4. Callum
4
CALLUM
“ W hat are you doing, blondie?” I ask restlessly as I check my watch and tap my foot in my very empty condo. We agreed she’d grab her purse and meet back here, but that was almost fifteen minutes ago. I don’t want to rush her. Eloise is always worth the wait. However, she was already dressed and ready to go. Primping takes less time. I put my hands on my hips and stare at the door, willing it to open. I know I’m impatient, but it can’t be helped. Not after the moment we just shared. I glance toward the kitchen and consider pouring myself a stiff drink to calm my nerves, but my eagerness gets the best of me. “I can just as easily pour a drink at her place while I wait.”
I swipe my phone and wallet off the entry table and step out my front door, only for my ears to immediately perk up when I hear a laugh I’d know anywhere float across the hall. They say laughter is therapy. Her laugh is mine. It makes my heart happy to know she’s smiling. The anxiety that plagued me seconds ago is only temporarily silenced because the second I key in the code to her door and push it open, there’s another man with her, and he’s the one putting the happiness on her face.
Right away, his eyes flash up to mine. “Cal, long time no see, man,” he greets as Eloise turns, her smile slightly faltering when she sees me.
“It’s been a few months,” I say, my eyes never leaving his, speaking a million sentiments with zero words, ensuring my ex-best-friend knows exactly where we stand. “I thought we were going to dinner?” I question as I join Eloise and wrap my arm around her waist, making certain there’s no mistake she’s mine. Her body is stiff but only briefly before she relaxes into my touch, which settles my nerves slightly. She’s not pushing me away. I’m her guy, not him.
“Yeah, I was surprised when I opened the front door and found Arlo standing there. I told him you and I were getting ready to grab something to eat, but now that he’s here, maybe we can order in?” Knowing his visit was unplanned makes me feel a little better when she pulls out of my embrace to open the refrigerator. “I have a twelve-pack of ale in here.” Then, turning to Arlo, she says, “Boneless wings and pizza?”
“You know I’ll never turn down beer and pizza. It’s been a minute since we had a Sunday ritual.”
Sunday ritual? I fucking hate that he has any type of ritual with my girl. She’s mine.
“It’s not Sunday,” I state.
Eloise shrugs with a smile. “It doesn’t have to be Sunday to have pizza and wings. We can catch up.” I don’t want to catch up with Arlo. I want to go down the street and share a booth at the restaurant around the corner, just the two of us. “Besides, Arlo is going to stay with me tonight. It makes drinking and crashing convenient.”
I bite my tongue and place my fists on the counter, finding some semblance of calm before leveling him with a glare. He doesn’t even live in Toronto. It’s not like he just happened to swing by after work. The fucker would have had to hop on a plane and spend a day’s worth of traveling just to have stumbled across her doorstep in a condo she’s only been in for a few days. His presence is no accident.
“Why are you here?” I ask.
His eyes narrow slightly on mine. “I was visiting family for the holidays.” He crosses his arms and tilts his head slightly. “Did you forget my dad’s family is from this area?”
Forget? No. Did it slip my mind seeing him standing in here with my girl, the same one he’s had no problem cozying up to after she left the night we clinched the playoffs all those years ago? Yes, but I’m not trying to start anything, not yet anyway.
“How’s your father? Did Zander make it up here with you?” Zander is the spitting image of his father, and because I keep tabs on Eloise, I know where Arlo goes, Zander does too.
“My dad’s great. Still eats, sleeps, and breathes hockey. Zander’s with him now. The ponds around his place are frozen solid. Trying to pull Zander away is like pulling teeth.” He grabs his phone out of his pocket and hands it to Eloise. “That’s him on my dad’s pond in the backyard.”
“Look at that smile.” She gushes. “Pulling him away in a few days isn’t going to be any easier.”
“A few days?” I question, my blood slowly starting to heat.
“Yeah, I have some business to take care of down here, and then I’m going to head back up, and we’ll fly back to Copper Falls together.”
“And you were going to stay here?” I point down at the ground.
“I hadn’t planned on it, but Lou offered and?—”
“You can stay with me,” I say firmly.
“Cal, this place has two rooms. It’s not an issue.” Eloise shakes her head, slightly perturbed by my suggestion.
“He stays with me or you do. Take your pick.” I can’t believe she doesn’t see where I’m coming from on this.
Arlo’s phone rings. “I got to take this,” he announces as he walks across the room.
“Seriously, you’re giving me ultimatums?” she says, leaning onto the island with a scowl on her face.
Closing the distance between us, I come around the counter. “I don’t think I’m being unreasonable. Put yourself in my shoes. If a girl from my past shows up in my kitchen and I offer her a bed down the hall from my room, are you okay with that?”
Her scowl morphs into understanding. “No, I wouldn’t like that.”
“So we’re on the same page?” I ask as I step into her, pick up a lock of her blond hair, and twist it between my fingers.
She gives me a soft smile. “Yeah, same page.”
“Good.” I release her hair and step around to open the fridge.
“What are you doing?”
“What’s it look like I’m doing? I’m grabbing the beer.”
“So are we staying in or going out?” Arlo asks, rejoining us in the kitchen.
