Chapter Sixteen
Callum To Cal
“Listen, I looked at those board thingies on Pinterest like a million times, the desk should go in this corner,”
I pressed as Nate and Andy lifted the desk and planted it on the wrong side of the office again because they believed that was where every office desk went.
“No!”
I snapped. I walked back outside the office and stood in front of the threshold where I could see the desk right in front of the door.
“That desk belongs to the left corner. When I walk in I should turn to my left to find the desk, not stare right at it when looking through the door.”
Nate sighed as he held the edges of one side of the desk, and Andy lifted the other and they finally placed it on the right side of the room.
“And this is based off all the,”
he sent me a long look, “Pinterest boards she sent you, not because Boss Rhodes said so?” Nate said.
“Pinterest,”
I corrected. “And Juliette will like the setup.”
“All you,”
Andy said, “we got a lot of things we have to hook up in the kitchen, then we have to build the front?” Andy looked back at me as we headed for the kitchen.
My job here was done. We finished building, but I didn’t want Juliette to go through the trouble of building all the big furniture alone—she was pregnant for fuck’s sake. So I wrapped it up with my whole crew and only kept two people behind. Nate and Andy, they complain a fuck ton, but they’re just giving me shit. It’s just what they do. And I’ve known them for the longest, I trust them the most.
And by the front they meant where the cash register was gonna be and the big glass showcase that was going to have all the pastries inside was also delivered today and I wanted to have it built right away to knock it off our list.
We plugged in all the appliances and made sure there wouldn’t be any gas leaks. Then we started working on the glass display case.
I drilled the drawers in place and Nate passed me the screws because one wrong move meant the whole case collapsing.
“So,”
Nate began, “is that really your kid?”
I turned to look at Nate with a bored expression. “What do you think?”
I asked as I kept drilling the first piece of board.
“You wouldn’t be doing all of this if you weren’t at least smitten,”
Nate replied back.
“Cal would help out,”
Andy cut in, “he’s the type of guy to do that, but I do agree with Nate,” his eyes drilled holes at the back of my neck, “building the furniture? Building a display case?” He chuckled. “I don’t know how to explain that one, man.”
“She’s pregnant,”
I explained for the last time.
“Yeah, she’s pregnant, not disabled,”
Nate scoffed, “and from the looks of it she can afford to hire someone to do this.”
“Who’s to say she’s not paying me?”
Nate raised a brow. “Alright, that’s all you could’ve said, man.”
“But I understand you, man,”
Andy chimed in again, and I heard the grin in his voice, “pregnant and all,” he kissed his teeth, “I see what you mean, man,”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,”
I mumbled, “and why are you saying man so much.”
“Cause you’re my man, and you’re also daddy material.”
They both chuckled.
I rolled my eyes as I sighed. And to think I still have a few hours to knock down with these idiots.
“It’s true,”
Nate added, “think about it, you’re single, rich, CEO of your own company, a big softy trapped in a sexy, muscular, hot body, and your last ex is ancient history. Now, you’re a perfect bachelor.”
I suppressed my smile and pretended to be annoyed to be crowned as the perfect bachelor for Juliette Rhodes.
“And he got that baby daddy energy.”
I shook my head as I finally laughed. “You guys are idiots.”
Nate and Andy were gone by the time Juliette came to the shop. She brought food, like always.
“Bailey finally agreed to show me his secret sandwich recipe!”
Juliette grinned.
I glanced at her as I dropped a box over the counter, “is it the Krabby Patty secret formula?”
She squinted as she thought about it. “It better be, he’s been so stingy with the recipe but I guess he’s getting tired of making me sandwiches,”
she laughed softly.
I shook my head as I stared at her. I couldn’t lie and say I wasn’t disappointed every time I see her without my jersey on, but she still hasn’t given it back yet so that was the bright side. Since that night, my favorite memory has been the moment I felt Juliette’s stomach and the baby kicked like a little soccer player. I never knew how amazing that feeling could be. It was such a beautiful thing—a whole new life was being created. Juliette was amazing. She was carrying a future somebody. A whole life thread, a future generation.
It made me want to drop down to my knees and worship her. She was in my jersey of all things, it’s like it was made for her and all this time I was just holding onto the jersey until she came along. And in that moment, everything about her felt so familiar.
“Oh my god! You guys built the display case, and the bar in front of it?!”
she gushed as she finally took in today’s progress. She used a finger and swiped it over the French wood.
“The stools come in two days.”
She placed a hand over her mouth and squealed. “Cal, guess what else comes in two days!”
My thoughts stopped there, at Cal.
Juliette finally called me Cal.
What could that mean?
What does it mean?
Am I crazy for thinking it means anything? I mean, it should mean something, for almost a whole month now to Juliette I’ve been Callum, until now.
Why now?
Have we gotten closer?
“Callum,”
she called for my attention, “guess what else is coming in.”
Just like that, that sweet moment I had a few seconds ago was ruined.
I frowned—all hopes were torn. But I refuse to go back to how it was—she can’t just push forward and take two steps back.
“Don’t call me that.”
Her brows furrowed in confusion. “Don’t call you what?”
