30. Callum
30
CALLUM
All of the lights were out when I pulled up to the farm, which was strange. I knew Nadia dropped Chloe over at Kendall’s house, but I expected everyone else to be home. I didn’t see Felicity’s rental or my mom’s Jeep. When I stepped inside, I found the house completely quiet.
I checked my phone and hadn’t missed a call from anyone. I went out onto the back patio and found Buzz in his rocking chair with a bottle of beer in one hand and a fly swatter in the other. Betty and Bandit were both sacked out by his feet.
“Hey, where is everyone?”
“Your mama said she had to visit a friend; she was bein’ real mysterious, so I figure she’s out with her fella, and Matty’s with his mama.”
Fuck. If I had known no one was around, I would have stayed at Nadia’s. I only came home because this was the time I’d been getting off work lately. I turned to head back inside to grab a shower.
“Heard you might be gettin’ back in the cage again.”
I paused and then turned back around. There was a reason I hadn’t mentioned the fight to Buzz. He was old-school. He wouldn’t care about the kids’ mental health or what was best for Chloe’s adjustment in her new environment.
“I have an offer to fight Martinez,” I relayed.
“You gonna do it?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s goin’ on with you and Matty’s mama?”
Okay, that was a quick U-turn. I would have thought he’d have more questions about the fight.
“Nothing. I mean, we’re not together.”
He stopped rocking, and his thick white brows raised, causing his forehead to wrinkle. “Does she know that?”
“She should.”
“Well, son, that’s not what she’s tellin’ people on the computer.” Buzz reached into the mini cooler beside him, grabbed a beer, and offered it to me.
What the hell. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a beer with Buzz. I took it and lowered down into the chair next to him. I brought the bottle to my lips and tilted my neck back, letting the cool liquid slide down my throat. Bandit sat up, and I scratched behind his ears to say hello.
“I thought you said if Martinez came out of retirement, you’d fight him.”
And we were back to the fight. This was sort of a boomerang conversation.
“That was before all of this happened with Chloe.”
“Hmm,” Buzz made a noncommittal noise.
“If I take the fight, I’m gonna have to go back to Arizona to train. I don’t want to take her out of school.” I figured I’d try to explain it to Buzz, even though I doubt I’d get an empathetic ear. But hey, maybe he’d gotten a little softer in his old age.
“She can stay here. We can look after her, yer mama and me. She likes livin’ here, and yer mama likes havin’ her around.”
It was true; my mom did love having her around, which I didn’t understand. Chloe was a reminder of my dad’s infidelity, yet that’s not how my mom saw her. It blew my mind how forgiving my mom could be. From the moment my mom found out about Danielle and Chloe, she seemed to accept it. I hadn’t seen her get mad or betrayed or anxious or any emotion other than grief when it came to my dad.
But it didn’t actually matter if Buzz and my mom wanted her to stay.
“It’s not that simple. Legally, she can’t just stay with people. If I don’t become her permanent guardian, she goes into care. And not care like a foster family; it would most likely be a group home.”
“Well, that don’t make no kinda sense.”
“I know it seems like that, but it’s actually set up that way to protect kids.”
“Hogwash.” Buzz shook his head dismissively and took another swig of beer.
I agreed with him that it was hogwash, but unfortunately, our opinions didn’t matter.
“So what are you gonna do?”
“I don’t know.”
“What about Matty’s mama? Why does she have that ring on her finger?”
And we were back to Felicity.
I shook my head and took another sip of beer, then sighed. “She’s in denial or just thinks she’ll get her way by ignoring me. I’ve tried to talk to her, but she’s avoiding me. She needs to understand that she’s always going to be his mom, but as far as us, that’s over. We’re just too different.”
“I think ya might want to make that clear to her. I have it on very good authority that she’s been meetin’ with a wedding planner today.”
A wedding planner? Great.
“Daddy!” Matty called out as he tried to open the screen, but it was stuck.
I handed the beer back to Buzz and went across the patio. As soon as I opened the screen, Matty jumped up in my arms.
“Where have you been?” I asked.
“I went to go take pictures with Mom. We went to the beach, where there were bugs that lit up, and then we went to get ice cream and took pictures on the wheel.”
