TWENTY-ONE
CALLUM
It’s been two months since Claudia left, and somehow life just kept going.
Which is how I ended up here, running laps around Riverway Park, getting my ass handed to me by a billionaire with too much stamina and an even bigger ego. Because Leith needed a running buddy for his upcoming Melissa Pratt Foundation Fun Run, and apparently, that buddy is me.
Jordie, predictably, refused to join. Said, and I quote, “The only marathon I’m interested in is the one where I read six books, eat seventeen biscuits, and cry about fictional men.
” She’s perched on a picnic table—tee knotted at the waist, flowy green skirt, sunnies sliding down her nose—self-appointed “guard of the water bottles.” Every time we pass, she lifts and waves this pathetic checkered flag she crafted from a paper towel and a Sharpie that gave up on life three worksheets ago.
By lap four, my lungs are burning.
“One more?” Leith calls, flashing me a smirk.
My pride says yes. My left oblique says absolutely fucking not.
Before I can respond—or fake a leg injury—Leith slows down, squinting at something past Jordie.
“What the hell . . .” he mutters.
I follow his line of sight.
His PA. Standing stiffly by Jordie’s picnic table, earpiece in, folder in hand, with the flair of someone about to brief the Prime Minister on a national emergency. Jordie doesn’t even flinch. She flips a page in her book like this happens all the time.
As we approach, Richard clears his throat. “Brisbane, sir. Your PI just checked in. You’ll want to see this.”
He passes Leith the folder when we’re within reach. Leith opens it, brow furrowing. He turns one page. Then another.
Leith stills. “Is this real?”
Richard nods. “Let’s just say we’ve got the leverage, sir. If we hurry.”
Leith stares a beat—then laughs. “Finally!”
“Sounds like good news, Leith,” Jordie says, looking up at him with a huge smile.
He grins, all teeth, and throws a fist in the air—quick and triumphant—before whipping off his sweaty shirt and hurling it straight at her face.
“EW!” she shrieks, peeling it off with the urgency of someone handling a used tissue from a public bathroom. “Gross! It stinks!”
“Impossible,” Leith snorts. “That’s Tom Ford. I don’t sweat. I glow.”
“Well, your glow smells like ass,” she says, disgusted.
Behind his tablet, Richard clears his throat, almost smiling. “Sir, jet’s ready. Full shower. Fresh suits. Usual whiskey onboard.”
Leith claps me on the back, hard. “You get Jords home, yeah?”
Still gasping, I nod. “Yeah. Go.”
He turns to her, cocky again. “Sorry, House Mouse. Can’t sponsor your food cravings at the Twilight Markets tonight. But if I close this? I’m buying you the whole damn place.”
Jordie’s lips curl into the kind of grin she usually saves for his worst ideas. “Deal.”
Leith ruffles her hair and jogs off, Richard already briefing him on the move.
“Good for Leith,” I say, watching them go.
I haven’t known Leith since he was nine, like Jordie has. Didn’t grow up trailing him through mango orchards or pulling him off rooftops. But I know enough to understand that look on his face—that sharp, hungry glint like the world just tilted a little in his favor. I hope he closes this.
Jordie hums beside me. Quiet. Almost thoughtful. She watches a second longer, unreadable behind her sunglasses, then shrugs and turns back to her book.
My legs are shaking. I’m drenched in sweat. Some of it might be tears. I reach down for my water bottle, twist the cap—
Empty.
“Shit.”
Jordie sighs like she’s just so exhausted by my existence. She reaches into her bottomless tote and pulls out a second bottle. Holds it out without looking up from her book.
I blink. “That’s yours.”
She finally glances up, just long enough to give me a look like, “bless your heart, you dumb, dehydrated man.”
“I brought two. Because you always underestimate how much you drink.”
There’s this weird pull in my chest. I take the bottle, our fingers brushing a beat too long.
“Thanks,” I murmur.
She flips a page. “It’s just water.”
But it’s also . . . not.
Jordie’s bouncing on the balls of her feet as I unlock the car. “Callum, why did we have to come all the way back to your car? There’s going to be a massive line at the cheese fries van. Hurry up.”
