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“Are you still okay with me doing this?” Am I?
“’Course. Not only is he married, but he is also an utter weirdo. Why would anyone be attracted to such bizarre behavior?”
He snorts, and I catch myself, biting my lower lip so I don’t say anything.
He looks around, shrugging. “Crib could use a bit of a facelift, too. Yeah, you know better than to go with someone like that, love.”
Callum tugs me toward the front door, holding my hand. Outside, his cab is already waiting, engine revved up. The driver gets out and flings Callum’s bag into his trunk. I rise on my tiptoes to kiss him again. I expect our usual peck goodbye, but to my surprise, Callum grabs the back of my neck, dips his head, and crashes his lips against mine. I open my mouth for his tongue and groan into the kiss, which deepens with each second and feels nothing like our usual kisses.
I don’t know how much time passes before his lips desert mine, but the driver is honking his horn and throws an impatient arm out the window.
When Callum finally breaks away, it’s not me he’s looking at. He’s staring behind my shoulder, an easy smile on his chiseled face. I turn, already dreading what I’m about to see.
Mal.
Standing at his front door, like Kathleen did all those years ago when we’d kissed, only he doesn’t look shattered beyond repair.
He looks nonchalant and smug and delicious and…smiling? Why is he smiling back at Callum?
Like the confession never happened.
Like we didn’t share a moment.
Like he knows something I don’t.
My stomach clenches and twists. The knots grow like a rubber ball rolled in thorns.
Mal fishes something from his pocket and motions for me to take it.
“Here, wipe your mouth.”
I don’t move. This could be a trick. He’s been hateful before.
“Rory,” he coaxes. “Truce?”
Rory.
Are we back on good terms? I’m still not a fan of him bossing me around. I take a few steps toward him and grab whatever it is he holds out for me, my eyes narrowing into slits. His mouth quirks up in one corner, and it reminds me that before he was a jerk, he was the guy who captured an entire street with his guitar and charm.
“Oh, ye of no faith. Is it illegal to be nice where you live?”
“No, but it might as well be. I live in New York.”
I take the damn thing, wipe my glistening mouth, and hand it back to him.
He shakes his head. “Keep it. It’s yours.”
I peer behind my shoulder and realize Callum’s cab left. I didn’t even get to say goodbye. It makes me want to slap myself across the face, because I know he witnessed at least some of this exchange.
I look down, realizing that what I’m holding is mine. Or rather it was, before I threw it into the trash.
I wiped my boyfriend’s kiss off with The Boar’s Head napkin.
A NOTE FROM CALLUM BROOKS
At this point, you are wondering why.
Why did I leave these two alone, considering their history? Ninety-eight percent of logical people in the world wouldn’t. This is a made-up statistic, so don’t try to look for it on the internet, but still.
Allow me to enlighten you as to why I left.
There’s a story my father told me once when the roads to London were blocked due to a snowstorm and I missed a date with the duchess of a-place-I-can’t-disclose-in-England. She went on and met someone else while she was waiting for me. They got married. I missed my chance of becoming royalty.
Because of snow.
I thought it was the worst day of my life.
The story goes like this: A boy begs his father to get him a dog. Not a particular dog, any rat-looking one would do. The boy dreams of owning a dog, breathes the idea, and obsesses over it. Time passes. The father hangs the condition of having a dog over the boy’s head. The boy does everything his father tells him to. Makes the best grades, excels at sports, stays out of trouble. He is on the straight and narrow, and does everything he possibly can to get a dog.
One Christmas, his father finally gets him a bloody dog.
The boy is devoted to the dog, aptly named Dog. The dog is his entire life. The boy feeds it the best food, takes it on long walks in green, lush fields. Tends to its fur and takes it to the vet for checkups. One day, during their walk, a storm brews. The boy realizes he and Dog can’t get home, so he looks for shelter. He finds a cave in the middle of a forest and slips in. It rains hard. Dog is scared, cold, and shivering. The boy cannot bear the idea of losing his beloved pet, the one he’d done everything in his power to win and keep. He hugs the dog tight the entire time, until the storm passes. When the sun reappears, the boy looks down and realizes to his horror that he suffocated the dog in his quest to save him.
