Chapter 16
LILY
Erin's living room is the perfect mess of a girls' night—wine glasses scattered across every flat surface, a cheese board that's seen better days, makeup brushes abandoned mid-conversation.
Poppy has claimed the armchair with her legs hooked over the side like she's seventeen, and Erin is on the floor with her back against the couch, which is where she always ends up eventually.
I'm horizontal across the cushions with my feet in Erin's lap and a glass of something cold balanced on my stomach, full of cheese and not even a little bit sorry about it.
The playlist drifted into something slow an hour ago. Outside, June in Harbor Hill is aggressively beautiful, all golden light and salt breeze and the kind of evening that makes you want to stay exactly where you are forever.
I've been trying not to think about Callahan for eleven days now, with mixed results. Mostly bad results. Mostly him taking up space in my head at two in the morning like he pays rent there.
"I have a question, Lil."
I don't even have to look at Poppy to know what's coming. Her out-of-the-blue questions are never a good thing.
"No."
"You don't know what it is."
"The answer is still no," I tell the ceiling, because I know exactly what the question is about and I am not doing this tonight.
"It's about Cal."
So predictable. I take a long sip of wine, longer than necessary, buying time like it'll save me from whatever's coming. It won't, but I drink anyway.
"I said no."
"Where do things actually stand?" Poppy ignores me completely, because she has never let a no stop her in her entire life. "And I mean actually. Not the version you've been giving us."
Erin, diplomatically, says nothing and refills her own glass.
The thing is, I don't have a version. All I have is silence. I have an agreement that neither of us made out loud but both of us are keeping. I have eleven days of being in the same rooms as him and pretending the porch didn't happen.
"I think he feels the same way I do." I choose my words carefully. "And I think we've both agreed, without actually saying it, that it doesn't matter."
Poppy and Erin exchange a glance over my feet, loaded with everything words would only flatten.
"So you're just pretending?" Erin asks pleasantly, which means she's trying not to push.
"We're being mature adults who understand the situation."
"You're pretending."
"There's a nuance..."
"Lily." Poppy sits up slightly, and I can feel her attention even without looking. "Be honest. When you're in the same room as him right now. What is that like?"
What is it like? I think about the hallway in the house four days ago.
I was coming out of the kitchen and he was coming in from outside, and there was a moment, maybe two seconds, where we were close enough that I could smell him.
That clean soap-and-summer smell that makes my whole body lean toward him before I catch myself.
I think about the last time I saw him. He came home mid-shift and I was on the living room floor with my school books spread around me, and he walked in and saw me there and walked directly back out again.
Just redirected himself to the kitchen and stayed there until I left.
The whole time I sat there feeling his absence like a hole in the room.
Will chuckled and said, "You stay there and finish your reading," when I tried leaving. Like my presence hadn't just made his son flee his own house.
That's when I decided even fewer visits from now on, shorter ones. I won't be the reason he has to leave his own home. Will's going to have opinions about it, but Will doesn't get a vote.
Then I think about the way he watches me when he thinks I'm not looking. The distinct possibility that we're both looking at the same time and pretending otherwise.
"It's a lot."
It's the most honest thing I've said all evening.
"Are you okay?" Erin's voice is full of concern, and I sit up slightly just to see her face.
"I'm fine." I consider this for a moment, turning my wine glass in my hands. "I'm fine in the way where fine is doing quite a lot of heavy lifting."
Poppy makes a sympathetic sound and reaches over to squeeze my ankle.
"Is there anything..."
"No." I sit up fully, swing my feet off Erin's lap, reach for the wine bottle. "We said it's nothing. So it's nothing. I'm choosing to be mature about it."
"You're choosing to be repressed about it," Poppy counters.
"In this family, those are the same thing."
That gets a laugh from Erin, which is satisfying. I'll take what I can get.
The conversation moves on after that, drifting into a mix of town gossip and Erin's ideas for her novel.
I listen, have another glass of wine. I let the evening remind me what I came here for in the first place: these women, this living room, the kind of company that feels like the family I always wanted.
"Can I ask something else?" Poppy's voice cuts through my thoughts, and I suppress a sigh.
