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“Desi, wait up!” He caught my arm.
I pulled away and leveled him with a glare.
“Listen,” I said stiffly. “Leave me alone. I don’t want anything to do with you. I want to go home, to Callum, and make sure that he’s all right. Please, for the love of God, let me go.”
Mal opened his mouth to argue, but a darker, more sinister voice interrupted him.
“I’d do what the lady says,” Banks Valentine suggested. “She’s already asked you quite a few times to leave her be. Now, I’m going to make sure that it happens.”
Mal turned to Banks and froze.
I took that moment to retreat.
With Banks occupying Mal behind me, I chose to pull over the small speed bump that separated this parking spot from the one in front of it.
My car made a loud bump-bump sound, but I didn’t slow. Not until I reached the parking lot that formed into Whataburger.
And, like the good girl that I was, I ordered myself a salad and a hamburger patty.
I ordered Callum everything that he asked for and then added an extra vanilla shake to be sure.
I hated that he felt bad.
And even more, I wanted to lick the taste of the shake straight off his tongue.
But I’d settle for just smelling it on him.
Because I highly doubted that, despite my now rampant libido, Callum was likely in no way up for what my mind had conjured up over the last couple of days.
After making sure everything was settled in the seat next to me, I once again drove back over to the Valentine house and let myself back in the door.
Callum had moved while I was gone.
Instead of being in his jeans and a t-shirt, he was now in sweats and nothing else.
Let me repeat.
Sweatpants and nothing else. Nothing. Else.
Jesus Christ on a cracker.
Taking one look at the man shirtless, I knew exactly why he was always kicking my ass at the workouts.
There wasn’t a single ounce of fat on the man. Not anywhere.
He had abs. He had the side cuts that made it look like he had more abs. He also had those little notches in his groin area that formed into a V and showcased a very nice bulge beneath those sweatpants that I couldn’t stop myself from admiring.
“You made it back,” he said, unaware that I was having an out-of-body experience.
I smiled stiffly.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” I admitted. “Mal was at the drugstore.”
Callum sighed.
“I should’ve gone with my gut instinct and kicked his ass instead of warning him off,” he admitted. “Now I’ll have to wait until I can walk to do it.”
I snickered and walked closer to him, trying to keep my eyes off of his very fine abs.
“If it makes you feel better, he decided to pay for your stuff,” I teased.
Callum stared at me like I’d just spoken in tongues.
“What?” I asked, fiddling with the zipper on my jacket.
He watched me run it up and down the length of my jacket twice before he said, “You let him pay for my crutches?”
I let my hands fall free of my jacket and threw them up in the air.
“I honestly don’t know what I was supposed to do. I had your card out ready to pay and everything. I was about to put it in when he pushed me out of the way and put his card in. I honestly think he thought it was all mine. But he saw your wallet and kind of got offended.”
Callum shook his head in annoyance.
“There was this one time when we were all over at his house when we were kids. It happened to be Banks and my birthday. His dad found out and ended up making us homemade ice cream and a cake from scratch.”
“Uh-oh,” I said, knowing where he was going. “He hates not being the center of attention.”
Callum snorted.
“Anyhow, cake gets done. Malloy puts it on the rack to cool and gets started on the ice cream. He has the ice cream going, we turn around to get the cake frosted, and Mal purposefully fake sneezes all over it. Spit and popcorn bits go all over. And Malloy gets pissed. Sends him to his room. Makes another cake. We eat ice cream and cake. All the while, Mal stays in his room.”
“And let me guess,” I said, feeling like this is about to get good. “He throws the biggest bitch fit of his life.”
Callum shook his head. “Actually, no. He does his time. Everyone forgets all about it. Or, at least, we did. He for sure didn’t. He holds this grudge for months. Then when it’s his birthday, he invites us all over, Malloy goes all out, and every last one of us that went over there had diarrhea for six hours after we got home. We can only assume that Mal spiked our food with laxatives or something. Never ate anything over there ever again.”
