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“Next time I’ll just gag you,” I reply.
“In your dreams,” she tosses back over her shoulder as she sashays out the door.
And yes… my eyes are pinned on her ass the entire time.
CHAPTER 16
Juniper
“This is amazing.” I twist on the bench to look out the window of the funicular as it climbs Mount Washington. Callum sits beside me, taking in the city of Pittsburgh as it’s unveiled with the gentle clanking of gears and whatever mechanisms make this marvel slide up the mountain.
It’s a beautiful summer day without a cloud in the sky. The car creaks slightly and I’m admittedly a little unnerved given that this thing is rising four hundred feet in the air. While assuredly very safe, it’s also old. Regardless, I am lost to the sparkle of the river waters bridged by yellow-painted steel and the rise of city buildings beyond.
“Okay… which river is which?” I ask.
Callum sweeps his hand outward. “That’s the Monongahela.” His finger drifts left. “That’s the Allegheny and there’s the Titans’ arena.” Nodding farther left, “And where those two rivers meet, that forms the Ohio.”
“It’s breathtaking,” I murmur.
“I’ll bring you back at night. It makes this view during the day seem dull.”
I do a gut check because this feels almost like… a date. Just that little offer to bring me back to see this view at night seems more than just a friendly thing to do.
We’ve been out and about since around noon. Callum worked from the house this morning while I visited my dad. He told me to be back at twelve and when I returned, he ushered me into a car—a shiny black Corvette that he drove surprisingly slow as he showed me around the city. We had sushi for lunch and then he brought me to the Duquesne Incline.
When the funicular carriage stops, the handful of people who rode up with us exit and we follow behind. An observation platform allows viewers to take in the city and Callum maneuvers me toward the fenced edge so we can look over downtown. It’s bright out, so I pull my sunglasses from my crossbody bag and put them on.
Callum rests his forearms on the rails of the iron fencing that prevents us from tumbling down the mountain and stares out over the rivers to the city. “Sure is a long way from Incline Village, isn’t it?” he asks.
He’s not talking about the distance in miles but rather from where he started his life.
“You’re at the top.” And I’m not talking about this mountain, but rather the pinnacle of a career he’s striven to reach for years. I lean my elbow on the rail and fiddle with my watch. “Is it everything you dreamed it would be?”
“The career?” Callum asks, twisting his neck slightly to glance at me. When I nod, he says, “More than I dreamed, but that’s just because of the people I’m working with now. Everyone… Brienne, Cannon, the other coaches… the players. Sometimes I don’t know how I got so lucky.”
“It’s not luck,” I scoff. “You’re here because of talent and hard work.”
“You do know what I did before the Titans, right?” Callum laughs as he turns more toward me.
I do. He was GM for the Ottawa Cougars, and they did not do well. He was fired from that job because the team performed abysmally. I know this because I’ve followed Callum’s career over the years. Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment but I wanted to see where he’d end up, and while I never wished him ill for the choice he made to let me go, I always was a little bitter that I wasn’t at his side.
But as I stand here now… I’m not feeling that at all. If anything, I feel the need to defend him. “A single GM cannot make or break a team. You’ve taught me enough about the job both back in college and since we’ve reconnected that I know that for a fact.”
“No,” Callum drawls with a grateful smile. “Every cog in the wheel is important but I made mistakes when I was with Ottawa. I actually think that’s the reason Brienne gave me the chance here. Because when I interviewed for the position, I think she could see that I’d learned from those mistakes.”
“You always were the smartest person I knew.”
Callum looks like he’s about to respond, but his eyes cut past my shoulder at something behind me. He frowns and then pushes off the fence. “Excuse me.”
I turn to watch him walk toward a man who’s taking pictures of the city skyline with his smartphone. I watch curiously, assuming maybe Callum knows him.
I become quickly alarmed when I hear Callum say, “Who the hell are you and why are you taking pictures of her?”
My jaw drops when Callum grabs the man by his T-shirt—two fistfuls—and backs him into a bench. His legs catch the back and it causes him to sit down hard. “Man… what the hell is your problem? Get the fuck off me.”
“Why are you taking pictures of her?” Callum asks again as I approach.
“I’m not,” the guy insists. He looks to be about late twenties, casually dressed, and I would take him for nothing but a tourist.
