Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
BETH
It was Callan’s idea to make our first fake date a “hang-out” thing so we’d both feel more comfortable.
Since I got on so well with Baird, he’d suggested I attend the birthday party Baird was throwing for Kaito.
The team didn’t have a game until Sunday, so Baird was throwing the party on the Friday evening.
Callan suggested we walk together to Baird’s flat in Dean Village.
Since it was a twenty-five-minute walk, I donned flat espadrilles that tied up my calves.
I’d paired the vintage-look sandals with what my mum called my Audrey Hepburn shorts.
They were high-waisted white shorts with turned up hems. My long-sleeved tee was cropped and lightweight.
I swore I caught Callan shooting my legs sneaky glances now and then.
The idea that he might still find me attractive made me want to wriggle my rump in glee.
After all, I found him too sexy for his own good.
“Do you really think anyone is watching?” Callan asked quietly as we wandered out of the gate of our apartment car park.
Despite the warm Friday evening, I shivered at the thought of Sheera Green having me watched, as ludicrous as it was. “Nope. But out and about at restaurants and stuff? Who knows? I don’t think you can put it past a woman who is that interested in her egotistical son’s love life.”
“Just in case, princess, we better give them something to watch.” Callan reached for my hand and laced his fingers through mine.
I jolted a wee bit at the touch, goose bumps prickling up my arm. His skin was slightly calloused and rough. I glanced quickly at our hands, an ache scoring across my chest. There was absolutely no reason for him to hold my hand other than that maybe … he wanted to. “Thanks.”
Callan shook his head, a wry smile almost curling the corner of his lips. “It’s not exactly a hardship to hold your hand.”
A surprised huff of laughter escaped my mouth. “Are you flirting with me, Callan Keen?”
“You know you’re gorgeous,” he said matter-of-factly.
I grinned because he also sounded put out that he found me gorgeous. “I don’t remember you being so grumpy in high school. Serious, driven, yes. But not this broody and surly.”
His grip tightened as we crossed the street. Callan was too busy looking left and right to make sure we were safe getting across to look at me as he replied, “Maybe you bring out the worst in me.”
The teasing note in his tone softened the blow of his words. To be fair, he had seemed different since we’d agreed to our plan. He didn’t seem as irritated with me now. Maybe he’d let go of our past, finally. I hoped so.
“I’m seeing my parents on Sunday,” I said, changing the subject and giving his hand a squeeze. “I’ll talk to Dad then.”
A car horn beeped loudly, smothering my words. Callan leaned his head toward mine and slowed our strides. “Say again?”
His aftershave drifted over me, and I itched to touch the bristle of his stubble. Was he as aware of me as I was of him? I raised up on my tiptoes, brushing my lips deliberately against his ear as I repeated my words.
Callan sucked in a breath, his fingers clenching around mine. He pulled back abruptly and nodded, staring straight ahead. “Good.”
He was definitely aware. That shouldn’t have made me feel as triumphant as it did, considering this was all fake.
Wanting to keep things light between us, I asked him again about football because Callan seemed more amenable to conversation whenever it was about the sport he loved.
“Will you miss it when you retire?” I asked after he told me about the team at Caledonia United being his family.
Callan met my gaze. “Aye. Sometimes it’s hard to really think about it.”
“But you’re clearly planning for your future without it. The real estate portfolio. This idea for the hotel and spa?”
“Baird and I know we’ll need a career to fall back on. We’ve only got about another ten years of football left in us.”
I couldn’t imagine working so hard, pouring all my passion into a career, knowing it had such an early end date. In fact, I realized I admired Callan all the more for it.
As we strolled down the path that ran along the cobbled road of India Place, we fell into silence.
Not once did Callan let go of my hand. Even as we turned down the street and onto the footpath that led along the Water of Leith.
The treelined waterway was shadier. Dog walkers on their evening stroll passed us, and I let myself imagine what it might be like if Callan was really my boyfriend.
To take summer evening walks across town together, to grab dinner out, go for weekend breaks, travel across the world with a partner in tow.
