Chapter 22 #2
Callahan is quiet tonight. That's not unusual when Rome and I are in the same room. He's perfected the art of being present without being noticed. He contributes just enough to avoid suspicion, keeps his attention distributed evenly so no one can accuse him of looking at one person too long.
He seems as tired as I feel. It's only noticeable if you're studying his face, which I am doing as much as I want. Faint shadows under his eyes, caught by the kitchen light when he turns his head. He's nursing his beer slowly, turning the glass on the table between his fingers.
Every so often his gaze drifts across the table and finds me. It stays a beat too long, then it redirects, smooth and practiced, like nothing happened.
I'm doing the same thing. I catch myself watching his hands on the glass and my brain supplies a high-definition replay of those hands on my hips a few hours ago, gripping hard enough to bruise. I have to take a sip of wine and stare at Beth's roast potatoes until the image clears.
The image doesn't clear. It just relocates. His forearms, sleeves pushed to the elbows. His mouth when he sips his beer. The hollow of his throat above his collar, where I'd pressed my face and felt his pulse hammering against my lips.
Every part of him is a trigger that leads back to the same place. And I'm surrounded by the most perceptive people in the world.
I yawn. It's real and deep and completely involuntary, the kind that squeezes my eyes shut and involves my whole body. When I open my eyes, Callahan is mid-yawn across the table, fist pressed to his mouth.
We lock eyes over it. Watering eyes, tired mouths. And then a smile pulls at both our faces simultaneously, private and synchronized, like a joke only we were in on. His eyes crinkle at the corners. Mine do the same.
For two seconds the whole table disappears. It's just us, exhausted and sharing very specific knowledge of why.
He breaks first. I follow half a second later.
"What is going on with you two?" Gran is pointing her fork between us like she's conducting an interrogation. "Both of you, yawning like you haven't slept in days. What's the matter?"
My stomach drops six inches. Callahan's hand flexes on his glass so briefly that only someone watching for it would catch it.
"Nightshift," he says easily, with a quick glance at Rome before his eyes rest on his plate. "Long one. Ran late."
It's a clean lie, exactly the right amount of casual. No overselling, no unnecessary detail. I'm briefly impressed by how good he is at this, and then I remember he's been lying to Rome about his feelings for me for over a year. He's had practice.
I open my mouth to offer my own excuse, something about staying up reading, bad night's sleep, but Poppy gets there first.
"Lily was on a date last night," she says cheerfully, reaching for the bread basket, completely unaware that she's just detonated a bomb in the middle of the table.
"Dean Calloway. Remember him? He came into the shop last week."
"A date?" Beth perks up immediately.
Vera's head comes up. Gran leans forward like someone just turned on her favorite show.
"It was a late one, apparently," Poppy adds, tearing her bread, still oblivious.
I take a sip of wine and commit to the bit. "Sure. It was a late date."
Across the table, Callahan is studying his plate like the roast potatoes have become intellectually fascinating. I take another sip of wine to keep from smiling.
Rome holds up his hand. "I don't need details. If you're going to discuss your date, take it to the kitchen. I'm eating."
"You can practically molest Erin right in front of me without a thought," I scoff, "but I can't even mention my evening with a nice boy?"
"I do not molest her." Rome sets his fork down. "That is a grave exaggeration. So kindly keep your nice boy talk to yourself."
Erin leans forward. "I want to hear about it later, though. All of it. I need material for my books."
"Erin and her romances," Poppy tells the table, as if this is news to anyone.
"Erin writes very detailed romance," Gran corrects, swirling her wine. "I've read some things. There are scenes in there that taught me things I didn't know at my age, and I have lived, let me tell you."
"Mom, please," Beth begs.
"What? She's talented. The girl has an imagination."
Erin goes pink again, but she's smiling. Rome watches her with an expression that says he's fully aware of her imagination and has no complaints. I love all of them so much.
I'm also about to do something stupid. The tiredness and the wine and the secret are dissolving whatever impulse control I had left.
Callahan is still fixed on his plate.
"Sure, I'll share," I say to Erin, smiling so innocently it could hang in a church. "If boys with dirty mouths and a little degradation streak is your thing."
There's a sharp, violent cough from across the table. A scrape of a chair. Ramsey's hand lands between Callahan's shoulder blades with enough force to rattle the glasses, and Callahan is bent forward with his fist against his mouth, eyes streaming, face red from coughing.
"Jesus, Cal." Ramsey sounds genuinely worried. "Breathe."
"I'm okay.” His voice is strained and half-choked and completely unconvincing.
Vera is already on her feet reaching for the water pitcher. Beth has her hand pressed to her chest. Gran is watching the whole thing with a sharp, interested gaze.
"Did it go down the wrong way?" Poppy leans across Ramsey, her face creased with concern. "Do you need the Heimlich? Ramsey knows the Heimlich."
"I'm fine." Callahan takes the water from Vera and drinks half of it in one go, his other hand flat on the table to steady himself. His eyes are still watering.
He does not look at me. I press my tongue against the inside of my cheek. My ribs are aching from the effort of keeping everything in.
Everyone settles, Callahan's breathing returns to normal. Ramsey gives his shoulder one final pat and goes back to his food. The visible crisis is over.
But Rome isn't watching Callahan. Rome is watching me.
I can feel him connecting dots I don't want connected, and that wipes the smile from my face fast. I need to redirect. Now.
"I'm sorry, Callahan," I say, putting on my most apologetic face, pitching my voice to carry exactly the right amount of sisterly teasing. "I should have known that conversation would be too much for you. You strike me as more of a vanilla type."
His eyes across the table are still watering, still red-rimmed, and absolutely murderous.
"Yeah," he says perfectly controlled, with just the faintest edge of something that makes my toes curl under the table. "I wouldn't know what you're talking about."
From beside him, Ramsey coughs. It's small, half-swallowed into his beer glass. Callahan turns and fixes him with an expression that could have curdled every dairy product in a five-mile radius.
Ramsey takes another sip of his beer, face in perfect neutrality, eyes fixed on some fascinating point in the middle distance.
I allow myself one small victory-lap smile, which turns out to be one smile too many.
Poppy's eyes narrow. I see her assembling the pieces in real time, clicking them together like a puzzle she didn't know she was solving.
She looks at Erin. Erin looks at Poppy and it's an entire conversation in a quarter of a second.
I pick up my wine and hide behind it, making sure I don't go too far. Callahan's eyes find mine one more time across the table, a second that carries a warning I can read as clearly as if he'd written it on a billboard.
You're going to pay for that.
I hold his gaze just long enough to make sure he sees my answer.
I'm counting on it.
Then I smile at Beth and ask about the roast potatoes, and I spend the rest of the evening being the most charming, innocent, well-behaved version of myself.
Keeping this secret is going to be the hardest thing I've ever done. Harder than organic chemistry. Harder than pretending I didn't want him for all those months when he was pretending not to see me.
I'm going to enjoy every second of it.