Chapter 6 #2
“Nothing,” I insisted, though the lie felt heavy on my tongue. I just didn’t know what to say and now certainly was not the time to have this conversation even if I wanted to. Which I didn’t.
“Another to fall,” Ranger mumbled next to me. “Pretty soon we’ll be a club of whipped, married men. Not a bachelor in sight.”
I shot Ranger a look, though I had no hope of seeing his expression. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
I surprised myself with that statement. Because hadn’t I just been thinking the same thing? How could four fucking hours have changed me so profoundly? Or maybe it had nothing to do with time, and it was entirely about the girl.
“Just different,” he said with a shrug. I felt the movement brush against my arm.
I was silent for a few minutes before I found myself confessing, “Calliope’s mine. I don’t know how or why, but she is. She’s just not convinced on the when. Apparently, she had a vision that we aren’t supposed to be together yet.”
So much for not talking about this now. But I needed to get this off my chest. It was eating me from the inside out.
Neither of my brothers responded right away.
And I didn’t even know what it was they could say.
I certainly didn’t know what to say to it.
What was I supposed to do? Wait around for weeks, months, years until Calliope decided it was time for us to be together?
What did someday even mean? I’d been too distracted by her, too preoccupied, to ask the logical question.
“I’m not going to ask what that means,” Ranger finally replied softly. “All I’m going to say is, if she’s yours, claim her. Life’s too short to wait. We know that better than anyone.”
He had a point. Pirate and I had been two of three prospects.
The third, Conner, had given his life to save Harper from being gang raped.
If he hadn’t acted when he had, regardless of being shot, Bear and Lucky would have never gotten free of their restraints to save her—and her unborn baby.
He was buried in full colors and given the road name ‘Lionheart’.
His name practically burned on my back, along with the black ribbon Angel had added just over two years ago.
I’d lost a lot of people in my life. Too many. Who’s to say I wouldn’t be next, or that Calliope wouldn’t? I could not, would not, sit back and wait to claim what was mine just because she believed the cosmos was telling her it wasn’t time yet.
I don’t know what came over me in her shop today. I wasn’t even sure I cared. All I knew was that ‘someday’ was coming sooner than she thought.
“Head’s up,” Keys said over our coms. “The lab tech is finally packing up.”
Ranger slapped my bicep. “Showtime,” he said, and I didn’t need to see his face to know he was sporting a wide, boyish grin.
I pulled my motorcycle over the curb. Street parking was offered on both sides of Main Street, but this time of year, it was rare to find another motorcycle to park next to and I always felt weird taking up an entire spot for just my hog.
It was doubtful one of the MGPD would give me a ticket for parking on the sidewalk.
Most of them knew which of our bikes belonged to which of us and would just text us to move our bike rather than ticketing us.
That was definitely a perk of a small town.
Ranger and I got back early this morning.
Joe was pissed about being left in my room alone all night and had scratched the hell out of my bedpost in retaliation.
Moody bitch. Then she wouldn’t stop bothering me enough so I could sleep, so I just gave up.
Exhausted, I showered, dressed, put her in her backpack, and hopped on my bike.
She thought we were coming over so she could see her boyfriend. She had no idea there was an entirely ulterior agenda to our outing.
I paused outside Calliope’s shop. A new sign hung overhead. It must have been delivered, or at least installed, this morning because it hadn’t been there last night.
Witch Upon a Star.
A shooting star over a boiling cauldron sat behind the words.
Fucking hell. Witch upon a star? My dick got all sorts of ideas about putting this naughty witch on a star: me.
Did she know what she was doing when she named her store?
Of course she did. This was Calliope, after all.
No way in hell had she not thought long and hard about what to name her shop.
There was no denying it anymore—not that I had tried to all that hard anyway. The litter box, the coffee cart, the name… She was building this store for us. It was as much mine as it was hers. She’d literally stamped my name onto it too.
I opened the door, and came to an immediate halt.
Hot Blooded by Foreigner blasted through wall speakers I hadn’t seen yesterday.
In the center of packed and unpacked boxes stood the most erotic sight I’ve ever seen in my life.
Barefoot in a black, flowy dress with a silver crisscross design that looked like a spiderweb was Calliope.
