2. Chapter 2
Chapter 2
Callum
M y house felt empty without Fleur. She'd been here a week and had taken it over with bright flowers and her light. Now, it felt like it always had. Quiet, clean, modern, and somehow more oppressive than before. She'd packed away her colorful rugs and throws. She'd left a vase with flowers, which now looked forlorn on the steel and glass coffee table.
She'd not put her art up—colorful Parisian café prints—but they'd been leaning against my walls, cheering the place up. They were a stark contrast to the expensive original art that hung, which was mostly landscapes; the colors being beige, blue, and black.
The moment I saw her at Sabine's, I knew it was over. I had hoped it wouldn't be, but I knew. Fleur never liked Sabine, and it had always rankled me. Sabine was quiet, sophisticated, gentle…frail. Everything Fleur wasn't. Sabine was elegant, while Fleur was the girl next door. Sabine spoke softly and never cursed, while Fleur, well, she had a sailor's mouth. Compared to Sabine and her parents, Fleur definitely seemed like the baby who was switched at birth.
I sat down and poured myself a finger of whiskey.
The truth was that I always saw myself with a woman like Sabine. If she wasn't Seamus's widow, I think she and I could have a romantic relationship.
My attraction to Fleur had been unexpected. Oh, she made eyes at me; she had been since Sabine and Seamus started dating four years ago. It still hurt to think about my brother. He'd gotten into his convertible one day and… fuck …after two years, I still waited for him to show up and talk about last night's game.
Sabine and he dated for a year before being married for another. They were so in love. It had been a fucking tragedy for her to lose him, for him to lose his beautiful and happy marriage when he'd tasted it for such a short time. And the shock of losing him had driven Sabine to such despair that she'd lost their baby. A piece of Seamus that would have been a balm to my family and me.
I adored Sabine for how she loved Seamus. How good she was to him. I loved her because she was family. I admired her for her grace and elegance, her smarts, and her success as a lawyer. We had always been friendly, but we'd become close after Seamus passed.
I wondered what my brother would’ve thought about my relationship with Fleur. He’d told me he liked her, but never spent much time with her—because it bothered Sabine.
"Sabine thinks her sister is hitting on me, which she isn't. Fleur is a sweetheart," Seamus told me once when we were having lunch on a Saturday at Paillard in the Marigny. Seamus had just proposed to Sabine, and he was happier than any man had a right to be.
"According to Brian, she's a bit selfish, doing her own thing, not particularly family oriented," I said as I perused the menu. I always thought that Fleur had a crush on me. She wasn't my type; she was too plain and nerdy, but it surprised me that she was also trying to get with my brother. Christ! Poor Sabine had one shitty sister.
Seamus snorted. "They have a problem with her not being a lawyer. But she's her own person; why does she have to be like them?"
"Maybe she isn't smart enough to be a lawyer," I mused.
Seamus arched an eyebrow. "You know she has a bachelor's in computer science engineering at Tulane. And she paid for it on her own 'cause Brian and Lenora would only pay for her school if she studied law."
"That's their call." I saw no problem with parents withholding their money from their children. Brian and Lenora came from the upper middle class and, with their law firm, had become considerably wealthy.
"It's petty," Seamus said.
"You're pretty defensive about her, no wonder Sabine doesn't want you spending time with her."
He laughed. "Fleur and I are friendly. I pay attention, that's all. Sabine and Fleur are very different people. She dresses like a tomboy and swears like a sailor, and her family believes her friends are not appropriate. But just because Fleur is not like Sabine doesn't mean there's anything wrong with her."
"She's definitely not in Sabine's league," I agreed.
"Is anyone?" Seamus's eyes twinkled. He was a man in love, and having spent time with his fiancée, I understood.
I always thought my brother was lucky to have married someone like Sabine. She'd been the ideal Mrs. Gallagher, even though my parents were cool towards her. I liked Sabine, not as much as Seamus though.
I'd never expected to be attracted to Fleur, though—but it happened and was like a sledgehammer in my gut.
It was after Mardi Gras when I was with some clients at Maison on Frenchmen's Street, and Fleur was there as well. She was friends with the drummer of the jazz band playing that night .
I hadn't seen her for a long while, and the woman in front of me looked nothing like a tomboy.
Fleur wasn't tall like Sabine, who was five feet nine inches and model beautiful.
Fleur was around five feet four or five. Not petite; not tall. She had a woman's body—clearly visible in the long black dress she wore that covered literally every inch of her. The dress cupped her body, and when I saw her ass, I felt my cock twitch. That ass was made for fucking!
She wore boots underneath the dress. The femininity of the outfit and the ruggedness of her footwear contrasted drastically—emphasizing her layered personality.
Once my clients left, I went and sat at the bar next to her. We'd seen each other earlier and waved to one another. She hadn't come by the table, and I hadn't sought her out either. But now, I felt drawn.
"How are you?" I asked after telling the bartender I'd have a shot of Jameson, neat.
