Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
CALLUM
Idon't sleep.
I lie in my bed, the bed that still smells like her, and stare at the ceiling while the hours crawl past. Every creak of the cabin makes me think she's coming to find me. Every gust of wind against the windows sounds like her voice.
She doesn't come.
By three in the morning, I've replayed our conversation a hundred times. Analyzed every word. Searched for the moment I could have said something different, done something different, made her believe that what we have is real.
But that's the problem. I can't make her believe anything. She has to choose to trust me, and she chose fear instead.
I understand fear. I've lived with it for twenty-two years, ever since I became responsible for three younger brothers and a failing business and a mountain of grief that threatened to bury me.
Fear kept me safe. Fear kept me from getting too close to anyone who might leave.
Fear built the walls that protected me from the kind of loss that had already shattered my world once.
But fear is also why I spent eight years alone. Why I let Marianne walk away without fighting for her, even though part of me knew she wasn't right. Why I've kept everyone at arm's length, convinced that distance was the same thing as safety.
Nadia isn't Marianne. She's not trying to change me or manage me or turn me into someone I'm not. She's just scared. Scared of wanting something this much. Scared of trusting someone who might disappoint her.
I know because I'm scared too.
The difference is I'm done letting fear make my decisions.
Dawn comes slow and gray, the sky heavy with clouds that promise more snow. I get up, shower, make coffee I don't taste. The cabin feels too quiet. Too empty. Like the life that was starting to bloom here got snuffed out overnight.
I'm on my second cup when I hear her moving around upstairs. The creak of floorboards. The rush of water in the bathroom. Small sounds that shouldn't affect me this much but do.
She appears in the kitchen twenty minutes later, dressed in her travel clothes with her suitcase trailing behind her.
My chest cracks open.
"You're leaving."
"My flight is at two." She won't meet my eyes. "I called a cab. It'll be here in an hour."
"You don't need a cab. I can drive you."
"I know. I just..." She finally looks at me, and the dark circles under her eyes tell me she didn't sleep either. "I think it's better if we make a clean break. Easier."
"Easier for who?"
"For both of us." Her voice is steady, rehearsed. Like she practiced this speech in the mirror. "This weekend was incredible, Callum. You're incredible. But we both know this was never going to be more than what it was."
"Do we know that?"
"I live in Chicago. You live here. I don't have a job. You have a business and a family and a whole life that has nothing to do with me." She grips the handle of her suitcase like a lifeline. "We were playing pretend. And it was beautiful. But pretend has to end eventually."
I set down my coffee cup carefully. Deliberately. Giving myself time to choose my next words.
"So that's it. Four days of pretend and you walk away."
"It's not walking away. It's being realistic."
"It's running." The words come out harsher than I intended. "You heard some gossip at a wedding and instead of talking to me about it, you decided to burn everything down. Classic self-fulfilling prophecy. Push until the other person gives up, then blame them for leaving."
Her face goes pale. "That's not fair."
"No, it's not. None of this is fair." I stand, and she takes a step back like she's afraid of what I might do.
The distance guts me. "I told you I don't play games.
I told you I prefer honesty. And you looked me in the eye and said you didn't want to ruin this.
That you didn't want to push first. That you were tired of being the one who destroys things. "
"Callum..."
"But here we are. You're pushing. You're destroying. And you're using logistics as an excuse because it's easier than admitting you're terrified of what this could be."
Tears spill down her cheeks. She doesn't wipe them away.
"I am terrified," she whispers. "I'm terrified that I've fallen for you in four days and that makes me insane. I'm terrified that if I stay, I'll lose myself completely. And I'm terrified that if I leave, I'll regret it for the rest of my life."
The confession is raw. She loves me.
Four days, and she loves me.
"Then stay." I close the distance between us, reaching for her hands. She lets me take them. "Stay and figure it out with me. I'm not asking you to uproot your whole life right now. I'm asking you to give this a chance. Give us a chance."
"How? You're here. I'm supposed to be in Chicago."
"Chicago isn't going anywhere. Your apartment will still be there.
Your life will still be there. But right now, you don't have a job tying you down.
You have time to think about what you actually want.
" I squeeze her fingers. "Spend that time here.
With me. Not forever. Just long enough to see if this is real. "
"And if it's not? If we spend a few weeks together and realize we don't actually work?"
"Then at least we'll know. At least we'll have tried." I bring her hands to my lips, pressing a kiss to her knuckles. "I'd rather try and fail than spend the rest of my life wondering what would have happened if you'd stayed."
She's trembling. I can feel it in her fingers, see it in the set of her shoulders.
"My mom is expecting me back today."