I shoot her a look, catching my breath. “They’re not going to run out of potatoes or cheese, Mitchell. Calm down.”
She scowls as if I’ve just suggested canceling Christmas.
“I just need to change my shirt,” I say, popping the trunk open.
I peel off my shirt in one slow drag. My skin is hot and damp, and the cooler air brushes against it like a full-body exhale. I grab the towel from the boot and scrub down, muscles still humming from the sprint.
She’s mid-ramble—something about how gravy is superior to aioli and if I disagree, she’ll file for a friend divorce—when her voice fizzles out.
I glance over my shoulder.
Her lips are parted, breath stalling on a sentence she’s clearly forgotten, gaze dropping south of my face.
Lingers.
Catches.
Burns.
I clear my throat. She blinks and whips her head to the side with the subtlety of a cartoon character walking into a lamppost. The tips of her ears flush a furious pink.
And Christ, that shouldn’t be hot. But it is. In a “bite-your-fist-and-drag-me-back-to-therapy” kind of way.
“Are you done?” she calls out, voice pitched higher. “I’m starving and I will fight someone!”
“Alright, alright,” I say, putting on a clean shirt that feels suddenly too soft against skin that’s still humming from her stare. “Let’s get your fries before someone loses a limb.”
I barely get my cap on before she grabs my wrist, fingers curling tight as she yanks me.
“Come on,” she huffs, dragging me behind her like a reluctant toddler.
When we round the corner, the market unfolds before us: rows of food trucks and stalls, the sound of music and the sizzle of grills, festoon lights crisscrossing between trees and glowing faintly against the twilight.
“There!” she shouts, pointing with the triumph of someone spotting land after months at sea.
FRY MASTERS is scrawled across a crooked, grease-slicked van in peeling green paint. A line snakes out from it, twenty people deep.
“See?” She grins up at me, finally dropping my wrist to point at the menu. “Line’s long, but it’s going to be worth it.”
I glance down at her—messy hair, flushed cheeks, eyes bright, like this is the highlight of her week—and something warm settles low in my chest.
“Yeah,” I murmur. “Worth it.”
She doesn’t hear me. Too busy weighing toppings with the focus of someone conducting a scientific experiment. I should look away. Should check my phone or move aside or do anything that isn’t just . . . watching her.
But I let myself stand there. Close enough to feel the heat radiating off her skin, to smell her sunscreen and cherry blossom perfume and whatever shampoo she used this morning that’s somehow making a home in my lungs.
Close enough that, for the first time in a while, I don’t mind exactly where I am.
Shopping with Jordie is complicated.
She flits from one stall to the next with the urgency of someone on a scavenger hunt that the rest of us weren’t briefed on. Everything is amazing. Everything is vital. Everything is emotionally urgent.
“Oh! Look at this! They’ll love this one,” she gasps, thrusting a wooden crocodile puzzle in my face. “Your niece is obsessed with dinosaurs, right? Dinosaurs, crocodiles . . . same-same.”
I chuckle, reaching for my wallet as she passes it to the vendor with zero intention of letting me object.
I’m already eyeing a wooden tea set—tiny cups, little saucers with hand-painted flowers, everything smooth-edged and perfect for small hands.
“Meilin’s in a ‘tea party’ phase right now,” I tell Jordie. “Makes me sit cross-legged on the floor while she serves invisible tea.”
Jordie snorts. “Bet you even stick your pinky out.”
“Only for her,” I say, deadpan. “And it’s a very dignified pinky.”
She grins, the kind that scrunches her nose and flashes every tooth.
But then it shifts. Something quieter blooms behind it.
Like she’s filing away the mental image of me, six-foot-two and muscles, sipping pretend tea with a four-year-old in a tutu.
She doesn’t say anything, just tucks that look somewhere private and wanders off toward the next stall.
Next thing I know, she’s brandishing a foam sword. “For Jun. Backyard duel champion in the making,” she says, eyes alight.
“You just want to watch him whack someone with it.”
She doesn’t deny it. Just grins.
