Chapter Twenty-Two
TWENTY-TWO
Nervous anticipation ripples through my veins as we board the Airbus from Singapore to Perth.
I almost can’t let myself hope that this might be our last flight, and a part of me has already decided that I have to accept that what I have right now is enough.
Yes, being stuck in a time loop is disorientating and weird and definitely not my first choice, but if I’ve learned anything from this entire debacle, it’s that I have to live in the present.
Make the most of what’s happening in my life now, because who knows what could be just around the corner.
I don’t want my life to be dictated by the fear of what-if. I especially don’t want to live my life believing the best has already been and gone, because that did not serve me well. Right now, all I have for certain is today, so I’m going to flaming well make the most of it.
I turn to look at Callum as he fixes his seatbelt, notice that he’s thoughtfully plugged my phone in to charge next to him. He catches me looking and gives me this show-stopping smile.
‘What is it?’ I laugh.
He shakes his head like he can’t quite figure out the answer to that. ‘It just feels good, that’s all. Being here with you. Having you look at me like that. Do you remember when you told me to stop looking at you with my eyeballs?’
I drop my head into my hands.
‘I may have said some stupid stuff,’ I reply.
‘I had the hardest time trying to avoid looking at you after that.’
‘You did?’
‘Imagine going to your favourite café on an empty stomach and being told you can’t even look at the cinnamon buns, let alone eat one.’
‘Cinnamon buns are my absolute favourite.’
‘I know,’ he says. And I’m so surprised that he knows this about me. It dawns on me that he’s been listening this whole time. Quietly absorbing facts about me. It makes my heart swell to think about it. I can’t believe I’ve been so blind to Callum for so long.
‘Cal?’ I say.
‘Mmm.’
‘I’ve got more questions.’
‘I’ll answer anything you ask.’
‘Where were you yesterday? On Monday Seven? I was so excited to see you and when you weren’t here I just, oof, it sucked.
A lot. I thought we’d missed our chance.
’ My voice cracks at this and he reaches out, takes hold of my hand, his thumb drawing tender circles on the inside of my palm. It’s both soothing and distracting.
‘I was going to ask you the same thing,’ he says. ‘I got to Heathrow and couldn’t find you. Searched everywhere. Eventually I rang Kat and she sounded so surprised that you’d even be going on this trip, like it was the weirdest idea in the world to put us together for it.’
‘So, did we somehow wipe each other out of the picture yesterday?’
Callum shrugs. ‘I’ve given up trying to figure out how this is all happening. It’s way beyond my comprehension. I just thought, fuck, this is it. She’s gone.’
‘That’s exactly how I felt. Maybe we needed a day without each other to really understand what we were missing?’
‘I don’t know,’ says Callum. ‘Pretty sure I already knew.’
My heart skips at this.
‘Jesus, yesterday really dragged without you.’ He pulls his glasses off and rubs a hand across his jaw. ‘I thought I’d lost you.’
‘Same.’ I exhale. ‘I got really friendly with the divorce party, though.’
‘Oh man, me too.’ Callum grimaces.
I bite my lip. ‘Was Jennifer sitting in my seat?’
‘Yes!’
‘Did she eat you alive?’ I chuckle.
‘It’s too soon to joke about this, Moss. She’d brought this sweet little old lady with her.’
‘Dot?’
Callum nods with a wry smile. ‘Not nearly as sweet as she looked. She was coming on to me the most.’
‘Oh my God, I wish I’d been a fly on the wall.’
‘I pretended to be asleep for a full ten hours,’ he adds.
‘Well, I had a really good chat with Jennifer. She was actually super wise and helped me to see a few see things clearly,’ I say, casting my mind back to her thoughts on the importance of chemistry. Callum’s thumb is still swirling circles in my palm, and I take a deep, steadying breath.
‘Did she tell you about her “penultimate husband”, Mattieu?’
‘The one she thought she hated? Yeah.’ I nod. ‘She said that one day, she realized she’d wasted a lot of energy hating him when they could have been banging instead.’
Callum swallows, watching me closely.
‘I can relate,’ he murmurs.
‘Cal, you’ve no idea how much I want to—’
‘I think I do,’ he rumbles, voice low. ‘But, Moss?’
