Chapter Fourteen #2
I drop my eyes to the ground as I step past Callan and start walking towards the elevator. I pass my desk, grab my phone and pull on my jacket without stopping.
Just get outside.
I press the elevator call button and realize it isn’t just curiosity. I need to know everything that is happening with Callan. Who was on the phone? Where is he going? Who will he see there? A woman?
You don’t get to know about Callan’s life, Max. He can have two phones, lots of professionals have two phones!
I shake my head, stepping towards the stairwell door instead, but at the same time as the elevator dings and opens, there’s a heavy hand on my elbow.
Callan looks down at me, sliding his hand up my arm, across my shoulders, and down my back. The warmth of it wafts over me; like his touch can just stop all the things happening in my mind.
He takes a step forward towards the elevator, gently leading me in with a press of his fingers. We stare straight ahead at the office, no one seems to notice we have both walked out, no one looks in our direction. The elevator door slides closed.
I’m chewing on a corner of my bottom lip and wondering how hard my heart can pound before it rips right through my chest.
Silence.
Callan’s fingers run along the rough edge of my short jacket; my breath catches as they slip under the bottom hem of my blouse. My head tips back slightly at the heat from his fingertips against my skin.
Chills tingle up my neck and down my arms. My eyes close without my own permission as his thumb caresses the same spot over and over.
“I have to go take care of some…” his voice trails off, but his fingers trail up my back, and it arches enough for him to suck in air. “Family stuff. And I don’t know how long it will take.”
My eyes flutter open, ripping me from the moment and my mind races.
Family stuff? I’m trying to think about what I can remember about his family.
We were best friends for almost two years, spent countless hours together, but all I can remember is his brother that he has recently mentioned. Maybe… maybe he mentioned a sister.
Déjà vu hits me like a semi-truck. His fingertips are still pressed into my skin, his palm rough on my cold skin.
The elevator door slides open, but instead of stepping out, I take an exaggerated step to the side of the elevator car and turn to look at him, his hand slipping from me.
“You went home before for ‘family stuff,’” my fingers make air quotes around the words.
“When you graduated. You mentioned you were going to Providence because you had to go home for family stuff. And you never called. And I didn’t hear from you.
Until you magically showed up in front of my office two months ago. ”
I force out a laugh, but my body is vibrating, trying to make light of the words, but the light doesn’t reach my eyes. And it’s not light, it’s dark.
I thought he’d reach out after graduation. I called his number a few times, but it went straight to voicemail. He fell off the face of the Earth back then, and because of Patrick and law school, I was too distracted to do anything about it.
For a few seconds, I’m twenty-three again, stuck in a relationship that was lackluster, but putting all of myself into law school.
My chest heaves. I’m twenty-four, quitting law school because I think it might make Patrick happy, which would make me happy.
I’m twenty-six, my world crashing and burning, quitting my job and moving away from everything I know and feeling like I have nowhere to turn. There’s a burn behind my eyes.
“I called you, you know.” The elevator doors start to slide shut and Callan puts his hand against the door to hold them open while keeping his eyes on me. “I called you for months after graduation. A few times I even left messages. You just disappeared.”
I can see him clenching and unclenching his jaw, he glances straight out the doors of the building. I follow his gaze as a black SUV pulls up and the driver, dressed in a suit, steps out. I frown and look back at Callan.
“Are you disappearing again, Callan? You don’t know how long you’ll be gone. You don’t know when you’ll be back… because you won’t be.”
For the second time today, I wish I could reach into the air and swallow the words back down. But I can’t. The only thing I can do is leave before he can. I can’t be left behind again. I won’t blow up my life for a man again.
I step between him and the elevator door, walking fast through the doors out of the office lobby, but I feel him right behind me. I hear his heavy footsteps following faster than my own can carry me.
The air outside is cold, my arms fold over my chest as Callan moves to stand in front of me. I feel like a petulant child, dwarfed by his tall frame on the sidewalk. I try to hide the full body shiver that runs through my body, but Callan notices. Because of course he does.
His hands reach up towards my shoulders, but he hesitates for half a second. He decidedly runs his hands up and down my arms slowly. Pushing warmth through the sleeves of my jacket as the turning weather spins freezing air around us.
