At three o’clock, Calder knocked on the patio door; Aubrey was more than ready to receive him. She enjoyed her leisurely day by herself, but now she wanted the attention of someone whose company she enjoyed with no strings attached.
She was still wearing her dressing gown; she would put on her evening clothes for dinner after Calder had left.
When she opened the door, he stood there sweaty and dirty, like a ranch hand that had come up to the main house to fetch his weekly two bits from the lady who owned it.
Aubrey stood there grinning demurely while Calder stared at her breasts and fiddled with his work gloves. She brushed by him and sat down on one of the chaise lounges on the slate patio. She set her cell phone on the table next to her. She motioned for him to come over as she opened her dressing gown.
She wanted to talk to him while he was dirty, but she didn’t want him in the house that way. All fantasies have their limits.
She also knew that it made him uncomfortable to flirt with her outside the house because he thought someone would be watching. A rustle of the privacy hedge on the other side of the fence confirmed that it was true, but Aubrey didn’t care.
Calder walked over to the chaise lounge and sat down on the edge. He let go of his work gloves and began caressing Aubrey’s bare legs.
“I missed you this morning,” he said.
“You forget that I’m a married woman,” Aubrey replied with a smile.
“You drive me crazy,” Calder whispered, leaning over to kiss Aubrey’s thigh.
He supported himself with his right arm, his bicep bulging as he kissed his way up Aubrey’s freshly shaven legs. Aubrey let out a sigh as his warm mouth came closer to the sensitive areas of her inner thighs.
As he drew himself closer to the hotness between her thighs, he also pulled himself up onto the chaise lounge. He placed a strong and rough hand on Aubrey’s upper right thigh, and she felt herself start to get wet. He then planted a soft kiss between her legs and rose in front of her, unbuttoning his work shirt to reveal his sculpted chest and chiseled abs. Aubrey always melted at the sight of his broad shoulders, so sturdy and tan from his long hours of working in the sun.
Calder kissed her with the kind of urgency that always threatened to undo her—his mouth insistent, fervent, pulling her into the heat of him. Aubrey became aroused by the raw strength and unguarded emotion of this young, Herculean, pretty-boy. That was the danger: with Calder, it was too easy to surrender.
But she couldn’t let him sweep her past the line again. He was too young, too impressionable, too ready to mistake intensity for permanence. If she let this keep escalating, he’d show up one night in a cheap suit with grocery-store roses, convinced he was doing something noble.
So she gently motioned for him to sit in the chaise beside her.
Calder obeyed, shoulders slumping like a scolded puppy.
“Calder,” she said, “we need to slow this down.”
“You’re teasing me.”
“Don’t you think it’s time you dated girls your own age? We’ve talked about this.”
“Girls my age don’t want me.” He shrugged. “They laugh with me, sure, but that’s it. I’m the funny Australian guy. End of story.”
“We’ve talked about this,” she repeated. “You’re the rough-and-tumble footy boy. That’s charming, but not always appealing to American college girls. Have you stopped the beer-swilling? The keg stands? Tried raising your grades or joining an academic club? Some of these girls are looking for soul mates, not bar mates.”
He looked away. “No. I haven’t tried any of that. Late nights with the guys are too much fun to pass up.”
“Then you can’t come complaining to me and expect me to take care of your frustrations just because you can’t get anywhere on campus. How do you think that makes me feel?”
“Not good, I guess.”
“Exactly. So if you treat other girls the way you treat me, it’s no wonder they’re not lining up.”
“You’re right.”
“Good,” she said. “Because instead of getting lucky today, you’re getting an impromptu psychotherapy session.”
He looked at her with a slight frown. “Okay.”
Aubrey settled back in her lounge chair, assuming the posture of a professional mental health provider.
Calder stared at the patio, elbows on his knees, hands dangling. He looked less like the rough-and-tumble college athlete and more like a kid who’d been caught vandalizing the campus.
“First question,” she said. “Why do you want these girls to like you?”
He looked up like he didn’t understand the question. “What do you mean, why? Because… I don’t know. I want a girlfriend, I guess.”
“Do you want a girlfriend,” she asked, “or do you want to prove something?”
He frowned. “Like what?”
“That you can be romantic if you want to be,” she said. “That you’re not just the entertaining Australian mascot everyone passes around at parties.”
His face became dark. Or maybe he was flushed with anger. Aubrey had never seen this side of him before.
“I’m not a mascot.”
“No,” she agreed. “But you let yourself be treated like one.”
Calder leaned back in the chair and sighed. He was conceding defeat to Aubrey’s assertion that he was getting by on his personality. “That’s just how it is. If you’re funny, people want you around. It’s easier than being the guy no one notices.”
Aubrey felt a small tug at her heart. It was like watching a puppy with a thorn in its paw. Calder could open his tender heart at the right moments.
