24. Callum
Callum
“I knew it the very first time I touched her. It was like coming home.” – Sleepless in Seattle
“ T hat’s your home?” Sophie asks, her face pressed against the window like an excited child as we drive up.
“That’s where I grew up, yes.” I park in the cobbled driveway off to the side of the house.
“Clover! It’s beautiful,” she proclaims, and I peek over her at the whimsical two-story house that is nearly all swallowed up by flowers and…fucking mint.
“Uh-huh. Sure.” I get out of the car, opening the door for Sophie.
“And look at all that mint! I love mint!”
“Oh, I’m aware,” I mumble to myself, but Sophie seems to be too excited to hear me anyway. Or maybe she’s nervous?
She must’ve asked me at least seven times if she looked okay and if the baklava she made would be a good choice to bring to dinner. And now she’s rambling about my childhood home.
“Sophie?”
“Does your mom take care of the garden all by herself? That’s a lot of herbs and vegetables, wait, I have no idea if those things are vegetables. Are they vegetables?” She looks around.
“Little menace!” I shout and she finally stops, turning around to face me with that bottom lip in between her teeth. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” she answers too fast and when I quirk an eyebrow, silently telling her I’m not buying what she’s selling, she sighs. “What if they hate me?”
My lips almost twitch with amusement. Almost. “They won’t, trust me. But even if they do, it doesn’t really matter, does it?”
“Of course, it matters!” Sophie proclaims, seeming so distressed I have to wonder if this is the same woman that I’ve married.
“Sophie.” I take a step toward her, cupping her face with my hands. “Stop freaking out. This isn’t you.”
“Oh, yes, it is,” she snorts. “It’s a deep ugly part of me that I’ve been trying to root out. But it’s me, Clover. I know she’s not as pleasant to deal with.”
“Hey.” I lift her face up to mine. “There’s no part of you—none—that is unpleasant, okay? You’re perfect.”
She sucks in a sharp breath. “Are you trying to make me cry again?”
“What have I done now?”
“You said a nice thing to me.” She sniffles.
“Jesus Christ. Okay, so no doing or saying nice things, only dirty text messages are okay.”
Sophie eyes widen before she smacks my arm. “Don’t you dare make me horny when I’m about to meet your parents for the first time.”
My lips pull into a one-sided smirk at her words.
“I take it you liked the text this morning? Was that good enough for you, wife? Or shall I call you, Fiona now?” Just the memory of what she turned me into this morning and the words I wrote to her, makes my dick twitch—that ridiculous nickname be damned.
Sophie rolls her lips to hide that little smirk of hers. “It was adequate.”
“Adequate?” I deadpan.
“Mm-hmm. B-minus,” she says and takes a step away.
“Oh, you little—” I lunge for her, but the little menace sees it coming and jumps with a squeak, running away from me.
Sucks for her, I didn’t train half my life in the Navy for nothing. In two seconds, my arms wrap around her small waist, lifting her off the ground.
“Baklava! Shrek! You’ll make me crush the baklava! Set me down,” she screams through laughter. “I need this dessert to get at least some points tonight.”
I groan, we are back to that. Setting her down, I twist her so she faces me and cup her cheeks again. “Sophie, my mom loves freaking raccoons. Trust me, she’ll love you.”
“Did you just seriously compare me to a raccoon?”
“What? You are both cute and can reign terror all around you in the span of twenty seconds flat.”
“Callum Clover—” My laughter breaks off her high-pitched scream.
“I’m just kidding! I’m just kidding!”
“Funny,” she spits out, narrowing her eyes but there’s no heat behind the words.
“Please, relax. I promise you got nothing to worry about. Mom will probably talk your ear off and ask you to call her Mom, not Lily, but”—I tip her chin up, making sure she’s looking at me—“if you don’t want to do this, just say the word and we’re out of here. We don’t have to have this dinner.”
I can feel the deep breath she takes, “Thank you,” Sophie whispers. “Let's go do this.”
