CALL ME, MAYBE
Ellie Cahill
Releasing on February 9, 2016
Loveswept
“Ellie
Cahill is definitely one to watch!” raves bestselling author Cora Carmack,
and this steamy, upbeat modern romance about connecting in all the best ways
proves it once again.
Clementine Daly knows she’s the black sheep. Her wealthy,
powerful family has watched her very closely since she almost got caught in an
embarrassing scandal a few years ago. So when Clementine’s sent on a mission to
live up to the Daly name, politely declining isn’t an option. Of course, the
last thing she does before boarding the plane is to grab a stranger’s phone by
mistake—leaving the hunky journalist with her phone. Soon his sexy voice is on the
line, but he doesn’t know her real name, or her famous pedigree—which is just
the way Clementine likes it.
Despite all the hassles, Justin Mueller is intrigued to
realize that the beautiful brown-eyed girl he met at the airport is suddenly at
his fingertips. They agree to exchange phones when they’re both back in town,
but after a week of flirty texts and wonderfully intimate conversations, Justin
doesn’t want to let her go. The only problem? It turns out that Clemetine has
been lying to him about, well, everything. Except for the one thing two people
can’t fake, the only thing that matters: The heat between them is for real.
Is that
okay? If I listen to your music, I mean.”
“Yeah, go
ahead.” He seemed excited. I liked the sound of his voice like that.
“Anything
you’d recommend?”
“I’ve only
got a few playlists. Just pick one.”
“Okay.” I
was curious to check out his music preferences, but not so curious that I
wanted to end our chat. There was something about his easy manner that made me
want to keep talking to him. “You can check out my music if you’d like.”
“I’m gonna
have to. What am I supposed to do while I work out, listen to my own thoughts?”
I laughed,
knowing exactly what he meant. “I do have Spotify and all that if my musical
tastes are not to your liking. And plenty of data, so go for it.”
“You’re not
a big Adult Contemporary fan, I hope?”
“No, pretty
much not. But . . . well, you’ll see.”
“I’ll have
to report back to you.”
A lull fell
between us, and I knew I should let him go back to his family, but I was
reluctant to break the easiness between us. “So, what part of Florida are you
from?”
“Central.
Near Orlando.”
“No beach?”
I asked.
“Sadly no.”
“I guess
I’ll just have to enjoy the beach for both of us this week.”
“Send me a
picture.”
“I—what?”
Total Zack flashbacks. My heart hammered noisily in my head, making my temples
throb while my armpits prickled with fear-induced sweat.
“I
meant—sorry. Was that weird?” For the first time he sounded nervous. “I just
meant I like the beach. You could send me a picture of the beach. Or not.
It’s—I’m not stalking you, I swear.”
My pulse
throttled back a bit. Okay. Maybe he wasn’t one of those guys. His distress was
so obvious, I almost wanted to laugh, but I knew it would be one of those
weird, ugly laughs. Instead I managed to say, “I-I could send you a picture of
the beach.”
He cleared
his throat. “Yeah?”
“Sure.”
Another
little silence fell and I squirmed in my seat.
“This is
frustrating, isn’t it?” Justin said softly.
My stomach
fluttered. “What do you mean?”
He exhaled
into the microphone. “I wish we’d actually met at the airport.”
“Why’s
that?”
“Because I’m
pretty sure I would have asked for your number, and now I’ll never know if
you’re only talking to me because you feel bad that you stole my phone.”
Was that a
line? I couldn’t tell. “Oh, come on. I’m sure you say that to all the girls who
fall on top of you and nearly break your laptop.”
“Well, I am
a Southern boy, remember. We’re all about chivalry.” He spoke with an awful,
thick accent.
“I didn’t
think Southerners acknowledged the existence of Florida.”
He laughed
and tried the accent again. “How dare you insult my people!”
Ugh, he was
so damn charming. It wasn’t fair to be inhumanly gorgeous and charming. And yet
I found myself wanting to respond in kind. “I wouldn’t dream of it, sir.” I
gave him my best Scarlett O’Hara, which was, admittedly, not very good.
“That was
terrible.”
“So much for
chivalry.”
“I’m sure
you have many fine qualities, but your Southern accent is not one of them.”
“I speak
Hindi in a passable accent,” I volunteered. Which was just plain stupid,
because the entire goal was to not let this guy know too
much about myself. I was completely failing at keeping this professional and it
had been all of thirty hours. It was no wonder I was the family disappointment.
“Seriously?”
Justin pulled me back from my self-flagellation.
“Yes.” And I
could say a few useful phrases in a handful of other languages as well, but I’d
said enough about that thank you very much.
“Why Hindi?”
“I was born
in India and I lived there until I was three.” Stop talking, Clementine.
