35. Callum
THIRTY-FIVE
CALLUM
By the time I made it to the cottage, the sun had already slipped behind the tree line, casting long, lilac-colored shadows over the pumpkin patch.
A soft light glowed from the cottage window, golden and warm, like the place itself had a heartbeat.
It was the kind of light that made you slow down, the kind that felt like an invitation you didn’t deserve but couldn’t walk away from.
I shifted the paper grocery bags in my hands and knocked with my boot.
The door creaked open. Elodie appeared in the doorway, wearing leggings and an oversize sweatshirt that had a faint streak of paint along the sleeve. Her curls were piled in a messy knot at the top of her head, and her eyes looked tired—but vibrant.
She was still there. Still trying, and that did something to my chest.
“Dinner delivery?” she asked, eyeing the bags with cautious optimism.
“I thought maybe I could cook for you,” I said, holding up the bags like a peace offering. “Figured you could use a night off—and I could use an excuse to see you.”
Elodie grinned as she stepped aside for me to enter.
The cottage smelled like lavender and something faintly citrusy.
A record played low and scratchy in the background—Otis Redding, if I wasn’t mistaken.
The air felt thick with something I couldn’t name, like maybe she’d been crying earlier.
I shook my head. I was probably just projecting and overly worried about her.
I caught sight of the wall just beyond the dining table and stopped short.
Bright Post-it Notes—pink, yellow, green—lined up like tiny soldiers.
Scribbled names. Phone numbers. A few were crossed out.
Others had full paragraphs crammed onto them in her looping scrawl.
Below them, pages from her notebook and a few printed emails sat tacked up like battle trophies.
My breath caught.
Elodie’s small desk had become a war room composed of stationery and shattered hopes—and still, she was there. Still showing up. Still fighting.
“El . . .” I murmured.
She glanced over her shoulder, eyes flicking toward the desk, and shrugged like the sight hadn’t just rearranged my entire chest.
She blinked and forced a smile. “Just a visual reminder that I haven’t run out of ideas yet.”
I didn’t have words, only the heavy thud of admiration and guilt settling deeper into my ribs.
She gently cleared her throat and took one of the grocery bags from my arms. “So, are you gonna tell me what dinner is?” she asked, trailing after me as I moved into the kitchen .
“Chicken pot pie,” I said, setting a paper bag on the counter. “Comfort food. Seemed appropriate.”
She raised a brow, mouth twitching. “You’re aware that’s like ... a whole thing to make, right? Not just throwing ingredients into a pan and hoping for the best?”
I pulled out the precooked chicken and homemade puff pastry like a man with a plan. “Don’t underestimate me. I have layers of flakiness prepared.”
That got a genuine laugh out of her. Elodie leaned back against the counter, watching me with her arms crossed over her chest and her hip cocked in that way that always made me lose my place mid-thought.
As I chopped onions and peeled carrots, her silence grew more weighted—not cold or distant, just thoughtful. I caught her watching me more than once, eyes drifting to my tattooed hands, the scars trailing up my arm, my back, when I moved around the stove.
“You really like cooking, huh?” she asked softly.
I nodded, focusing on not slicing my fingers. “It’s quiet. Ordered. You follow the steps, and most of the time you get something good at the end. It doesn’t always work that way with people.”
“Or farms,” she said with a dry laugh, and I glanced at her.
She wasn’t smiling anymore. “No,” I said. “Or farms.”
I stirred the filling and added a splash of cream that instantly looked like a mistake. Too much. It thinned out the sauce more than I meant to.
I grumbled and focused on salvaging the mess I’d made.
“Are you good over there?” Elodie asked, clearly biting back a grin.
I stared down at the pan like it had betrayed me. “It’s fine. This is totally intentional. ”
“Oh, I see,” she said, sauntering closer to peek over my shoulder. “Is this your famous ‘chicken pot soup’?”
I gave her a sharp look as I attempted to fix the situation, throwing in a few spoonfuls of flour to thicken it up.
“This’ll bake fine,” I mumbled, feeling off my game. “Trust me.”
She didn’t answer, just stepped beside me and reached up to tuck a loose curl behind her ear. Her shoulder brushed mine, and it was like getting shocked—small, electric, and enough to make me yearn for more.
While the pot pie baked, we moved around each other like we’d been doing so for years.
She poured drinks. I burned the garlic bread.
She laughed. I threw a dish towel over my shoulder like I was ready to throw it in entirely.
