19. Nadia
19
NADIA
“Has Callum mentioned anything to Miles about anyone since he’s been back?” I not-so-subtly posed the question to Zoe that had been stewing in my brain for the last four hours as we pulled up to her house.
Our girls’ day had drawn to a close. Ashley picked Zoe up for the fitting, but after our spa day, she was feeling nauseous, so I volunteered to chauffeur the bride-to-be home. I would have offered regardless, but the one-on-one time gave me the opportunity to grill Zoe on intel to find out if Miles had heard anything from Callum about Kendra Abernathy.
“You mean Ariana?” Zoe unbuckled her seatbelt when we came to a stop.
“Ariana?” Why would Zoe think I was asking about Ariana? I was referring to Kendra “Handsy” Abernathy.
On the way to the spa, I drove by Southern Comfort and saw Kendra rubbing up against Callum like a cat in heat in the parking lot. First, she initiated a hug and then stood so close to him she could smell what he had for breakfast while she kept her hand on his chest like she was using it to pledge allegiance to the flag.
Kendra had always had a crush on Callum, and she wasn’t shy about it. She used to lean over his desk to talk to him and squeeze her arms together, then shove her cleavage in his face. She’d drop pencils as an excuse to bend over whenever she had a short skirt on, offering him a perfect view of her ass. She baked him cookies and attached notes with poems about how hot and tasty both he and the cookies were. She volunteered for the senior class end-of-year trip car wash when she was a freshman and stripped down to a bikini when she was washing his truck. She even crashed our senior prom. We’d broken up a week before, and, shocker, she’d tried to swoop in and take him. But he hadn’t succumbed to her pom-poms and short skirt. That wasn’t a euphemism; Kendra was the captain of the cheer squad and drill team. Instead, he’d opted to go to prom solo, and I’d gone with Zoe, who was already a mom at the time, and her husband, Austin, was overseas. Kendra’s prom crash was futile; Callum and I were back together by the end of the night.
“Ariana Culpepper,” Zoe clarified. “I figured you were asking about her because Chloe and Kendall are best friends, and the girls are having a sleepover tonight.”
Kendall was Zoe’s son AJ’s girlfriend, so it made perfect sense that she would have the inside scoop on Ariana. Still, I wasn’t sure what the girls having a sleepover had to do with Callum.
“Ariana mentioned she was planning to invite Callum in for a drink when he dropped Chloe off.”
And there it was.
“She did?”
“Yeah.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You keep saying nothing is going on between you two.”
I wanted to argue with her, but the truth was, I had gone out of my way to let it be known nothing was going on between us.
“Didn’t you say he’s working on your house today?” Zoe reached down between her legs and grabbed the bag of goodies she’d gotten from the spa.
“Yes.”
“If you want to know if something is going on between them or if he’s interested in something happening, why don’t you just ask him?”
“Because I don’t, and it’s none of my business.”
“Oh, okay, sure. Tell your face that.”
“What?”
Zoe’s arm reached across the console and flipped my sun visor down. I looked at my reflection and saw the green-eyed monster staring back at me. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Zoe smiling.
“I’m glad you find this so amusing.”
“I don’t, actually. You know I’ve always said that you two had unfinished business. I think now is your chance to finish it.”
“What’s the point? I don’t even know how long he’s staying in town,” I argued. “I don’t think he knows how long he’s staying. His relationship status with his baby mama is it’s complicated . I don’t have any idea how he feels about me. We haven’t come close to talking about anything from the past.”
“See…” Zoe leaned over and gave me a quick hug. “Like I said, unfinished business. Call me later. Love you.”
Zoe got out of the car and practically floated up to her house on cloud nine. Having a front-row seat to Zoe’s fairytale HEA after so many years of heartbreak should inspire optimism in me, but I’d never been one of those glass-half-full girls. I lived in the real world, where pessimism reigned supreme—where life wasn’t fair and bad things happened to good people.
Over the years, I’d tried to change my way of thinking by reading countless self-help books, watching TED talks, listening to podcasts, and even trying hypnosis, but my Debbie Downer mother had engrained her negativity into me so deeply it was embedded in my DNA. It was not second nature; it was first nature, my instinct, my go-to response.