My face falls. “Damn it, I really hoped you’d say to hell with it and we could leave.”
Her laugh carries with us all the way to the front door and only dies when my mom opens the door.
“Hi, Mom,” I greet her.
“Callum, honey,” she says with a wide smile, immediately wrapping me into one of her bear hugs. When she pulls away, the beaming smile gets replaced with one so strained I’m not sure I’ve ever witness anything like it as her gaze travels to Sophie, eyeing her from top to bottom. “Sophie, right?”
“Hi, Mrs. Lovinski. It’s lovely to meet you. I’ve—we’ve—brought some baklava for dessert.” She extends it over to my mother, who takes it with a tight-lipped smile.
“Thank you. Well, come in,” she says briskly and walks away even before we make it through the threshold.
“What the fuck was that?” I muse to myself, staring after my mother. Never in my thirty-four years of life have I seen her act as such.
I wasn’t kidding when I told Sophie she literally loves everything and everyone. So, what in the ever-loving-fuck was that cold attitude for?
“Well, it looks like the raccoon is winning this one.” Sophie dons on a strained smile of her own but not before I catch the crestfallen look on her face.
I take her hand and lead her into the living room where Julie and Griffin are already sitting on the couch, chatting with Dad. Isabella and Andrew, Griff’s parents, are here as well.
“Hello, everyone,” I greet them all at once and introduce Sophie as my wife. Thankfully, Dad is exactly how I expected him to be, smiling and happy to meet her. Genuinely happy, and I can feel Sophie breathe a little easier.
So are Andrew and Isabella who were much like parents to me when we were growing up.
We barely get through introductions when Mom shouts, “Dinner is ready! Let’s eat.” And we all file into the dining room.
Whatever calm Sophie was feeling just a second ago, vanishes as soon as we sit at the table and Mom plays the perfect hostess, her usual self to everyone but my wife.
She’s chatting to everyone but deliberately overlooks Sophie who keeps shrinking further and further into her chair, mindlessly pushing food around her plate .
Her colorful presence dimming by a second, and I fucking hate it.
Julie, being the empath she is, feels that something is off and tries to pull Sophie’s attention away from the situation obvious to everyone. Even Dad, who normally doesn’t notice anything, catches on and shoots confused looks at his own wife.
A minute passes, two, ten, twenty and my jaw grows tighter and tighter with each passing second.
But when the time rolls down to dessert and Mom brings out everything but Sophie’s baklava, I lose it.
“Where is the baklava, Mother?” My voice is coated in so much ice, a visible shiver runs down everyone’s spine.
“What, honey?” she asks me, batting her lashes at me.
“The baklava. The one Sophie made. Where is it?”
“Oh, right. I forgot about it, but that’s okay, there are enough sweets here.”
“Okay, that’s it,” I snap. “What the fuck is going on here?” I roar, pushing up from my seat.
Mom and Izzy gasp. “Language, Callum! What are you going on about?”
“Don’t act like you don’t understand, Mother! What has gotten into you? Who are you even?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t pretend you haven’t been treating Sophie like shit the whole evening.”
“Callum! Language! Again!”
“I don’t care about the language right now! Answer the damn question!”
“You want to know what’s wrong?” She gets up from her own chair, the legs scraping against the floor.
“What’s wrong is you married the wrong person.
This”—she waves in Sophie’s direction—“this girl somehow bewitched you and ruined your whole life. We looked through every path and in not one was she supposed to show up. So, of course, I can’t just sit here and be okay with it all. ”
“Mom,” Julie gasps.
“Lily!” Dad gapes at her .
“Fucking hippy nonsense? That’s what this is about? You’re being rude and a horrible human being because the paths you looked up don’t align with how I chose to live my life? Are you fucking kidding me right now, Mother?”
“Clover! Iremise, den einai tipota! Calm down, please . ” Sophie tugs on my wrist, trying to get me to sit down but I only get angrier because Sophie doesn’t speak Greek unless she’s nervous or uncomfortable or something other than perfectly content.
