Chapter 7
Callum
Cingulomania (n) a strong desire to hold a person in your arms
The crack that rings out as Maeve's fist connects with Ronan's face makes me wince. I watch in stunned silence as she strides back inside, leaving Ronan and I reeling. I guess that answers my question about her training.
“What in the hell did you say to her before dinner? In the sitting room? Must’ve been something good,” I say, stifling a laugh. “She knocked the shit out of you.”
Ronan rubs his jaw. “I just told her she’d have plenty of time to eye-fuck you later when there weren’t other people in the room,” he says casually.
I punch him in the arm, knocking him to the side as I walk to the car.
“Hey, man! What the fuck was that for?” he yells behind me.
“That was for you saying dumb shit twice tonight,” I say over my shoulder as I open the passenger door. “We’re trying to ease into this, not piss her off, ye feck. Now get in the car.”
Ronan slides behind the wheel a moment later, and we pull around the large stone fountain in the center of the drive.
I take one last look at the house before it disappears behind the trees.
The light wash of the stone seems bleak, but it hadn’t always felt that way.
Maybe it’s just the events of the night.
I feel unsettled, restless, and pessimistic.
Maeve had barely spoken to me, and she certainly doesn’t trust me. Not that I blame her.
The rest of the quick drive passes in silence. I gaze absently out of the window, my elbow on the armrest, chin in my hand. After a few minutes, Ronan turns on the radio and starts a playlist from his phone.
"Rain" by Sleep Token begins playing. I’m already thinking about her, but the song makes the ache of wanting her more pronounced. There’s no doubt about it. She still gets to me, after all this time. And I’m completely okay with it. I just hope she can accept me for who I am now.
Once we make it back, Ronan lets me out near the door in the garage before parking the car.
I head inside, leaving him to his vices for the remainder of the night.
I climb the stairs two at a time and walk into my study.
I turn on a small lamp and head over to the window, looking out into the night toward the Collins’ house.
Like most nights, I see her there, sitting on the roof with her knees tucked to her chest.
I reach for the crystal decanter sitting on the liquor cart next to the window and pour myself a drink.
Taking a hefty swig, I pull a chair over to the telescope I kept at the window.
I lean, lining up to look through the eyepiece.
I grab my sketchpad and pencil from the corner of my desk, and I see that a new pile of files had been dropped off while I was at dinner.
Great. Shop papers, as we call them. The legitimate side of the business.
One of our many ventures is vehicle modification.
We specialize in highly customized modifications, things you can’t necessarily see.
Things that aren’t exactly legal. Many of our clients require armored cars with hidden compartments, bulletproofing, and even concealed weapons inside the frames.
When legitimate vehicles come through our shop, I handle the paperwork to ensure everything is in order.
The local police are on the payroll, but we still have to make our wealth seem plausible, and the shop makes it easier to move the custom vehicles in and out of the city for deals.
But tonight I’m distracted, and business will have to wait. I ignore the stack of files and toss back the drink, then sit down, propping one leg on the stool and resting the sketch pad on my thigh. I begin to sketch Maeve, pausing occasionally to check her image in the telescope.
I smirk as I think about what Maeve would say if she knew I was sketching her.
If she knew I was watching her as she sat out there on that rooftop, reading her books and gazing up at the stars.
She’d pretend to be mad as hell. But I know there’s more to it.
It’s why so much has passed between us tonight.
Everything we left unsaid. The reason she was staring at me in that sitting room before dinner.
The same reason I did. Oh yeah, I did. Because Maeve has always wanted me to see her.
Not just stare. But truly see her. The light, the shadows, the darkness.
She wanted every ounce of herself to be accepted.
It’s a side profile, the one I was accustomed to these days. But tonight has me wishing she were standing right in front of me, looking me in the eyes and letting me read her like she reads her books.
Her hair is tucked behind her ear, but loose strands are blowing gently around her face in the breeze.
God, I wanted to be close to her, to tuck her hair back behind her ear, to touch her, to…
I think about being so close to her earlier tonight, at the dinner table and out in the garden.
I recall the sensation of my fingers trailing down her arm, the way goose bumps erupted in response.
