Chapter Thirty-One
Callum
There was something about the morning light in Reckless River that made everything feel cleaner almost as if the air itself had less bullshit in it.
That, or I was actually in a decent mood for once and didn’t know what to do with it.
The bar was empty, save for me and the low hum of the cooler behind the counter. I’d already polished the bar twice, alphabetized the bottle shelf for no damn reason, and rewired the flickering light in the hallway like I was auditioning for some kind of home improvement show.
It wasn’t nerves. It wasn’t.
It was... movement.
Energy.
Something shifting.
Because ever since Lydia showed up in town, things had felt just a little bit more alive.
I hadn’t realized how heavy it all was—this place, my grief, the routine I kept clinging to like it owed me something—until she walked in and cracked it open like a window in a dusty room.
Now I couldn’t return to the stale air I’d been breathing.
And yeah, I’d kissed her. And yeah, I’d stayed the night. And yeah, I’d bolted like a dumbass before she even woke up.
But she made me feel like a man again for a few hours. Not a ghost of one. And when she came back into the bar and we held each other one last time, it told me we could do this.
Until I started thinking too hard.
I was still turning that over in my head when the door swung open and Drew strolled in like he owned the damn place.
Which, to be fair, he did emotionally. He just didn’t have to mop it every week and write the checks.
He was holding two coffees and a paper bag, which meant he was either feeling generous or about to drag me through a very pointed intervention.
He slid one across the bar toward me and perched on a stool like he had all day.
“You’re welcome,” he said.
“For what?”
“For keeping your reputation from going full dumpster fire,” he said, peeling open the bag and tossing me a breakfast sandwich. “Melanie was about two seconds from forming a citizens’ tribunal.”
I groaned. “You’re enjoying this too much.”
“Honestly?” He grinned. “Yeah. Watching you flail is better than anything Netflix has dropped in months.”
I sipped my coffee and tried not to rise to the bait.
He didn’t stop. “So, what was the plan exactly? Sleep with her, disappear, and hope she thinks it was a weird dream?”
“I didn’t disappear.”
“You left before sunrise and haven’t replied to a single one of her texts since she saw you the second time here with…the sock.”
I stiffened. “You know too much.”
“Melanie is a jewel,” he said, lifting a brow like it should’ve been obvious. “She’s got eyes like a hawk and the moral compass of a very stylish avenger. You really thought you could pull a Houdini and no one would notice?”
I grunted and shoved a bite of egg sandwich into my mouth.
“Look,” Drew continued, “I’m not saying you have to write her sonnets or buy matching flannel pajamas or whatever. But maybe— just maybe —you don’t want to make her feel like crap the morning after.”
I gave him a look. “It wasn’t like that.”
“Yeah? What was it like then, Cal?” His voice softened, teasing less now. “Because from where I’m standing, it looked a lot like two people who were tired of being lonely for five seconds.”
My shoulders tensed. “I don’t know how to do this.”
“No one does,” he said, leaning back and tossing a napkin onto the counter. “But let me tell you, women love it when you sleep with them and then ghost them. It’s a real highlight of the dating experience. Makes them feel all warm and fuzzy inside.”
I gave him a flat look. “Thanks, Dr. Drew.”
Drew grinned. “I’m just saying, you’re not a mystery, man. You’re just scared.”
“I’m not scared.”
“You’re terrified,” he said, a little more gently now. “And maybe she is, too. But she came here, Cal. She took a risk. And you’re just... hiding behind your tap handles.”
I hated that he wasn’t wrong.
I glanced around the Rusty Stag. The place I’d built from a broken-down bar and a broken-down life. Everything in here bore my fingerprints. My sweat. My grief.
And lately?
Every part of it was starting to carry her name.
The quiet corner booth where I’d caught her laughing with Riley. The bar stool she always picked, like it didn’t matter, but absolutely did. The way her voice sounded in the backroom, soft and sleepy and curious about every part of this world I’d locked away.
She was weaving herself into the fabric of this place without even trying.
And I’d been too much of a coward to let it happen.
“She makes things feel... light,” I said, the words catching somewhere in my throat. “Even when they’re not.”
Drew tilted his head. “So what are you doing about it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, maybe start by using your phone like it’s not cursed. Text her back. Or better yet, go find her.”
“What if she’s done with me?”
“Then you’ll deal,” he said. “But you’ll know. And maybe, for once, you’ll stop assuming the worst just because you’re scared of the best.”
