Steal My Heart – Chapter 1
“Now’s not a good time, Walker.” Cara tried to keep her voice steady while she simultaneously attempted an eyeroll for Lissa. Her best friend sat across the restaurant booth from her, calmly eating bites of salad and unaware that Cara was fielding a lunch hour booty call.
Walker’s voice came through the line clear as day. “You’re missing out. See ya later.”
That was the end of it. He disconnected and Cara frowned at the phone a bit as she pushed buttons just to feel like maybe she hadn’t gotten both propositioned and hung up on in the same call.
Lissa interrogated her between forkfuls of field greens. “Who was that?”
Cara shrugged. “Walker . . . Walker Booth.”
“What did he want?”
Cara shrugged off the question, or she tried to. Her friend knew almost everything about her life. Almost. They were eating salads with the dressing served on the side because who needed a thousand calories for lunch? And now wasn’t really the time to announce her relationship with Walker when it wasn’t really a relationship at all.
Unfortunately, Lissa was smart. Cara liked that about her. Most of the time.
“So, Walker Booth is your booty call?”
Balsamic vinegar burned like hell when it went straight down your throat. Sputtering, Cara tried to chug some water. Then prayed her minor medical emergency would divert Lissa from her line of questioning. It didn’t.
When she was finally breathing normally and Lissa was still staring her down with a look that said ‘choking won’t get you out of this one,’ Cara shrugged again. “I guess.”
“What do you mean, ‘you guess’?” Lissa raised her voice, “Are you or are you not setting the sheets on fire with Walker Booth?”
“Shut. Up.” Cara practically hissed it. She didn’t need the entire lunch crowd hearing about her sex life. It wasn’t like Los Angeles was a small town, but people everywhere loved dirty laundry. No one would think twice about being appalled that Cara was having pre-marital sex.
Lissa looked to be gearing up to get louder, so Cara hunkered down and softly replied, “Sometimes.”
“When? How many times?” Lissa leaned forward on her elbows, salad forgotten for what must be the best gossip she’d heard in a while. Cara didn’t think it was anywhere near that worthy, and she didn’t really think Lissa needed to know.
She frowned at her friend and forked a piece of parmesan-crusted chicken that blew the bell curve on the calorie count. “I’m not giving you dates and run-downs!” Then she righteously popped the chicken into her mouth. Cara stayed smug for about all of two seconds before she realized her mistake.
“So, it’s been going on for a while?” Somehow Lissa managed to pick up her fork and calmly resume eating while Cara couldn’t seem to choke anything down.
If she’d only told Lissa about it from the start, it wouldn’t have gone down this way. She wouldn’t have been held hostage by the threat of a secret booty call. But she hadn’t told, and here she was. “I guess.”
“What does that mean?” It appeared Lissa had nothing better to do than wait for Cara to cough up the whole story.
“It’s just . . . well, it’s not . . . not like we’re . . .” Sooooo, that wasn’t working. Cara tried again. “It’s not a relationship. It’s just sex. When neither of us is seeing someone else.”
Lissa blinked and started to speak, but finally showed the good grace to use a little discretion. She smiled at the server as he came by to check on them and she told him all was well at the table. Her smile was so serene, Cara would have thought Lissa had tapped into world peace over field greens and blue cheese, but then the laser glare came back at her. “So you made this—what?—contract? And neither one of you will regret it when the other throws you over to see someone else? Or you’ve been at this long enough that at least one of you has seen someone else, broken things off, and then come back to the booty call?”
At least Cara managed to get a bite in during the disbelief. When she finished chewing, she reluctantly admitted, “The second one.”
“What?” Lissa sat back to think about that and for the first time Cara felt really guilty about not telling her friend.
Twice she opened her mouth to say so, and twice it didn’t happen because she just didn’t know how to start. Did she owe Lissa this information? Was she a bad friend? Should she apologize?
Lissa knew what to say though, and Cara could feel it coming. Before now she’d been getting the friendly banter, but this was becoming the cross-examination that Lissa was known for. Her friend should have put her suit jacket back on and leaned menacingly over the table, just like she did to witnesses in the courtroom.
Oh, crap.
“So you’ve been getting laid regularly?”
“Kindof. Not ‘regularly,’ though.” She was glad that Lissa hadn’t demanded just a yes or no answer.
“Explain.”
Well, that sucked, because Lissa hadn’t been getting laid regularly. She’d broken up with a great guy about a year ago because he’d thought they were casual and Lissa definitely wanted more. Though Lissa was petite and beautiful, she didn’t get asked out any more often than the average girl, and when she did, she was really picky about who got a second date.
Then again, maybe Lissa had a thing going on the side, too. Cara sure hadn’t told anyone about Walker, had she?
“Walker drove me home after we were all out drinking about eight months ago. Let’s just say I wasn’t making good choices. When he helped me get the key in my lock, I kind of jumped him.”
Lissa shook her head and sighed, “That actually sounds like a pretty good choice to me. Didn’t he ask you out once?”
“Yeah, but that was like a year ago.”
“And you told him ‘no,’ right?”
Cara nodded and that seemed to end the questioning. They both knew what they were looking for and Walker Booth wasn’t it.
Cara continued catching her friend up on what she’d been withholding, “So, after that, he ate cereal with me the next morning, then left—almost as if he had just crashed on the couch or something. I thought I might have made up the whole thing, you know, drunk dreams, but he called about a month later and invited me over to his place.”
Lissa’s mouth dropped open just as the server arrived with their check. Cara reached for the folded printout but Lissa got there first. “Oh no, this one’s on me. This is the best entertainment I’ve had in a long time.”
Looking down into her purse, Lissa rummaged for her wallet. Though she was organized as hell when it came to her work, everything in her bag except her phone was forever escaping her. But the search didn’t stop her from continuing the cross-ex. “So you just went over like a call-girl?”
“No!” Cara made sure she looked appalled though she didn’t really have the right. “I told him ‘no’ . . . and then he went into this ‘we know this isn’t going to be anything more, why can’t we just enjoy ourselves?’ version of ‘I’m-alone,-you’re-alone’ and . . .” she shrugged. “And he was right.”
“Let me get this straight,” Lissa set her credit card on the check and handed the little tray off to their server without breaking rhythm. “He called you for sex, you protested, he explained, and then you went over there like a call girl.”
“No! Not like that at all. I didn’t charge him.” While Lissa was right to a certain extent, it had been sex—really great sex, actually—neither of them had been seeing anyone, and they both knew the score.
“This has been going on since then?”
“No. We quit when I was seeing Richard and again when he was seeing that girl.” Cara didn’t think Walker necessarily would have quit seeing her on the side if she hadn’t insisted, but she was barely comfortable being the in-between-girl. She wouldn’t be a side dish. “And I’m breaking it off again this week.”
“Why?”
She smiled. Here was the real news. “Clark Fuller asked me out.”
“No way.”
“Oh, yes.” Smiling, Cara scooted out of the booth with less grace than she would have liked before standing and straightening her skirt. “Now, I will leave you with that. I have to get back to work, and so do you.”
Lissa stood, too, only she made it look as smooth and simple as brushing her hair over her shoulder. “Drinks tonight? Marty’s?”
Cara shook her head. “Don’t count on me. I have a few contracts promised in the next couple days, so I’ll probably be working late. Then Friday I’ll be out with Clark.”
Lissa grinned. When Cara smiled back, she felt it down to her toes. Clark Fuller was just what she had been waiting for.
