She stretches beside me, arching her back, then resettles with her arms above her head on the pillow.
"So that's what vanilla tastes like."
I drop my face into her neck and laugh. It comes from somewhere deep and exhausted and relieved, and once it starts I can't stop it.
I roll off her before I crush her and lie on my back staring at her ceiling while we both lose it completely.
"You're going to get me killed," I tell the ceiling. "Rome is going to find out and I am going to die, and the last thing I'll hear before he buries me is you making a vanilla joke."
"At least you'll die laughing."
"At least I'll die happy."
She rolls onto her side and presses her face into my shoulder. I can feel her grinning against my skin. Her hand finds mine between us, fingers lacing through mine. We lie there while her apartment settles around us.
When she tilts her face up to mine, I'm astonished at how her beauty still slams into me. Like that first time I saw her. Her face is bare of any makeup, the freckles across her nose and cheeks more visible than usual.
She traces her fingers across my only tattoo. Not many people have seen it. I've never explained it to anyone, not even when they asked.
It's simple. Four numbers splayed vertically on my side, close to my ribs. Close to my heart.
"Six. Five. Seven. Five," she whispers. "It's beautiful on you. What does it mean?"
There's no hesitation on my part to tell her. Not even a sliver of it.
"It's six thousand five hundred and seventy-five days." I keep my eyes on hers. "That's how many days I had with my mom. From the day I was born to the day she died."
Her eyes well up and I have to swallow hard past the lump in my throat.
"Callahan..."
"No tears, baby, please." I kiss her hair and pull her close, wrapping my arms around her. "I can't stand it. I'm okay. Just don't cry."
She nods against my shoulder, but I can feel her tears anyway.
So I hold her like if I let go she might disappear. Andwhen she holds me just as close, her arms wrapped around me like she's trying to keep me together, I know I'm in big trouble.
24
LILY
Will is cooking again, and he's talking to himself the whole time. Or talking to Anna, which is the same thing in this house.
I watch him move around the kitchen like he owns every inch of it again. The guilt I've been carrying since the accident fades by another degree every time I see him like this, thriving and whole and back in the place he belongs.
Callahan has been relegated to sous chef at best, occasional taste-tester at worst. He doesn't seem to mind.
Tonight it's roast chicken with herbs from the garden, and potatoes Will has spent an unreasonable amount of time cutting into perfectly even pieces. According to Will, uneven potatoes are a sign of a chaotic mind.
Cal pointed out that his potatoes had been uneven for almost thirty years and his mind was fine. Will gave him a pointed look and said nothing.
I'm sitting across from Callahan at the kitchen table. The same table as always, the same chairs, the same view of theworkshop through the window. But it looks different now. Everything looks different now that I know what his hands feel like on my skin. What his voice sounds like at two in the morning. What happens when you call Callahan Holt vanilla in front of everyone he knows.
His foot finds mine under the table. I catch his eye. He's listening to Will talk about some commission, nodding at the right moments, beer halfway to his mouth. His face is the picture of a man engaged in a conversation about grain patterns.
His foot presses against mine. The corner of his mouth moves a fraction of an inch.
I press back. Hook my ankle around his.