I stared down into my coffee like it might offer divine guidance.
It didn’t.
But it did taste a little less bitter than usual.
And that felt like a start.
Drew had a way of saying the exact thing I didn’t want to hear.
Mostly because he was right more often than not, and that annoyed the hell out of me.
I sat there for a while after he left, and the bar suddenly felt too quiet. The kind of quiet that rattled around in your chest and made you itch to move just so you wouldn’t hear the truth echoing in your own damn head.
Lydia made things feel lighter.
I’d said that without thinking. Without guarding it.
And it was true.
I hadn’t felt that kind of ease in years. Since before Lucy got sick. Since before the weight of being the guy who holds everything together crushed me until I couldn’t tell where the bar ended and I began.
Lydia cracked something open in me that I didn’t even realize had healed over wrong. She made me laugh again— really laugh, not that dry bark I handed out like a receipt with every drink. She challenged me, pushed every button I didn’t know I had, and then somehow looked at me like I wasn’t broken.
I hadn’t known how much I missed being seen .
But I also didn’t know what the hell to do about it.
Because the last time I let myself feel anything that deep, I watched it wither and die in a hospital room that smelled like bleach and sorrow.
I couldn’t do that again.
Couldn’t let anyone in like that, could I?
My phone sat face-down on the bar where I’d left it, Lydia’s last text still unread.
Because reading it meant responding.
Responding meant taking a step I wasn’t sure I could take without falling flat on my face.
But sitting here wasn’t doing me any good.
I swiped the phone off the bar, flipped it over, and opened the latest message.
Hope today’s not kicking your ass.
That was it.
Simple. Kind. A thread of humor was tucked in like a safety pin holding something fragile together.
God, she was good.
Better than I deserved, maybe. But I wasn’t gonna sit around and let that be the excuse anymore.
I stood up, tossed my keys in my pocket, and headed out before I could talk myself out of it.
I didn’t know what I was going to say. Hell, I didn’t know what I wanted to say. But I figured it was about time I showed her that I wasn’t all bark and shadow.
I reached the building with the bakery and her apartment above it. I looked up at the windows and imagined her in there…hair up in that messy bun, probably surrounded by color swatches and secondhand furniture she somehow made look like a magazine spread.
I climbed the stairs before I could chicken out.
I hesitated when I reached her door and raised my hand to knock.
A full three seconds.
Which, with a man-who's-scared-of-his-own-heart time, felt like an eternity.
I knocked twice, hard enough that she’d hear it but soft enough that I wouldn’t scare her.
She opened it so fast that it startled me.
Like maybe she’d been waiting on the other side.
Her expression was unreadable. Guarded. But her eyes flickered with something I hoped wasn’t regret.
“Hey,” I said, scratching the back of my neck like a twelve-year-old with a crush and no game.
“Hey,” she said, voice flat.
Okay, deserved.
“I was just—” I paused. “I figured it’s probably past time I showed up. Properly.”
She arched a brow. “You mean not as a ghost in my bed or a no-reply text bubble?”
I winced. “Yeah. That.”
She leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. “What do you want, Callum?”
I sucked in a breath. “To talk. To not screw this up more than I already have.”
She didn’t move. Didn’t open the door wider. But she didn’t slam it either. Progress.
“Look,” I said, “I don’t know how to do this. I’ve been stuck in the same loop for years, convincing myself that feeling anything too much means I’ll break. But then you walked in like a damn wrecking ball…”
She cracked a smile. Just a little. But it gave me enough air to keep going.
“And instead of breaking me, you started putting pieces back together I forgot existed.”
“Callum…” she said, and it was the softest thing I’d heard all day.
I stepped closer. “I know I’ve been a jackass. And I’m not asking you to forgive that. But I want to try. I want to figure this out with you.”
There was silence.
Then, slowly, she stepped aside and let me in.
I didn’t have a game plan. Didn’t need one.
Because being in her space again, seeing the changes she’d made, the warmth, color, and life, felt like stepping into sunlight after years of clouds.
We sat down across from each other at that little navy-legged table. She studied me, like she was trying to decide if I was real.
“I was scared, too,” she said finally.
I nodded. “Still am.”
“But?”
“But I’d rather be scared with you than safe without you.”
She stared at me for a beat, then reached across the table and laced her fingers with mine.
And just like that, the world clicked into place.
Still messy.
Still uncertain.
But lighter than it had been in a long time.