’s an odd situation, but to make a long story short, Sarah was Wilder’s girlfriend in high school. We all thought they were going to get married.” And it went so far south, got so messed up, that he hadn’t been back to Silver Ridge for more than a few days at a time in over eighteen years.
“And you just went out with her?” She didn’t attempt to mask the disgust in her voice.
I chuckled. “Might sound that way, but I didn’t realize it was her. Her photo isn’t clear, and the app doesn’t give last names. Plus, she hasn’t lived around here in years. Or so I thought. I guess she recently moved back. It never occurred to me it might be her, since Sarah isn’t exactly a unique name.”
In fact, I’d been out with a Sarah and a Sara in the last two months alone.
“She had to have known it was you, though. A Wyatt up here, around your age… that seems more unique. Plus, you’ve got a big name around here, right?”
“How do you know that?”
She cleared her throat. “I may have Googled you.”
“Oh really?” I couldn’t hide the smile. Didn’t make any sense for me to like that she’d looked me up, but I did.
“You haven’t searched my name?”
I felt the force of her stare and the consequential burning in my cheeks.
“I did. Well, I searched your stage name.” Damn, but my whole face had to be glowing red.
