Sounds of Silence: A Contemporary Romance Read online

  “You and Michelle are getting way too ahead of yourselves,” I told him, exiting the bathroom, heading into my room to slip on my shoes. It was about time to pick her up at her house.

  Was it weird that I was kind of excited? With just her and I on the date, there would be no one else. No one watching us, no one else’s hopes pushed upon us to somehow click like couples always did instantly in the movies. In real life, it was never like that. Things were always messier, and they took more time.

  When he started following me down the stairs, I stopped him. “Look, Kyle, everything will be fine. I’ll make sure Bree has fun, and I’ll get my mind off what happened with Hilary. I’d tell you not to wait up, but…” He and Michelle were usually locked in his room when they were here, so I knew what they got into.

  Mom was fine with a lot of things, as long as protection was used. She was a pretty chill parent—a pretty chill parent who was currently at some boring work function, so luckily she wouldn’t be sending me off tonight. Just Kyle had that honor, unfortunately.

  “Just…” Kyle paused, trying, undoubtedly, to think up something witty to say, “Don’t have too much fun, okay?” He gave me a wink, which caused me to roll my eyes.

  I said nothing else, but I did give him a finger as I spun and walked down the stairs. The middle one. Thought it was a good salute to my idiot little brother.

  Within fifteen minutes, I was pulling into Bree’s driveway. I didn’t get her number, so I couldn’t text her that I was here. I’d told her around what time I’d pick her up, but I didn’t see anybody standing on the porch or anybody waiting inside through the windows. My hand reached for the keys, turning the ignition off but leaving the keys inside as I got out and headed to the front door.

  I’d pick her up old-fashionedly, I guess.

  After hitting the doorbell, I waited a few moments. The person who answered the door turned out to be Michelle, who smiled up at me with an icy expression I knew could turn downright evil. “Calum,” she said. “Here to call upon my sister?”

  “Uh, yeah,” I said, having no idea why she was talking like she was from one hundred years ago. I could see Bree standing behind her, trying to get past her, but Michelle refused to move.

  “If you hurt my sister, know that I will hunt you down and cut your balls off—” Michelle’s threat was ended by her mom frantically shouting her name, and Bree smiling softly. She clearly did not care about apologizing, like her mom was quickly trying to tell her to do; all she did was step aside and let Bree out.

  Bree stepped out, looking the opposite of at ease as she glanced back to her sister, who currently watched us both—though mostly me—with an icy blue stare that could kill. Michelle ended up glaring at me the entire time, as I brought Bree to my car. Even as I opened the passenger side door for her, Michelle sneered.

  Did Bree tell her that she had a horrible time last weekend? Was that why Michelle felt so protective of her older sister? I guess I couldn’t blame her for that; I wasn’t my best, so it wasn’t too out of the blue that Michelle picked up on it.

  Once Bree and I were safely in the car, I glanced at her, and then back up to Michelle, who glared from the front door. “Your sister must care a lot about you,” I remarked.

  Bree shrugged. “She just doesn’t want me to get hurt.”

  I looked back to Bree, noticing, for the first time, she didn’t look like she did last weekend. We’d traded places; this time I was the one all dressed up, and she looked like she did on a normal day. No makeup, no hairdo. Tonight her pink hair was messy in the natural way, her green eyes bare of all eyeshadow and eyeliner.

  Some might think she looked more washed-out, being natural-faced, but I knew this was more the real Bree than the dolled-up version I’d seen last weekend. That was fine. This was the real Bree, and I was determined to show her the real me, as well. I was a good guy.

  Although, I felt like most guys who called themselves good guys were actually shitty guys in hiding, like Trent, but that fact didn’t matter. I was nothing like Trent, and I would make up for the horribleness of our last date.

  “Well,” I said, backing the car up out of the driveway, “your sister can rest easy. You’re in good hands tonight.”

  She said nothing for a while, her green eyes simply watching me as I drove us out of town. The place we were going was a much fancier place than Sumit would allow. Needed to hop a town over to get the really fancy restaurants and bars.