Somehow we set the table, even if the whole place smelled vaguely of scorched toast and onion.
“Moment of truth,” I said, sliding a scoop of the pot pie onto her plate. One look at it and I knew I’d fucked it up.
Elodie took a bite, chewed, and paused before swallowing.
My heart sank as she made a face.
“Okay,” she said. “It’s ... different.”
“Wow.” I dropped my fork with a laugh. I rested my forearms on the table and gestured with my hands. “Come on, give it to me. Brutal honesty.”
Her gaze flicked up. “I mean, the carrots are mostly raw, the sauce is sort of ... glue adjacent, and I think there’s a clump of flour in here that might qualify as a dumpling.”
I laughed, half defeated, and completely in love. “You could lie to me, you know.”
She pointed at me. “You said brutal honesty . Besides, anything less would rob you of the chance to grow.”
I looked up at her and found her smiling, that teasing glint in her eye softened by something else—something warmer. She reached across the table and tapped her spoon against mine. “But you get points for showing up. That counts for something.”
We ate in silence after that—well, she ate. I pushed food around my plate and tried to figure out how to say everything I wasn’t supposed to say. The longer we sat, the heavier it all became. The music in the background had long since faded into quiet, and the sun had disappeared completely.
After clearing the dishes—both of us studiously ignoring how bad the food had been—I stood at the sink, rinsing off the plates. Elodie stepped beside me and handed over the dish soap, her fingers grazing mine.
We both froze, but neither of us moved away.
“I miss you,” she said suddenly, barely above a whisper.
I turned, her hand still in mine, our bodies inches apart.
“I’m right here,” I said.
“You know what I mean.” Her voice broke on the last word and fuck , I hated that.
I hated the hurt in her eyes. I hated the way we both wanted everything and didn’t know how to want it without breaking the other.
“El . . .”
She looked up at me, and for a moment neither of us breathed.
Then her hand slid up to my chest, fingers curling in my shirt, and I kissed her.
Not rushed or reckless. Just ... deep and long, like a promise I wasn’t sure I could keep.
When we pulled back, her forehead pressed against mine. I held her there, anchoring both of us in the quiet. I wanted to tell her everything, but I couldn’t .
Not yet.
Instead, I whispered, “I told you, I’m right here.”
Elodie didn’t say a word—just took my hand and led me down the hall.
Floorboards creaked beneath us, and the soft scuff of her bare feet on the hardwood sounded louder than it should have.
Her hand never left mine, but her grip tightened like she was afraid I would vanish before we reached the bedroom. Like she didn’t know my heart had already decided to stay.
Elodie pushed open the door and stepped inside, letting go only to reach for the lamp on the nightstand. Warm light spilled across the bed—rumpled sheets, a half-folded blanket, the soft imprint of where she had slept alone for too long.
I stood in the doorway, watching her, and for a second I didn’t move because I needed to remember this.
The way she stood with her back to me, fingers toying with the hem of her shirt like she didn’t know what to do with her hands. The way her shoulders rose and fell with the rhythm of a breath she was trying to steady. The way her curls had started to come undone at the nape of her neck.
She turned and I stepped forward.
She didn’t say a word as I reached out and traced my fingers down her arm. Her breath was shaky and soft. When my hand slid beneath the hem of her shirt, her eyes fluttered shut.
“Elodie.” Her name felt like a prayer on my tongue.
She looked up at me, cheeks flushed, lips parted. “Yes, Callum?”
My voice floated over her ear. “I’m not going to be gentle,” I said, my voice a low rasp. “But I will be careful. I promise, I will always be careful with you.”
Something shattered in her gaze as she turned and pulled my face to hers.
The kiss was slow, but nothing about it was soft.
It was teeth and tongue and that desperate edge of need we had been circling for weeks.
Her fingers fisted in my shirt, dragging me closer.
I pressed her back against the edge of the bed and swallowed the soft sound she made when her knees hit the mattress and gave way.
Her soft skin was burning under my hands. Warm and wild and so damn responsive it made my knees go weak. I kissed down her neck, tasting salt and citrus and the faint trace of her shampoo.
She arched into me as I slipped her shirt off, every inch of her revealed like a secret I had been dying to learn.
“Cal,” she whispered, her hands sliding up beneath my shirt.
“Yeah?”
“I don’t want slow tonight. I want—” Her breath caught. “I want you to show me I’m still yours.”
My restraint broke wide open.