Then it hit her. Despite what he said, she realized Calder had a better handle on women than he let on. This was a wake-up call for Aubrey on how she would conduct future therapy sessions.
“Being noticed isn’t the same as being valued.” She played into Calder’s little act.
He looked up at her then, and she knew he was playing her. There was something open in his expression—unguarded, young, achingly sincere that now looked put on for her benefit.
“You value me,” he said.
“I value your potential,” she corrected. “But don’t confuse that with anything else.”
His disappointment was unmistakable. “So what do I do, then?”
Aubrey was onto him. But two could play at this game.
“You start by choosing one thing to change. Just one. Something that moves you toward being the person someone wants to date, not the person you hope someone might tolerate.”
Calder thought about it. “Like, stop going out every night? Showing girls how rowdy I can be?”
“That’s a start.”
“Or, like… study?”
“Some girls like that.”
“Like who?” Calder was being sarcastic.
“Like me,” Aubrey answered.
Calder grinned. He thought the joke was funny. Then he got serious.
“Alright,” he said. “One thing. I can do one thing.”
“Good.”
Calder retested the waters with Aubrey. “And if I do, will you think about us again?”
He always did this, she thought. Just when she found her footing, he knocked it loose with feigned earnestness. Would it be the same way with Ian? It couldn’t be. This was her time to become well-schooled.
She steadied herself. “Let’s focus on the one thing first.”
He was not happy. “Okay.”
Aubrey exhaled, relieved, but anxious. She needed to focus Ian’s fantasy on someone else. Different from her, so she could remain in control.
For a moment, Caulder was quiet. Aubrey recognized the look in his eyes, sizing up his opponent before he charged. Then his eyes changed. They lost focus. They were puppy dog eyes.
“The one thing I want to work on is tough,” he said.
“Alright.”
“It’s not—” He rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s not just about girls my age not wanting me. It’s not only that.”
“Then what is it?”
He hesitated. Then the words came out in a burst.
“I don’t know how to be the guy they want,” he admitted. “I don’t know how to be the guy anyone wants.”
Aubrey’s emotions got the better of her. She jumped right in. “Calder…”
“No, let me say it,” he murmured. “I’m good at pretending. I’m good at being funny. I’m good at being loud. But when it comes to actually being with someone? I freeze up. Or I mess it up. Or I say something stupid. And then I think, why would anyone choose that? Why would anyone want to date me?”
I’m the guy who’s fastest at a track meet or on the football field. I’m the guy who can do a keg stand at a frat party. I know how to tell a joke so everyone laughs, and people love that, but girls don’t. Not the kind I wanna date, anyway. The girls who want to date me are party girls who will spend the night with anyone, but I don’t want that.
But I can’t help clowning around, that’s the one thing people like about me, and I can’t let that go.
Aubrey thought back to her days in college when no one wanted to date Miss Know-it-all. How could she give up studying because that was all she knew? It wasn’t quite the same as what Calder was feeling, but it was close enough. But how could she tell him to change in college when she couldn’t do it herself?”
The problem was obvious. She wasn’t going to dumb herself down in college and start wearing makeup to attract the guys who would probably mistreat her. She had a goal to become a doctor. Make-up could come later.
What Calder needed was advice on how to apply himself without it becoming a lecture.
Then she got an idea, start with the question everyone asks a college student.
“Calder, she began, “what’s your major?”
“My major? I’m only a sophomore.”
“But your major is the most important thing to decide when you are in college.”
“I have until next year to decide that.”
“Yes,” Aubrey sighed, “but in the meantime, all you have in your spare time is sports and partying. That’s your problem. You need to pick a major. When you figure out what you are interested in academically, you will find girls who are interested in the same things. Intellectual things.”
Calder concentrated for a moment. My major? I never thought about it.”
“That’s because you’re nineteen. You have your whole life ahead of you, or so you think. But you’ll be out in the workforce before you know it, and then you have to be an adult.”
Then he lifted his gaze to her.
It was slow, deliberate, and devastating.
His eyes weren’t pleading this time; they were cool as ice.
“But I am an adult,” he said.
Calder made a move to get closer to her, like maybe he was going for a hug, and then thought better of it.
“Calder,” she warned.
“I know you said we have to slow down,” he murmured. “And you’re right.”
His voice was gentle, level, without a hint of his usual bravado. Aubrey relaxed.
“I’m not trying to push for anything,” he added.
“Good,” she whispered. She had kept control of the situation.
“Can you look at me for a second, Aubrey?”
She shouldn’t.
She knew she shouldn’t.
But she did.
And the look on his face—open, vulnerable, and yet unmistakably certain—made her lose the control she had maintained during their talk.
Damnit, she had a lot to work on.