Instead of inspiring me, witnessing all of my friends with their golden ticket to happily-ever-after didn’t restore my faith and give me hope; it did the opposite; it made me feel like it was never going to happen for me.
Growing up, I’d seen evidence that there was a finite amount of love. Whenever my mom didn’t have a boyfriend, she had more time for me and noticed I was around. When she did have a boyfriend, I didn’t exist. If that was the case, then it stood to reason if other people had true love, then the rest of us were shit out of luck.
Just like fossil fuel, love was a non-renewable resource that was being depleted. I was convinced that all the good love juju was getting used up, so every couple who found their soulmate meant I lost a chance at finding my own. That was how the balance of the universe worked. The yin and yang of good and evil. It wasn’t a rational way to think, and I hated and was ashamed that that’s what I felt, but it was true.
So yes, I was happy for all my friends, but also deeply depressed and discouraged about my future.
As I drove back home, the sight of Kendra hugging Callum and then petting him on his chest kept playing over in my mind. Thanks to Zoe, that obsessive thought now had a friend to join the fixation party at the dysfunctional disco playing in my mind, hosted by my insecurities. It was Ariana, in lingerie, asking Callum in for a nightcap—playing on a delusion loop. I’d also heard, through the Firefly Elementary gossip grapevine, that Leanne Lyons was making a play for Callum. Her goal was to secure him as her Valentine. The thirst trio were not the only women swirling in the jealousy storm that clouded my thinking. Felicity was also causing a great deal of unrest in my subconscious. How could she not? She was Matty’s mom and Callum’s fiancée. He said they weren’t together, but as of yesterday, she was still posting videos purporting to be engaged.
I hadn’t been jealous in years—ten years to be exact. The only person who caused that particular emotion to rear its ugly head was Callum Knight. Which was one of the many reasons I’d known we needed to end things. We brought out the worst in each other.
Or at least, in me. If he’d stayed in Firefly, we wouldn’t have had a healthy, happy relationship. We would have continued our toxic cycle of getting together and then breaking up. He would have ended up resenting me for having to give up his career, and we would have been miserable.
At least, that’s what I told myself all the lonely, sleepless nights I’d spent. All the times I’d wondered if I’d made the biggest mistake in my life by not telling Callum the truth instead of letting him believe I slept with Jerry Clemons. All the countless hours I’d spent imagining what our lives would have been like if I’d let him decide what he wanted to do instead of making that decision for him.
The girls wanted me to come clean, but I knew it was too late now. That ship had sailed. Even if I told him the truth today, it wouldn’t matter. He would never trust me again. I hurt him. It might not have been the hurt he thought it was, but it was still a betrayal. Callum hated liars. He always had, but after what he’d found about his dad, I’m sure that aversion had only grown.
When I pulled up to my house, I was surprised to find Callum’s truck sitting out in front. He must have come back to work after lunch. Part of me was glad he was there because I was psycho, and if he was here, that meant he wasn’t with Ariana, Kendra, or Leanne.
Another part of me—the sane part—wasn’t thrilled that he was here. I needed to get my emotions under control. Tomorrow was Sunday, and I had a conference in Savannah that I had to leave for at seven in the morning, and I would be gone until late tomorrow night. If he weren’t at my house right now, I would be able to avoid seeing him until Monday evening at the earliest. By that time, I should be able to get this completely irrational jealousy under control.
I needed to get over Callum. I’d spent too much time living in denial because it was easier than reality. Now, that wasn’t an option. He was here. We were not anything more than friends. If we were going to be, he would have been in contact with me after we all went out for pizza, but he hadn’t. The only reason he’d shown up at my house today was because it was his job.
It was time for me to have a come-to-Jesus moment with myself and grow up. In the immortal words of Taylor Swift, I’m not a princess, and this isn’t a fairytale. I’m not the one he’s going to sweep off my feet. This is literally a small town; it is not Hollywood. So to sum up, this was the real world, and it was time for me to stop pretending that I’d had this grandiose, epic, profound, Romeo and Juliet romance where I’d sacrificed my own happiness to give him the life he deserved. The reality was we were childhood sweethearts who broke up. Three years later he started dating someone else, who he has a child with and is engaged to. I had to let all of the stories I’d built up in my head, the cosmic connection we shared, go.
