Chapter 6 Callie
I take the long path down to the creek with the textbook under my arm and last night still on my skin.
The creek runs cold and clear over flat stones at the back of the property. I sit on my log and open the textbook on my knees. Developmental psychology. I read the same paragraph three times before I close it.
I am not going to be able to study today.
I went into the kitchen this morning on purpose. Every move I made in there was deliberate. I left the house with my pulse in my ears, and I am not sorry.
I owed him a confession, and I gave him one without saying a word. I want him. I let the neckline of my sweatshirt slip at the collarbone as I walked past his chair, and I didn't fix it.
He didn't pull his look away. He wants me too.
That is not a small thing to have done. I know it isn't. I'm twenty-two, I have never been with a man, and the first one I have decided I want is the one my brother sent me to.
I sit on the log with the cold of the stones coming up through my boots and I think about it honestly. I owe myself that.
Here is what I come back with.
I am not going to pretend I don't want him.
I have spent enough years pretending I didn't need things.
My grandmother got sick when I was fourteen and I learned to fold myself small around what was left of the people in my life.
I folded myself small for Danny when he came home on leave and didn't want to talk about anything.
I folded myself small for the professor who took me on as his advisee, played the grateful promising girl, and never asked for more than the scraps of attention he gave me.
I have been small, patient, good for a very long time.
I am tired of being small.
The other thing I come back with is harder.
He is going to fight me. A man with his code does not put his hands on his best friend's little sister without fighting himself over it first. I am sure of that without him having to tell me. I have watched something shut in his face every time my brother's name has come into the room.
I don't know how to take that wall down, or if it is mine to do.
What I know is that I am not going to spend the rest of my time here keeping my hands to myself and my eyes on a book.
I pick up the textbook and walk back to the house at four. I'm done with being good.
***
I get in the shower a little before six.
I tell myself I'm waiting that long because I have a chapter to finish, laundry to fold, and a phone call to make to my advisor before the offices close for the day. All of that is true. None of it is the whole reason.
The whole reason is that I want to come out of the bathroom while he is already in the house.
I turn the water on hot. I stand under it with my forehead against the tile and let it run over my shoulders. The white musk of my soap goes up in the steam. I think about his hand on the back of my neck. I think about his mouth where my hair ends.
I don't touch myself. That isn't what tonight is for.
I take my time. I wash my hair, then the rest of me, slow, with attention, with the heat of him in my mind the whole time.
When the truck pulls up the gravel drive outside I hear it through the wall of the bathroom and through the rush of the water.
I turn the water off a minute later, not right away. I dry myself off in the steam.
I put on the robe I packed and didn't think I'd need: short, tied at the waist. I open the bathroom door, and the steam spills out into the hall ahead of me.
He is in the kitchen with a paper bag in one hand, just walked in. The door makes him turn.
He sees me.
His eyes drop down the length of the robe before he can stop them, going to the wet hair on my shoulder, the tie at my waist, the bare leg below the hem, and back up.
His hand stays closed around the bag while his throat works once and the muscle in his jaw sets.
He pulls his look back to my face and holds it there with effort.
"I didn't hear you pull up," I say.
"Just got here."
His voice is rougher than usual.
"I'll get dressed."
"Yeah."
He sets the bag down on the counter without looking at it. I cross the hall to my room with my hair dripping down the back of the robe and my pulse going at the base of my throat where I can feel it on my own skin. I close the door behind me. I lean against it for a beat with my eyes closed.
He looked at me longer than he meant to. That is all I needed.
I put on jeans and a clean sweatshirt and I towel my hair out as much as I can. When I come back into the kitchen he has plates on the table and the paper bag is open between them. Two sandwiches from Lou's. He is already sitting.
"Lou sent these?"
"She did. She also sent a question for you. She wants to know if you're free Sunday afternoon to come in and help her with the pies for the church bake sale."
"Sunday?"
"I told her I'd ask. I can drive you in and stay with you. You'd be in her kitchen the whole time."
I take the offer with both hands. "I'd love that. Tell her yes."
"All right."
We eat the sandwiches. He keeps his eyes on his plate. I keep mine on him. I have stopped pretending to look anywhere else.
Halfway through he sets his sandwich down and looks at me directly for the first time since we sat down.
"Callie."
"Yeah."
"I am going to ask you to do something for me."
"Okay."
"Don't come out of that bathroom in a robe again."
My breath catches in my throat and stays there for a second before I get it back.
"Why not?"
He holds my eyes now, and doesn't look away.
"You know why not."
I nod, slow. A small smile comes to the corner of my mouth, and I let him see it. I keep his eyes the whole time I do it.
"Okay, Kane."
"Thank you."
He picks his sandwich back up and finishes it with his eyes on the window over the sink. I finish mine with my eyes on him.
When I carry my plate to the sink I pass behind him at a careful distance, holding myself back from stopping or letting my arm brush his. I have his rule and I am going to follow it.
I am also going to remember the look on his face when he asked for it. He gave me more in you know why not than in everything else he has said to me.
I go down the hall to my room, close the door behind me, and sit on the edge of the bed with my hair still damp on my neck. I let myself smile for a full minute in the dark.
He is going to fight this, but he has already started to lose.