That much I know about my wife, and it’s my own mother who put her in distress.
“I will not calm down! But I will leave. Come on, little menace.” I grab the hand that was pulling on me, tugging her up instead.
“Clover,” Sophie hisses trying to make me stop but I’m not budging. I won’t take another second of this bullshit.
With the corner of my eye, I catch my mom drop back down to her seat, her mouth agape as she watches us.
“We’re done here.” I tell her. “Oh, and we’re taking that baklava with us.” Leading Sophie into the kitchen, I grab the dessert that my wife spent half a day working on only to have it lay here so easily discarded, and head back out.
“Damn it, I really wanted some baklava,” I hear Griffin mutter, which is quickly followed by an oomph sound. No doubt my sister just kicked him under the table.
“You’re welcome to come to our house for dessert, Griff,” I tell him and then look at my mother. “Shame on you, Mom.”
I hear her calling after us, but I don’t wait to see what else she has to say, slamming the door behind us and after making sure Sophie is safe inside the passenger seat, I get in and drive off.
The drive home passes in complete silence and it’s not until we are parked that I’ve calmed down enough to speak.
“I’m sorry,” I finally say, my words soft and quiet as I rub my eyes with my fingers.
“You’ve got nothing to be sorry about, Shrek.”
I snort. “Yeah, right.”
“I’m serious. Your mom is right. I probably did mess up whatever path you were meant to take so she has every right to be mad at me. ”
“I don’t care what path she was seeing because there’s no other one for me but the one I’ve got here with you. For however long it is,” I quickly add when I realize how much I meant what I said. “Come on, let's go home.” I get out of the car before Sophie can say anything.
Love Hive:
Infullbloom: It’s real love you guys.
Toughtolove: What are you talking about, Lily?
Infullbloom: Callum and Sophie. It’s real!
Ninasunshine: Wait, it is?
CookieJ: How do you know? Did you catch them passionately making out in your kitchen?
Therunawaybride: Mom! Not everyone likes to spy on their adult children like you do!
CookieJ: Poopie crap, mama always needs to be in the know. So, Lily? Give us the details!
Infullbloom: She called him Clover.
CookieJ: And?
Ninesunshine: Um, isn’t that his middle name?
Infullbloom: She called him Clover and he didn’t even bat an eye. Didn’t protest or scowl or got pissy about it.
CookieJ: I’m so lost right now.
Jules444: Mom is still recovering from the shock, so let me explain. Callum hates, and I mean absolutely hates, whenever anyone uses his middle name. Or shall I say, hated since, like mom said, he was perfectly fine with his wife using it.
Infullbloom: IT’S REAL LOVE!!! Oh, sweet rainbows!!! It’s real!!! My baby boy is in loveeeeeee.
Ninasunshine: Honey, I think it’s too soon to really tell that. We need more proof.
Infullbloom: It’s love. It’s really really real love. Love, love, love!!! And I was so so horrible to them tonight. Oh, what have I done?!
Toughtolove: Someone call Willa to come sedate Lily. Poor thing went through one too many shocks in the last few days.
Willoflove: I’m on my way with a brew!
Infullbloom: You all don’t understand! Back when our kids were born, I did this spiritual bond ritual on their middle names.
Making it so only their one true love could use them!
That’s why Callum hated whenever anyone else used it or why Julie refused to let anyone other than Griffin to call her Birdy.
Jules444: You did what? How come I never knew about it?
Infullbloom: It’s LOVE, and I just made my daughter-in-law hate me!
Toughtolove: Lily, you cunning little thing! I knew I liked you! Girls, we are no longer the Fantastic Four, we’ve upgraded to an Unstoppable Five.
CookieJ: Can we circle back to why Lily thinks she’s horrible and made Sophie hate her?
Jules444: Um, so dinner tonight didn’t go well…to say the least.
Toughtolove: Hang on, ladies. Lily, your application is pending approval now! Julie, continue.