  Bree was apparently only twenty though, and bars were out of the picture for a date.

  “You seem better tonight,” she remarked, fiddling with her hands on her lap. Was she nervous? Was she worried that I’d be a dick again? I hated that she’d gotten that impression of me, hated that she thought I could be like that. I wasn’t.

  Not on purpose, anyway. I didn’t think anyone could sit down and expect their girlfriend of a year to cheat on them with their best friend, so I liked to think I had a good reason to not be myself. But, again, that was no excuse. Bree didn’t deserve to be on the receiving end of my attitude, even if that attitude was something along the lines of I don’t want to be here.

  That’s how it was last weekend. Tonight, I…I did want to be here, with her. I wanted to make it up to her. I wouldn’t say I was ready to get back into the game, but…it did look like it was inching closer. Focusing on another girl was a good way to get my mind off what happened.

  Bree and I would have a good time tonight, that much I promised myself.

  “I am,” I said, giving her what I hoped was a reassuring smile. “I really am sorry for how I acted last weekend. I wasn’t myself. You didn’t deserve it.” As I glanced over at her, she looked so tiny, sitting there in the passenger’s seat, her body almost frail. Did this girl eat enough? She seemed skinny, and last weekend I didn’t think I’d seen her eat even a bite of her small salad.

  Tonight, that would change. I would force this girl to eat something. At least a bite.

  She picked at her nails, doing anything but looking at me again. Bree did not seem like the kind of girl who enjoyed lots of eye contact, and it did not give her an aura of confidence; the exact opposite, really, and I wondered why that was. Sure, she wasn’t exactly the stereotypical American girl with that pink hair and the jagged way her bangs were cut, but she wasn’t ugly.

  She…she was actually quite pretty. Pale, smooth skin, no freckles or blemishes anywhere that I could see. A small button nose, a tiny chin that housed a pair of full lips. The emerald hue of her gaze needed no makeup to brighten it up.

  “It’s fine,” she said. “I wasn’t on my best behavior, either.”

  “You were dragged on a date with a stranger, so I don’t blame you. I’m sure you had other things to do.” As I said it, I remembered what Kyle had told me. She never went out, stayed cooped up in her parents’ house.

  “Not really,” Bree muttered. “I don’t know why you wanted to try again.” Finally, she turned to look at me. She liked to look, I think, when I wasn’t staring at her, like she didn’t want me to know that she was currently looking at me. Shy, maybe? “I know I’m not your type.”

  Something twisted inside when I noted how sad she sounded right then, like she had no hope for this date, or for me. Even though I’d thought it myself, hearing her say it aloud was something I wanted to argue with, for whatever reason.

  I shrugged as I made a left turn. “Well, I haven’t had good luck with my type.”

  “I’m sorry.” Was she sorry for me not having good luck, or was she sorry for simply being herself? At this point, I had no idea which one was the case.

  “Don’t be. It’s not your fault.” I flashed her a grin. “Let’s just try to have fun tonight, okay? You and I are starting over.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her nod once, though she still didn’t seem too sure.

  Soon enough I pulled the car into a packed parking lot. A fancy Italian restaurant, the kind where the waiters wore all black and the food on the menu didn’t hav
e prices listed, nor any descriptions given for the entrees you couldn’t even pronounce. I knew it would intimidate her, especially when I’d seen her walk out of her house the opposite of dressed-up, but I was here. I’d walk her through it.

  Why was I taking her to the fanciest place around? It wasn’t like I was trying to impress her, but…

  Okay, maybe that’s what I was trying to do. Sue me. I wanted to make up for last weekend, and I didn’t want her to think of me as the slouched, hoodie-wearing older brother of her sister’s boyfriend. I wanted to blow everything she thought she knew about me from her mind.

  As we got out of the car, Bree watched another couple walk towards the restaurant’s front doors. She looked at their outfits, and then down at herself. “I’m not dressed for a place like this.”

  No, she wasn’t, but that was okay. They wouldn’t deny us service.

