Dad's home. Surgery went well. I've taken leave so he's covered. You don't need to worry about it.
You don't need to worry about it? Like I could turn that off. Like I could sit in my apartment or trim flower stems and drink coffee and think about literally anything else. Like guilt came with an off switch and I'd just misplaced the instructions.
Easy for him to say. Easy for everyone to say. They didn't understand. I am going to be a doctor. The whole point is to be the person who fixes things, not the one who broke them.
And I had broken something. Maybe not done so directly, but close enough that it didn't matter. Close enoughthat every time I closed my eyes I saw him falling, heard the sound of it, felt the specific horror of watching something happen that I couldn't stop.
So I come the next day. Then the day after. Then the day after that. Five days pass, and somewhere along the way it quietly becomes part of my routine. Me in Callahan's house. Him hating every single second of it.
First time I came around, I'd pictured something small. A cozy cottage, maybe, or a craftsman bungalow with creaky steps and a sagging porch. Something that matched the quiet grief I imagined living inside those walls.
I was wrong. The house is bigger than expected. Newer. Clean lines and fresh paint, a wide porch with solid railings. Not a single board that looks weathered. The yard is tidy, the path clear, none of the gray after-snow slush that March usually leaves on everyone else's property.
And in the back, nearly as big as the house itself, sits a workshop with wide doors and good windows. Will's kingdom, I presume.
The first time I show up, Callahan answers the door like I've come to serve him legal papers. He goes still when he sees me. Jaw tight, eyes harder.
"I told you..."
"I brought soup." I hold up the container. Vera had actually made it, but he doesn't need to know that.
That becomes the pattern every day since. I show up, Callahan looks like he wants to object. I bring something every time. Soup. Muffins from Poppy. A book I think Will might like. The objection dies before it reaches his mouth. He lets me in and I sit with his dad while Callahan hovers.
"Cal, can you please take a walk?"
Will's voice carries from the recliner, fond and exasperated in equal measure.
"I'm not hovering."
"You've refilled my water three times in twenty minutes. The glass was full the first time."
I glance toward the kitchen doorway, where Callahan stands with a dish towel in his hand, looking like a man caught doing something he can't quite explain. His hair is pushed back, rumpled from running his hands through it too many times.
He's wearing a t-shirt that has no business fitting the way it does across his shoulders and chest, worn thin enough in places that I can see the outline of muscle underneath. Gray sweatpants sit low on his hips.
I take my time getting my eyes back to his face because I'm only human and Callahan Holt is built like all my fantasies combined.
"I'm being helpful," he mutters, leaning against the doorframe like he belongs there.
"You're being neurotic."
Will shifts in his recliner and winces. The cast runs from his ankle to just below his knee, propped up on a cushion. I've already drawn a small bird on it in pen. He told me yesterday that it was the best thing about the whole ordeal.
"Go for your run," Will continues, gesturing vaguely toward the front door.
"I don't need to run."
"You need to run. You've been pacing this house like a caged animal for five days and it's making me tired just watching you." Will raises his eyebrows at me. "Tell him."
"Go for your run, Callahan."
A giggle slips out before I can stop it, because Callahan's face is doing something incredible. He has a face built for disapproval. The kind of expression that should make a person want to apologize. Somehow it only makes him more attractive. It's deeply unfair at this point.
Callahan glances between us, clearly outnumbered, and accepts defeat with a long exhale.
"Fine." He tosses the dish towel onto the counter. "Thirty minutes."
"Please, take forty."