He looks from me to the car beside us, up to the sky, and back down to me.
“Get in,” he says as his hands drop.
He turns and the driver, who has been standing watching me pout on the street, opens the polished black car door.
My face twists up in confusion as the driver clears his throat.
I look at the office doors behind me and then at Cal.
What am I doing? Go back to work!
The Max inside my head bellows at me with her hands outstretched, but she’s countered quickly. He’s Callan, and the need—that curiosity—to know everything is getting the best of me. And he said it was work. And I am his assistant.
“But—” I gesture back at the office.
“I’ll tell Richard you’re coming with me for…” He smirks and shakes his head, words tumbling out faster. “Fuck, professional development or something, please, Max, get in so I can try to explain. I don’t want to leave you like this. Please.”
My legs move toward the car before I can stop myself.
“Where are we going?” I grasp the handle to climb in but stop myself, waiting for the answer.
“Louis can bring you back here after dropping me off if you don’t want to come but please, get in, please Max.” Callan nods towards the driver, his tone begging.
I do and the driver shuts the door.
My stomach drops.
Silence. I look around the SUV and it’s spotless; like no one has ever been inside of it.
“Where are we going?” I ask quietly, after a few minutes of driving in silence.
“The airport!” Louis answers brightly, with the friendliest of smiles, glancing at me in the rearview mirror. I see his eyes dart to the side at Callan and his smile quickly disappears as he looks back at the road.
Callan turns his head towards me, taking a deep breath.
“When I left after graduation, I had to go home. My dad was sick. The family… our business needed help.” He glances up at Louis, then back at me. “I knew I would have to go back at some point, I was just hoping…”
His voice trails off, and he shakes his head.
“You told me you had a job lined up.” The confusion is apparent in my tone.
“A job. Yeah, I did. But I had to take some things off of my dad’s plate.” He stares straight ahead, and I follow his gaze as we turn off the highway.
“I thought we were going to the airport?” I sit up a little straighter and look out the window again. “That’s like… another fifteen minutes on the highway.”
Silence.
More silence.
After a few turns, we pull up to a security guard waiting at an open gate where he waves us through. As we turn around a large building, it opens up to a huge flat lot. With a private plane on a small runway.
Louis pulls the SUV to stop a short distance from the stairs of the plane, next to an empty black sedan.
“Callan, what is going on?” I look at him, then at the plane and these two things cannot coexist. “Who are you working for to go on a private jet? Batman?”
The car stops, Louis gets out and opens Callan’s door, then circles around to get mine.
Callan beats him to it. Callan pauses, his hand on the closed car door and says something inaudible to Louis who steps back, hands raised straight up.
Louis gets back in the driver’s seat at the same time Callan opens my door.
“Get out,” Callan’s voice is only above a whisper, but it’s a command and the soft tone doesn’t stop me from bristling slightly, and he notices. “Max, I want to explain, but you have to get out in order for me to do that.” He glances at the back of Louis’ head.
I hesitate. I know Callan, he wouldn’t hurt me or put me in an unsafe situation.
But do I know him now? That voice in my head is asking me what I’m doing again as I step out of the car, and he pushes it shut behind me, leaving Louis safely tucked inside.
I knew Callan. Seven years ago. I don’t know him now.
The enormity of that fact sits heavy in my stomach, my insides warring with every decision I’ve made in the last ten minutes.
But the last two months have not been nothing. He’s still Callan.
The wind is stronger than it was at the office, probably because of the open lot—sorry, airfield, runway, airport, whatever.
As Callan reaches around me, I freeze at his hand on my back.
He looks down at me, his eyes look hurt at my reaction, but he continues walking us toward the back of the sedan, his coat over his arm now.
“Please don’t look at me like that, Sims.”
“How am I looking at you?”
“Like… I don’t know. Like there might be bodies of the dead variety around here somewhere and you think I might be responsible for them.”
He opens the trunk of the sedan, pulls his tie from around his neck, and removes the cuff links from his white button-up shirt. His eyes stay on mine, and I slowly take a few steps to close the distance between us, peeking over the side. The trunk is empty.
I don’t know what I thought would be there, but a sigh of relief exits my lips.