Chapter 1
Everything New but Love by Mere Rain
We were sitting on a picnic blanket on the grassy slope by the Dog Park, so Zoe could watch the dogs play, when a shadow fell over us.
I tensed, pulling Zoe closer, even before I looked up.
“Callum. You have a baby. How do you have a baby?”
He was backlit against the gray sky, but I knew Zane’s voice, even after a year without hearing it. Knew his silhouette. Wide shoulders in a leather jacket, hair shorter than I remembered.
“My niece,” I said, calm with shock at seeing him again. “What are you doing here?”
He snorted and knelt beside us. “Looking for you, obviously. Not going to lie, I thought what we had deserved more than a voicemail saying you were leaving town for a family emergency.”
Zane had deserved more. I’d wanted to give him more. Everything. But it had been too soon, too new, and then suddenly I hadn’t had more time to wait for what was budding between us to bloom.
If I hadn’t been exhausted from moving, and finding a new job, and then caring for a newborn, I’d have been a wreck.
But for the first time in my life, I’d had to pull up my big-boy pants and get shit done like an adult, for my sister and her baby, and I had.
I was proud of that, even if I had woken up crying over Zane half the nights this year.
I’d been in love, and no amount of telling myself it was infatuation had eased the hurt.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t tell anyone where I was going. Daphne’s ex is good at getting people to trust him. I couldn’t take the risk of him convincing someone to tell him where she went. How did you find me?”
“Your mom. Not an address, just a photo with that mountain ridge in the background.”
“Dammit! I told Daphne not to let Mom wheedle anything out of her.” I frowned. “Wait, how were you talking to my mom?”
They’d met all of twice, first at Daphne’s birthday party, and then once when we’d run into Mom while going to lunch.
“I started going to her church so I could ask her for news of you.”
Mom’s church was beige, bigotry, and bad music. “Wow. You must’ve really wanted to find me.”
“I did. Callum, you were the best thing that ever happened to me.”
I wasn’t a hot club twink in eyeliner and tight jeans anymore. I needed a haircut and my shirt had a sticky Zoe handprint on the chest.
Zane still looked at me like he wanted to peel my clothes off, nearby dog-walkers be damned.
If I hadn’t had Zoe beside me, and her sperm donor weighing on my mind, I might have let him.
“If you know, Kirk probably does, too. Mom likes him, and he’s not too dumb to use a reverse image search.”
“Yeah, I was counting on warning you about him being enough to make up for following when you didn’t want me to.”
“I did want you to,” I whispered. “But I couldn’t—I mean that would be crazy, asking a guy I’d been seeing for a month to leave everything for me.”
“I would have,” he said. “I have.”
“What? You quit your job?”
“Eh, it’s bartending, I can get hired again. I wasn’t sure how long it would take me to find you.”
I was overwhelmed. “How—how long?”
“I’ve been here nine days. It might have been faster if I’d known to look at playgrounds instead of nightclubs.”
Clubs, God, that felt like another lifetime. Zane felt like a long-ago dream, except that my heart still ached for him.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I should have trusted you. You deserved a real explanation.”
Zoe had been starting to fuss, and her expression now said that binky and bouncing wasn’t going to keep her quiet much longer.
“I have to get her home for her nap. Let me give you my new number.”
He took out his phone, but when he was done typing, he said, “Let me come home with you.”
“Zane—”
“You’re worried about this ex of your sister’s, right? Another person around makes you safer. If nothing else, I can mind the baby while you and Daphne have a talk, figure out how much he knows.”
I swallowed. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to. I want to be there for you. With you.”
“He’s dangerous,” I warned.
“Then we’ll be in danger together. Unless you don’t want me here.”
“I do,” I said too quickly. I had only managed to play it cool for about twenty minutes the first night we met. My friend, Tawny, teased me the next day about having heart-eyes. I had denied it then, but I wouldn’t now.
“I love you,” I said.
He kissed me once, quick enough for the park, but hard. “I love you, too. I should have said that when I had the chance, before. That’s what matters. Us, you and your sister, the baby—we have each other. Everything else will get sorted out eventually, as long as we hold on. Hold on to me, Callum.”
I handed him the baby and got to my feet, then put my arms around him and Zoe both. She smelled like talcum powder and sweet potato, and Zane smelled like leather and spice. I breathed deep. The ones I loved.