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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.
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“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.
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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