Chapter Fifteen #3
He tosses the bag with force down the aisle towards the door, shaking his head, and lifts the towel to my elbow, his lips in a tight line.
He gently pulls my right hand down to rest atop his knee.
My hand is shaking, worse than my voice, as another jump from the plane sends more ice skidding off the table towards Callan. I don’t even feel the cut on my hand.
In the back of my mind, I register a burning pain, but the information dump and the cold water have me in a state of shock. He doesn’t move an inch, doesn’t react, completely unbothered by the turbulence, by the blood, as he lifts the towel to examine the cut.
“Don’t ever apologize to me. For anything.” His eyes trail up my arm, while the towel follows the same path until it’s resting on the side of my hand.
“Don’t apologize ever? What if I like…” My brain starts trying to run distraction protocol.
“No. Don’t apologize to me. Promise me you’ll never apologize to me. For anything.”
He’s so serious, his eyes trying to meet mine, but I bounce away. There goes my brain again, looking for levity.
“I mean, I promise. But what if I were to… tell Denise about that time we both got really drunk and you had to carry me across campus barefoot in the snow while I wore your shoes and you did the YMCA dance in the middle of the apartment parking lot because I felt so bad and you wanted to make me laugh?”
One side of his mouth tilts up in amusement, but his eyes are on the alcohol swab burning a line across the back edge of my hand.
“I wasn’t drunk.” The words are almost imperceptible.
“Yes, you were!” I let out an obnoxious, choking laugh, swallowing the pain running down my hand, still shaking. “Why else would a grown man dance like that in the middle of a parking lot at two in the morning?”
His lips fall a little, and he’s wrapping gauze around my palm, letting out a short, quick sigh. “You barely smiled that month.” His shoulder lifts as he pulls the gauze free. “I would’ve run across campus naked if it made you smile.”
I’m frowning, but not at the pain. I’m trying to remember.
That was around the first or second time Patrick and I broke up during our on-again, off-again year.
I was a wreck; he was going out with other girls the day after he told me he needed space to be independent.
He was calling me every night, checking where I was and asking if I was out with anyone.
He would drive past my apartment and shine his car lights into my window and text me until I answered or turned a light on, so he knew I was home, then he’d drive away.
It was torture; he didn’t want me but didn’t want anyone else to have me either.
After a few weeks, he bought me roses, a necklace and apologized for losing himself, promised he’d never do it again and he was the Patrick I met at a silly Halloween party again.
For a little bit, anyway. And then I’d end up back in Patrick oblivion for weeks at a time, cancelling plans with my friends, Cal, or even missing classes sometimes if it meant being with him.
“I guess I never realized how that relationship affected my friendship with you,” I whisper into the air between us, staring at my wrapped hand that is now being held gently between his own.
He talks to my hand while continuing his earlier story, “I went to Ellison to at least try to pry you from Patrick’s abusive, cheating, small hands.
Because I was broken. And I remembered when it would feel like you’d…
slip. You’d slip under the water for weeks sometimes, I’d see you for a few minutes before he’d somehow know you were talking to someone other than him and he’d show up.
And you’d slip back under. But I was always there to pull you up when you were ready.
And that’s how I felt after being in Providence, after taking over for my father.
Like I had slipped under. I needed someone to pull me up. ”
Silence. Long, wide silence.
My eyes are wide, tears pooling on the bottom lids, from his words and from the stabbing pain that’s finally making itself known.
Both of our eyes now stare at my bandaged hand.
My mind is reeling, attempting to process what he’s saying, but before I can fully grasp it, take it all in, he’s talking again.
“Max, it was selfish, going back there for you. I thought I was doing it for you, and maybe on some superficial level, I was. But I had no right to think you weren’t happy; a whole adult who can make her own choices.
I had no right to think you’d be better off with me, either.
Especially not the me I was when I showed up at Ellison,” he scoffs.
“I think on my first day, Patrick thought I was there to take him out. He spent the entire week avoiding me and walking out of rooms backwards.”
He shakes his head and continues, “When I got there, you weren’t there.