Don’t let there be a but.
‘Yes?’
Callum gestures between the two of us. ‘I just want to say that this has become so much more than just a physical attraction, for me at least. I’m hungry for you in so many ways.
I want to learn everything about you. I want to be there with you if, when, you step off this plane and into the future.
I want there to be an us that doesn’t just revolve around endless Mondays, but if endless Mondays are all that’s on offer, then, Jesus, I want to spend them with you.
I would happily spend my days watching how your laugh lights up your eyes.
Counting the freckles across your nose. Trying to make you smile when you’re being prickly with me. ’
‘I’m not prickly!’ I begin to protest, which we all know is a giant lie.
‘Like a conker,’ he says fondly. ‘A few spikes to deal with, quite a tough shell to crack, but on the inside, a beautiful, shining red nut.’
My loop-addled mind decides this sounds deeply sexual and I just hope I’m not panting.
‘Also very argumentative,’ he adds.
‘I am not.’
Callum gives me a look like his point has been proved.
I huff. ‘Say more things.’
‘I’m here for all of you, if you’ll have me.’
The smile that spreads across my face is so wide my cheeks ache.
‘When did you know?’ I ask.
‘That you were looping? Pretty early on.’
This wasn’t what I meant, but now I’m intrigued. ‘Why didn’t you say something earlier?’
‘I wanted to be sure,’ Callum says. ‘The repeated pushing me into the path of the luggage buggy was my first clue.’
I grimace. ‘I am very sorry about that. I kept telling myself that I needed to reset and start the day over.’
‘Oh, I know,’ Callum says, trying to sound cross though he’s looking at me tenderly. ‘I was pretty certain by Monday Three. At first I’d thought the loop thing was a blip, and then when I woke up for the third Monday in a row I realized that this was a pattern.’
‘Yeah,’ I reply, remembering how that day felt. ‘That was a weird one.’
‘And that’s the day you literally told me you were time-looping when we landed at Perth airport.’
‘I was in such a tizz. I thought I’d styled it out by making up some stuff about “time-grouping” being something all the cool kids said?’
‘That was less believable than you thought.’
I bite my lip.
‘It’s annoying that you know me so well.’
Callum laughs. ‘So I was going to try and talk to you about it on Monday Four but you’d swapped seats, and Monday Five was a whole different kettle of fish. You brought a new energy to the airport that day, what with the expensive champagne and the love-heart trousers and … distracting behaviour.’
‘Distracting?’
‘I was trying to figure out a way out of the loop and there you stood, so beautiful as usual and this time actually wanting to spend time with me and, Christ, that made me so happy. And while I very much wanted to say something to you, I was seriously distracted by all the kissing.’
‘It was worth it,’ I grin.
‘Agreed. I’d do it a thousand times over.’
‘Don’t say that! We might have to.’
‘Maybe,’ he says. ‘But I do have hope that we will have a future together, outside of all this.’
‘You do?’
He nods. ‘I’ve been thinking about my dream future a lot.’
‘Will you tell me about it?’
Callum lets his gaze settle on me and I feel like my face is turned towards the sun.
‘Sure,’ he says simply, as possibly breakfast arrives. I realize that I have not slept, again, and that I couldn’t sleep if I tried.
‘Here’s the thing, it’s early days and I’m probably being presumptuous,’ he says cautiously.
‘About what?’
‘Getting to spend my future with you.’ His gaze pins me to the spot and it takes all my strength not to gabble a hurried ‘yes let’s do it’. But the truth is I want to hear all of this. So for once, I don’t butt in.
‘Obviously there’s a lot to consider,’ I tease. ‘I’m open to suggestions.’
‘Okay,’ he says. ‘How about I pitch it to you?’
‘Good idea. Should I be making notes?’
‘Sounds sensible. Would you like me to fetch your bag?’
‘You are very useful for reaching anything at height,’ I concede. ‘Should I pop that on my list?’
‘Don’t worry, I cover that in point two, clause b.’ He grins.
‘I really hope there are points,’ I say, laughing now.
Callum gives me this look, full of anticipation, and hope, and a hint of nerves too. He pushes his glasses further up his nose before he speaks and it’s so adorable that I almost squeak in delight.