Have someone to come home to, to vent to, to relax with, to cuddle with, to rip each other’s clothes off whenever the mood struck.
How nice it would be to stop looking for “the one” because I’d found him.
I snuck a peek at Callan, at his strong, handsome profile.
People looked at him as we passed, and it wasn’t because he was famous.
To be fair, he’d been correct earlier. Callan was mostly only well known among those who knew anything about football.
Outside of it, I’d imagine he was fairly anonymous.
He could travel to other parts of the UK or abroad and do so without most people ever recognizing him.
So I was pretty certain people looked at him because it was difficult not to.
That’s how it had been for me in high school.
My skin flushed as I remembered our stolen kisses and how Callan was the boy who inspired my sexual awakening. I definitely needed to leave that fact out when I told Dad about him. I snorted inwardly at the thought, even as a pang of regret hit me.
How many times over the past seven years had I allowed myself to admit that I’d wished Callan Keen had been my first?
First love and first time. Instead, my first time was with a guy called Euan Schaffer.
It had been in his bedroom on our two-month anniversary when I was seventeen.
His parents were out for the night, and we’d taken advantage of it.
It was awkward and weird and he’d enjoyed it way more than I did.
We’d tried it a few more times after that, but it never got better.
The only reason I kept trying was because everyone else seemed to insist sex could be great.
The best sex I’d had was a one-night stand with Cara’s big brother, Colin.
It was her twenty-first, we all got fairly smashed, and Colin, a good-looking, thirty-year-old not long out of a relationship, had gone down on me in the bathroom.
He wasn’t a natural, but he took direction extremely well.
It was exciting. And so I’d gone home with him and spent the night.
He’d continued to take direction well in his bed too.
Neither of us wanted anything more out of it. But I thought it a damn shame that the best sex I’d had was also the only casual sex I’d ever had. And that in the morning after, I’d gone from a multiple-orgasm high to awkward and weird and vulnerable.
I wondered if Callan was as generous as Colin had been in bed, though. According to Hailey, he hadn’t put much effort in, but Georgia said he was a phenomenal lover. Phenomenal. Hot tingles awoke between my legs. I’d had great sex … but phenomenal?
I peeked at Callan again. At his mouth. He’d been a fantastic kisser. What would his stubble feel like scratching against my inner thighs?
“What are you thinking about so hard over there?” Callan suddenly asked.
My cheeks heated and I was thankful I was not a blusher. “Just enjoying the nice evening,” I lied.
Baird lived in the quaint Dean Village in a nineteenth-century building social hall that had been converted into the sickest flat ever. When I’d first heard that Baird lived here, it didn’t quite make sense. Callan and his modern penthouse made sense.
Baird in his nineteenth-century flat shouldn’t have but somehow did.
Everything became clear when I saw the flat. If you could call it a flat.
The main space was cathedral-like, with the highest ceilings I think I’d ever seen in a home.
The period features, such as the windows, had been retained, as had the gigantic-tiled fireplace on the west end of the room.
Honestly, you could tell it was a converted social hall because of the many rows of windows on either side.
That did have the advantage of filling the space with so much light, though.
Baird had tried to make the space as cozy as possible.
There were dramatically long curtains at every window, a twelve-seater dining table down one side near the fireplace, and a large corner sofa with chairs situated around a coffee table and pointing at a large television screen beyond the dining table.
On the east end of the room was where the real drama happened. A stylish kitchen with a six-seater marble island propped up a mezzanine bedroom that literally sat on a mounted base above the kitchen. A glass balustrade was the only thing between the bedroom and the hall.
No privacy, but it was bloody cool.
I’d later discover from Baird’s sister that behind the kitchen was a generous and beautiful modern bathroom, and a doorway on either side of the kitchen led up winding, narrow staircases to two more bedrooms.
It was a lot of space for one bloke, but I could certainly see why he’d fallen in love with it.
It was also the perfect party pad.
There were a lot of guests over, most of whom looked like his teammates and their partners, but there was still plenty of space to walk around.