  I moved around the car, offering her my arm as I stood beside her. “Follow my lead, and no one will look twice at you.”

  Bree ducked her head at that, and I immediately wondered if it was the wrong thing to say. Maybe this girl was used to no one looking twice at her.

  It took her a long while, but eventually she slid her arm around mine, her hand gingerly resting on my forearm, which allowed me to take the lead and start bringing us through the parking lot. I’d made a reservation earlier in the week—yeah, I totally had this date planned way ahead of time, not that Bree needed to know it.

  Walking her to her front door last weekend…I didn’t know. Something inside of me had changed that night, I guess, as I stood at the base of the porch steps and gazed up at her. Or, rather, at her, because she was a pretty short girl.

  We were seated right away, in a snug little booth in the corner of the restaurant. The lighting inside was dim, small glass globes resting above each individual table. The place was packed, mostly with older couples on a date night, wearing clean-pressed clothes and suits. I would venture to say Bree was the youngest one in the restaurant, including all of the wait staff.

  Once our drinks were ordered, I had to help her choose what to get for her entree. She tried telling me she didn’t want anything, but I wasn’t going to take that for an answer. I explained to her what everything on the menu was, and she was unreadable. It was like nothing at all in particular caught her eye or sounded good to her, so in the end I made the choice, well aware that she probably wouldn’t eat it, but oh well.

  At least I tried, right?

  After our waiter came back with our drinks and took our order, along with taking the leather-clad menus away, I watched as Bree ran a finger down the side of the glass in front of her. She got water, big shocker there.

  The more I stared at her, the more I wondered about her. She certainly didn’t remind me of any twenty-year-old. She looked so…serious, so lost in her own mind. And sad. Very, very sad.

  “So,” I started, giving her a small grin.

  Bree was cautious in meeting my stare, whispering as she repeated, “So.”

  God, it felt like so long since I’d had to do this, talk on a date. Get to know someone else. I caught myself about to ask if she’d ever been here, but I knew she hadn’t. Instead, I found myself saying, “Kyle mentioned you don’t get out much.” Shit. Probably not the best thing to bring up on a date, her nonexistent social life. “How come?”

  Her eyes had widened a bit at my question, and she looked like she wanted to fold into herself and disappear. That wouldn’t happen on my watch. Not tonight. Not now. Right now this girl was my responsibility, my date, and I would not let her pretend she didn’t exist.

  Her teeth nibbled her bottom lip, something that I knew was a habit of hers when she was nervous. She did it an awful lot last weekend, while I was too busy wishing I wasn’t there. “I don’t know. I just…don’t.”

  Ah. Right. That made sense.

  I realized then I’d have to pry every single word out of her tonight. This was not going to be easy.

  “Why not?” I leaned on the table, studying her posture. She did not sit with her shoulders squared; she sat hunched into herself, again, making herself appear even smaller than she already was. “You never go out with friends?”

  “I don’t really…have friends. They all went to different colleges, and I—” Bree shifted her weight, looking immensely uncomfortable telling me this. “—I didn’t keep in touch.”

  With social media and cell phones, not keeping in touch was not an excuse these days. I knew friends drifted apart—hah, yeah, I knew that too damn much—but surely out of every single friend she had, one or two tried to keep up with her?

  “You’re going to SCC, right? What about anyone there?” I couldn’t say why it bothered me to know that she was pretty much alone, but it did. If there was one thing I wanted in this moment, it was for Bree to have a friend. Someone, anyone. Living life lonely was not really living, if you asked me.

  Then again, what the hell did I know? My ex and my best friend had thought it was a good idea to get together behind my back, so I wasn’t the best judge of anything.

  Bree let out a tiny laugh. “Were you briefed by my parents? You sound like them. They’re always pushing me to make new friends.” She let out a sigh, her expression falling. “I just don’t see the point in trying to make friends when, in the end, they’ll just leave.”

  What a depressing way to look at things. This girl…what was I going to do with her?

  “Not everyone leaves,” I told her, meaning it.