She jumped up and down, eyes closed, completely lost to the music as she sang along.
And my girl? She couldn’t sing worth a damn.
I couldn’t give a fuck. I could have stood there watching all day as she spun and hopped around, using Oolong like a makeshift microphone.
The music was loud enough that she didn’t hear me enter, nor did she let on that she knew I was there.
That made my eyes narrow, because she hadn’t locked the fucking door. Again.
I was going to tan her hide for that one.
I walked through the maze of boxes as the guitar solo came on. Joe let out a frustrated yowl from my backpack, but I didn’t let her out yet. I wasn’t sure what she’d do if she saw her boyfriend’s new job.
Calliope spun, twirling with less grace than I thought she’d have.
I grabbed her wrist. Taking Oolong from her hand, I lowered my backpack to the floor.
Joe had mostly worked herself free of the zipper in her impatience.
I helped her the rest of the way out before reuniting Oolong and Joe on the floor.
After an excited prance, the two scurried off together.
I was grateful I’d gotten Joe fixed, or I’d be fearful that we would have some weird dragon-cat hybrid kittens in a few months.
Turning my attention back to Calliope, who was still standing frozen in front of me, I patted down her pockets until I found her phone. A quick press of the Pause button later, and the music stopped blaring. I tossed her phone onto the top of a box.
“You and I are going to have a talk about not locking doors,” I told her dangerously. “But first, we’re going to talk about tonight.”
“To-tonight?” she stammered.
I nodded. “I’m taking you on a date, Winnie. And before you can argue or claim it’s not time yet, I am telling you that there is a today for us. Today is our start. Fuck your visions, fuck my past, and fuck the cosmos. We are happening, and I am not taking ‘no’ for an answer.”
Calliope’s wide, light-brown eyes stared up at me. Her pupils were dilated, making her look almost drunk. Her hair was loose and wild from her dancing. I didn’t know if her cheeks were flushed from the exhilaration of her singalong or from my proclamation. Regardless, she was fucking beautiful.
I still didn’t know how old she was. I estimated an eight to ten year age difference between us.
In so many ways, she acted young, inexperienced, while in other ways, she seemed more mature than people twice her age.
I knew she’d taken over her parents’ bookstore for a few years before turning it over to Dosia, who owned it now.
She had her own honey business and now was opening this store.
Not many early-twenty-somethings were so motivated or knowledgeable to achieve what she had.
Maybe it was shallow of me, but I’d never been turned on by a woman’s brains before.
In my defense, I rarely had a conversation long enough with a woman to determine her brainpower.
Also, there were a lot of women who played up the bimbo act because they thought that was what men wanted.
Personally, bimbo or rocket scientist, I hadn’t really cared, so long as we both got what we wanted at the end of the night.
But seeing Calliope’s ambition, her smarts? Fucking turn on. Who knew, because I certainly hadn’t. And yeah, that was a prick-thing to admit. But I was tired, horny, and still riding a bit of a high from Ranger’s and my success last night.
And maybe I was growing too. Maybe meeting Calliope and falling for her was meant to be, because having her in my life made me the man I was supposed to become. I just hoped that was a man worthy of her.
“I—” She shook her head slightly, but didn’t break eye contact with me.
“I don’t know what to do. I want to. You have no idea how much.
I’ve dreamed of this… Well,” she added offhandedly, “not last night. Last night was the first night in years where you didn’t come to me, and I don’t know why.
Maybe it was because of yesterday, but I’ve never had a you-less night since I was a teenager. ”
I only understood some of that. Actually, I understood very little of that. “You’ve dreamed about me?” For years, it would seem.
Her nod was accompanied by a blush, and fuck me, because I loved seeing her cheeks rosy. And the way she bit her lip when she was embarrassed? Did it make me a dick that I wanted to see that expression often?
“How long have you known about us?” I asked. “I’ve been in town for three years.”
This time she did look away from me. “Since I was sixteen.”
Well, fuck. She was maybe twenty-four or twenty-five? But that also didn’t make sense, because that was long before I came to Mount Grove. I was still in the Marines eight-ish years ago. There was no way that she could have known about me.
But this was Calliope, my little beekeeping witch.