I tried not to get irritated by the fact that the only time Felicity spent with Matty was for content. She never just took him out for quality time with her son. If there wasn’t a photo op, she ignored him.
“And we saw a lady who said that you guys are getting married and I get to be in your wedding. I’m gonna walk with Mommy down the aisle!”
My eyes cut up to Felicity, who was in the kitchen on her phone.
I set Matty down and ruffled his hair. “Why don’t you go upstairs and get your pajamas on and brush your teeth, and I’ll be up in a minute.”
“But Dad?—”
“I’ll let you watch a show on your iPad.”
“Okay,” Matty quickly agreed and ran up the stairs.
I walked closer to Felicity and waited for Matty to be out of earshot. “Felicity.”
She glanced up at me with an innocent expression on her face and smiled. “Hey.”
“You shouldn’t have told Matty that we were getting married and taken him to a wedding planner.”
“Why not?”
“You know why not. I’ve told you it’s over. You can’t just take off for months and then show up when you want and expect everything to go back to normal.”
“You see how happy he’s been since I’ve been back. And I’m not going to leave again. I’m here to stay.” She reached up and patted my cheek. “This is what you’ve always wanted. Your family together.”
I removed her hand from my face. “You don’t get to pick and choose when you want to be a mom and partner.”
My phone rang, and I pulled it out of my pocket, fully planning on sending whoever it was to voicemail until I saw it was Chloe. She’d never called me before, only texted. I answered it, “Hello.”
“Can you pick me up?” She sniffed.
It sounded like she’d been crying.
“Where are you?”
“I’m at the caves.”
“I’ll be right there.” I hung up the phone and called upstairs. “Matty, I have to go pick up Chloe; I’ll be right back.”
“K, Dad!”
“You’re leaving . You can’t leave.” Felicity grabbed my arm.
I jerked my arm out of her hold. “That’s funny coming from you.”
Before she could respond, I was out the door. The drive to the caves should take about ten minutes; from the time I left my front door to pulling up was just under five. I parked behind several pickup trucks, blocking them in, but I didn’t give a shit.
When I got out, I saw that there were two large bonfires down by the beach, but she hadn’t said beach; she said caves. I tried to call her back, but her phone was going straight to voicemail.
On my way to the caves, I passed two groups of kids who were smoking and drinking.
“Have you seen Chloe? Chloe Marsh?”
They all shook their heads that they hadn’t seen her.
It took another few minutes to make it to the caves; when I rounded the corner of the sand dunes where they were hidden, I heard her before I saw her.
“Stop. Don’t.” Her words were muffled, but I could make them out.
The first thing I saw when I came around the corner was a hoodie. I grabbed it and pulled. The kid it was attached to flew down to the ground and landed on his ass. Chloe was backed up against the cave wall. Even though the only light was coming from the moon, I could see that her eyes were red. Her cheeks were stained. She’d clearly been crying.
“Go wait in the truck,” I told Chloe as I picked Hoodie up by the front collar of his shirt.
Two guys with beer bottles in their hands and not a lot of sense in their heads, who looked about sixteen, appeared from inside the cave as Chloe walked around the corner.
“Hey, calm down!”
“Relax! She’s fine!”
I didn’t say a word to Tweedle Dumb or Tweedle Dumber. I didn’t have to. One look in their direction, and they both lifted up their hands and took two steps back. I put the hoodie up against the same wall he’d had Chloe up against.
“I didn’t do anything. I didn’t do anything,” he kept repeating over and over.
I put him in a front forearm choke, keeping his legs dangling up off the ground so only his toes were barely touching. I was cutting off his oxygen just enough to scare him but not enough for him to pass out. I reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. I opened it up and saw his license.
“Brian O’Dell. Oh look, it’s your birthday next week. You’re going to be eighteen. Do you know how old that girl is, Brian? Huh? Do you? She’s thirteen!” I tossed the wallet on the ground and saw that there were alcohol bottles scattered all over the floor, not to mention his breath reeked of beer. “She’s also my sister. Did you give my sister alcohol, Brian?”
His eyes widened. “No?—”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“Y…yes, sir.”
“That’s contributing to the delinquency of a minor, O’Dell. I knew an O’Dell in high school. Jake O’Dell. Are you related to Jake O’Dell?”
