40. Callum
Callum
“I love you, not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you.” – Roy Croft
I t’s been one of those days in Loverly Cave where everyone has lost their mind.
I’ve been out for one call after another nonstop, not having a chance to even breathe for a moment, and all I want now is just to go home, to see Sophie, and get a hit of her color into my system.
I hadn’t even noticed how hooked on it I’d become until I went the whole day without hearing a word from my little menace.
But more than that, I want to talk to her.
I need to talk to her.
It’s after seven already and I start grabbing all my stuff, trying to leave before yet another townie loses it when I feel my phone ringing inside my pocket.
I take it out and see Luke calling. I decline.
Don’t have time for his shit right now.
A second later, it rings again, this time Griffin is calling.
Okay, they probably want to go out, and that’s definitely not going to happen tonight, so I decline again.
Where is my wallet? I look around my desk but can’t see it and in the meantime my phone rings once again. This time I decline without even looking.
“There it is!” I open the first drawer, spotting my wallet there.
My hand is already on the front door when Marsha calls my name.
“Sheriff Hot Stuff,” she singsongs, and I sigh, my shoulders dropping. “We just got a call!”
I turn, my hands on my hips, my lips in a thin line. Can’t a man just go to his wife? “What is it this time? Or rather, who?” I ask and Marsha’s mouth curls up.
“It’s your wife.”
Well, it looks like I got here for the grand finale. I shut the door to my car, leaning against it as I watch my wife sing the last lines of “I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston as she acts it out very passionately as well.
Inside the damn fountain.
Again.
I run a hand over my mouth, trying very hard not to laugh, but the small crowd she gathered is giving her standing ovations.
“There you are! Fucking finally!” Luke strolls up to me, his brows pulled together, his shirt drenched. “We’ve all been trying to reach you for an hour already!”
“An hour?”
“Yeah! That’s approximately how long Sophie’s been giving this free concert for one. We tried to get her out of there. Grace tried. I tried”—he motions to his wet clothes—“but she refuses to leave. What the hell is going on, Callum?”
I spread my arms out. “You’re asking me as if you’re not married to her twin sister from another mister!”
“Callum!” Grace shrieks behind him and I let out a groan. “What did you do to break my best friend?”
“Jesus Christ! I didn’t do anything! I was at work, and this is your bestie’s usual MO after she goes out with you and the gang.”
“Yeah, except she didn’t answer any of our calls today. Didn’t answer her door and we didn’t go out! But most importantly, she’s singing sad songs! When have you ever heard Sophie sing sad songs?” Grace spits all that out quickly, and I frown just as my wife starts yet another song.
“See!” Grace cries out as Julie and Griffin approach us. “She’s moved on to Celine Dion now!”
Pushing past all of them, I step up to the edge of the fountain, my hands on my hips. “Little menace? What are you doing in the fountain again? It’s freezing!”
She stops for a second, squinting as she tries to locate me. “Clover! Is that you?”
“Mm-hmm. Flesh and blood.”
She snorts. “You’re funny! You know that?”
“A fucking comedian, that one,” I hear Luke mumble, then send him a glare, mouthing, Shut it.
“Sophie, were you looking for another grilled cheese?”
“No!”
“Wanted to take a swim?”
“No. Wait, maybe. I don’t remember.” She frowns, looking like an adorable wet gnome trying to recall what got her here once again. I roll my lips, part amused, part worried because she’s clearly been drinking, and if what Grace said is true, she was drinking alone.
What the fuck has happened since this morning when I left her sound asleep? Did Vassar call her again? I’m about to pull out my phone to dial him when she stops me.
“Oh, I was looking for a time machine!” Sophie exclaims, clapping her hands, satisfied that she could remember.
I click my tongue, not sharing this enthusiasm. “A time machine? For what? ”
“To turn the time back, duh.” Sophie bends down, scooping some water and splashes it over herself. “But I couldn’t find it.”
“Uh-huh. And how does a fountain fit in here?” I cross my arms, my patience running out because this woman will drive me mad. She’s about to catch a cold, if not something worse, in this weather.