We hit the plush toys next, rows of soft-knitted animals hanging from twine. I reach out, fingers brushing a jellyfish. “What about this for Lina?”
Jordie frowns. “Wait, isn’t she only three?”
I blink. She remembered.
Before I can reply, she’s already stepping forward, flagging down the vendor. “Hey! Do you have one like this with stitched eyes? Not the button ones. It’s for a toddler.”
He nods, ducking behind the display.
There’s that warm, quiet pull in my chest again—like something’s loosening and tightening at the same time.
Jordie doesn’t miss a beat. She taps my card against the reader, takes the jellyfish and tosses the plush into the growing pile in my arms.
We keep going.
She points. I pay. Repeat.
By the time we’ve finished one circuit of the market, I’m carrying three bags, one of which is definitely cutting off the circulation to my hand. I’m sweating again, my hat is damp, and somehow, Jordie is still buzzing with the energy of a hummingbird on a bender.
We’re partway down the last row when Jordie gasps. “Oh my God,” she shrieks. “Books!”
And then she’s off sprinting across the grass toward a small, weathered setup tucked into the corner. No sign. Just crates full of mismatched spines.
I trail after her, slower, bags weighing down both hands. Jordie’s already kneeling in front of the crates, thumbing through books with the zeal of someone hunting for treasure.
“You know,” she tells a poor guy standing nearby, holding up a battered Wuthering Heights, “original post-war editions had textured jackets. If you find one in good condition? Super rare.”
He nods, alarmed. Probably regrets asking where the sci-fi section is.
“That one’s a reprint,” she adds sympathetically, “font’s all wrong.”
Twenty minutes later, she jogs back, practically glowing.
“Look at this haul,” she beams, brandishing her new old books.
Persuasion. Dubliners. Some obscure poetry anthology that looks like it smells like pipe smoke and heartbreak.
Then she holds up a slim, sun-faded hardcover—The Little Prince. The copy has gold foil still clinging to the title.
“A classic,” she says softly. “Every kid should have one.”
Before I can say anything, she shoves it down into one of the bags I’m carrying.
“Jordie—”
“For your nieces and nephews,” she cuts in. “So, I can be fun Ayi Jordie.”
She says Ayi, the Mandarin for “auntie.” It comes out clumsily. Slightly wrong intonation.
Still, something folds inside me.
I swallow hard; the words sticking.
I just nod, shifting the bag higher. “Thank you. They’re gonna love it.”
Jordie grins, looking stupidly pleased with herself.
And I stand there—hands full, heart somehow fuller.
“God, you’re sweating so much,” she mutters, exasperated but fond.
She tiptoes, plucks off my cap, and the breeze hits my forehead. I must look disheveled, with hair sticking up in all directions. “Jordie, I must stink.”
She giggles, and it’s bright and warm. And instead of pulling away, she brushes her fingers through my hair, smoothing it back, nails grazing my scalp. It’s enough that something warm unspools low in my spine.
“Hold still,” she murmurs.
She fishes for a tissue from her bag and gently dabs my forehead with it, fingers careful as they smooth down fly-aways. There’s something tender in the way she moves, like she’s trying not to hurt me.
“You’re going to need a lot more than that,” I say, my voice quieter than expected.
“Would you prefer I used an overnight pad?” she asks, eyes wide with genuine excitement. “Oh my God, we should!”
She starts rummaging through her bag.
My soul leaves my body.
“Whoa—no way!”
I drop one of the bags and catch her wrist before she can follow through. Her skin is warm under my touch, and for a second, she freezes. Our eyes lock.
“I appreciate the creativity, Jords, but uh—let’s stick with the tissue.”
I stand still as she keeps dabbing my neck. A breeze picks up, lifting her hair. The color of it gleams under the market lights, catching warm undertones—a deep chestnut that shifts between coffee and auburn.
“There,” she says, “Crisis averted.”
I open my mouth—no idea what I’m about to say—when her eyes suddenly widen.
“Two-for-one pretzels!”
And she’s gone. Whizzing around, taking off across the grass like a human firework.
I stand there. Sweaty. Slightly stunned.
Heart doing something stupid.