And I realized you had pulled yourself out, or you were forced to I guess.
I was barely strong enough to temporarily get myself out of the hole I was in with the hope I’d find you again.
I had already accepted a position at Ellison, thinking it might take time to…
I don’t know… get you to come to your senses.
God, this sounded so much better in my head.
” He wipes a hand down his face, the other still softly holding my bandaged one.
“So, I stayed. Because at least it was…” his sigh is heavy, and he pulls my wrapped hand down to rest against my thigh, leaving his hand against mine.
“Less grey?” The words are out before I can stop them.
His nodding head comes back into view as I blink the tears away.
“It was less grey and I thought if I could pull out—”
“Jesus, Reed, say pull out one more time.”
My exhale at the end of my words comes out like a squeak and his eyes are on mine again. But it’s the exact right thing to break the tension in this flying room.
His hand reaches up to sweep away the hair that has fallen in front of my face. It finds my cheek and lightly, his rough knuckles slide towards my ear, and he strokes his thumb across my cheek three times. I count each one.
“Always trying to find the humor and be the light. Who’s your light, Max?”
There are goosebumps rising across my arms as his hand drops from my face, and he pushes up to stand.
“Long story short, I stayed at Ellison just to take out every ounce of resentment I had for my father on Patrick. Wasn’t hard, because I asked around after one of his exceptionally pissy fits and found out what he did.
Made it a whole lot easier to take all his good cases from him and show him up at every opportunity.
” He’s sinking into his chair, placing the towel on the table to soak up the remaining water.
“That part was pretty fulfilling, if I’m honest.”
He throws me a grin, a real one, and his eyes are twinkling as he continues.
“I didn’t know exactly where you were, but I knew it was far away from him.
That was enough. I could fix my own shit and, I don’t know, heal, knowing you were doing the same far away from Patrick.
And I became sort of a… majority owner, silent partner for my brother.
It worked for a while, but right around the time Richard started talking about wanting to move the office, downsize, about a year ago, things got harder.
My brother needed help, and Richard agreed to…
let’s call it… loan me out for a handsome fee.
So, that became the norm. I’d disappear for a few weeks at a time, and no one would ask questions. ”
The frown is back on my face. “Are we skipping over the part about you coming back for me, Callan Reed?”
“We have about 10 minutes left on this flight, so I can finish the story or we can talk about you, Sims. I’m completely happy to do either one of those things, but we only have time for one.”
A smirk playing on his lips now, he leans over the table into my space.
He has never felt as large as he does while we are flying in the sky.
His eyes hold mine and his face is inches from me as his hand finds the seatbelt next to my shoulder and he slowly pulls it across my body to buckle it.
He makes a deliberate second pass with two fingers under the belt that crosses my chest and his eyes flick to my lips.
Heat rises from my toes to my cheeks.
He leans back and buckles into his seat. I roll my eyes dramatically, shaking off the warm feeling, and mirror his smile back to him.
“I guess I want to hear the rest of the story. If—” I’m pointing at him with my wrapped-up hand. “You promise me we can talk about the other part later. Today—Callan—later, but not later-later, not tomorrow-later.”
He nods, his eyes crinkling at the sides with his smile and something inside of me twists and pops. I wish I could have a button to press to get that smile on his face anytime I wanted.
“Promise.” He glances at his watch and looks back up.
“So, I got back from one of my trips and Patrick was bragging to some first-year associate that he had gotten Richard to make an offer to combine the firm with a smaller firm in Abbott. He told them it was the firm you moved to, and that Richard had made an offer your firm couldn’t refuse to take—the office and the whole business.
This all shortly after he had proposed to Brenda.
” His eyes roll when he says her name, knowing the history, but my spine stiffens.
“After all that time, and having a fiancé, just him mentioning you felt like he still thought he’d pull you back under somehow.
I wasn’t even planning to stay with Ellison until that moment.
I already had my resignation letter drafted; Nico was ready to step aside so I could take over.
But I couldn’t let Patrick get to you again.
And, to Patrick’s dismay, Richard asked me to lead the new office in Abbott instead of him. ”