Chapter 20
Having not seen Charlie since the breakup, I don’t know if he plans on being at Rowan’s game night tonight. Since Callahan won’t understand keeping a low profile, I hope I don’t see him.
“You ready, girlfriend?” Callahan asks, opening the car door.
“I’m not your girlfriend.”
“You’re a hard sell, huh?”
“Yeah, but you might just be worth the purchase.” I slap his chest, pushing him back to go into the building.
Before I can reach the elevator, he lifts me into the air and spins me around.
“Callahan!”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“Put me down.”
“Only if you say you’re my girlfriend.”
I stay quiet, prompting him to spin me until the world starts to blur.
“Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“I’m your girlfriend.”
He doesn’t stop right away.
“I’m your girlfriend!” I scream, fully giving in to the complete control he has started to have over me.
I’m letting him claim me, because I’ve been his longer than I care to admit.
Finally, he puts me back down and kisses my forehead. I push him back and finish my journey to the elevator. Once we’re inside, I finally look at him.
“You know that won’t hold up in court? I was under duress.”
He turns towards me, crosses his arms, and leans against the wall.
“We know damn well you don’t do anything you don’t want to, Monty.”
Cornered with that answer, I just shake my head and tap my foot. He starts dancing in the corner to the sound of my frustration. I try to keep a serious face as he attempts a pirouette. Barely completing one turn, he falls against the door.
“You are terrible.”
“Then teach me.”
I look to see if he is being serious. With a neutral face he looks at me head-on.
“I can’t be shown up at our reception,” he says.
I sigh and am grateful that the doors open.
“I’ll teach you to dance if you teach me to drive the way that you do.” I hold out my hand, ready to shake.
“I think I’m getting the better end of the deal. I get to learn new moves and see you behind the wheel of my car. Do you know what you’re doing to me?”
Does he know what he does to me? The only time I feel a slight stirring in my pants is around him.
“Deal or no deal?” I ask.
He pulls me in for a kiss, sealing it. I may let it linger longer than I should, as his pouty lips move against mine, eliciting a moan.
It’s not enough to make me want to have sex, but it’s enough to make me get wet.
Stuck between feeling like the vixen I used to be and the version of myself that can’t metaphorically get it up, I lean into whatever urges Callahan is able to raise in me.
His want is even more evident in that beast of a dick he has pressing against my stomach. I move my hand down, ready to rub it through his pants, but he stops me just as the elevator door opens.
“Not that I don’t want this love, but we are about to be in the middle of the hall.”
“Public sex not your thing?”
“With you, I’d have sex in a church, and I’m a devout Catholic. But one, you don’t actually want to; and two, I don’t want to get caught by my sister.”
That is an instant mood killer. The last thing either one of us needs is for Rowan to walk in on something like that.
“You know me not wanting to have sex has nothing to do with you, right?” I ask.
“I know, I did my research.”
I kiss his cheek and then grab his hand, pulling him towards Rowan’s door.
Walking in, the place is already packed full of people. Charlie is here. He looks at us, his eyes widening at our conjoined hands. I feel the urge to go and explain, but I don’t. I don’t actually owe him anything.
Sahara walks over and gives me a little nod of approval before talking to Callahan about some movie they went and saw. They walk off, and I guess Charlie takes that as his chance.
“So, you were seeing him.”
“I wasn’t, but I am now.” I cross my arms, preparing for an argument.
“Huh, so you went and switched sides. What happened to only dating Black men?” He lifts his eyebrows and smirks, his eyes burning with judgment.
I try not to let it affect me, but I internally flinch at the implication, and the way it might look to other people.
But then, I look past Charlie to see Callahan giving me a thumbs up, the question clear in his eyes.
I nod and smile at him, reminded of the constant support he provides me.
Charlie can judge me the way I would have judged myself, but I know the truth of why this shift was worth it.
“Charlie, I’m not doing this with you. You can get over it and we can go back to being friends, or this all can end here.”
His mouth twists like the bitter taste of this reality is hard to swallow, but then he shakes his head and shrugs.
“You have a lot on your plate, and at the end of the day, we have always been friends. I don’t like it, but I love you.”
I know he means it in both ways, but clearly, the platonic version is what is pushing him to be so understanding. I also know he hopes this statement will change my mind. It doesn’t, so I let him give me a hug, thankful that I don’t have to deal with this, too.
“If we are playing Taboo, you’re on my team,” he says, letting go.
“Deal.”
He tries to look like he is cool with it at all, but a few times over the course of the evening, I see him just staring at us before taking a shot. I ignore him for the most part, and Callahan doesn’t seem to mind, just having too much fun to really even focus on anything else.
When the party starts to dwindle and people begin to leave, Callahan pulls me into Rowan’s bedroom with a box.
“What’s this?”
He pops it open, and inside are mini cupcakes that are shaped like a heart. In the middle is a pair of toy ballet shoes and a race car.
“I knew you were going to say yes, so I got us a cake.”
I cover my mouth with both my hands and then bend forward.
“You are so extra,” I say.
“What?”
“You don’t buy a cake to celebrate becoming a couple.”
“Who says?”
I pick a cupcake up and lick off the icing while shrugging my shoulder. No one says, and maybe it should be a tradition.
“Is this how you treat all the girls you date?”
“I’m pretty all-in, but I’m even more over the top with you.”
Finishing off the first one, I grab another and slide to the top of the bed until my back is against the headboard.
“Tell me about your first love,” I say.
He grabs his own cupcake, then lies on his stomach facing me. Taking his time eating little bites out of it, he makes me wait while he thinks it over.
“Believe it or not, she was crazier than I am. If you told her there was something she shouldn’t do, she did it to spite you. I felt like I was always chasing her.”
