Chapter 5 - Callie
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Callie
I wanted Jensen to kiss me but now that he is, I know without a doubt that I wasn’t prepared for this. I wasn’t ready for how poetic the touch of this man’s mouth would be.
Each brush of his lips is a perfectly crafted bit of prose in a language that I desperately want to understand. When his fingers tunnel through my hair, holding my head with such gentle care, all I can do is lean my neck back slightly, giving him more room to explore my mouth.
The taste of peppermint explodes on my tongue as the kiss deepens with a tender thoroughness that I know is going to absolutely ruin me on some level. I’ve been kissed before, but never like this. And certainly never by a man I’ve only known for an hour .
I slide my hands up his chest and around his neck, my fingernails lightly grazing the soft skin at the nape of his neck as I push up on my toes. Jensen’s hands slide down my back, holding me to him in a way that makes tears prick at the corners of my eyes.
All the noise in my head goes silent. It’s as if my day-to-day thoughts are the booming brass section of a symphony, but this moment, this kiss, is a smooth, velvety violin solo. There is nothing but this sweet, sweeping melody that says everything that words cannot.
Click. Click. Click.
Mabel’s camera reminds us of its presence, breaking the spell. Awareness of where we are and what we’re doing seems to smack into us both. Jensen drops his hands, and I step back out of the circle of his arms, my cheeks burning.
I let out a nervous laugh as my eyes find his, but there’s no amusement in his gaze. His eyes are wild, and the emotion burning in them twists my heart. It’s devastation and heartbreak and pain.
Jensen rips his eyes away from mine, studying the boots at his feet for a moment. When he looks up again, his expression is more even, but also guarded in a way that it wasn’t before.
What just happened?
Mabel pops up next to me, camera in hand, with a triumphant grin. “Oh my word, you guys!” She squeals. “That was amazing. I cannot wait to get home and start editing. These shots turned out beautifully.”
“We’re done?” Disappointment replaces the butterflies fluttering in my stomach.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jensen let out a low breath as if he’s relieved. It stings more than I want to admit.
Mabel nods, looking from me to Jensen. “I think I got it. You both made my job so easy.” She walks a few feet away to where her camera bag sits in the grass and begins removing her lens.
“It’ll take me a little bit to go through everything, but would either of you mind if I posted a preview of the shoot to my socials?
I know everyone is going to go wild for you two! ”
“I’m okay with that.”
“Sure,” Jensen adds, his tone a little flat.
I study his face, the hard lines that seem etched into his features. The man in front of me now is night and day different from the one who just kissed me, and I don’t understand.
Mabel doesn’t seem to notice. She claps her hands together now that her camera is safe in its carrying case. “Great!” she says as she heads over to the Jeep to load her equipment.
Jensen and I follow her, neither of us saying anything. There’s an awkwardness that wasn’t there before that’s settled over us, and even though I keep trying to catch his eye, Jensen won’t look at me—which really bothers me, especially when I can still taste him in my mouth.
We load into the Jeep and Mabel drives to the parking lot, pulling up next to a black truck that I assume is Jensen’s.
“Well, this is me,” he says.
I open my mouth to . . . say what exactly? But Mabel beats me to the punch. She swivels around in her seat and gives him a pointed look. “You should give Callie your number. That way she can let you know when the photos are ready.”
I know exactly what she’s doing. The over eagerness in her voice makes me want to groan. I give her a look. One of those “Girl, what the hell?” looks but she ignores me.
“Oh . . . sure,” Jensen says, although the hesitancy in his tone makes me wish a sinkhole would open up right then and there and swallow me whole.
With my face burning, I grab my phone and open up a new contact. “Here,” I say, handing it to him.
Mabel is starting to resemble the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland from her perch in the front seat, and as gleeful as she is about this whole thing, I’m back to feeling panicky.
Jensen hands me the phone back, and I dip my head in thanks, praying he can’t see how mortified I am.
“Callie, you should text him,” Mabel pipes up. “That way he has your number too.”
If there was ever a moment in our lives where I was close to decking Mabel right in the nose, this was it. But I keep my composure and make quick work of opening a new text thread and typing out a short message. “Yeah, that’s a good idea.”
Jensen’s phone dings. “Got it.”
“Great,” I say back, though the sound is a little strained. “Um . . . it was really nice meeting you.” I give him what I hope is a genuine smile and not a grimace.
He dips his head. “It was nice to meet you, too.”
My eyes meet his, and I feel it again. That thing between us, that connection that shouldn’t exist but somehow, it does.
It’s warm and comfortable and so inviting I want to get lost in it.
Then I’m thinking of his lips, of the way they felt against mine and the touch of his hands on my skin.
Jensen’s gaze pierces through me, but sadness flashes across his expression so intensely, it makes my chest ache.
Before I have a chance to say or do anything else, he tears his eyes from mine, gives a quick, “Ladies,” and then pops open the door, getting out so fast you’d think the Jeep was on fire.
I wait until he’s safely reversing out of his parking space before whirling on my cousin.
“Seriously?” I all but yell. “What the hell was that?”
Mabel bats her eyelashes, the epitome of innocence. “What was what?”
“Mabel Evangeline Callahan,” I punch each syllable. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. ”
“You mean when I secured his number for you?” She grins. “You’re welcome.”
“Ughhh,” I fall back against the seat and cover my face with my hands. “Could you not see how awkward things were? He practically leapt from the Jeep while it was still moving.”
“I don’t think so, babe.”