Fuck.
Concentrate, Callum.
I shake my head, then peer once again into the eyepiece.
I wonder which book she has with her tonight as she opens it and turns on the small book light.
I smile to myself, remembering the night I left her birthday present on her doorstep.
I knew she hadn’t wanted to celebrate her birthday, and I knew that she wanted nothing to do with me.
But I just needed to do something, give her something.
I couldn’t bear the thought of her reliving that night every year, so I thought that if I could just show her…
I sigh, looking down at the sketch. I spend a few minutes tracing the strands of hair around her face, then take another glance through the telescope.
I see her in a WSU t-shirt. My WSU t-shirt.
I thought I’d lost that years ago. The giant red paint stain on the sleeve is the only indicator.
I wonder how often she wears it. I begin to sketch her hair, then her face.
Tonight, I was able to see the changes to her features. And she was so damn gorgeous.
Soon, I’d draw her in much more detail, her freckles placed exactly where they’re supposed to be, her eyes perfectly drawn with whatever expression the book made run through her.
Soon, I’d have her. She’d be yours already if you’d just tried harder.
You should have told her the truth sooner, dipshyte.
My posture sags as I stare at the floor, lost in the what-ifs and should-haves.
Callum 16 Years Old
I woke up with a migraine I could feel in my eyes.
The room was spinning like the tilt-a-whirl at the state fair.
I reached for my phone on the nightstand to check the time, but it wasn’t there.
Odd. I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands, wishing away the ache I felt.
No use. My body felt like I had taken a nasty fall.
Wait. How did I get home?
I sat up on my elbows and saw Ronan asleep on the leather chair in the corner, mouth slightly ajar and snoring softly.
“Hey, dickhead!” I said, tossing a pillow at him. He jolted upright when the pillow made contact with his face.
“What the fuck, man?” He looked like I felt. Like shit. Eyes red. Clothes disheveled.
“How did we get home last night, and what the fuck happened? I feel like I was in the ring with a heavyweight champ.”
Ronan shifted uncomfortably, and I knew something was wrong. “Ronan, what is it?”
“Uh,” he looked like he wanted to be anywhere but here. “I’m gonna need you to stay calm while I tell you this, Cal. I mean it. Let me finish.”
“Ronan, you'd better start talking and start talking fast,” I said as I jumped out of bed, trying my best to ignore the way the room seemed to spin faster than before. I staggered to the side and crashed into the nightstand, the contents scattering across the floor. I felt pain explode in my thigh. Yep, that’ll leave a bruise.
“Nessa,” he started. “She drugged you last night and some things happened…”
“Ronan, what the fuck happened?” I managed to ground out as the pounding in my head intensified.
“Maeve, well, she—she walked into the room that Nessa had taken you into. She saw Nessa straddling you…” He trailed off, looking down at the ground.
Bile rose in my throat, and anger filled my veins.
“Where is she? Where’s my phone? I need to call her. I—”
Ronan placed his hand on my upper arm, and I whipped my head in his direction.
“Orin is taking care of her, and he’s going to try to talk to her, tell her about what happened. But she doesn’t want to see you right now…”
He looked at me with pity, and I felt like I was going to explode with rage. I shrugged his hand off and grabbed a pair of jeans and a shirt from my closet, and dressed quickly.
“Cal, it’s not a good idea,” he said, taking a stance in the doorway, trying to block my path.
I plowed through him, feeling a savage satisfaction at his grunt of pain.
“You’ve got two options, man,” I said as I booked it down the stairs toward the garage, “either you drive me there, or I drive myself. Make your decision quickly because I’m not waiting.”
Ronan ran ahead of me, muttering “Arsehole” as he passed. He grabbed a set of keys from the labeled pegs in the garage and headed to the fastest car that we owned. We slid into our seats, and the engine roared to life.
“Tell me what you know,” I demanded as Ronan pulled out of the garage.
The drive was rough. I tried not to spill my guts on the floorboard while Ronan dodged traffic and filled me in on what had gone down. I couldn’t remember any of it. The whole night was like a gaping hole in my memory.