"Your mom wants you to be happy. She told me so herself."
"My sister just got married. I can't miss the send-off brunch."
"The brunch starts at eleven. That's three hours from now. Plenty of time to cancel a cab and flight to let me drive you." I tilt her chin up, forcing her to meet my eyes. "Stop looking for reasons to run. Tell me what you actually want."
"I want..." She closes her eyes. "I want to stop being scared. I want to believe this is real. I want to wake up tomorrow and know that you're still going to be there."
"I'm going to be here. Tomorrow and every day after that, for as long as you'll let me."
"You can't promise that."
"I can promise to try. I can promise that when things get hard, I won't bail.
I won't fold. I'll stand right here and fight for us even when you're convinced we're not worth fighting for.
" I wipe a tear from her cheek with my thumb.
"That's all any of us can promise, Nadia.
That we'll try. That we'll stay. That we'll choose each other over and over again, especially when it's hard. "
She's quiet for a long moment. I watch the war play out across her features. Fear versus hope. Old wounds versus new possibilities.
Then she lets go of her suitcase.
"So I cancel the flight, what happens after brunch?"
"After that, we come back here. We talk. We figure out what this looks like moving forward." I pull her into my arms, and she comes willingly, her face pressing into my chest. "No pressure. No ultimatums. Just two people who want to see where this goes."
"That sounds terrifyingly reasonable."
"I'm a terrifyingly reasonable man."
She laughs, wet and shaky, and the sound loosens something that's been wound tight in my chest since she walked away last night.
"I'm sorry," she mumbles against my shirt. "For pushing. For running. For being exactly the kind of mess I promised I wouldn't be."
"You're not a mess. You're human." I press a kiss to the top of her head. "And for the record, I'm sorry too. I should have fought harder last night. You asked for space and I gave it to you, but what you actually needed was for someone to hold on."
"I told you to leave me alone."
"Since when do I do what you tell me?"
She pulls back to look at me, and despite the tears and the dark circles and the emotional wreckage of the last twelve hours, she's still the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
"You're infuriating."
"So I've been told."
"And bossy."
"Also true."
"And I'm probably going to push you away again at some point because that's what I do when I'm scared."
"And I'll hold on anyway. Because that's what I do."
Her smile is watery but real. "We're both disasters."
"Compatible disasters." I kiss her forehead. "Now cancel that cab. We have a brunch to attend and a family to face and a whole conversation about the future that I'm very much looking forward to having with you."
"The future." She tests the word. "That's a big word for two people who've known each other four days."
"Five days now. We crossed midnight."
"Oh, well. Five days. Practically a lifetime."
I kiss her properly then, deep and thorough and full of all the promises I'm not ready to put into words yet. She melts into me the way she always does, her body recognizing mine even when her mind is still catching up.
When we finally break apart, she's flushed and breathing hard.
"I'm going to screw this up," she warns. "Probably multiple times."
"So will I."
"And we'll fight. I'm not easy to be with."
"Neither am I."
"And the distance thing is still a real problem that we're going to have to figure out."
"We will."
"You sound very confident for someone who just watched me have a complete emotional breakdown."
"I am confident." I tuck a braid behind her ear. "Because I've spent eight years being careful and safe and alone, and in four days you've made me feel more alive than I have since my parents died. I'm not letting that go without a fight."
Her eyes well up again. "That's the most romantic thing anyone's ever said to me."
"I meant every word."
She takes a shaky breath. "Okay. Let's do this. Brunch with my family, terrifying conversation about the future, figuring out how to make an impossible situation work."
"That's the spirit."
"But first." She grabs the front of my shirt and pulls me down for another kiss. "I need you to take me upstairs and remind me why I'm choosing to stay."
"The brunch is in three hours."
"Then you better be efficient."
I laugh against her mouth and lift her off her feet, carrying her toward the stairs while she wraps her legs around my waist.
"Efficient isn't really my style."
"Then we'll be late to brunch."
"Your sister will be furious."
"My sister just had the wedding of her dreams. She can handle me being fifteen minutes late." Nadia nips at my jaw. "Now stop talking and start convincing."
I carry her up the stairs and into the bedroom and spend the next two hours doing exactly that. Convincing her with my hands and my mouth and my body that this thing between us is worth every risk.
And when we finally make it to the brunch, late and disheveled and grinning like idiots, I catch Gloria's eye across the room.
She looks at her daughter. Looks at me. And nods once, slow and approving.
The future is uncertain. The logistics are complicated. We have a thousand conversations ahead of us and probably a thousand fights too.
But for the first time in eight years, I'm not afraid of what comes next.
I'm ready for it.