Clementine
I was surprised when I woke up in the morning to find a missed call and voicemail notification on my phone. I pulled my phone off the charger and swiped the screen to unlock it.
“You were so wrong, Leo,” I said to myself. I couldn’t help the smile spread across my face, but it faded as soon as I saw that the missed call was not from Falcon, as I had hoped.
It was from Leo, which meant the voicemail was probably from him, as well. I sighed and rolled my eyes as I put my phone back on my nightstand. I thought about deleting the voicemail without listening to it, but it would have been just my luck that it would have actually been important for once.
I groaned as I got out of bed. He was the last person I wanted to hear from, especially since he was probably just rubbing it in that he was right about Falcon. I tried to keep my mind off of Falcon while I got myself together, but I couldn’t.
I had been trying to accept the fact that he only seemed to call me when he wanted or needed me, but it still stung every time I looked at my phone hoping to find a text, a call, or something from him. All I wanted was something to let me know he was thinking about me as much as I was thinking about him.
It was tough trying to make it through my mundane existence when there was someone so entrancing and amazing in my life, who never called me. I was torn between accepting the limited communication as proof that my brother was right and just shrugging it off because he had a reputation, an image, to uphold. I told myself it was the tough-guy image that kept him from calling me every time he thought about me. That same image was part of why I was so attracted to him in the first place, so I couldn’t be that mad when it kept him from being able to just dote on me.
I picked the phone back up a little while later. The light was still flashing, reminding me that my brother had called. I sighed as I tapped the voicemail icon to listen to what he had to say when he had called me at stupid o’clock in the morning.
“Clementine, I know you think I’m just being an asshole about this, but Falcon is not who you think he is. I hope you’ve taken our conversation to heart, because if I catch him near you, there will be hell to pay, for both of you. You’re my little sister, and I love you. I am not going to sit back and watch you get mixed up with the wrong crowd. If you really want to get out and meet people, let me know. I’ll set something up with one of my guys so you can go to a nice club and meet some nice guys. He’ll make sure you don’t get messed with. Call me if you want me to set it up. Otherwise, stay away from the trash.”
He was right: I did know he was just looking out for me, but I still wondered why he didn’t like Falcon so much. And I still believed he was wrong. No matter what, I knew that Falcon was going to pull through for me and prove Leo wrong.
I deleted the message and set the phone down. I had been letting Leo run my life for so long. At first, it had been because he was my older brother, and he was incredibly successful. Growing up, I had looked up to him. That admiration had eventually turned into letting him call the shots.
“But I’m calling the shots,” I said with my eyes closed, trying to convince myself I wasn’t going to let his strange notions about Falcon keep me from seeing him again. Of course, that was assuming Falcon wanted to see me. I had my doubts. He certainly was acting like someone who just wanted to get into my pants or to get close to me so he could use me against my brother.
Oh, my dear brother! I looked around the apartment he paid for and wondered how things had gotten to the point that I took dating advice from him. Dammit, I was an adult. I was no longer the little kid he had dropped off at our grandmother’s house all those years ago. I had been ten years old at the time. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t have gone with my big brother to the big city.
He had insisted that I needed to stay with our grandmother so I could stay in school. Over the next few years, during the few times I saw him, he had always asked about my grades. Even then, he sort of became a father figure to me. He bought me my first car. He helped me apply for colleges, and probably even helped me get accepted by certain ones. I always felt like it had been fate that I had been accepted by the university right by where he lived. I had jumped at the opportunity, of course, to go to school right up the street from my brother.
Then, our grandmother died and after that, he’d helped sort out her belongings. When we came back after the funeral, he moved me out of the dorms into my own apartment. It was like he’d said, there was nowhere for me to go if I went back to that little hellhole town.
My big brother, looking out for me every step of the way.
And what did I major in while I was in college? Business. I was going to go into business just like my big brother. I had been trying to follow in his footsteps for so long I didn’t even know how to do things on my own. That included dating, apparently.
