Chapter 12 #2
I call Callum on the way to my car, feeling like this is the first time all day I've had a second to breathe.
He answers on the second ring. "Hey, been thinking of you. How was your day?"
"It's been good. We're packing the store."
"I know," he says. "Reyes signed off this morning."
"I just closed the shop. Do you want to hang out?" I hop in my car and start the engine.
I can hear something in the background, a cabinet closing, the low clink of glass. "I've been making dinner for two," he says. "I just don't have a second person."
"That sounds like a you problem."
"I know. It's been devastating for me personally. I've been calling everyone in my contacts," he says. "I'm already in the G's and no one is available."
I smile before I can stop it. "It's a good thing I called before you got to Jennifer Kallas."
"You're right, she's always up for a decent meal," he says, calm like he's discussing weather. "Well, if you'd like to join me before I call her..."
I drive home. "Send me your address. I'm going to stop by the house first, so give me twenty."
I hang up, already moving, and the decision that took me three weeks takes about three seconds to act on once I do.
He opens the door before I can knock and steps back to let me in.
I toe off my shoes by the door and push my sleeves up my forearms. Pancake trots over, nails clicking on the floor, and sits neatly in front of me and looks up like a good girl who has been waiting all day for her turn at attention.
"Hey, you," I say, crouching long enough to scratch behind her ears. She leans into it, satisfied, then circles once and settles near the doorway like she's supervising.
He closes the door behind me, holding two glasses of red wine. His eyes move over me first, quick but thorough, like he’s checking that I really came before he hands me one of the glasses. "You made it," he says.
"Barely," I say, taking it. Our fingers brush before he shifts his grip and takes my other hand.
"Come here," he says.
He leads me into the dining room. The table is set for two, plates in place, silverware lined up, an open bottle of red breathing beside a salad bowl.
"Are you hungry?" he asks.
I take a sip of the wine. "I survived today on coffee and day old pastries. I'm past hungry."
"That explains a lot about your personality today," he says, completely calm and pulling out my chair. "Sit."
I do, setting the glass down while he disappears into the kitchen. I listen to the low clatter of a pot, the scrape of a spoon, then he comes back with a pot of ravioli and sauce in one hand and a plate of garlic bread in the other.
When the lid is lifted, a hit of garlic and tomato catches first and I raise a brow at him. "This looks illegal."
"You haven't even tried the garlic bread yet," he says, taking his seat. "Let's eat."
We do. The first bite lands warm and solid in a way that makes the whole day finally stop moving.
"I love ravioli, every type," I say.
"I had a feeling," he answers.
We settle into it without needing to say anything else, next to one another at the table, the wine within reach, and Pancake stretched out at our feet. For the first time all day, there's nothing to manage but the next bite.
"Cordelia knows about us," I say.
"I figured she does. But what do you mean by, she knows?"
"Everything. I didn't have to tell her."
He lets that go. He sets his fork down beside his plate, eyes dropping to the table for a second like he's running it through in real time, and he doesn't press me for anything more.
I feel the small, quiet relief of it and keep my focus on my plate, grateful he's giving me the space I didn't know how to ask for. "Jonah's going to figure it out."
"Jonah is going to need it explained to him with visual aids and probably a flowchart."
"I can make a PowerPoint. I've suffered through enough investor meetings to become deeply qualified." The corner of his mouth does the thing. "He's going to ask me if I thought it through."
"Have you?"
He looks at me. "No."
I feel it in the way he says it, clean and unguarded, nothing built in to soften it, and it lands somewhere deeper than I want to look at too closely. "We should tell him soon."
I nod, and what catches me off guard isn't the thought of Jonah finding out. It's how little I question whether Callum will still be around when he does.
He nods once, then looks at me, really looks. "We should," he says. "Because this isn't nothing."
My fingers tighten around my glass before I set it down. I meet his gaze. "It's not nothing. It's… a lot," I say, and I can hear it in my own voice, steadier than I expect. "It feels medically inconvenient for me, personally."
He doesn't look away. "It's more than that," he says, calm and certain. "I know what this is for me." He shifts closer, his hand still wrapped around mine. "I'm not guessing my way through this. I know what this is for me. I want more time with you. I know there's more here."
Something in my chest loosens and lifts at the same time, quick and unexpected, like I missed a step and landed somewhere better. I draw a breath that doesn't quite steady and let it out anyway. "Yeah," I say. "I'm there too."
He reaches across the table for my hand and doesn't rush it, gives me a second to meet him there, like he's offering something instead of taking it. His fingers close around mine, warm, steady, and he shifts his chair a fraction closer without breaking the contact.
"Are you the type who likes to hold hands in public?" he asks, like he's been thinking about it.
I blink at him, then huff a laugh, tipping my glass toward him. "Deely and I hold hands all the time."
His thumb stills on my knuckles and the corner of his mouth lifts, like he's catching the joke and keeping it.
He lets out a quiet breath through his nose, then his thumb moves once over my knuckles.
"I'm not usually overly touchy," he says.
"But with you, I'm pretty sure I'm going to want to hold your hand all the time. "
I huff a quiet laugh and shake my head. "I've never been one for PDA."
He looks at me, calm and completely certain. "Then that means I'll be kissing you in public all the time."
I reach for my wine too fast, nearly knocking the stem against my plate, and look down like the ravioli suddenly requires my full attention.
He keeps my hand where it is while he reaches for his glass with the other, like letting go isn't part of the plan, and for a second the entire room narrows to the small, stupid fact of our hands still linked across the table and the way that feels more certain than anything else that happened today.
"Did you do anything today about your investigation?" I ask, turning my glass a fraction on the table.