“Grab your shit. We’re taking this party back to my place. I’ll show you where you’re sleeping.”
He doesn’t balk at my comment, which surprises me a little, but I don’t spend time worrying about his feelings. The only thing I’m focused on right now is getting him out of her place and into mine. I just wish that didn’t feel like a bad omen.
“ A re we going to discuss the elephant in the room or continue acting like you haven’t been trying to score with Eloise?” I say as I bring a beer bottle to my lips and look across the room where Eloise is passed out on my couch.
“Is that seriously what you think? After all this time…” His eyes flash from his beer bottle to mine. “Nothing ever happened between me and Lou. I’ve explained that.”
“That doesn’t mean you haven’t wanted it to.” I take another sip as I dissect his body language.
“I’ve always thought of Eloise like a sister, then and now.”
I can’t tell if my aggravation is coming from his words, the ones I’m determined to hear as lies, or the calmness in his delivery that speaks of truth when I look back on where my story with Eloise ended and his began. The other complication that stood in our way never truly existed, and I refuse to believe that Blair was the cause for the years that have kept Eloise and me apart.
“This can’t still possibly be over Blair Wyndham.”
“The fact that’s even a question says something.” He holds my eyes, and I get the sense I should be reading between the lines, listening to the words he’s not saying. The problem is I’ve racked my brain for years trying to do just that, and I come up empty every time. But for the moment, I leave it alone. At one point, he was my best friend, and we’ve never talked about what happened the day after we clinched finals. “You made that bed all on your own.” He rubs his hand down his face and shakes his head, perplexed. “Which, if we’re being honest, out of all the girls you could have chosen, Blair was a fucked-up choice for more reasons than one… I mean, she’s your cousin, for fuck’s sake.”
I level him with a glare. “We both know she’s not my blood.”
Blair is my cousin by marriage. My father married her mother’s sister after I was born. A union I’ve never entirely understood, sharing a roof with them growing up. The marriage I witnessed was roommates at best, but that’s neither here nor there because all that matters is that Blair and I are not related. I’m not bound to her in any way, then or now.
“Nothing fucking happened between me and Blair the night we secured our seat in the playoffs or any night after.” The irony, in my words, isn’t lost on me. Here I am with a truth no one believes, similar to the one he’s trying to shove at me. I know what people thought. I allowed it but only because of what I saw. If Eloise wanted to use my best friend for revenge, or at least that’s how I saw it back then, I wouldn’t just take it. Tit for tat, an eye for an eye. It was high school, and she had just shoved a knife into my heart.
“Okay… Then explain why, instead of coming to talk to your so-called girl the next day at lunch, you assumed the worst of her and threw your arm around Blair instead?”
“I didn’t?—”
“Drop the act, Cal. If you want to move forward and bury this, then you need to own it. I was there. I know what you saw, or should I say what you believe you saw.”
Tongue in cheek, I will myself not to flip the fuck out and lose my shit. That day changed the course of what was left of our senior year. In hindsight, I can’t put that all on him.
“Eloise may as well have been in your lap while you whispered in her ear as I looked up from my lunch table across the room.” I anxiously breathe out my nose, restraining myself. “She left my party with you the night before, and the second I got up to head toward the two of you, I watched you grab her hand beneath the table.” Until I saw her at lunch that day, I thought she skipped school since I hadn’t seen her at her locker or in the hallways between classes.
He swallows his beer. “I was comforting her. She saw you the second you walked into the cafeteria and watched as you didn’t scan the room for her. By the time you looked up, she had dug her nails into her palms so hard they were bloody…” He takes another pull. “We both know what happened after that. Blair was there, and rather than be a man and own your shit, you let her go.”
I’m off my stool and in his face before I can think better of it. “I never let her go, and you know that. If you’re looking to take a hit, let’s go!” My hands fist in his shirt as his nostrils flare.
“I was your best fucking friend.” He doesn’t push me back or struggle against my hold. Instead, he looks the other way and adds, “Thick as thieves since grade school and you thought I’d do that to you.”
I release him and take a step back, hating that I let my anger get the better of me. Eloise wasn’t the only one I hurt that day. I hurt him, too. I try to see through my anger and let go of the sadness that put it there to begin with, so I can get to the root of my pain. “Then tell me, Arlo… Why did you throw away years of friendship for her? If nothing was happening between the two of you, why propagate the lie? The guy I knew would have come to me.”
“She needed me. You didn’t. I’ve never been the best at expressing myself. It’s why I loved hockey. Hockey was an outlet for me. I’d release everything I couldn’t say and leave it on the ice. In my mind, even though you couldn’t see it, I was still your best friend looking after what I knew you cared about the most.”
That feels like a punch to the gut, but everyone knows hard truths are never easy to swallow. If I could go back in time, I’d do many things differently, but I can’t. That’s why I’m looking for a clue that says, start here and get your girl back. Win back that heart that was always meant to be yours.
“You know, don’t you? You know exactly what drove her away. Why do you insist on keeping her secrets?”
“I don’t see it that way. Maybe when we were kids, I did, but not anymore. Something happened. I was there. I helped her get through it, and since that night, she’s helped me get through just as much, if not even more. It’s not a secret to me anymore. It’s friendship and trust.”