“It’s his dad,” Tweedle Dumb piped up from the cave.
“Jake O’Dell is your dad, huh? I know Jake. I haven’t seen him since I’ve been back in town, but it might be time for a little catch-up.”
“No, plea—” he started to beg.
“Or maybe I’ll just stop by the police station first and have Chief Dawson call your dad to come down, and we can all have a chat about why his son is eighteen and does not know what consent is. Because, Brian, when I came around the corner, my sister was saying, stop and don’t. Wasn’t she?”
“I didn’t mean to?—”
“Wasn’t she?” I increased the pressure of my forearm against his neck and collarbone, making it nearly impossible for him to speak.
“Y…y…yes.”
“But you must not know what those words meant because you weren’t stopping. And see, consent is very important. If you don’t have it, you will end up in prison.” I got closer to his face. “I will personally make sure you go to prison so you can be with people just like you who don’t know what that word means. So, everything you just made my sister feel—small, defenseless, scared—there will be men lining up to make you feel that way. They won’t care if you’re crying, shaking, saying don’t, or asking them to stop. So, the next time you’re with a girl who’s crying and she’s saying the words stop and don’t, just think about you, in prison, being that girl and all the things that will be happening to you. And please use your imagination because that’s all they have in there. Am I clear?”
His chin moved up and down as much as it could with his limited mobility, thanks to my forearm.
“I want to hear you say the word.”
“Y…y…Yes,” he croaked, barely able to speak because I was blocking his windpipe.
“Good.” I looked over at the two assholes in the cave. “What about you, Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber, did you catch that, or do I need to repeat myself? Because watching a crime happen is just as bad as participating.”
“No.” Tweedle Dumber shook his head then nodded. “I mean, yes.”
“Yeah.” Tweedle Dumb nodded.
Hoodie’s phone lit up and vibrated in his pocket, so I reached in and grabbed it before I released my arm, and he crumbled to the floor, holding his neck and choking.
I was walking away when I heard him asking, “Hey, what about my phone?”
My adrenaline was pumping as I turned the corner and saw Chloe standing there. “Are you okay?”
She nodded.
“I told you to wait in the truck.”
She didn’t respond. Neither of us said anything as we walked past all the teenagers partying on the beach. When we got to the truck, I opened the passenger door for her, then went around to the driver’s side.
On the drive home, she stared out the window. I knew that she was furious at me. This was going to be just like the time when Nadia told me about her science partner or one of the dozens of other times she said I overreacted and should have let her handle it. I couldn’t help it. I had to protect the people I loved. And Chloe was mine to protect. I knew that she was probably going to say that I embarrassed her and that she didn’t want to live with me.
It sucked because we had been doing better, and now this was going to be such a huge setback. Before we got home, I wanted to talk about this. I didn’t want Matty to hear us and get upset or Felicity to think she could put her two cents in. When I saw a parking spot on the side of the road along the beach, I pulled over. I unbuckled my seatbelt and turned toward her.
She was still facing away from me, but I took a deep breath and said, “Listen, Chloe, I’m sorry that I?—”
Before I could say another word, she turned and threw her arms around my neck. For a second, I was shocked. I didn’t know what to do. But then, I wrapped my arms around her and hugged her back. I just held her, rubbing her back, not sure if she was actually mad at me and just scared, or if she was mad at me and was just really quick to forgive me, or if she wasn’t mad at me at all.
After about five minutes, she sat back in her seat and wiped the tears from her eyes, and I realized she’d been crying that whole time. My shoulder was completely wet from her tears.
“So, are you mad at me?” I asked tentatively, trying to figure out how I should proceed.
She let out a little laugh. “You’re such a dork.”
“They’re still saying dork. Okay, good. I’ll make a note of that.”
She rolled her eyes. “I only said that because you’re ancient.”
“Oh, okay. Well, I appreciate it.”
She took a deep breath and then exhaled. “No, I’m not mad at you. I never had a dad or a brother. No one has ever stood up for me the way you did today. I thought you were mad at me because I shouldn’t have even been down there with those guys in the first place. It was stupid. I know better than that.” She shook her head, and I could see that she was upset and beating herself up for putting herself in that position.