“Why did you
leave?”
“My mother
was doing graduate work over there at the time.” Oh my god, stop talking, Clementine.
“That’s kind
of cool.” Justin sounded genuinely impressed.
I shrugged.
“I guess. It’s a real pain in the ass getting through airport security.”
“Why?” He
laughed.
“I’m
technically an Overseas Citizen of India, because I was born there. And that’s
apparently enough to get you labeled a ‘person of interest’ by the TSA. I get
searched all the time.”
“So, are you
a ‘person of interest’?”
“No. I’m not
even a terribly interesting person most of the time.”
“Now I know
that’s not true.”
“You don’t
really know me at all,” I reminded him.
“All right,
tell me something else about yourself.”
“What do you
want to know?” The little voice in my head telling me to stop threw up her hands
in total resignation.
“I don’t
know. Anything. Let’s start with your last name.”
Oh crap. Of all the things he could have asked, it had
to be that.
There is one
thing you learn early when you grow up in a family like mine—a lot of people
will treat you differently as soon as they find out your net worth. A lesson
I’d learned the hardest possible way when I was nineteen. Thus the code names
and the nearly blank phone.
Of course,
not everyone is after you for your money, but even if they never want a dime,
most people get a little weird once they know they’re dealing with the American
equivalent of royalty. My great-great-aunt was an actual English duchess, and
her grandson was the current duke. You have to admit, if you found out you’d
been chatting casually with a princess, you’d freak out. At least a little.
Anyone would.
So even
though it wasn’t Justin’s fault that we’d been forced into this odd little
relationship, I did what I’d had drilled into my head: I lied.
“Davis,” I
said.
“It’s nice
to meet you, Miss Davis,” he said, then after a pause asked, “It is miss,
right?”
I laughed.
“I’m not married.”
“Just
checking.”
“And you
are?”
“Justin
Mueller with a –u-e.” He pronounced
it “Miller.”
“Hi.” I felt
the familiar mixture of guilt and apprehension that I always felt when I lied
to a new acquaintance.
“Well, now
that we’ve been formally introduced I should get going,” he said. “My mother is
watching me through the patio door and it’s giving me bad high school
flashbacks.”
“My . . .
friend is probably wondering what happened to me.” I’d already given more
personal details about myself than I should have, so I randomly held back on
saying I was with my cousin. Yeah,
that’ll throw him off the scent, Clem. Nice work.
“Okay, well
. . . I’m sure I’ll talk to you later,” he said. “Listen to that song I told
you about, okay?”
“I will.”
We said
goodbye.
I blew out a
loud sigh and propped my feet on the bedpost as I lifted Justin’s phone up to
eye level and tapped my way into his picture album again. There he was, gorgeous
as ever.
What was
wrong with me? I had seen this man in person for approximately fifteen seconds.
Why on earth was I obsessing about him like this?
I pressed
the power button, blanking the screen.
Then I
rolled onto my stomach and powered the phone back on. I searched his music
collection for the song called “Clementine” and let it play while I browsed the
rest of his list. Classic rock, classic rock, classic rock.
To be fair, his taste in the classics seemed to run the gamut from the almost
clichéd Led Zeppelin and Rush to the less-expected Jefferson Airplane and
Cream. He seemed to have it all from the ’60s, right up through today. If a
band had an easily recognizable lead singer and an unmistakable guitar style,
Justin was into it.
I sent him a
text message: Try the playlist I’m Not Cool.
The song
he’d recommended was soft, acoustic guitar, and sweet vocals. I liked it, just
as he’d predicted. I smiled as I moved out of his first two playlists. The next
one raised my eyebrows. It was called Original Classics,
and was populated by the likes of Beethoven and Bach. Next, I checked one
called Softer. There, I found the home of The Decemberists
and some other more recent artists. Very alternative and generally soft,
soothing music that I tended to favor myself.
It was the
last playlist, however, that made me smile and get all swoony again. It was
called Standards and it was inhabited by Billie Holiday,
Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, and even a few more obscure performers of the
Great American Songbook. I rolled onto my back again, holding his phone to my
chest and feeling like I’d just been handed the last ingredient in a recipe for
falling in love. Was this guy for real?
My heart was
beating hard, and the phone began to slip, so I slid it farther down to rest on
my stomach, just below the inverted V made by my ribs.
I wanted
him. Not that I could do anything about it, but at least I could admit it. I’d
wanted him since the moment I laid eyes on him, and so far he’d done nothing to
discourage my desire.
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Ellie Cahill is a freelance writer and also writes books
for young adults under the name Liz Czukas. She lives outside Milwaukee, Wisconsin,
with her husband, son, and the world’s loudest cat.
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