I needed to build up some walls of protection if we had a chance of being friends. Otherwise, I was either going to make myself crazy or it would destroy me. So, as my mama used to love to tell me, it was time for me to suck it up, Buttercup.
It was not going to happen overnight. I would have to deprogram my brain from the beliefs I’d held true about who Callum was to me. There was no way that was going to happen in the next thirty seconds it took me to get from my car to my front door. This was going to have to happen in phases.
Step one, I had to mask the way I was feeling. Something I’d never been particularly skilled at doing. Especially when it came to Callum. I might be able to hide my emotions from other people, but I could never do that with him. He saw me—really saw me.
From the moment we met, Callum and I were aligned; we were on the same wavelength. If I was a frequency, he was the only person who had ever been in tune with me. Other people might get some of the signal some of the time, with sporadic static interference. But Callum’s reception was crystal clear, no static, no white noise. All I could do was cross my fingers, toes, and eyes and hope that our years apart had dulled his reception.
So step one was going to be a doozy, but I’d never backed down from a challenge in my life, and I had no plans on starting now.
My heart was breaking and racing as I got out of the car and made my way up the porch steps. I took several deep, cleansing breaths, trying to center myself. When I got to the door, I relaxed my face, hoping to create a neutral expression before I opened it. I put in my key with my game face on, turned the knob; stepped inside, and only made it two feet before Peanut came barreling down the hall; coming to a sliding stop at my feet. Grateful not only to see my bundle of unconditional love but also for the distraction, I bent down to give him scritches behind his ear. I was telling him what a good and handsome boy he was when I heard footsteps in the hallway. Brown Timberland work boots came into view, and I knew I couldn’t prolong this any longer. I just had to act normal and not think about Kendra climbing him like a tree.
Stay strong.
I looked up just in time to see his lips curl into a disarming smile that had me feeling all sorts of discombobulated.
“Hey.” His deep voice vibrated through me.
“Hi.” My voice came out sounding strong, normal, and unaffected.
It was a small win, but I’d take it.
“I installed the new light fixtures and faucets in the guest bath and ensuite. I tiled the kitchen backsplash, replaced the hardware on the cabinets, and hung the ceiling fan on the porch.”
“Thanks.” I stood up and did my best to ignore how hot it was that when things broke, he could fix them.
His being so handy was not helping my no-feelings mission. If he could just suck at something, anything, it would go a long way to helping me get over him. While we’re on the subject, if he could just not be so funny, and also stop being the perfect combination of supportive and non-confrontational without allowing himself to get walked all over, that would help out a lot since I considered it one of his best qualities. He never argued with me, but he also didn’t just give in to anything I wanted. He never apologized unless he actually thought he’d done something wrong, and if he didn’t agree with me, he refused to say he did just to make me happy. He was never an asshole about it; he was just very confident and secure, and no one could take that away from him, with the exception of his father.
Callum’s phone buzzed, and he pulled it out of his pocket and looked at the screen. His smile widened, and he typed something back.
The grin felt like a physical punch in my gut. Was he grinning at Ariana? Or Kendra? Or Felicity? Or maybe it was Leanne? Who was texting him? Who was he sharing a private connection with?
No . I had to stop this. This was the exact problem when we were together. I was crazy.
It was none of my business who was texting him. He didn’t belong to me. Not that he belonged to me when we were together; he didn’t. But he definitely didn’t now. If he wanted to hook up with Kendra Abernathy or Ariana Culpepper or Leanne Lyons behind his baby mama’s back, then that was on him. Or if he and Felicity were still together, then more power to them. Whatever the case, he was having an A and B conversation, and I needed to C my way out of it.
None of my business.
He put the phone back in his pocket as he looked back up at me, and his smile fell. It was replaced with a furrow in his brow. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I stepped around him and walked to the kitchen with purpose. I pulled a can of cat food out of the cabinet and popped the lid open.
He followed me into the kitchen. “Nadia.”
Hearing him say my name in an authoritative tone did things to me. I found it hard to take a breath as the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. A shiver raced down my spine, and tingles spread through me as I dumped the contents into two bowls and set them down for Butter and Jelly before tossing the container in the trash and looking up at him.
“Nadia,” he said my name again, but I was still trying to control my body’s reaction from when he’d said it ten seconds before.
“What?!” I snapped.
“What’s wrong?” he repeated, calm as a fucking cucumber.