Arlo can say it’s not a secret all he wants, but I guarantee there was a “don’t tell Cal” attached to whatever went down. As much as I don’t like it, there’s nothing I can do about it, and besides, he gave me something I didn’t have before… something indeed happened, and he witnessed it. He tosses his empty bottle and heads out of the kitchen.
“So that’s it then? You’re not going to help me?”
He stops and shoves his hands into his pockets. “I think after you’ve given tonight a chance to breathe, you’ll see that I have.”
I’m not dense. I realize I’ve gained two absolutes tonight. Blair Wyndham may have been a catalyst, but she wasn’t the nail.
“I’m shit with words, and maybe this doesn’t help, but I feel like if I were in your shoes, as much as not knowing and waiting would drive me mad, I think the second she laid everything at my feet would be worth it because it’s then I would know without a doubt I was the keeper of her heart.”
I don’t say anything. There isn’t anything to say. He’s right, and I hate it. Arlo telling me would be easy, but it wouldn’t be earned and I’m here to earn every piece of her heart. I want her to trust me with her heart and know I’ll protect it at all costs, just like whatever secrets she’s held close all these years. I watch Arlo disappear down the hall toward the room I showed him earlier, leaving me alone to digest his words and revisit old memories. I finish my beer and stare at my duffle bag holding my playbook. “Time to revisit the night I lost the only girl I ever loved.”
With my playbook in hand, I approach the couch where Eloise is sound asleep. I pull the fluffy throw blanket over her before taking my seat on the floor beside her. If I must revisit this night, at least this time, I’ll have her by my side.
Flipping open my playbook, I turn to the entry:
Penalty Kill
We clinched the playoffs! It’s been a grueling season, but that made tonight’s victory all the sweeter. My dad has been out of town for weeks, away on business, and my stepmother is at her weekly wine night with her girlfriends, which means it’s time to party. Lucas Balfour would kill me if he knew I was throwing a party, but I only have a few months of living under his thumb left, and I give zero fucks about anything he has to say anymore. Any influence he thought he might have over me was lost the second he threatened me with money. That’s why tonight I’m celebrating. My high school ring wrapped around my finger feels like a ton of bricks. It’s not much, but that’s because I’m not rich, my father is, but for now, it will have to be enough. Eloise Grey doesn’t know it, but I plan to make her mine.
I leave my bedroom, ready to find my girl, when a familiar scent assaults my nose. It’s the sweet, smokey scent of a cigar, but not just any cigar, the kind my father likes to smoke. My chest tightens momentarily as I consider that he might have come home early. I look down the hall toward his en suite and see his door closed. If he came home early, I’d know. This would have all been shut down. Someone most likely snuck in and took a cigar out of his box, a crime I’ll no doubt have to answer for. But that’s tomorrow’s problem.
My worry disappears when I round the corner into the living room. The entire senior class showed up. My house is packed. Lucas will lose his mind when he finds out about this. But if I’m a dead man walking, I may as well go out with a bang.
“Cal,” my teammate Bodhi grabs my shoulder hard. “I brought you a drink, my man. Did you know you’re a fucking king? This party is epic.” He shoves a beer into my hand, and I gladly take it.
“Have you seen Eloise?”
“Who?” he asks, leaning in and giving me his ear.
“Elo—”
“Cal.” A hand glides up my chest before two fingers walk up my neck.
I catch her hand. “What are you doing, Blair?”
My father and her father have been friends for years, and her father is also the head coach of the hockey team at Boston College. For some reason, she’s got it in her head that detail gives her some claim over me. It doesn’t help that my father insists I should date her, further inflating her ego. If I cared about pleasing him, maybe I’d consider it, but those days were gone years ago, and I don’t want to go to Boston.
She pushes out her bottom lip. “I just came over here to congratulate you.” My eyes narrow on her big brown ones, but before I can question her motives, her free hand holds up a shot. “See, I brought you a present.” She smiles wickedly.
“Thanks,” I say as I throw back the vodka, eager to get rid of her so I can find Eloise. One shot is nothing. I’m six feet five inches tall, two hundred and twenty pounds. If she believes a little bit of vodka is all it will take to get me to look her way, that’s her miscalculation. Or so I thought it was until that last shot was one of the last things I remembered before stumbling off into the sauna room… alone with the weight of my ring still heavy on my finger.
I close my book and watch the flames dance in the gas fireplace. I can’t be sure of how much time passed between taking that shot Blair offered me and making my way to the basement where I knew no one could find me, and while my memories feel hazy, I know for a fact I removed her from my lap. Removing her from my lap was a trigger for me. The reality she was on it at all told me I was fucked up since there’s no way in hell I would have ever allowed it to happen. That’s when I left my own party to hide until I felt normal again, but I never returned. I woke up the following day in a locked sauna. I didn’t cheat. I’m sure of it.
I turn to Eloise, and my eyes feel heavy as I watch her peacefully sleep. I let my knuckles gently drag over her cheek. “It was always you, blondie. It will only ever be you. Our fates were decided before we were born. You were made to be mine.”