"Are you..."
"Go inside." A pause. "Please."
I want to ask why, want to argue, but something in his expression tells me this is not the time. I pick up my bag from where it ended up on the porch floor and hold his gaze once more.
He's watching me with his hands in his pockets, eyes saying everything he's not saying out loud.
I go inside. Quickly, before I change my mind and kiss him again.
I stand in their hallway for a moment, in the cool and the quiet, listening to the sound of my own heartbeat.
Through the front window I see Callahan still on the porch, forearms on the railing, looking out at the street, his shoulders lifting and sinking with the effort of his restraint.
The house smells like wood shavings and something herby from whatever's left on the stove. I know where the glasses are. I know which floorboard in the kitchen creaks. I know that the radio in the workshop stays on all day, and that the good teabags are on the second shelf, and that Will takes his coffee with one sugar and will tell you he doesn't have a sweet tooth while eating directly from a bag of chocolate chip cookies he keeps in the second drawer.
I know this house. I know these people. And I know I have just been kissed by Callahan, and instead of being sent away, I'm tucked securely inside his home while he stays outside with whatever he's working through.
Same time next year, I won't be here. Same time nextyear I'll be back to "living my life," the one everyone keeps insisting on.
And I have a feeling that for a long time after that, I will think about this exact moment, this exact house, this exact afternoon.
16
LILY
Erin's living room is the perfect mess of a girls' night—wine glasses scattered across every flat surface, a cheese board that's seen better days, makeup brushes abandoned mid-conversation.
Poppy has claimed the armchair with her legs hooked over the side like she's seventeen, and Erin is on the floor with her back against the couch, which is where she always ends up eventually.
I'm horizontal across the cushions with my feet in Erin's lap and a glass of something cold balanced on my stomach, full of cheese and not even a little bit sorry about it.
The playlist drifted into something slow an hour ago. Outside, June in Harbor Hill is aggressively beautiful, all golden light and salt breeze and the kind of evening that makes you want to stay exactly where you are forever.
I've been trying not to think about Callahan for eleven days now, with mixed results. Mostly bad results. Mostly himtaking up space in my head at two in the morning like he pays rent there.
"I have a question, Lil."
I don't even have to look at Poppy to know what's coming. Her out-of-the-blue questions are never a good thing.
"No."
"You don't know what it is."
"The answer is still no," I tell the ceiling, because I know exactly what the question is about and I am not doing this tonight.
"It's about Cal."
So predictable. I take a long sip of wine, longer than necessary, buying time like it'll save me from whatever's coming. It won't, but I drink anyway.
"I said no."
"Where do things actually stand?" Poppy ignores me completely, because she has never let a no stop her in her entire life. "And I mean actually. Not the version you've been giving us."
Erin, diplomatically, says nothing and refills her own glass.
The thing is, I don't have a version. All I have is silence. I have an agreement that neither of us made out loud but both of us are keeping. I have eleven days of being in the same rooms as him and pretending the porch didn't happen.
"I think he feels the same way I do." I choose my words carefully. "And I think we've both agreed, without actually saying it, that it doesn't matter."