“ No-thing, ” I emphasized in two syllables to get the point across.
I wasn’t sure what was more irritating, that he wouldn’t drop it or that he didn’t care how rude I’d just been.
That was the other issue with us; no matter how frustrated, upset, or angry I got, Callum never reacted. He never raised his voice. He never lost his temper. He never even got irritated. Nothing I did affected him negatively. His reactions were either concerned if he was worried about why I was upset, neutral if he felt I was overreacting, or, and this was the most irritating, positive. Sometimes, when I got upset, he would just tell me I was cute or sexy and that he loved me. I could never accept or understand how someone could love me unconditionally.
The corners of his lips curled once again, this time in just a hint of a grin. “You’re mad at me. What did I do?” he asked in a tone ten times more soothing than aloe vera on a sunburn.
“I’m not mad at you. Why do you think I’m mad at you?!” I shot back defensively in spite of myself. “And if I was mad at you, why are you smiling?”
“Whenever you overpronounce no-thing you’re pissed. And I’m smiling for two reasons. One, because you getting mad has always been fucking adorable and sexy.”
Holy shit. Did he just say that I was fucking adorable and sexy? Did he mean that in the present tense, or was it past tense?
“And two, because we’ve been walking on eggshells around each other.” His grin now spread to a full-blown cocky smile as he waved his hand between us. “ This feels more like us.”
“That shouldn’t make you happy,” I shook my head, trying to maintain my composure. I had a plan before I came in here, and I needed to stick to it. Protect myself. Get over Callum. “That’s not a good thing.”
“What’s not a good thing?”
“The fact that this feels like us is because we were always fighting.”
“We didn’t always fight.”
“ Yes , we did,” I insisted.
“No, we didn’t.”
“What does that mean— we didn’t?” I knew exactly what he meant, and he was right.
“It means exactly what I said: we didn’t,” he reiterated.
“So you’re saying I did. All of our fights were my fault?” My defensiveness was completely baseless. They absolutely were all my fault. I knew that.
“I didn’t say anything about fault.” He held up his hands in mock surrender. “I just said we didn’t fight.”
“Stop,” I warned him. He knew what my buttons were and loved to push them.
“Stop what?” he asked with the most innocent Boy Scout expression on his face.
I pointed at him. “You know exactly what you’re doing.”
“What am I doing?”
His phone vibrated again, but this time, he ignored it and didn’t even break eye contact as he waited for my response. We stood two feet away from one another in the kitchen, playing a silent game of who-talks-first chicken. The longer we stood there, the more agitated I became. I knew he knew that he was messing with me, and I knew that I shouldn’t let him. Despite that knowledge, when his phone vibrated again, the thin thread of self-respect and dignity I was holding onto broke.
“Aren’t you going to check that?” I challenged curtly. “You don’t want to keep your adoring public waiting.”
The second the words came out of my mouth, especially with the amount of disdain that dripped from those two words, I wished I had a word shop vac and could suck them back into my mouth or a control-alt-delete button to erase them from Callum’s memory. My possessive/jealous behavior was unacceptable when I was a teenager, and Callum was actually my boyfriend; it was insane now that I was in my thirties and Callum wasn’t anything to me.
The only reaction to my ridiculous, juvenile, and unhinged statement was a tiny lift in his right eyebrow. “My adoring public?”
Heat warmed my cheeks, either from embarrassment or white-hot jealousy; it was difficult to tell at this point.
“Forget it.” I shook my head and walked past him into the front room. “I’m tired; I need to go?—”
I made it two steps before Callum cut me off at the bottom of the staircase, making my escape impossible. My only choice was to stop or walk straight into his chest. So many emotions were battling for top billing as I stood, staring at his broad, muscular chest an inch in front of my face. I was embarrassed at my juvenile behavior. I was devastated at the thought of Callum possibly being involved with one of those women. But most of all, I was just so madly in love with Callum it was almost comical.
For years, I’d forced myself to be numb to that love and how much I missed him; it was the only way I could survive. Now that he was back, all those feelings came flooding in like a dam had burst, and I didn’t know how to deal with them or where to put them. It was overwhelming. Tears began to form in my eyes, but I quickly blinked them away.
“Nadia,” he growled softly, and I could hear the concern in his voice.
