Meg Cabot - Every Boy’s Got One

PDA of Cal Langdon

Well.

That was… unusual. I mean, it was just a kiss….

A really good one. An exceptional one, I’d have to say. I’ve kissed quite a few women in my day, but that one certainly stands out.

Obviously, however, I made an error in judgement. A grave one.

Still, it wasn’t like she didn’t kiss back. At first.

But she’s right, of course. It would have been a mistake. I don’t know what I was thinking. I never do things like that. Act on impulse in that way, I mean. I can’t imagine why I thought…. It isn’t as if it could go anywhere, she’s completely right. We live in two entirely different worlds.

Still, she’s an artist. You’d think she’d be a little more receptive to taking a risk.

Well, it’s lucky she resisted. She’s clearly one of those clingy, needy ones, if she can jump straight from a kiss—which was all it really was, no matter what she thinks—into a full-blown relationship. She’d probably have asked me to move in after our first time making love, then spend every weekend in the foreseeable future whining about wanting to take me to meet her parents.

Or worse, be her date to some friend’s wedding.

Shudder.

No, I made a lucky escape with this one. She’s clearly no Grazi. There’d be no more pleasure for pleasure’s sake, here. Obviously, I overestimated her intelligence.

It was those damn shoes.

Why does she even wear the stupid things, when she clearly can’t even walk in them?

Anyway, this is all for the best. The last thing in the world I need right now is to be saddled with some marriage-crazed cat cartoonist. I need to get to work on my next book, and it’ll be much easier to do that if I’m unfettered, relationship-wise.

And despite what she might think, I happen to like eating breakfast alone. And I’ve never had to sleep alone if I didn’t want to.

Well, except for tonight.

PDA of Cal Langdon

Ski boarders? Musicians? Just who has this girl been sleeping with? Must remember to ask Mark tomorrow.

PDA of Cal Langdon

I can’t ask Mark tomorrow—or today, I should say. It’s his wedding day. He’s hardly going to be likely to want to discuss his wife’s best friends’s love life.

Still. It was just a kiss. I don’t know why I did it. I couldn’t help myself, honest to God. It’s not like I’m in love with her. God forbid!

It was just a kiss.

So why can’t I stop thinking about it?

PDA of Cal Langdon

Upon ambling through the kitchen just now on my way up to bed, I made a rather startling discovery. Ms. Harris appears to have come back downstairs to retrieve something she forgot to bring up the first time she stormed off to her room, and in doing so, has left by the refrigerator something I’m sure she didn’t mean to leave behind: that little book she’s constantly scribbling in, the one that says Travel Diary of Holly Caputo and Mark Levine on it.

Oddly, I’ve noticed she’s scratched out Mark and Holly’s names and inserted her own. And yet, when I— quite by accident—opened it to the first page, I couldn’t help noticing the words:

Dear Holly and Mark,

Surprise!

I know neither one of you would bother to keep a record of your elopement, so I’ve decided to do it for you!

Surely if she really is keeping this diary for Mark and Holly, it wouldn’t be wrong of me to read it. Obviously she intends to give it to them.

And I think I have every right in the world to see what’s being said about me, as I imagine she’s had some rather choice things to say on the subject. Perhaps there’s even a libel suit in my future. Who knows?

And yet I can’t help feeling that I’m overstepping some boundary here.

Hmmmm. Quite a moral dilemma.

PDA of Cal Langdon

Anal retentive?

PDA of Cal Langdon

Modelizer??

PDA of Cal Langdon

I’m going to kill Mark for the appendage thing.

PDA of Cal Langdon

Apparently I’m a sardonic bastard, as well.

PDA of Cal Langdon

I…

I don’t know what to say. Except…

Except I’m starting to think it wasn’t just a kiss after all. In fact, seeing it all laid out there like that in her book, in black-and-white—all of my interactions with this woman, I mean, in more or less graphic detail—I’m starting to realize that it might be… it could ONLY be.

But that’s IMPOSSIBLE. I’m overtired, that’s all. It’s nearly three in the morning, for Christ’s sake.

