Chapter Nineteen
CALLUM KNIGHT!” Ralph’s voice filled Callum’s car through the speaker as Callum pulled into a parking space outside Peterson High School that clear, crisp Monday morning after homecoming. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Top of the morning to you, Ralph.” Callum shifted into park. His car faced east, toward the football field, and the sky filled with the last pinks and oranges of sunrise.
“What on earth is happening? You’re calling me at seven fifteen on a Monday morning, and you’re forming complete sentences? Wait, are you sick? Dying? You’re not dying, are you? That would be very bad for business.”
Callum chuckled. Ralph always was inclined toward melodrama. He’d been that way since college, and apparently it had only gotten worse.
“No,” Ralph continued. “You can’t be dying. Because you’re in a good mood. Unless you’re—”
“Ralph?”
“Yes?”
“Could you please stop playing wild guessing games and let me tell you why I called?”
“Yes. Of course. Apologies.”
“And maybe cut back on the espresso?”
“That will happen on the twenty-first of never.”
Callum grinned. The day Ralph Winters quit coffee was the day Callum would wonder if he was sick.
“Anyway.” Callum took a deep breath. “I wanted to let you know that I’ve thought about it, prayed about it, and yes, I will take that commission for Illinois.”
“Excellent. Oh, that is excellent news. Just fantastic.” Ralph’s words tumbled out in their usual rapid-fire manner. “I couldn’t be happier, Callum. Really. You’re absolutely making the right decision. Your career will thank you. Your future self will thank you.”
“My agent will thank me.”
“I was getting to that. Especially since your agent already told Illinois you’d take it.”
Callum hastily swallowed a sip of too-hot coffee from his Celtics travel mug. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I told them you’d take it. I knew your muse hadn’t deserted you for good. I just told them we needed some flexibility with the deadline, and they went for it. I decided not to tell you until you came to your senses.”
Callum stared at the arched entryway to the football stadium. Welcome to Patriots Country, it read. “I should fire you.”
“You probably should. But you won’t. You know you love me.”
Callum shook his head. “Sometimes I wonder why.”
Ralph laughed. “So what gave you your groove back? Was it the stunning motivational speech I gave you? It was, wasn’t it?”
“Not even a little.”
“Then you probably should fire me.”
Callum shifted in the driver’s seat. A couple more cars pulled into the lot.
“I just . . . got this idea a few weeks ago. A melody. It happened at the most random of times, when I wasn’t even thinking about it.
It was a Friday afternoon, I was wrapping up the week, and it just .
. . hit me. I honestly feel like God chose that moment to hand me a gift from the heavens.
And I’ve been playing around with it, and it’s actually turning into something. My compositional mojo is coming back.”
“I knew you still had it in you, Callum.” Ralph’s pride shimmered through the phone.
“It feels different this time around.” Callum turned his mug around in his hands, watching the steam rise from the hole in the lid.
“More mature. Seasoned. Battle-tested, I guess. I appreciate it more, now that I know what it’s like to live without it.
” True of everything since the pandemic, not just composition.
“It’s the best work you’ve ever done.” Ralph’s voice was uncharacteristically quiet.
“How do you know that? I haven’t sent it to you yet. It’s not even finished.”
“I can tell by the way you talk about it.” The caffeinated pep returned to his agent’s voice. “Now. The question is, What changed? What inspired you? I don’t have five years to wait through your next rough patch, so I need the express route to unlocking your mojo.”
Callum grinned. “I don’t think that’s how this works, Ralph.”
“Well, just in case. What’s different now?”
“Everything,” he replied. “I’m in front of a choir every day again.
Making music. Digging around in scores and finding what I want to bring out and then figuring out how to communicate that to the group.
Seeing the kids make progress, watching them come alive, watching them fall in love with it, watching Blair and how she is with them, and the love these kids have for each other, and—”
“Aha! I should’ve known you met someone.”
“I’ve met lots of people.”
“Don’t be daft, Callum. It’s a woman. Of course it’s a woman.” He could picture Ralph slapping his own forehead. “That’s what got you your muse back. I should’ve guessed. Blair, is it?”
“It’s not a woman.”
“Blair’s not a woman?”
Images of Blair in that formfitting bronze dress surfaced. The memory of how perfectly she fit in his arms. Her sweet fragrance filling his lungs, the ends of her hair tickling his fingers as he held her . . .
“No, she very much is a woman.”
“Callum.” Ralph’s voice held a grin. “You sly dog.”
“It’s not like that, Ralph. We work together.” And we talk about everything, and we danced together, and in a moment of temporary insanity I almost kissed her, and I spent all of yesterday wondering what would’ve happened if I actually had. Not that he’d admit any of that to Ralph.
“Callum, you can prance around under that giant banner of denial all you want,” Ralph said, “but I have not seen you this inspired, this on fire for music, this on fire for life, since you were with Rayne.”
“But when I met Rayne, I was also in Boston directing choirs and making music every day. You can’t separate the two.”
“And you can’t ignore the fact that I’ve known you since you were nineteen years old and I’ve seen you with women who didn’t inspire you. Rayne did. And Blair clearly inspires you too.”
Crap. Ralph was right. Callum had dated a few women, a couple he’d even really liked. But Rayne was the only one to inspire the music that came from his heart, not his head.
Well, the only one until Blair.
“Hey, I’ve got to run, Callum. Do something about the feelings you so obviously have for this woman.
