5. Calliope
Calliope
The postcard sits wedged between my late payment notice from my last checkup and the overdraft notice on my checking account.
Typical.
I let the other mail flutter to the ground as I grip the postcard in my hands.
I know who it’s from. The New Zealand in big bold letters gives it away instantly. Hadley. But I don’t want to turn it over and read it. I do. But I don’t.
My fingers shake as I slowly flip it.
Callie,
You’d hate it here. Too much sun. Too much sand.
But I miss you.
Be home soon, Hads.
My first instinct is to rip it to shreds, let the wind carry the little pieces somewhere far away from here.
She can send me a fucking postcard but she can’t possibly return any of my calls.
I slump onto my stoop, my thermos of coffee thudding on the concrete step beside me. My lunch box settles on top of the rest of my mail as I just zero in on that damn postcard.
Tears burn the back of my eyes. I haven’t allowed myself to feel her disappearance since the night she took that job, and walked away without looking back.
She didn’t leave you.
No. She took a job on a boat for six months, and the difference between those two sentences is the rest of my life. Ten years of friendship, and three months of unanswered calls have taught me everything I need to know about which sentence is the true one.
The sun beats down on my neck as it descends. A bead of sweat slides down my spine and stops at my bra band. I’ve been sitting here too long, staring at those four lines like they hold the secrets of the universe. Maybe they do.
Be home soon.
What does that even mean? Is it weeks? Days? Tomorrow? The postmark is from two weeks ago, she could already be back in the country. My stomach lurches at the thought.
No no, that’s too soon. It was six months, she left in June. She won’t be back before Christmas.
Hate that for me.
A car horn blares down the street, startling me from my thoughts. I glance at my watch, shit. Late again. Lazarus isn’t the kind of boss who pretends to overlook it; he’s the kind who watches you fail in slow motion and lets the failure be the lesson.
I shove the postcard into my pocket and snatch up my lunch box. The coffee thermos is warm against my palm as I stand, trying to shake off the tightness in my chest. The late afternoon air smelling of urine and bad choices doesn’t help either.
“Damn it, Hadley,” I whisper to the empty sidewalk.
I need to leave for work. Lazarus won’t care that my best friend is sending cryptic messages from the other side of the world. Museum security waits for no one’s emotional breakdowns.
Especially not mine.
As I lock my door, my phone buzzes. I fumble it out of my pocket, heart hammering stupidly with hope. Not Hadley. Just my reminder that rent is due in three days.
“Perfect,” I mutter, jamming the phone back. The postcard crinkles against my thigh, that simple message burning through denim and skin alike.
I miss you.
Weeks of silence, then three words on cardboard that cost maybe two dollars to mail.
It’s honestly bullshit.
A horn honks at me as I slowly walk toward the Penn because lucky me, Vex hasn’t called to let me know if Joy is even alive.
Actually the weirdo has been completely radio silent.
I could call the shop. But I’m not sure I can.
Every time I think about it I taste adrenaline on my tongue and it’s starting to make my stomach churn.
What if my car is well and truly dead?
“Calliope.” A voice calls to me.
One I know all too fucking well.
My nemesis.
My heart pumps way too fast in my chest and for a moment I wonder if I’m going to faint.
I don’t. But it’s out of pure spite. I will never allow Soren Marquis to have that hold over me.
That’s literally the last thing I need is for him to save me in some way and hold it over my head.
I give three rough breaths and clamp down on the urge to commit homicide as I slowly and I do mean slowly turn to look at him.
Gods I hate this man.
“Soren.” I call him by his first name. Not the title he works hard for because it’s the same one I have and he didn’t call me by my title. The fucker.
His lips twitch, which I do not look at long as I focus on the little wrinkle between his eyebrows. The only place he has any kind of flaw.
One time I fantasized about me being a plastic surgeon and fucking his face up.
Clearly I have a lot of resentment to work through.
“I hear you may need a ride,” he says and honestly that very well may be the most words he has ever said to me, ever.
I do need a ride. But I’m running on spite and grief. So I stand tall and walk to the street corner refusing to look at him as I jam my finger into the crosswalk button.
Seriously do these buttons even work? What good even are they?
No good, that’s what. No good at all.
“You know those don’t work,” Soren says from somewhere behind me. Close. Too close.
Is he following me in his car? I refuse to look, because what if he is? Then what do I do?
Nothing. You go to work and do your job.