"I did. I sent all I have to the fire investigation unit. For now, it's in their hands," he says. "Now we wait. Either it closes or they come back to me for more."
I keep my hand in his and take another sip of wine. He doesn't let go. I don't ask him to.
We eat like that, slow and unhurried. He tops off my glass without asking, slides the bread closer when I reach for it, and watches my plate like he's tracking what I like without making a thing of it.
I catch myself smiling at nothing, at the ease of it, at how normal it feels to sit across from him, like I don't have to think about where anything goes, including him.
I drag a piece of garlic bread through the last of the sauce and shake my head. "If you cook like this every night, I'm going to become a problem."
"Pretty sure you already are," he says, reaching for the wine bottle.
"I can live with that."
I lean back in my chair, full, warm, and a little light in a way I don't try to name.
"I'll get the plates," he says, standing and gathering them one by one.
I follow with the glasses, rinse them at the sink, set them upside down on the rack. He bumps my hip with his when he reaches past me for a towel and I shift without thinking, making room, then not moving back when I could.
"This feels suspiciously like a routine already," he says.
The alarming part was that I didn't hate the idea.
"Plan on cooking for me often," I answer, drying my hands on the dish towel he hands me.
He sets the pot back on the stove, checks the knobs with his fingertips like habit.
I stack the plates, finding the cabinets they belong in. Our shoulders brush and neither of us steps away.
He takes my hand on the way out of the kitchen and I go with him to his bedroom.
The light is low when he pulls the covers back, still holding my hand as he guides me to sit.
I move with him without thinking, kicking off my jeans at the edge of the bed and pulling my sweater over my head, letting everything fall where it lands.
He pauses like he wants to take the moment in, then steps closer and touches my cheek, light and careful, his thumb resting just beneath my eye as if he's making sure I'm really here and not about to disappear.
I lean into his hand without hesitation, and the feeling that moves through me is softer than anything I usually allow, something I'd normally step around but don't this time.
I'm holding my breath and let it out slowly as my hands find his shirt, then his shoulders, grounding myself in the solid reality of him.
He draws me closer with an ease that feels certain rather than cautious, and I feel the difference immediately, the quiet sureness in the way he moves, the absence of hesitation.
There's no sense that he's guessing or waiting for permission he already has.
He's here, fully, and he expects me to be too.
We move together without needing to speak, our hands learning each other in small, unhurried ways, pausing and returning as if we're both paying attention to what matters.
The room holds a steady quiet around us, broken only by breath and the soft shift of sheets, and at some point I catch myself smiling against his shoulder, the reaction slipping out before I can check it and, for once, I don't try.
I catch it in the way I don't hesitate, in how my body stays where it is instead of pulling back to think it through, in how easily I fit against him like I already know the shape of this.
When he says my name, low and certain, it lands somewhere deeper than the sound itself, and something inside me answers without needing words.
I wake before the alarm to gray light at the edge of the curtains. His arm is heavy across my waist and I slide my hand out from under his wrist, lifting it just enough to slip out.
He shifts once and settles again.
I gather my clothes from the floor, pull my sweater on over my head, and step into my jeans one foot at a time, balancing on the rug. My shoes are by the door and I carry them so they don't make noise.
Pancake is already up, sitting in the hallway, looking at me like this is a routine we agreed on. I crouch and scratch behind her ears, quick and quiet. "Good girl," I whisper.
I open the door a fraction, ease it closed behind me, and put my shoes on on the porch.
The street is empty and I start my car, pulling away before the sun clears the roofs. I head home before the day can get ahead of me.
My phone rings at 7:52 and I've arrived at the pop-up early. It's Ellen, my editor, calling instead of emailing, which is never casual.
"The Ventura County Star reached out yesterday," she says, her voice careful in the way people get when they know the news is going to land hard. "They're running a local writer profile on Lara Vaine in two days. They want a comment tomorrow, and the article runs Friday."
I sit down on the floor at the bottom of Cry About It and listen to Ellen say something careful and practical about managing the narrative, getting ahead of it, that this could actually be an opportunity, and I hear the shape of her words without the content.
After she rings off I look back at the front counter where my bag that holds my edited manuscript pages is stashed and I understand that the years of careful separation are ending on Friday whether I'm ready or not.
I push myself up from the floor and cross to the counter before I can talk myself out of it. I pull the stack of pages out of my bag, thumb the top corner, and the papers fan under my fingers.
A line catches my eye and I read from the manuscript, low. Marcella's pulse faltered, then gathered itself into a quicker, steadier rhythm.
My voice sounds different in the empty store.
I flip a page and read another line. Stay with me, she says, pressing her hand on his chest and feeling his heart tell her all she needs to know.
I press my palm flat over the margin like I can hold the words in place.
"You wrote that," I say to no one, and then, quieter, "I wrote that."
I slide a finger under the name in the header tracing it. The letters don't change.
"If they're going to write an article about Lara Vaine, it might as well be on my terms instead of sounding like I survived a hostage negotiation."
I carry my manuscript to the front counter and set it next to the register. The stool scrapes when I pull it out with my foot and sit. I turn another page, slower this time, and the paper makes that soft sound it always makes, steady, familiar.
A line from A Room with a View drifts through my head without permission. It isn't possible to love and to part. I rub my thumb along the edge of the manuscript and stare at the pages in my lap because E. M. Forster understood that some feelings rearrange your life long before you admit they exist.
Shane will be here any second now.
I slide another book into the box, line it up with the others, and press it into place.
In a few minutes, Shane’s going to walk through the door, and I’m going to have to look at him like I don’t know he’s connected to all of this.
I’m going to have to act like I’m not sitting here wondering whether the man I’ve known for years was ever real to begin with.