Inspire (The Muse #1)(42)
Author: Cora Carmack

God, this girl. I can tell already that I’m going to fall so damn hard for her. It’s not a certainty I’ve ever felt before, and it freaks me out. But that doesn’t change how inevitable it all feels. And I like the idea of us just getting to know each other for real. Normally, the first few weeks of dating someone are filled with dinners I can no longer afford and small talk carefully balanced so as to be interesting, but not tipping into dangerous zones. It’s like walking a damn tight wire, trying to get to the other side where you figure out whether this is a person you’ll actually want to be with when real life sets in.

I already know that I want her for more than a first date and a second and a tenth.

“I like you Kalli …” I trail off, realizing I don’t even know her full name. “What’s your last name?”

She hesitates again, and I have to fight a sigh. It’s the only thing I don’t like about her … that inability to open up without thinking about it first, weighing her options.

“Thomas,” she finally says. “My name is Kalli Thomas.”

It’s not what I would have guessed for her. It seems too plain and ordinary for this girl that is anything but that.

“Well, Kalli Thomas. Tell me something I don’t know about you.”

She laughs. “That game again?”

“It’s a good game.”

“You start.”

I sigh. One day, we’ll get past that. “Fine. I’ll reveal one of my biggest secrets to you.”

“Oooh. A secret?”

“No one outside my family and my best friend Rook know this.”

She perks up on the other end, her voice raising an octave as she says, “Tell me. Tell me now.”

“You promise not to judge me?”

“I am so good at being non-judgmental.”

I leave the living room for my bedroom, and settle down on my mattress with a smile. “Okay. The secret is … I don’t really like chocolate.”

“You don’t like chocolate? Who are you?”

I chuckle, and she continues, “No, seriously. Who are you? We’ve discussed my massive sweet tooth before. I’m not sure I can trust a person who doesn’t like chocolate.”

“I mean, I can eat it. It’s not like it’s awful. But I could take it or leave it.”

She makes a noise on the other end somewhere between shock and horror.

“Is this our first fight as a couple?” I joke. “Over the merits of chocolate?”

A pause.

“Are we a couple?”

My smile stiffens and then drops completely. “We did say we were in this. Is that still the case?”

“No. It is. I just … wasn’t sure what exactly that entailed.”

I sit up in my bed, dragging a hand through my hair. “Then let me be as clear as possible. I like you, Kalli. I want to be with you and no one else. I want you to be with me and no one else. By my definition, that’s a couple.”

“Then I guess we’re a couple because I want that, too.”

The ache I always seem to feel around her flairs up again, and I wish she was here or I was there. Either way, I just want to touch her, to run my fingers over her cheek and her neck, and make her say those words again. To taste them on her lips.

“Your turn,” I say, a new rasp of want in my voice. “Tell me a secret about you.”

I count the seconds before her reply. Five. Five seconds. The longest pause so far.

“I don’t have any good secrets.” The lie is obvious in her voice: the flat tone, the carefully clipped words.

“So then tell me a bad one.”

“Wilder, I—”

“I’m not asking for your deepest and darkest here, Kalli.” Though I had told her about my dad already, and that’s not something I ever care to talk about.

“Okay. Let me think. Um … my name, my full name is actually Kalliope.”

“Kalliope.” I say it a few more times, liking the way the complicated name rolls off my tongue. It fits her exotic, striking appearance. Then it occurs to me, “That’s why you don’t like Greek mythology, right? I think I remember a goddess named that.”

She makes a barely audible noise of affirmation on the other end.

“So were your parents historians or something?”

“My parents were …” She drifts for a moment before finishing, “Complicated.”

And we’re back to dodging the questions.

“Okay. No more secrets. How about you just tell me something that makes you happy.”

She considers for a moment and then answers, “I like simple things.”

“Like?”

“I don’t know. Sunrise. Warm weather. Ice cream.” We both laugh. “Watching a movie on a couch with you and Gwen.”

My chest tightens. “That makes you happy?”

“It does. Like I said, I’ve had a whole lot of complicated in my life, and not nearly enough moments like that.”

“I think I can give you more of those moments.”

“I think you can, too.”

I can barely concentrate the next day through my work shift because I’m so damn eager to see her again. I spend the day clenching my teeth, trying to stop myself from glancing at the clock every couple of minutes. And as luck would have it, something big comes up right before end of day, and I end up having to stay over.

By the time I’m done, there’s not enough time to run home and change before meeting her, not unless I push back our date. And there’s no way I’m doing that. I head toward the restaurant where we made plans to meet. I’ll be there a little early, but what the hell.

Caught at a red light, I take a moment to unbutton the cuffs on my gray work shirt, and roll the sleeves up a few times. I lose-the tie too, popping the first couple buttons so I feel a little more like myself.

About twenty minutes later, I pull into the small parking lot next to Chords. The restaurant is in an old brick building, one of those places that looks vintage not because someone designed it to look that way, but because it’s been around forever. This was the first place I ever played my guitar and sang in front of people. The café serves home cooked country food, and instead of playing some radio station over the loudspeaker, Cordell, the owner, used to play his guitar from open until close. First time Rook and I came here was in high school because we’d heard they were a little lax about checking IDs. Both of us ended up spending more time watching Cordell pick away at his guitar than drinking beer we were too young to buy. The guy was so absorbed in the music, like no one else was even there. It wasn’t until we came back again and again that we realized he was like that every night. Playing wasn’t about attracting customers for him. It was love, plain as day. And it made it so fucking easy to fall in love with the place, peeling paint, creaking floors, and all.