Ripples Through Time by Lincoln Cole Page A

was just kind of
surprised. He told me some interesting things.”
    “Like what?”
    “Oh, you know. This and that…”
    She was clearly having a lot of fun.
    “I swear if I’d known he was lying to me…”
    Mary laughed. “It’s okay, Cal, really. I just wanted to give
you a heads up that they were on their way over. It’s actually quite sweet.
Emily is a real cat, and with you she’ll finally be able to go on double dates
with me and Steven.”
    Calvin couldn’t think of anything to say. His palms were
sweating now as she so casually laid his intentions bare. Part of him wanted to
deny it and dismiss the possibility, but another part looked at things more
reasonably. That  was  why he was here, after all.
    The only problem was, he had no idea what to say. Should he
just come out and ask Emily on a date? Should he try to be friendly first and
then ask her later? Or should he just talk to her today and hope that sometime
in the future he might be able to ask her out.
    He honestly didn’t know. He wished he had as much confidence
in the inevitability of Emily saying ‘yes’ as Mary did.
    When he actually thought about it, it was a stupid plan. He’d
met Emily once. They’d spoken barely three words to each other, and then she’d
been gone. If she had felt the same connection he’d felt for her she wouldn’t
have left so fast, right? 
    Right?
    He didn’t know, and he hated the insecurity.
    He felt his confidence ebbing away. What the hell was it
about this girl that made him feel so…helpless? He’d known lots of girls, and
they were pretty much just people. Talking to them, seeing them had never been
a problem. He’d asked a few out, had fun. But there was just something entirely
different about Emily. Something that made him feel simultaneously terrified
and alive.
    He just had no idea what he was supposed to do to win her
over. He was terrified she would say no. But he was just as terrified that she
would say yes. What would they do? How would he impress her? 
    He felt out of sorts with no clue what to say. He thought
back to a slogan he’d seen at Butch’s racing stable. Something someone
wrote up on the tack wall. It said: 
    Step 1: Buy a horse.
    Step 2:??????
    Step 3: Profit! 
    That was how Calvin felt right now. He’d met a pretty girl
and he wanted to win her affection, but he had no idea how. It had never seemed
so important before. He had no idea what step two was. 
    “Oh, here they come,” Mary said, waving toward her friends. Calvin
felt his heart doing leaps. Mary looked at him with an expression of mixed pity
and amusement. “Just breathe, Calvin.”
    “Easy for you to say,” he muttered. He spotted the two girls
with Mikey making their way across the courtyard to them. It was a lull between
races, not nearly as packed as it would be in a few more minutes.
    Emily was beautiful, her hair in a ponytail with a green
ribbon and yellow dress. The sun caught her skin, still pale but not
unattractive. But it was her smile that captivated him. He’d thought she
was pretty at the barn. She was stunning.
    “’And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare as any she
belied with false compare,’” Mary quoted, watching his face.
    “What?” Calvin asked, distracted. Mary giggled.
    “Oh nothing.”
    The other girl, Olivia, was shorter and stouter with lighter
hair. She wore a sun dress and ribbons in her hair and was pretty, in her own
way.
    But Calvin had eyes only for Emily. He’d been quietly
wondering how she could have such a residual effect on him. How could  anyone  have
that kind of effect on anyone else, for that matter?
    He’d dated several girls, even kissed a few. Some had been
friends, others he’d only met a few times before they dated. But none of them,
ever, had made him feel like Emily did. Love at first sight seemed so
preposterous.
    And yet…
    “I don’t think you’ve all been introduced. Calvin this is
Olivia, Olivia, Calvin, and this is Emily.”
    Calvin