When we pulled up to Maeve’s house, the gate was closed. Ronan pressed the call button hesitantly, but there was no answer. I jumped out of the passenger side and ran around the car, then started pressing the call button repeatedly, like my life depended on it.
Finally, an annoyed voice came through the speaker.
“Callum, you’re not permitted on the premises.”
Joe. One of Cormac’s most trusted employees. I sighed with relief. I could get him to open it.
“Joe, come on, man, it’s urgent. Open up.”
Silence.
I started pushing the call button again as fast as I could, but there was only silence on the other end.
“Fuck!” I yelled, snatching my cell phone from my back pocket and dialing Orin’s number.
“Orin, I’m outside. Let me through the gate, now,” I demanded.
“I don’t think this is a good idea, man,” Orin said, concern in his voice.
I heard a door click on the other end of the line, followed by a knock on another door.
Then, I heard Maeve’s voice, angry and sharp, cut through the silence.
A door slammed again in the background, then Orin’s voice followed.
“Be ready, man. She’s breathing fire right now. ”
I hung up the phone and heard the gate click open. I ran through toward the front door, nausea and exhaustion fading with the surge of adrenaline.
Maeve swung the front door open and stormed out of it with fury in her eyes. I skidded to a stop and tried to grab her hand, but she stepped back, out of my reach. The rejection sent pain and panic through my chest, and I tried to stay composed.
“Are you out of your fucking mind, Callum?” Maeve yelled at me, and I flinched. She’d never spoken to me like that. “You can’t be here. GO HOME.” Her breathing was ragged, and her face was contorted into a scowl, a mixture of rage and devastation.
“Maeve, listen to me, it’s not—”
“NO!” she yelled, cutting me off. ”I don’t want to hear it. You aren’t supposed to be here,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at Joe, who had emerged from somewhere inside the house, a look of wary concern on his face.
She turned back to me. “I don’t want to see you again, Callum. GO!” Each word was like a nail in a coffin, and I was being buried alive.
“Please, Maeve,” I begged, lowering my voice before I said, “Meet me at our spot at nine tonight, okay?”
She didn’t say anything at first, but I saw the confirmation I needed when her eyes finally softened.
“I’ll see you tonight and explain everything, okay?” I said, pleading. “I love you.”
Tears welled up in her eyes, and I walked backward to the gate. I made eye contact with Joe as I retreated. The look of concern he’d worn had faded into a dead gaze. It was unnerving. I’d never felt like an enemy amongst these people until that very moment. Shit, I have really fucked up.
I held his gaze until I walked through the gate and jumped into the waiting car. Ronan hadn’t moved from the driver's seat. His expression was tight, and he was looking at me expectantly. I slammed the car door shut, running my fingers through my hair and gripping it until I could feel the sting.
“Take me home,” I demanded. He just stared at me, and I snapped. “Ronan, take me the fuck home now!”
To his credit, Ronan didn’t flinch at my outburst. He silently pulled away from the Collins’ estate and drove the few blocks back home.
His driving seemed more erratic on the ride back.
I’d clearly pissed him off. He hardly waited for me to close the car door before the tires were screeching and he was off again.
I hauled arse up to my room and scrubbed my skin until I couldn’t feel the ghost of Nessa’s hands on me.
I couldn’t remember any of it, but my body seemed to remember.
After Ronan told me what happened in the car, the reality of it began to sink in.
I used an entire bottle of body wash, and somehow, my loofah was still intact by the time I finished using it.
I got dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a t-shirt.
I still had a few hours until I was supposed to meet her, and I was filled with nervous energy.
I walked over to my study and looked through the window, trying to catch a glance of her.
My heart started thudding furiously. She was sitting on the roof, nestled in the crevice beside her bedroom window, her knees drawn up to her chest. Her cheeks were red from more than the cold.
She’d been crying, and I couldn’t comfort her.
All of my instincts were pushing me to run to her.
But I knew I couldn’t. I had to wait until tonight.
So I just stood there, staring at her. After a while, she retreated inside, and I set off for the lake.
I didn’t take anyone else with me. It just needed to be us.
I waited for hours.
She never showed.
I sent countless texts and letters.
She never responded.