“It was the next best thing. This is where it started.”
“What started, Sophie?”
“You and me!” she screams, and I freeze, trying to understand what is it she’s saying. “We started here. And I need to take it back!”
“I knew you did something, you bastard,” I hear Grace hiss somewhere around me, but I ignore her.
“Sophie, why don’t you come out and we can talk about it at home?” I extend my hand toward her. Immediately, she shakes her head, dancing across the whole fountain.
“No, no, no. I can’t leave. I can’t leave until time goes back.”
My heart races, fear like I haven’t known before trying to seize it.
She wants to erase the time we spent together.
She wants to erase…us.
“Little menace, it won’t go back.” I swallowed hard, my chest heaving.
Did she meet someone else? Has she fallen in love with another man? Am I about to lose her?
“No! I need it to go back!” She stops and stomps her foot in the water, and I catch sight of those white Converse that I was making for her on her feet.
“Why?” I grit my teeth, my hand still extended toward her as if frozen in place.
Just like my heart right now.
“Because I love you!” Sophie shouts and everything around me ceases to exist. The people around us. The town. The ocean. The cold wind. Everything. “I love you so damn much, Callum Clover Lovinski, and you’ll never love me back.”
“Oh?” The hand that was reaching out toward her drops.
Fuck…I did fuck up, didn’t I?
“Yeah, oh. I’m drunk and looking for a time machine because you won’t love me because there’s no room in your heart for me. There never was from the very beginning.”
I blink, all the pieces falling together, why it felt different last night.
“You’re right. There wasn’t.”
She stops, those beautiful eyes filled with so much hurt it nearly breaks me. And when I see a lone tear slip down her face, mingling with the drops of water, I move, stepping over the edge, into the freezing water walking toward her because in no life will she cry because of me.
“Wh-what are you doing? You’re going to be all wet, I’ll just come out—” She stops talking when I close the distance between us, my hands are cupping her cold, tear-streaked face.
“Clover—” She wraps her hands around my wrists.
“You’re right. There wasn’t any room in my heart for you,” I tell her as I bend down, brushing my nose against hers and inhaling a lungful of her minty scent. The scent of home.
She tries to pull away from me.
“Well, I didn’t need to hear that again, Shrek. Way to stomp on a bleeding woun—”
I shut her up with a kiss as I chuckle when her arms flail around me.
“Just stop and listen for a second, woman. Can you do that for once?” I whisper against her lips. Sophie looks into my eyes and nods.
“There wasn’t any room, yet you still sneaked in. And being the obnoxious little menace that you are, you pushed around, you set a few old things on fire, and generally didn’t give a single fuck as you painted my cold dead heart in so much color, all I could think, see, feel was you.”
She gasps and I rub the tip of my nose against hers again. “I-I did?”
“You did,” I smile. “I love you, Sophie Lovinski. Can we please call off the search for the time machine? ”
“But…but…your story! Your past—”
“Is still there. And always will be. But you’re my present and all my futures.”
“So, I’m not just a Band-Aid?”
I frown. “A Band-Aid? I don’t know what the fuck that means, but you’re not anything other than the only woman I’ve ever loved.
Really loved. Not one I thought I did. Not assumed that that’s what that was, but actually fell head over heels, madly, deeply in love with the most chaotic, colorful woman who hates coral color, will kill for her hockey, can’t stop talking to save her life and knows every nineties hit out there. ”
“I thought I was your nightmare.”
“You are. The kind that scared the crap out of me and forced me to wake up.”
“Are you—are you saying you love me, Shrek?” she squeals, and I let out a low laugh, tipping my head up before looking back at her.
“Yeah, little menace. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“Get out of the fountain!” she suddenly screams and starts running through the water as fast as she’s capable in her half-drunk state, pulling me along.
“Where’s the rush now?”
“Time machine! I don’t need it anymore!”
“Sophia Lovinski.” I stop her, pulling her into my arms at the edge of the fountain. “There is no timeline in which I won’t find you. Now, stop running and kiss your husband.”