And yet there’s no denying that sometimes when I look at her, I think—

No. It’s the tattoo. That damned tattoo and those stupid shoes. They’re DESIGNED to make a man think things like that.

Except that… well, that drive to Rome today, and that wait in the consulate’s office… that drive and that wait could have been so tedious, but I actually had more fun than I’ve had in a really, really—

I’ve got to snap out of it. This CAN’T be happening. Not now. I’VE GOT A BOOK TO WRITE. I’ve got an apartment to find. I’ve got a sister to support.

My God. I think… I really do think…

So. It wasn’t just a kiss.

But she thinks—because of my big mouth, she’s convinced—

Only how can I show her that with her, it’s different? I can’t just tell her, she’ll never believe me, she’s obviously convinced I’m a “modelizer.”

Holy crap. Grazi.

___________________________________________

To: Graziella Fratiani <grazielle@galleriefratiani.co.it>

Fr: Cal Langdon <cal.langdon@thenyjournal.com>

Re: You

Grazi, I’ve left two messages on your cell. I realize it’s late—or early, as the case may be. Still, I wanted to let you know—about your coming out to the villa this week: I really don’t think it would be a very good idea after all. I know we’d talked about it and I said I thought it would be fine, but actually, I think it might be really awkward at this point. Mark and Holly really want to make it more of a family thing. I know you understand. Thanks so much, and I’ll call next time I’m in town, I swear.

Cal

PDA of Cal Langdon

How could I have been so stupid? How could I have missed all the signs? They were all there… I mean, I even fed those stupid cats. How could I for one second not have wondered what was happening to me?

I just kept blaming the prosecco.

I ought to be shot.

___________________________________________

To: Listserv <Wundercat@wundercatlives.com>

Fr: Peter Schumacher <webmaster@wundercatlives.com>

Re: JANE HARRIS

GOOD MORNING! It is the day of the marriage of the friends of JANE HARRIS! YES!!! Come one, come all, to see the marriage of the friends of JANE HARRIS! I will be riding my motorino to get the marriage brotchen, and many other surprises! My grandmother and I have been working on many plans for the wedding couple!

Come to the Commune di Castelfidardo to see the marriage of the Americans today! It will be a marriage never to forget!

From the #1 Fan of Wundercat!

Wundercat lives—4eva!

Peter

___________________________________________

Dear Holli and Marc,

For your marriage we wish you unlimited thirst for a double good life that you both grow and thrive and your luck may increase and not burst!

Love,

Inge and Peter Schumacher

___________________________________________

Travel Diary of Holly Caputo and Mark Levine

Jane Harris

Oh my God, Peter and his grandmother have OUTDONE themselves. They are the sweetest people EVER. We woke up this morning to the smell of fresh coffee, and we went downstairs to find the dining table practically sinking under the weight of all the pastries, fresh fruit, breakfast meats, and fluffy scrambled eggs piled onto it.

Plus someone (Peter swears it wasn’t him) decorated the front gate with wildflowers from the horse pasture and two pairs of blue socks (still not sure about the significance of this). Apparently, wearing blue socks on your wedding day is important for good luck in this community. However, since Holly’s wedding dress is above the knee, I’m afraid this won’t do at all.

Speaking of whom, the bride is still glowing. You can’t even tell she spent all day yesterday with her head in a toilet. She just looks pretty and happy and… well, like a bride!

Even Mark is glowing… I mean, if you can say that about a man. There is a bounce in his step that I haven’t ever seen before, and he can’t seem to stop smiling. He was too nervous to eat—it was so sweet! He keeps looking at his watch and going, “Shouldn’t we start getting ready? We don’t want to be late. The mayor has that football game to coach.”

Cal’s the only one who wasn’t downstairs on the stroke of seven, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. He finally showed up a little before eight—from OUTSIDE. Apparently, he’d taken the car and gone somewhere.

But when Mark asked him where he’d been, he went, “To get the paper,” and slapped a Herald Tribune down on the table.