Or don’t. Whatever works for you and your muse.
Just grab hold of these musical ideas you’ve got back in your corner and don’t let go of them.
God has clearly answered your prayers and my prayers and your mother’s prayers. Whatever you’re doing, don’t stop now.”
The line went dead, and Callum sat in his car, sipping coffee and watching students trickle in from the parking spaces around him. He had feelings for Blair, obviously. He enjoyed her company. He found her attractive. He liked her.
Ralph thought it went beyond that, though. Ralph was comparing Blair to Rayne.
Rarefied air. And air he wasn’t certain he was ready to revisit.
But his agent was right about one thing. Callum’s prayers had been answered. Gratitude filled him, and he sat there in his car and thanked God for giving him back his creative muse.
God’s plan for doing that was certainly not one Callum would’ve come up with. Bringing him to the middle of nowhere. Forcing him to take a job he’d have never considered otherwise.
But through that circuitous route, God had introduced him to the people and the music that would give him his inspiration back. Would give him his career back.
And that, in turn, would be his ticket back to Boston and back to his real life.
Blair parked her car on a side street rather than using the staff parking lot, and she entered the school through a seldom-used side door.
She wasn’t avoiding Callum, necessarily.
She just wasn’t quite prepared to deal with him.
Not yet. Not this early. Not when thoughts of him had occupied all her waking hours yesterday, and some of her sleeping ones.
She hadn’t even been able to focus at church, for goodness’ sake.
The pastor would talk about an answer to prayer, and she’d see Callum.
He’d talk about how God has a way of bringing the people you need into your life at the exact moment you need them, and she’d think of Callum.
When he’d talked about the desires of one’s heart and she’d still seen Callum, she’d forced herself to rein it in. He’s leaving. This is temporary. Nothing good can come of this.
He hadn’t texted her yesterday, which wasn’t unusual for the weekend, and she usually turned her phone off on Sunday afternoons anyway. Doubly so yesterday, since that would also give her an opportunity to avoid an inevitable barrage of questions from Joy.
But when she turned her phone back on and hadn’t heard anything from him, it was both a relief and an aggravation.
He wasn’t even going to mention the dance?
The fact that they’d almost kissed? Had it meant so little that there was no explanation forthcoming?
Or maybe it had meant something—so much that he wanted to discuss it in person.
And what if he did? What if he asked what it meant to her? What would she say?
Those were questions she couldn’t answer. And that was why she’d parked off-site and come in through the side door. Why she wouldn’t go into the choir room until the bell rang.
Mercifully, the commons had returned to normal. Twinkle lights had given way to the usual fluorescent. Fake trees had been replaced by lunch tables. Nothing remained of homecoming except a spirit-week poster still taped to one wall.
Okay. Maybe things with Callum could go back to normal as quickly as the commons had. Maybe there wouldn’t be any discussion or mention or anything. Maybe they could just sweep whatever happened under the rug and go back to the way things were.
Or maybe she should’ve taken a sick day.
“Ms. Em!”
She looked up at the sound of her name, and there was Thalia, sitting alone at her usual table. A mostly full iced latte from Teddy’s sat to one side, and the girl’s ever-present sketchbook lay open on the table.
Blair approached and patted her student on the shoulder. “How are you, my dear?”
Thalia popped out her earbuds. “I’m okay.” Then she tilted her head to the side, considering, as she stashed the earbuds in their little white case. “Well, maybe not yet. I’m still kinda mad.”
“As you have every right to be.” Blair pulled out a chair across from Thalia and eased into it. “Have you talked to Ryden?”
“He texted to let me know he got suspended today and tomorrow. He apologized.”
“Good for him.”
Thalia reached for her latte. “Whatever. I’m done with him. Done with boys in general, at least for a while. Boys are awful.”
Blair smiled. “They can be.”
“Besides, I’m graduating this year. I want to get into a good college and make something of myself.” She offered a shy smile. “Lately I’ve been thinking I might even want to be a teacher.”
Affectionate pride swelled in Blair’s chest. “You’d be a wonderful teacher, Thalia.”
“You think so?”
“Absolutely.”
Thalia gave a crisp nod. “Then I don’t have time to waste with Ryden or anyone else right now. Relationships are a distraction, anyway.”
As if to illustrate her point, Callum chose that exact moment to stride through the commons, coffee in one hand, his head bent over his phone.
Of course he’d worn that deep-green dress shirt of his, the one that brought out all the beautiful shades in his eyes.
And of course his hair was tousled just so in that effortlessly perfect way handsome men had about them.
And then their eyes met.
Suddenly it didn’t matter that there weren’t any twinkle lights or fake trees. Just a glimpse and she might as well have been right back in his arms, breathing him in, and—oh for the love, Blair, you have got to stop thinking about him like that.
“You’re absolutely right.” She forced her gaze back to Thalia and put on a bright smile before the girl could grow suspicious.
Thankfully, the early bell rang, and students around them reluctantly gathered their things and headed toward the hallways.
“You better get to class, and so should I. But I’m really glad you’re doing okay. ”
Thalia headed for her locker, and Blair squared her shoulders. She couldn’t avoid it any longer. Time to face the proverbial—and literal—music. Time to enter the choir room and spend the day somehow not looking at or thinking about the guy who occupied 90 percent of her brain.
She definitely should’ve taken a sick day.