“Who, Caleb?”
“Really?” said Paige.
“Think about it. As soon as he heard you might be in trouble, he came right over. He defended you against the people who want to shut this place down. And he checked to make sure you were okay. He cares. A lot.”
“What the hell is happening, then?” asked Lauren. He had defended her, even though he thought the café itself was silly. “Last week, he told me he didn’t want a relationship. If he cares about me so much, why doesn’t he want to be with me?” And then Lauren put a hand over her mouth because she couldn’t believe she was saying all this to her boss.
But Diane was no ordinary boss. “Honey, I’ve been through this before. My relationship with Winnie got off to a rocky start. Why doesn’t he want a relationship? A lot of reasons. He just got divorced, for one.”
“So he keeps saying.”
“Maybe he doesn’t feel ready to commit. He’s still too hurt from the divorce. Maybe he doesn’t trust you. Maybe he doesn’t believe he’s worthy of you.”
“That arrogant bastard?” Paige said. “Ha.”
“I’m serious. I think that’s a man who views his divorce as punishment. He may think he did something or he is a certain way that makes him unworthy of love. I mean, I’m just spitballing, I don’t really know. I do know you were right: When he first started here, he was grumpy and closed off, but I’ve seen him soften in the last few weeks. He even smiles sometimes now. And he’s very protective of that little kitten, Giant. It’s like he doesn’t want to let him go. It’s very cute. Surely you agree.”
Lauren rubbed her head. She didn’t know what to believe anymore. She just knew the facts at hand. She and Caleb were great together, but he didn’t want a relationship. He’d just told her nothing had changed. For her own sanity, she had to assume that was true.
Page shook her head. “He broke her heart. We don’t like Caleb.”
Diane laughed. “I wouldn’t rule him out just yet. That’s all I’m saying.” She stood up. “Now I’m going to take that little kitten home. Assuming no one else tries to shut us down today, I’ll see you all at the staff meeting tomorrow. Hang in there, Lauren.”
What Diane said rang in Lauren’s head long after Diane left. A little later, when she was bussing the tables in the cat room, Paige said, “I hate to say it, but I think Diane is wrong. There’s no point in waiting around for Caleb if he doesn’t want a relationship.”
“I’m not waiting around.”
“No, I know. Just… I don’t know why he was here today, but he’s a bigger scumbag than I thought if he’s going to jerk around your heart like that.”
Lauren laughed. “Thanks, Paige. I appreciate it. I’m just…ugh. I don’t know what’s going on with him. But I’m not going to sit around pining for him if he’s not interested in me. So don’t worry about that.”
The words sounded more confident than Lauren felt. The more she thought about it, the more puzzling she found Caleb’s behavior. It was likely he did care, but he thought he couldn’t be in a relationship for whatever reason.
None of this mattered. If he didn’t want to be with her, he didn’t want to be with her.
With a sigh, she carried her bin full of dirty dishes back to the kitchen to run them through the dishwasher.
It wasn’t her job to worry about Caleb.
Chapter 26
Caleb had a rare two days off in a row. He spent the first one basically just bumming around his apartment, alternately napping and catching up on his DVR. On the second, he went to an exhibit about early color photography at the Brooklyn Museum that he and Lauren had talked about checking out together before they broke up. Caleb didn’t know a lot about photography, but he thought the exhibit was interesting. As he walked around the rest of the museum, he couldn’t help but think this would have been more fun to do with Lauren. She probably knew a lot about art that he didn’t.
Everything went sideways shortly after he got home, when Kara called.
Without much preamble, she said, “I have a tax issue. I need some information from you.”
Without putting up much of a fight, Caleb went to his computer and looked up the information she needed. When he was done, he said, “If that’s all…”
“You’ve never been the type to easily forgive,” said Kara.
“You want me to forgive you? To what end? You’re in California, I’m in New York, we never speak anymore. You’ve got young Peter. What do you need me to forgive you for?”
“We were married for five years. Doesn’t that mean something?”
“Apparently not. It didn’t stop you from breaking your vows.”
She grunted. “Could you not see how incompatible we were? Not at first, but… I changed. We both did. We had so much fun in the early days, but then we grew apart. You wanted your carefully detailed plan of work, kids, the perfect little house in the suburbs. I wanted travel and adventure.”