“A habit of yours?”
“Not the same. It wasn’t like she was making me work for it or playing around. It was like she was trying to get away. But every time I would stop running after her, she would call my name and act like she was going to let me catch her.”
I lean forward and run a hand over his cropped hair, ending on his neck.
“I wanted her to love me so bad. I did anything she asked. I did things that I didn’t want to do.” He rubs his eyes and then pinches his nose. “All it did was leave me with a broken heart and bad rep. I wanted her approval almost as much as I wanted my dad’s. In the end, I got neither.”
I pull him up until his head is resting on my lap. Continuing to stroke his head, I wait for him to speak.
“You are right when you say I do the most.” He lets out a breath and rubs his hand up and down his face.
“I guess…” Pausing, his eyes flit between me and the bed, before finally landing on the covers.
“I guess it’s to make up for the fact that I don’t feel like enough for anyone,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper.
“Do you still feel like that?”
He grows quiet, and in the silence, I hear my heart break for him. It makes me pull him even closer to me.
“You’re enough for me.”
“Am I? Because I’m lacking some of the melanin you were looking for.” He sits up and crosses his legs, leaning away from me.
The distance feels like the Grand Canyon instead of a foot.
“You might not have been what I expected my Prince Charming to look like, but you are more than enough. You’re the first white guy I have ever dated. That has to mean something.”
He cracks a smile, and that gives me the go-ahead to crawl into his lap.
“You’re the exception to my rules, and, like you said, maybe that’s why it will work this time.”
I pull his face until our foreheads are pressed together. I breathe him in, and he does the same to me. For a moment, we feel completely connected.
“I’ll show you that you are enough. Even if we don’t work out, you are enough for me to care about, and want.”
Not need, never need.
He nods, shifting us both. Neither one of us pulls back, so we just stay there basking in each other’s presence until it feels like the right time to separate.
“I thought this feeling with your dad started after getting in trouble.” I grab his hand, lacing my fingers with his, still needing his touch. The stark contrast between our skin tones is striking and beautiful.
“I’m not like him at all. Coming after Finn, who is a carbon copy of our da, was the worst. I failed every expectation and was nothing that he wanted me to be.”
I only met Cormac for those few days, but if he wanted his sons to be good men, then he should love Callahan just as he is.
Respectful, family-oriented, and loving are just a few things I have learned about Callahan in this short time.
He has made mistakes, but he owns them. My gentle giant is worth admiring.
“I was mouthy, rowdy, and sensitive all at the same time. I just wasn’t the stoic, America-loving good ol’ boy he wanted. I didn’t want to be a cop, I think war is barbaric, and I cry. He just didn’t know what to do with me.”
“So you were fighting to make him proud despite that?”
“Yeah, but I just couldn’t do anything right in his eyes. Ma, bless her heart, loved me no matter what, though.” He brings our hands to his mouth and kisses mine, his lips frowning behind it.
“I told you about my mom, so you know I get it. But I didn’t have to spend my childhood seeing how different it could be.” At least not at first. “I’m sorry, Callahan.”
The smile he gives me is so sad that I don’t even think it should be called that. I want to make it his full mischievous one, so bad.
“Tell me about your first love,” he says clearly trying to change the topic.
I allow it, stopping to think about it for a minute.
From grade three on, I have always had some sort of admirer, and more times than not, I made them my boyfriend, but I don’t know if I loved most of them. I don’t think I loved someone until Sean.
“I didn’t really fall in love until college.
All my boyfriends in high school weren’t serious, because I didn’t want to commit and plan my whole life with someone.
So in my first few months at university, I was looking for something real.
I met Sean at a party, and he was unlike anyone I had met before.
” I lean back, the nostalgia overcoming me.
“He was a nerd, and very inexperienced.”
“You like to teach?” Callahan lifts one eyebrow, the corner of his mouth going up with it.
“I like to show people what I like. Some men take offense at suggestions. But if I remember correctly, you like being told what to do.”
“Maybe that is something we can explore someday,” he says. He gives me a quick peck on my cheek. A promise of something to come.
“Anyway, long story short, turns out I wasn’t ready to commit.
As much as I loved him, it freaked me out when he started talking about marriage.
I couldn’t imagine being someone’s wife before I was a fully formed person.
I wanted to make myself a priority before I needed to compromise.
” I shrug, trying to make it seem like an easier decision than it was.
But if I’m being honest, I almost chose him over myself.
“Well, that was anti-climactic,” he says, popping a cupcake in his mouth.
“Believe me, it did its damage.” The first and only time I started considering needing someone, I saw what it would do to me if it failed. The breakup alone tore something in me that took time to repair. If I let him become a crucial part of my existence, what would have happened then?
“Care to elaborate?”
“Let’s just say I’m not very good at depending on people, and when I considered doing it with him, it scared the shit out of me.”
He rubs his forehead, his hand then moving to scratch at his beard. I hate that I hold my breath waiting for his response.
“I’m guessing, based on your behavior, that’s something you still struggle with?”
“I don’t know if I would consider it a struggle.”
More of a decision. One that is starting to feel more like a burden than a reprieve.
“Hmm,” is all he says.
Rowan knocks, asking if we are ruining her mattress. We confirm we are not, so she pops her head in.
“Hey, you two love bunnies. Want to go to a diner with us?”
“Sure,” I say.
Sahara walks up and rests her head on Rowan’s shoulder.
Rowan raises her hand and touches her cheek then they turn and leave.
Callahan and I look at each other, the questions clear in our eyes.
With a shrug, he stands up, and I wonder if he knows something I don’t. I just hope she isn’t making a mistake.