"Good." She had a bright and broad smile. Her face was not sophisticated like Sabine's. It was happy. Her cheeks were rosy pink and healthy. Her lips were glossy and bright. Her eyes were light brown with dark centers. Her dark hair hung loose in curls around her shoulders—it wasn't styled, just naturally lush. She looked fucking fantastic.
Sabine's hair was always coiffed. It wasn't curly like Fleur's, or maybe it was, and she took care of it. Their eyes were different as well. Fleur's were like her mother's, while Sabine's were blue like her father's. Sabine's skin was pale, milky white, while Fleur looked like she got some sun.
"You come here a lot?" I made small talk because she didn't seem interested in speaking with me and was more into the fucking drummer with two arms full of tattoos. That was probably her type. Shaggy musician with tats.
She looked surprised that I was having a conversation with her. "Yes. I know the band. Jamie, he's playing the drums—he and I were at Tulane together."
"Ah." Fucking Jamie!
"The guy on the guitar is his boyfriend," she continued artlessly; "And Sheena is on drums. Isn't she spectacular? She also plays with the Trumpet Mafia at Frenchmen's Hotel."
"Jamie is gay?" I asked, wanting to be precise because I'd had just enough to drink to want to make a play at Fleur Landry, my dead brother's sister-in-law.
She chuckled. "I don't know. He's had boyfriends and girlfriends. I think he might be pan. I've never asked."
"Have you fucked him?"
She looked as shocked as I felt by my question.
"That's inappropriate, Callum," she said softly and stood up, ready to leave me to my surliness.
I wasn't going to apologize. I wanted to know because I wanted to fuck her. I wanted to peel off that dress, with its long sleeves and high neck that reached all the way to her ankles, and see what was beneath it.
She probably thought she was hiding her body, or maybe not because it molded her tits, a nice C+ I was sure, and her ass, which, as I noted before, was made for tapping.
"Let me rephrase, are you single, Fleur?"
Her eyes went wide. "Yes," she whispered.
I smiled at her. "Then why don't you sit back down and let me buy you a drink?"
And that's how it began.
I had her in my bed that night.
My head blew off.
Best sex of my fucking life.
Fleur was sensual, generous, and knew how to give and take. Hell, I'd never imagined her to be so bold and demanding in bed. It was a complete turn-on. She wasn't just handing control over to me—as much as I liked that, I liked it better when my partner was asking me to fuck them hard.
We continued to see each other, primarily for sex—because it was spectacular. But after a few months, I wanted more, so I told Brian, Lenora, and Sabine that Fleur and I were dating. They were all surprised and warned me that Fleur wasn't really my type. I knew that. But we were having fun. It was casual. I could, as the song went, make Miss Wrong, Right for a few months .
But seven months in, she made me feel things I never felt before. I didn't like it when she stayed at her apartment in the Marigny. I didn't like it when she traveled for work. According to Sabine, she worked at some software company and barely made ends meet. She rented an apartment in the Marigny, which didn't look cheap, but Sabine had also told me that Brian and Lenora helped Fleur out financially. I thought that was generous of them, especially since she didn't attend many family functions.
Regardless, I wanted her to live with me.
I liked waking up to her. I liked how she made breakfast while she swayed, listening to jazz in the mornings. I liked how she surprised me with little presents—like a book of poems by Pablo Neruda the day after we discussed poetry, a golf club for mini golf since I'd never played, a walking tour of the haunted houses of New Orleans because even though I'd lived here for most of my adult life, I'd never been.
She filled our days with fun.
The only time she seemed stiff was when we were around her parents and sister. I was a guy who respected family—would die for them, so I couldn't understand Fleur's reticence.
Since my parents moved to Edinburgh and Seamus died, the Landrys were my family in the States. Fleur should've also been my family, but she just didn't seem to care about her parents and sister. I'd asked her about it, and she prevaricated, cementing the idea that she just wasn't the family type.
She was flighty and enjoyed spending time with friends and pan-sexual musicians rather than kin. It would never work out between us, but I was enjoying my time with a woman so different from those who I dated before. She wasn't angling for anything from me—no ring, no promise, not even of loyalty and fidelity. She just lived in the moment, and I liked that about being with her.
"Yesterday is gone, tomorrow is not here. I want to live in today," she'd told me. "I like living in the present."
"What do you like about it?"
"Good or bad, my life at the moment is only for a moment. It's not some lifelong sentence or some past trauma to carry. Do you know that the Masai don't have a concept of time? They believe that now is where it's at."
"So, you're like the Masai?" I teased.
"I'm trying to be," she admitted seriously. "I don't want to dwell on the past because there were more bad times than good, and I don't want to worry about the future because I don't know how it's going to turn out."
I never asked her what she meant by more bad times than good . I should have; because this happy and bright person didn't appear to have any baggage.
But everyone brought their past to their present. I just hadn't been curious. So, even after eight months together, I didn't know Fleur very well. She was still an enigma.
And I still wanted to fuck her.