Before I can brace myself, Sophie jumps up, her arms locking around my neck, legs around my waist as she seals those soft, ice-cold lips to mine.
“You love me,” she whispers against my lips again.
“I love you,” I whisper back.
“But what about our deal? What happens after the year is over? We get divorced?”
“If you want.”
“What?”
“But just so I can marry you properly. So I can get down on my knee for you, ask for your heart, bring your family here from New York, and have your brother walk you down the aisle in your mother’s wedding dress.”
“You’d do all that?”
“Anything for you, little menace. I’ve wanted to be all that you need—want—from the day I married you. I was simply too afraid to admit it. Too afraid of messing it up. I still am, but I realized I’d rather be afraid with you than watching someone else bask in your color.”
“Oh, Shrek…”
“Ahem.” Luke fake coughs, drawing our attention to the many spectators we now have. “Care to explain it all to us now?”
Sophie gasps, finally realizing where we are and hides her face in my neck.
I run my tongue over my teeth, studying the curious glances from my family, Hope, Joy, Zoe, and Matteo.
The shit-eating grins from the Fantastic Four plus Alec and Jacob.
And the slightly pissed-off glares from Grace and Luke.
“No. Not particularly. The only thing I care about right now is taking my wife home and getting her pregnant before she realizes I don’t deserve her love.”
“Pregnant,” Sophie squeaks, her eyes wide. “But I thought you didn’t want kids.”
“With you, I do. As many as possible, right? But can we cap it at five? I don’t think I’ll be able to handle any more little Sophie’s than that.”
“F-five?” Her mouth falls open.
“Yep, I’m drawing a line after that.”
“Luke!” she yells out. “Respectfully, get out of the way.”
I bark out a laugh and take off with my whole world in my arms, rushing up to our colorful apartment.
“Okay, maybe six.”
“You’re crazy!” Sophie laughs.
“That I am.”
“Vassar? Sooo, here’s the thing… ”
Love Hive:
CookieJ: I think I’m going to cry.
Ninasunshine: Me too! I can’t believe we did it, ladies. Mission accomplished!
Toughtolove: Did anyone ever doubt we could? The Fantastic Four never fails.
Willoflove: I must admit, I didn’t think it would work. Callum was the toughest nut to crack.
Thoughtolove: Psh, a little bit of force and he fell into his own trap. We didn’t even need to do anything else.
Infullbloom: Happy tears. That’s all I can say. But also, next time, kindly include me in your plans! I almost ruined the whole thing.
Toughtolove: Nah, we had it under control the whole time.
CookieJ: She says that now. Do you all remember how much she freaked out when Callum started working a lot again after getting married?
Ninasunshine: Oh, yeah. A picture-perfect calm that one was.
Toughtolove: That wasn’t me. That was his Nana that possessed my body for the time being. She was freaking out. Not me.
CookieJ: Mm-hmm. Sure.
Therunawaybride: One Dumbledore minute over here!!!! Are you all trying to tell me that you planned for my Sophie to end up with that grumpy sheriff???
CookieJ: Of course, honey.
Toughtolove: Sure thing, tootsie roll.
Willoflove: It wasn’t us, it was the fate. We were just its humble followers.
Therunawaybride: What? How? I have no words right now.
Joydon’tpissmeofflevine: Huh, first time here? @therunawaybride.
Burnyourheart: Jesus…why am I not surprised? But also…thank you .
Ninasunshine: Am I dreaming right now?
CookieJ: You and me both, sister.
Burnyourheart: Okay, quit the dramatics.
Toughtolove: Never!
Tinyhousebigheart: Okay, so should I finally send out the invitations?
Therunawaybride: What invitations?
Tinyhousebigheart: To their wedding. Remember, I booked the venue for December 5th, but we can still change the dates.
Therunawaybride: OH MY HARRY JAMES POTTER! You knew as well?
Youknowyouwantit: Duh…
Toughtolove: Love Hive never sleeps, tootsie roll. You should always remember that and we’re out for any heart in need of love.
CookieJ: Please send applications to [email protected]