‘All right, here goes,’ says Callum. ‘My dream future looks like this. We’re back in London after a successful business trip to Australia and I finally get to take my beautiful girlfriend out on a date in our home city.
She has grumbled extensively about the date because I’m keeping it a surprise and Nina does not like surprises. ’
‘I really don’t,’ I whisper, enamoured.
‘But when we get there, she stops grumbling. She loves it, like I knew she would, because I do know her pretty well by now. I know that she hates it when I leave the big light on and that she prefers raspberries to strawberries even though strawberries are an infinitely superior fruit.’
‘Callum, I must stop you there. Raspberries are way better than strawberries, surely you can see that?’
‘They’re flimsy and flavourless.’
I’m aghast. ‘But strawberries are so watery!’
‘Would you like me to continue or are you going to keep arguing?’ He beams.
I pretend to zip my mouth shut.
‘Where was I? That’s right, we’re going on great dates in London. Maybe somewhere further afield but we are most definitely not getting on another plane for a while yet.’
‘Amen to that. The carbon footprint has me panicking. I actually think we’re going to need to live off-grid for the foreseeable to try and get back to some kind of carbon neutral standing.’
Callum looks thoughtful. ‘Okay, so I’d better make sure all these dates are environmentally sound?’
‘Yes. We’re talking plastic free, zero emissions—’
‘So, no cars or Tubes or taxis? Sounds like we’re going to be doing a lot of walking and, I don’t know, litter picking?’
I wrinkle my nose. ‘Let’s not get bogged down in the finer details just yet. Please continue.’
‘After all the surprisingly sexy litter picking dates, I’m feeling confident. I ask you to move in with me. You write me a list of things I must achieve if we’re going to live together before you agree.’
‘That does sound like the sort of thing I’d do. Point one, stop using the big light.’
‘We find a flat not too far from work and we spend weekends at home stores. I paint the walls and ceilings, you paint the skirting boards. You get really excited about buying crockery. I get really excited about wall art. We’re very happy. But there’s just one problem.’
I gasp. ‘Oh no.’
‘There’s an itch that needs scratching.’
I cross my arms across my chest. This had all been going so well.
‘We never argue,’ he says.
‘Isn’t that a good thing?’
‘We spent so much time arguing before we hooked up that now we’re together, it’s like a constant honeymoon,’ Callum adds solemnly.
‘That sounds ideal,’ I chirrup, confused.
‘Oh, it’s great for us. But it means you need to find somewhere else to channel this … energy.’
‘I do? What about you?’
‘I’m perfectly content. Remember? I’m a very chill person.’
‘And I’m not?’ I squawk.
He beams at me. ‘So you quit your job at Kat Moretti and you set up on your own. It’s the perfect timing for you, because you feel like you’ve learned as much as you can there.’
‘Kat,’ I say. ‘Has she been right all along, Cal? She’s been telling us to thrash out our differences from day one.’
‘I know. It’s been terrifying, actually.’
‘Yes,’ I agree wholeheartedly. ‘I could tell I was in her bad books for it which is not a place you want to be. And now you’re suggesting I quit? Won’t she try to burn me at the stake?’
Callum laughs. ‘She’ll be happy for you.
She knows you’re ready for a new challenge.
And that challenge is no longer shouting at me.
It’s going out there and showing the world what you’re made of.
So you set up your own company, starting out small with a little office at home.
But it expands, because you’re brilliant, and in five years’ time I am the very proud husband of Nina Moss, CEO. ’
I blink.
‘Did you just say husband?’
Callum looks down. ‘Like I said, this is my dream scenario. I’d never want to assume …’ He trails off.
‘And how did you know I’d want to set up on my own?’
Callum doesn’t reply, he just watches me through those thick, dark lashes.
‘I’ve been hanging off your every word,’ I say eventually.
‘Well, there’s more, but I’m going to leave some of it to the imagination for now.’
I close my eyes, allow myself a delicious moment where all of this actually does come true. A life with Callum Bang? Who’d have thought it would sound so utterly, completely appealing?
‘So,’ he asks. ‘How did the pitch go?’
I grin back at him. ‘I’d give it a solid ten out of ten. No notes.’