Enough of Callahan. It's June. I've submitted my applications. I have a summer ahead of me, and I'm going to live it the way I promised myself I would.
Later that afternoon, I walk the long route to Will's house. I asked Will casually, the day before, whether Cal had plans tomorrow. Will said he was out with Ramsey, some errand in town, probably all afternoon.
He also told me that the tomato plants I'd begged him to let me put in the back garden needed watering, and that the good shears were on the second shelf in the shed if I wanted to do something useful.
So I walk through the part of Harbor Hill where the June warmth is generous and everything is in bloom. Through residential streets where someone planted roses along a fence and they've gotten entirely out of hand in the best possible way, spilling over the wood slats in shades of pink and coral and deep, dramatic red.
The air smells like cut grass and salt from the harbor, and by the time I turn onto the Holts' street, I'm feelingwarm-cheeked and easy in a way the last few weeks haven't let me be.
Then I see the Escalade, parked in the driveway. Black. Enormous. Completely unmistakable. Completely not supposed to be there.
I stop on the pavement outside the gate and stare at it. Will played me like a fiddle.
I weigh my options. Turning around and power-walking home would be both cowardly and conspicuous, and I promised myself I was done being a coward about this.
My brother didn't raise me a pussy. So I open the gate. The porch steps have a specific creak on the third one. I learned this months ago. I step over it out of habit, which is a very funny habit to have developed about a house that isn't mine.
I've made it to the door when it swings open. We both stop. Callahan is clearly mid-exit, keys and phone in hand, and he goes completely still in the doorway.
Dark t-shirt. Jeans. That jaw with two days of stubble on it. His hair is a little longer than it was weeks ago, curling slightly at the ends from the heat, and he's got the kind of face that still catches you off guard even when you've been looking at it for months. Which says something unfortunate about the state of my self-preservation instincts.
"I thought you were with Ramsey today."
He sighs, eyes closing for a second like he's asking the universe for patience. He knows just as well as I do that Will is to blame for this.
"Your dad said you'd be gone all afternoon."
"My dad lied."
"I was going to water the tomatoes."
The second it leaves my mouth I want to die. Of all the things I could have said. Of all the ways I could have played this, I went with tomatoes.
He smiles though, his gaze dropping to his feet before coming back to me. "The tomatoes don't need watering. It rained yesterday."
I stare at him. He stares steadily back. I've been set up by a fifty-year-old troublemaker who doesn't have a single guilty bone in his body, and there's really nothing to do about that now.
I should say something easy, something Lily-shaped that would slide this moment sideways into something manageable.
Instead I say: "You don't have to hide in the doorway. I'm not going to bite you."
His whole face goes still. I hate his stupid long lashes. Hate that I notice them.
"I'm not hiding."
"You're hiding a little."
He steps out onto the porch, closes the door behind him, and we stand there in the afternoon like two people who have nothing to say, but I know so much could be said.
Then, suddenly, he says something else entirely.
"I'm sorry."
I blink. "For hiding?"
"For the..." He stops, gaze going to the street, then back to me. "After the firehouse. I shouldn't have left you standing there. I handled it badly."
There it is. Weeks of carefully maintained quiet, and here we are. I've imagined this conversation various times. Inmost of those versions I was significantly cooler than I'm currently feeling.