“Well, this time it’s going to be different,” I said to my empty apartment, trying to convince myself I wasn’t going to let my brother continue to control my dating decisions. I wasn’t going to let him be right about Falcon, even if it turned out he was. As I dressed for work and hurried out the door with no new messages on my phone, I knew I had to convince myself first.
As the day moved sluggishly by, I heard my brother’s words echoing in my head. Every time I checked my phone and didn’t find any messages or missed calls, his voice just got louder.
He’s bad news.
He’s no good for you.
He’s a one percenter.
He’s just using you.
I must have checked my phone a hundred times that afternoon at work, expecting a call or a text, just something to show me Leo was wrong about Falcon. But there was never anything from him. Just when I thought things were starting to pick up and really move in the right direction, my brother had stepped in to try to ruin them. And to top it off, Falcon wasn’t helping by not reaching out to me.
Leo was also the only person I had to talk to about this sort of thing. There was no one else to call. I didn’t have any friends. I sure as hell couldn’t call my brother and bitch to him about how Falcon was acting like a jerk by not calling me. He would have been happy about it. He would have been glad that Falcon and I were done already. That was what he wanted, after all.
What about what I wanted? Didn’t that matter to either one of them?
“It’ll be all right, dear,” an elderly lady said from across the counter, like she’d been reading my thoughts.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” I stood back upright from leaning on the counter. I blushed because I had no idea how long I’d been standing there, completely zoned out, while this little old lady wanted to buy a greeting card. “Were you able to find what you were looking for?” I asked her.
“Oh, yes, you certainly have a swell selection of cards here,” she said in a feeble, creaking voice. She sounded like everyone’s grandmother, the lady who baked cookies for every occasion and would have even offered to feed someone who had just broken into her house if she thought they hadn’t eaten.
“I’m so sorry I zoned out. I guess I’ve got a lot on my mind,” I told her as I rang her up. I tried to laugh it off but it came out as a nervous, awkward sound.
“Oh, don’t worry about it, dear,” she said kindly. “I’m sure he’ll call or bring you flowers or something. If he’s worth that kind of worry, he’ll put your mind and heart at ease soon enough.”
Her advice shocked me. “How do you know I’m thinking about a boy?” I asked her.
“Because that’s the look everyone gets when they’re falling in love and they’re not sure if the other one feels the same way,” she said.
After she paid me and hobbled out of the store, I stood and stared at the door. That was the thing about working in retail that always got me. Sometimes a customer would come in and be my best friend for about five minutes, but then they were gone, often for good. We rarely had any repeat customers. It wasn’t like the gas station, where the same people would come in at pretty much the same time every day.
I checked my phone again, but instead of hearing my brother’s voice that time, I heard the cute old lady reminding me he would come through. I had faith in Falcon, and I had no idea why. Maybe it was because I wanted him to be the guy I thought he was. I wanted him to prove Leo wrong.
I hadn’t known him long, but I felt like I had a pretty good sense of who he was, of the type of man he was. He seemed very genuine and passionate. He seemed deep. There was more to him than just the rough biker exterior. He was after more than just a piece of the girl working behind the counter.
At least that was what I told myself, because I wanted him to be that guy. I wanted the old lady to be right, and I wanted him to surprise me with flowers, or a phone call, or maybe even a surprise visit.
I worked an odd shift that day, so I didn’t have to stay until closing time. I left a little ahead of that time and went home. I knew I could have called Falcon just as easily as he could have called me, but that wouldn’t have proven anything to me. All that would have done was make me look desperate to him, and that was the last thing I wanted to do.
I didn’t want him to know I had just spent the entire day checking my phone every five minutes or so in expectation of a call or a text from him. He would have thought I was crazy, and then he certainly wouldn’t have called.
Instead, I was going to go home and pretend the day had been normal. I was going to get ready for bed and maybe put on a movie or something while I waited patiently to see if he called or came by. I wanted to believe what that old lady had said to me, that he was going to surprise me, and that everything was going to be all right.
After all, he was definitely worth the worry.