"You're going to regardless."
"Have you at least thought about it?" She tilts her head, curious and completely unashamed of it. "Like, if it weren't complicated. If none of the other stuff existed. Have you thought about what it would be like?"
Erin is examining her wine glass like it contains the secrets of the universe. She always knows the balance between asking and pushing.
"I've thought about it."
"And?"
I let myself go there, just for a second. Those green eyes, tender when he's laughing with his dad, something sharper when they land on me. He's gentle with everything and everyone, like care is just his default setting. The sheer size of him, those shoulders, those hands.
"And considering the sheer size and height of that man, I just know it would hurt so perfectly."
The room goes completely silent for approximately one second.
Then Poppy screams a loud, high-pitched sound that she immediately smothers with a throw pillow, but her whole body is shaking with it.
Erin has her arm over her eyes and won't look at me, and I can feel her shaking under my feet. Poppy surfaces from the pillow, points at me, and makes a sound that isn't a word.
I sit there perfectly composed, because I have said a factual thing about a factual man and I'm not sure why everyone is so surprised.
"Lily," Erin manages between fits of laughter, barely getting my name out.
"Not that I have seen anything. I'm just saying I have eyes. And I've done the math. And the math is..."
"Painful," Erin finishes for me, and then loses it again.
I allow myself a small smile, because fine, that is a little funny. I throw a cushion at Erin and she catches it. Poppy has finally resurfaced from the pillow, still chuckling to herself.
"Both of you are children."
"You're the one who..." Poppy starts, but I cut her off.
"If either of you tells anyone I said that, I'm moving back to Chicago."
I try for threatening, but I can't stop smiling and it undercuts the whole effect.
That settles them, mostly. They're still grinning when I leave an hour later, when the night has gotten properly dark and the wine has mellowed into that pleasant end-of-evening heaviness and the walk home seems like exactly what I need.
Harbor Hill in June at half past ten is one of the better things I've discovered about this town.
The streets are quiet but not empty, safe-quiet instead of lonely-quiet, warm and salt-aired with everything lit amber against the dark.
I've been walking everywhere since February out of habit now, and at night especially, there's something about this town that feels like it's just for me.
Like I could belong here, if I let myself.
I'm somewhere between Erin's street and my own, thinking about nothing in particular, when headlights sweep up behind me and slow.
The Escalade rolls to a stop at the curb beside me, window already down. Callahan leans across the center console, and tonight he looks annoyed. At me, apparently.
"It's ten thirty." His voice comes out gruff, like that's supposed to mean something.
I give him an eye roll, because what else am I supposed to do with that. "I know. I was there for the whole day."
"Get in."
I ignore him and keep walking, slow enough that he can hear me. "I'm a few minutes from home."
"Can you please stop being stubborn for once in your life?" He exhales through his nose like I'm testing the outer limits of his patience, which I might be. The look he gives me is the one I imagine he uses on people who won't evacuate during a fire warning.
The engine idles as we stare at each other. The Escalade's interior light is doing wonders to the angles of his face.
"It's Harbor Hill," I tell him, crossing my arms. "The most dangerous thing out here is Ruth's opinion of my food choices."
"Every town is dangerous after dark. Get in."
"That is the most..."
"I'm not driving away and leaving you on a footpath at ten thirty at night," he interrupts.
"So you can either get in, or we can have this conversation with you standing on the curb. I'll move at your pace the whole way home, and it's going to look very fucking strange."
He shifts the car into park like he's settling in for a siege as I pop my hip, ready to outwait him, but he just looks at me like he's got all night and nowhere else to be.
I hate that the stubbornness also looks good on him. I hate that he makes it impossible to keep this stupid crush at bay.
I eye the Escalade, considering. "You know, if I tied my scarf to your mirror while you did that, it would look like I was walking this beast like a dog."
The sudden laugh surprises me, and God, the canines. I can't stop noticing them, can't stop imagining them on my neck. The laugh lasts exactly long enough to be devastating and then he shakes his head, still smiling, and nods at the seat beside him.
"Get in, Trouble."
Trouble. That's new. I bite my lip so I don't smile too hard at it, shrug like it doesn't matter, and get in.