“What do you mean you don’t think so? It’s obvious he was more than ready for the photoshoot to be over and the only reason he gave me his number is because you practically forced him to. He was too polite to decline.”
Mabel shakes her head. “That’s not what that was.”
“Then what was it?”
“Some of the most incredible chemistry I’ve ever seen. I mean, my god, Callie. Did you not feel it? I was only behind the camera, but good gravy, I sure felt it.”
My brain immediately supplies me with moments from the photoshoot, little snippets of memory that swirl around my thoughts and warm my blood.
“Of course I felt it, but . . . ” I think about the look on his face after we kissed and his rigid posture a few moments ago.
“I don’t think Jensen felt the same way. ”
“No, no, no,” Mabel scoffs, reaching for her camera from the passenger seat. “Don’t even go there. I can guarantee you that man felt it.”
“Oh yeah?” I challenge.
Mabel scrolls through the images on her camera before flipping it around to face me. “Uh-huh.”
The picture she’s chosen is one of us kissing.
It was taken from an angle behind me, so it’s Jensen’s features that are highlighted and a gasp bubbles in my throat at the sight of his face, the way his eyes are squeezed tightly, but not in a “let’s get this over with kind of way,” but more in a “god, I don’t want this to ever end kind of way.
” The way he’s holding me to his body, the way his lips claim mine, the way the entire image screams intimacy and passion. It’s undeniable.
Tears well up in my eyes before I can stop them.
“Oh Callie,” Mabel’s entire demeanor shifts from smug to Mother Hen. “Don’t cry, it’s okay.”
“Is it?” I swipe at my cheeks, hating the heavy weight of insecurity that’s dropped over me. “I don’t even think I’ve fully processed what happened back there, but this—” I point to the screen. “That kiss was incredible.”
Mabel nods. “The chemistry between you two was really something. I wanted the photoshoot to go well, but I didn’t think you’d connect like that. I mean, I hoped you would, but I wasn’t sure.”
I think about my years with Adam. Even in the beginning, things between us had always felt more sensible than passionate. Our relationship was never a Fourth of July fireworks show, more like a single birthday candle, quickly blown out.
“I’ve never felt like that with anyone,” I admit, still taking in the image on the camera screen.
I’d long convinced myself that I didn’t need that ever-encompassing, all-consuming want of another person.
But my lips still tingled from Jensen’s kiss, and a small, hopeful voice is in my head already whispering, again?
I shake my head and carefully hand Mabel back her camera. “But afterwards, things were . . . weird. You saw how he acted. It was like he was being held hostage or something.”
“I think he was just a little surprised. I don’t think he expected the photoshoot to go like that either. From what I hear, he’s not the type of guy who lets his walls down easily.”
“What else do you know about him?”
“Not a whole lot,” she admits. “I met him a while back at the diner. He comes in a couple of times a week to eat and see Sutton.”
“Sutton?” Alarm bells start going off in my head as I think about Mabel’s cute, perky blonde co-worker. “They’re dating?”
“No, nothing like that! They’re best friends. They have been since . . . ” Mabel’s face drops a little. “You remember Kasey Bradford, right? We went to high school with him? Sutton is his widow.”
“Oh . . . ” I remember now, hearing about the helicopter crash a few years back. I was in New York with Adam when the news broke on social media. He hadn’t understood why I was so upset, but Dayton Springs is a small town, and losing one of our own always hurts. “I forgot he was married.”
“He has a little boy, too. Jensen was his best friend. After it all happened, Jensen moved here to help Sutton run the auto shop. I don’t know him very well.
I think he keeps to himself when he’s not with Sutton and Ethan, but he’s always been really nice, and I mean, let’s be real.
He’s pretty easy on the eyes.” Mabel gives me a wink.
“I mentioned the shoot to Sutton last week at work, and she volunteered him.”
I let out a groan. “She volunteered him? So he wasn’t even here by choice?”
“I highly doubt Jensen Shepherd would have shown up today if that were true,” Mable scoffs. “Sutton told me she was going to tell him about the shoot and see if he was interested. If he wasn’t he wouldn’t have come.”
I’m not sure I buy that, but I nod anyway. “So, what now?”
Mabel lifts a shoulder and lets it drop. “I think that’s up to you. You have his number—you’re welcome, by the way—so why don’t you just text him?”
It’s the worst idea in the world. There may have been an unexpected moment of magic between us, but it’s long gone now.
Which, the more I think about it, suits me just fine.
I don’t need more complications or heartbreak in my life.
I need to stick to my plan. No men, no relationships, no dating.
I got a little caught up in the moment for a second, but that’s over now.
“I don’t think so. ”
“Why not?”
“Because we were just playing the part.” I can tell from Mabel’s frown that she wants to disagree with me, so I keep going before she has a chance. “It wasn’t real, and it doesn’t mean anything.”
Mabel arches a brow. “You don’t believe that. I’ve known you my whole life. I can tell when you’re full of it.”
“I’m just being practical,” I say in defense, thinking again of Jensen’s reaction to our kiss.
“No, you’re playing it safe,” Mabel counters. “Because you’re scared.” She says the words gently, but they punch through my chest just the same. Adam took a lot more from me than just my apartment.
“Just think about it, okay?” Mabel squeezes my hand.
Nope. There’s no way I’m texting Jensen. Not going to happen.
But as resolved as I am, a tiny kernel of something opens up in my chest. I don’t know if it’s hope or idiocy or just sheer determination to prove that Adam didn’t break me completely, but it’s there.
“Fine,” I say, against my better judgment. “I’ll think about it.”