“Why were you? I thought you were at Kendall’s.”
“I was. We went down to the pier, but then she got an audition; and she had to go home and film. She’s an actress. Anyway, I was going to go home, but I saw Matty and Felicity; they were with a wedding planner and…” Tears started filling her eyes again, but she straightened her shoulders and sniffed them back. “I’m sorry; I know that she’s Matty’s mom and you love her, but…It doesn’t matter…she was talking about the wedding, and Matty asked if I was going to be in it, and she said no, and then he said that I had to be because I’m family, and she said…whatever I don’t even care?—”
“What did she say?” I asked.
“It doesn’t matter. I got upset, and I went down to the caves. I saw Brian, and he said he had wine coolers. I know he’s like a walking red flag, but I just didn’t want to go back to the farm because she was there, and I couldn’t go home because I don’t have one, and I just…”
“I’m so sorry, Chloe.”
“I told you, I’m not mad at you.”
“No, I know you’re not mad at me.” I blew out a breath and scrubbed my hands over my face. “That’s not why I’m apologizing. I’m sorry because I really fucked this up. All of it. You’re right; you didn’t have a dad. He died when you were three. But you did have a brother. I’m your brother, and I should have been acting like that from the moment I found out about you. I’m sorry that you even had to question for a second anything that Felicity said. Yes, she is Matty’s mom, but you’re wrong; I don’t love her. And whatever she said, I can promise you, she’s wrong. She is not my family. You are. You have a home. I’m your home. Matty is your home. My mom is your home. Buzz is your home. The farm is your home.”
Chloe’s eyes were filling with tears again, but I hoped this time they were good, not bad. Before I could find out, a loud vibration sounded, startling us both.
We looked down and saw it was coming from Brian’s phone, which I’d tossed on the console. He was getting a text.
“Why did you take his phone?” she asked.
“Because fuck him, that’s why.”
She smiled.
“Are you really going to go talk to Chief Dawson and his dad?”
I thought about sugarcoating my response, but this world was not one that I thought should be sugar-coated, especially for Chloe, she’d been through too much to do that; so I told her the truth. “If I thought it would do any good, I would, but honestly, at least when I lived here, this town had a very boys-will-be-boys mentality, which is why I took the phone, so at least the little shit would be inconvenienced.”
“If he tries anything else, he’ll be more than inconvenienced.” A smile curled on her lips that I hadn’t seen before.
“What do you mean?”
“He pissed himself,” she said matter-of-factly.
“What?” I had no idea what she was talking about.
She pulled out her phone and started playing a video. It was everything that had just gone down. The entire incident from the moment I had him pinned up against the cave wall. Sure enough, when I was talking to him about prison, he’d pissed himself, and she caught it all on video.
“Why did you record this? Are you going to post it?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I would never do that, even if he sort of deserves it. I was just scared because after that guy said that you choked him out on Nadia’s porch, I kept hearing guys in school brag about how they could kick your ass and stuff, and I was scared that if anything happened, they might try and lie and say you did something you didn’t do to sue you or something. That’s why I didn’t go to the truck, because I didn’t want you to get in trouble for something stupid I did. So, I thought if I recorded it, then we would have proof of exactly what happened. Is that dumb?”
“No, that’s smart. That’s a lot smarter than I was at your age. That’s a lot smarter than I am now.”
My phone rang and the console lit up; it was Felicity. Chloe and I shared a look before I answered. A look that cemented that we were on the same team.
“Hello,”
“Where are you? Matty’s sick, and he’s asking for you.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, is he nauseous? Does he have a fever or a headache?”
“I told you, he’s sick. I’m not going up there; there’s germs. I can’t get sick.”
“I’m coming home now.”
I disconnected the call, and as we pulled away, I knew Chloe was biting her tongue. “You can ask it.”
“What?” she asked in faux innocence.
I glanced over at her and back at the road.
“Okay, fine, what did you see in her?” Chloe shook her head. “I mean, she is really pretty, but…”
But she’s not Nadia . I don’t know if that’s what Chloe was thinking, but that was the answer. Anyone else that I was going to be with was going to be the wrong person because I already had the right person. I think subconsciously, I chose the most wrong person I could find, and if that was the goal, I think I succeeded.