“Thank you for that insight.” I jam the button again anyway. Three times. Four.
He’s watching me. That particular brand of Soren Marquis attention that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention.
The light doesn’t change.
“Calliope.”
“Don’t.” I hold up one finger without turning around. “Whatever you’re about to say, don’t.”
More dreadful silence.
The city fills it in around us. A bus exhaling diesel somewhere down the block, someone’s music bleeding out of a cracked window above us, the distant wail of something that might be a siren or might just be this neighborhood being its usual self.
“You’re going to be late,” he says finally.
“I’m aware.”
“Lazarus called me.”
Lazarus called him.
Lazarus, who barely makes eye contact in passing.
Lazarus, who has six other people on payroll he could’ve called.
Lazarus, who chose this man.
Fucking Lazarus.
And yet, I still turn around to face him.
He looks exactly as insufferable as always. Dark jacket despite the heat. That particular expression he wears like armor. Not quite a smirk, not quite concern, something maddening and unreadable in between. His car idles at the curb behind him, sleek and black and obnoxious.
I could sell that car, and all of my expenses would be paid. Forever.
This man and I? We are not the fucking same. Never have been never will be.
“Will you let me drive you to work?” he asks.
“Do you have some power over this light?”
“No.” He holds up his hands and I eye the open passenger door.
“I’m only getting in because I’m lazy,” I admit, because I don’t want to walk. I want to wallow in self-pity. It’s my happy place.
I slam the front passenger door closed and climb into the luxurious backseat. I slam that too before he can get to it.
I refuse his chivalry.
No thank you.
I set my things around me like armor and fasten my seatbelt.
Hadley would never let me get in this car. Hadley would say his name in that flat voice that meant girl what are you doing.
Hadley isn’t here.
My jaw tightens. The click drags me right back to Joy, my baby, and then to Vex who still hasn’t called me.
Soren climbs into his car and slams the door locking out the sounds of the city. For a moment he just sits there staring at his hands before he takes the longest deep breath of his life because I watch this man far more than I ever should. Usually through a security screen.
I love to hate-fuck him in my head too.
Tell no one.
He pulls away from the curb without a word. The silence between us is thick enough to chew, and I let it simmer. I stare out the window. My neighborhood blurs into something almost beautiful at this speed.
“You’re welcome,” he finally says, his voice low and measured.
“I didn’t thank you.”
“You were going to.”
I snort. “Overconfidence is a terrible color on you, Marquis.”
That wrinkle between his eyebrows deepens. Good.
We stop at a red light, and I catch him glancing at me in the rearview mirror.
I pretend not to notice, focusing instead on the postcard I’ve pulled from my pocket again.
Hadley’s handwriting hasn’t changed in the decade we’ve been friends.
Loopy and slightly too large, like she’s always trying to fill more space than she’s given.
“Bad news?” he asks.
“None of your business.”
The light changes and he accelerates smoothly. Of course he drives perfectly. I bet he’s never gotten a parking ticket in his life.
“Noted,” he says after another stretch of silence.
“Well, stop. We don’t have that kind of relationship.”
“What kind of relationship do we have, Calliope?”
The way he says my full name makes something in my chest tighten. I hate it. I hate him. I hate this car and its leather seats that smell like money and privilege.
“We don’t have one,” I snap. “We’re coworkers who occasionally share oxygen.”
“Lazarus seems to think—”
“Lazarus can think whatever the hell he wants. I don’t care what the old bastard says.” And there I go. Going too damn far. I blame Soren. It’s his fault.
Except he doesn’t yell at me and tell me how inappropriate I am. He… laughs.
I did not know he was capable of that. Laughing that is, and oh no, oh no no no.
It’s attractive.
His laugh shortens to something I’d call a hum if I were being generous. He composes himself as he pulls away from the red light.
“Please. Use that one in front of him.”
“I would never.” I smack my face with my palm, right over my lips. I need duct tape to stop talking in front of this man. I just cannot help myself. I have to talk, it’s like a compulsion.
“You know,” he finally says, his voice low in that infuriatingly measured way of his, “your car is at Vex’s shop.”
I stiffen and close my eyes, as I put two and two together. Daddy Lazarus popped up on Vex’s screen. I should have known it was him. It was too coincidental.
“Joy broke down,” I say, keeping my voice flat. “Just waiting on repairs.”
Soren’s eyes flick to the rearview mirror, catching mine for just a second. “Three weeks is a long time for repairs.”