  She shook her head. “They do. They always do.” Bree quieted for a moment, those green eyes zeroing in on me, as if wordlessly challenging me to argue with her about what she was about to say. “You’re going to leave—so, really, this date is pointless, too.”

  While it was true I couldn’t stay in town forever, I had to go back to my place sooner or later, along with my job, I didn’t like being called out like that, nor did I appreciate the way she looked at me, as if I was purposefully trying to pull something over her without her knowledge. This was her staring me straight in the eye and telling me, you can’t fool me.

  I was speechless for a while, because I honestly had no idea what to tell her to put her at ease, to calm her down and reassure her that I wasn’t just here to date her and then drop her. This wasn’t like that. I…I didn’t know yet what this was, but I knew that wasn’t it.

  “You should just take me home now,” she murmured.

  “You might think this date is pointless, but luckily for you, I’m not of that state of mind,” I informed her, hating the way I felt inside as I looked at her. I might not know this girl that well, but I wanted to make her smile, wanted to hear her laugh and take that sorrowful expression off her face. “In case you didn’t already know, I’m not taking you home now. You and I are going to have this date, and I’m going to do everything in my power to make you have a good time.”

  The look she gave me right then could stop traffic. Was she annoyed at me? Oh, well. She could suck it up and deal with it. “You can’t force someone to have a good time,” Bree told me matter-of-factly, folding her arms over her chest in a challenge.

  I leaned forward on the table, unable to stop the grin that spread across my face like wildfire. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see who’s right.”

  Our food came soon after that, and it was as I ate, I paid special attention to her, noting the way she mostly moved the pasta around on her plate. I wouldn’t let her get another small salad. This girl must hardly eat, and it couldn’t be healthy for her.

  It bugged me.

  For whatever weird reason, it bugged me to know that Bree didn’t take care of herself. I couldn’t say why; she wasn’t my girlfriend. We weren’t super close. Still, that didn’t mean I didn’t care about her. She was my brother’s girlfriend’s sister. We were automatically connected in a way.

  “It’s good,” I told her after swallowing the bit of food in my mouth. “You should try it.”

  “I’m not that hungry,”
she whispered, instead reaching for her drink and taking a small sip.

  Well, at least she stayed hydrated, I supposed. The human body could last longer without food as long as it was getting some form of water.

  I stuck my fork into a few new noodles, waiting to bring them to my mouth until after I asked, “Why do I feel like you’re always not that hungry? You barely touched your salad last time. I don’t think I’ve seen you eat a bite. Don’t tell me you ate before I picked you up.” That was a possibility, as tiny as it was.

  Bree let out a sigh. “I didn’t. I just…I don’t know. I’m not hungry.” Her green eyes flashed brighter as she added, “You can’t make me eat anything, Calum.” Oh, she had a fire in her, I could hear it in her voice. It was then I wondered if something was making her sad, if something had happened to depress her.

  This girl had a personality; it was just hidden behind walls.

  I…I wanted to get past those walls, I realized. If you would’ve held me at gunpoint and asked me why I felt this way, why I’d had such a quick change of heart when it came to Bree Stone, I would have said I had no idea.

  Was this me rebounding? I didn’t know. I didn’t think so, but I knew I liked being in a relationship. I liked knowing there was someone out there who would be there to listen to me at the end of the day, to hear my rants about work and sports and shit like that—and someone in my bed at night.

  My mind wandered then, landing someplace it definitely shouldn’t. Oh, no. I shouldn’t think about Bree in my bed, her pink hair splayed around her head on my pillow in a halo of color, her lips parted as she sighed out my name. I shouldn’t imagine her pale body on display, the smoothness of her clavicle giving way to the curve of her breasts…

  Shit. Stop that, I told myself. Bad time to let your imagination wander.

  “Well,” I said, ignoring the heat that had suddenly gathered below my waist—and the slight twitch of something in my pants at the thought of her in my bed, naked and wanting, “we won’t be leaving this restaurant until I see you take at least two bites, so…” I shrugged and shoveled more into my mouth, lest I say something else stupid.