“Callum.”
She blinked. “That’s your name.”
“You called me Cal earlier. I liked it.”
“Everybody calls you Cal.”
I grinned. “it’s different when you say it.”
“How so?”
“I like it.”
I watched her throat bob as she swallowed. I noticed how much her skin betrayed her. The little goosebumps that followed after my not-so-harmless confession. And the subconscious step she took to put more space between us even though the entire display case was in front of us.
For her sake, I changed the topic. “Is your sign coming in soon?”
I finally took a guess.
She nodded almost robotically. “Yeah.”
“What are you calling the place?”
She swallowed again then cleared her throat. “Juliette’s Barn.”
I nodded with a smile. “That sounds nice.”
“Yeah, that’s why I decided on that. Muddy Hands had a good run.”
My brows furrowed. “Muddy Hands was your first name idea?”
She shook her head. “No, Muddy Hands was the name of my first shop.”
“What happened to Muddy Hands?”
She turned around. “I’m hungry, can we eat?”
“Yeah, sure, of course.”
We walked back to her office and for the first time in weeks, we wouldn’t be sitting on the floor anymore since the chair and the desk came in.
I turned the light on and Juliette walked past me to look at the desk.
She turned to look at me with a smile on her face. “How did you know to put it here?”
I shrugged. “All those Pinterest boards you sent me.”
Juliette tilted her head to the side. “Do you actually look at them?”
I nodded.
“Well, they certainly paid off,”
she said as she placed the bag of food on the desk. She sat in her chair with a big sigh, like she was comforted.
“This is nice,”
she hummed, “my ass feels great.”
I chuckled as I took a seat in front of her.
She leaned in as her eyes softened. “Thank you for everything, Cal.”
She exhaled, “I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to repay you, but I’ll do my—”
“Let me take you to dinner.”
It was a very hard shot, but I don’t think there was going to be a good time to ask.
“Dinner? Cal…”
She was even starting to use my name properly too.
God, she was so good at that.
I read the scared, nervous look on her face. “No pressure, just dinner,”
I quickly explained.
“It’s never just dinner,”
she said as she sighed. She opened the bags and passed me my sandwich.
I opened the sandwich and took a bite. “Well, it’s whatever you want it to be, if you say it’s just dinner then it’s just dinner, your word is law,”
I said as I chewed.
She nodded. “Okay.”
I tilted my head to the side, “okay?”
“I’ll let you know once I’ve decided,”
she said as she took a bite of her own sandwich.
“You know,”
I began, “I knew a girl named Juliette once.”
“Oh yeah?”
I nodded. “She had beautiful hair like yours, super shy, but she was only eight years old, so it checked out.”
I looked down at my sandwich. “She was my favorite person.”
Juliette opened a bottle of Minute Maid and took a sip. “Where is she now?”
I sighed then swallowed my food—I’ve been wondering about that almost my whole life now. I’ve looked for Juliette for years—what got me to finally give up was the fact that I asked my parents for help, and to me that was like the last option, final. It was like a gut-wrenching sign from the universe that I had to let her go. It’d been eighteen years. And even with my parents’ help, I couldn’t find her.
“I don’t know,”
I mumbled as I thought about it, “she was just gone…”
“Gone?”
Juliette repeated.
“Her parents got into a car accident and next thing she was gone.”
“Did you get to say goodbye?”
Juliette asked.
“No. She was just gone,”
I whispered, “once I got older I tried to find her, but I never did.”
“Maybe I’m Juliette.”
“You are Juliette, just not my Juliette.”
Our eyes met. “Besides, her last name was Simons.”
Juliette grabbed her Minute Maid again and took another sip. “I’m sure she’d be happy to know you still remember her.”
I nodded, “sure.”
Juliette was my first real friend. She understood things no one else could—she was too wise for her age, come to think of it. I still remembered that plan we made to run away together.
My parents didn’t want to stay in one place, they were always dragging Ardley and I to a new country or city, it was getting tiring. I’d never had enough time to adjust to just one place or make any friends. It was crazy because we resided in Beaufort. I attended the same elementary school as Juliette for a while, yet I was still all around the world.
Juliette’s parents were always fighting, she used to tell me about it all the time. I knew all about the times she had to sneak out of the house because they were too loud and violent. I’d sneak her into my parents’ barn and bring her cookies and other before-dinner snacks our maid had laid out. We played games and talked about a lot of crazy things.
We were inseparable. If she was hurt, I was hurt. If she was happy, I was happy. We had a deep abiding connection that transcended time, distance, and all our other circumstances.
She’s the only person who knew I wanted to be a hockey player when I grew up. I even tried to teach her hockey, but it was hard to keep quiet in the barn which would frustrate me a lot.
I remember the intense feeling of wanting to protect her. I never liked it when she went home. I used to wish she was a boy so that way my parents would approve our sleepovers and we’d have many sleepovers. And sometimes I thought if my parents would just spend one day with Juliette, they would see how amazing she was and wish they had an amazing daughter like that.
I stopped looking for Juliette four years ago. I managed to close her room in my head a year ago, but recently, without a notice or warning, the door creaked open.