When I didn’t respond, Callum placed his hand beneath my chin and tilted it up. Our eyes met, and he repeated, “My adoring public?”
There was no way I could have a conversation or even speak when I was this close to him and he was touching me. I took in a shaky breath and stepped back. Callum’s hand dropped to his side.
“I saw you with Kendra in the parking lot at Southern Comfort. She had her hands all over you.”
“She wasn—” he started to explain.
“Okay.” I lifted my hand as I clarified, “Not all over you. She hugged you and put her hand on your chest.”
He waited a beat before following up, “So Kendra is my adoring public?”
“No…I mean, yes, she is. If you had a fan club?—”
“I do, actually.” The right side of his mouth curled in a lopsided, cocky grin that made my ovaries throb. “I have a fan club.”
“Of course you do.” I rolled my eyes, pretending not to be impressed that he did, in fact, have a fan club. “I was going to say she would be the president, but I guess that role is taken.”
“No, she actually is the president.”
“She is?! See, I always told you she was a borderline stalker. Don’t you think that’s weird since she knew you…”
My words trailed off when I saw the mischievous glint in his eyes and realized he was fucking with me.
“Haha. You’re so funny,” I said sarcastically.
“Am I?” He placed his hand on his chest. “Is that what my adoring public is saying?”
I shook my head and sighed. “I should never have said that.”
“Maybe not, but you did.” His trademark bad-boy half-grin was back, and I could see how much enjoyment he was getting out of this. “So, who else is in this exclusive, or maybe not so exclusive, group?”
Even though I didn’t want to confess to my crazy, I’d said too much. It was my own fault. I had no one to blame but the green-eyed monster in the mirror.
“When I was dropping Zoe off after the spa, she mentioned one of the school moms has her eyes set on you.” I didn’t want to tell Callum about Ariana, because for one thing, she was so ridiculously hot, and Ariana left Firefly Island when we were in fourth grade, so it’s not like Callum grew up with her, and he would have already gone there if he wanted to. She just moved back to town, so she was fresh meat. I studied his face to see if there was any hint that he knew who I was talking about. I couldn’t tell if he did or not. “ And Leanne Lyons plans on using you as target practice for Cupid’s arrow.”
He waited for about thirty seconds, then asked, “Is that it?”
I blinked up at him. “Oh, I’m sorry, are three women not enough for you?”
He chuckled a little, then took one step toward me. Our bodies weren’t touching, but he was in my personal space. We were maybe a foot apart.
“I meant, is that what was bothering you?” Each word he spoke was slow and deliberate. They were enticing, drawing me to him like a moth to a flame. Not that he needed any help drawing me to him. “Is that why you were upset?”
I licked my lips as my heart rate tripled. “Oh, um…yeah…I guess.”
“Do you think I am interested in Leanne, Kendra, or school mom?”
“I don’t know; you’ve been gone fo?—”
Callum took another step toward me, like a predator stalking his prey. I had to tilt my head back to maintain eye contact. The intensity in his stare made me momentarily mute, and out of instinct, I retreated, which resulted in my back being up against the wall.
He placed one hand beside my face on the wall and leaned slightly forward. His eyes were boring down on me, and I lost myself in them. His scent wafted through the air, and I inhaled it deeply. After a long day of manual labor, his crisp citrus and woodsy sandalwood aroma was infused with a masculine, raw, earthy musk that cocooned me, making me feel safe and alive with desire.
“Do you think I am now, or would ever be, interested in Leanne, Kendra, or school mom?” He rephrased the question, and the husky depth in his untamed growl sent a thrill racing down my spine.
“No,” I admitted to both myself and to him.
I couldn’t pinpoint what made me so confident. It’s not as if I had any more information than I did when I was sitting out in my car, freaking out. It was just the way he looked at me. As I stood gazing into the whiskey-colored windows to his soul, I knew the truth. Callum would never be interested in those women. I knew it to be true, like I knew oxygen and atoms existed. I might not be able to see them, but I never doubted their existence.
The air around us was so thick with tension I was sure it had to be visible to the naked eye. Surely, there was a cloud, a haze, a fog so dense that any sighted person would see it. I wanted to look around and see, but I couldn’t do that. Callum had me held captive by his stare, and I did not, under any circumstances, want to be set free.