As he took an exit from the highway, she frowned. “Are we there already?”
“Nope. But I thought, for our road trip date, we could stop in a town I’m pretty sure you’ll love,” he said with that smug smile that always meant trouble. The one he reserved to her before going down on her and making her forget who she was. Definitely a delightful experience she couldn’t wait to keep doing.
She refocused her attention on the name on the sign. It was one of those impossible Welsh combinations. “How’s that even pronounced?”
“Hay-on-Wye. Most people just call itHay.” He chuckled.
“What’s so good about it?” she asked, and then squealed as the next sign came into view. “Town of Books?!”
“Yep. Between May and June they host the Hay Festival, basically a book festival. The town has twenty second-hand bookstores, despite being tiny. They have a population of just 1,500 people.”
He took off his sunglasses as the clouds rolled in, and his grin turned even warmer. “I figured you’d like it. Even though you already have a thousand books to ship from my apartment.”
“Callum, this is fantastic. I—” she didn’t even know how to finish. As he parked on the main street, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him hard.
“You’re welcome,” he said when they broke apart. “Anything to see that smile.”
“Are you ready to carry ten kilos of books?” she teased, stepping out of the car.
Callum groaned, raking a hand through his hair. “I mean, I brought this upon myself, didn’t I?”
Alejandra beamed. “Yes, Mr. Evans.”
He grabbed her waist and pulled her against him. “It kinda turns me on when you call me like that.”
“Mr. Evans,” she whispered in his ear. She could feel his cock grow harder as their hips pressed together.
“You’re insufferable,” he groaned, kissing her neck, biting it slightly, and then putting distance between them. He looked like he didn’t want to, but they were indeed in the middle of the road. As much as she would love to be taken there, she didn’t think jail was a good way to start that road trip.
“That’s why you like me.” She grinned up to him as she took his hand and they walked towards what looked like the town center.
Callum wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close, and kissing the top of her head. If this was what it felt like to be taken care of by a man—really taken care of, without strings or pressure—then she knew it: Callum Evans had ruined her for anyone else. She’d need him to stay in her life forever. That was it.
47
CALLUM
Aberystwyth - Paper Aeroplanes
He had been extremelygrateful that there were only twenty bookstores in town, and that Alejandra had decided to restrain herself to just one book per store.
They had lunch there, and as he drove down the exit off the highway to Aberystwyth, the familiar pang of anxiety—and homesickness—hit him like a tide.
Aberystwyth had a way of lingering in your bones. Callum never quite shook it, no matter how far life took him. From London to Boston, from swimming pools to sterile boardrooms. Aber was always there, tucked between sea and mountain like a secret you both wanted to keep and shout about.
It was a university town on the west coast of Wales, where the wind carried salt from Cardigan Bay straight through your lungs. The kind of place where seagulls woke you before your alarm, and the sea was never more than a few minutes' walk away. Rows of colorful Victorian houses lined the promenade, each one slightly peeling, as if weathered by time and sea spray.
In summer, it was full of locals mixing with tourists, ice cream shops and chip vans open late into the evening. In winter, the wind turned sharp and unforgiving, sweeping in off the water with enough force to nearly knock you sideways. But Callum had loved both seasons—the sun-drenched strolls along the seafront, and the rainy ones too, hands in pockets, eyes on the horizon.
His taid’s house sat just uphill from the town center, close to the university but still tucked away. If you leaned far enough out the upstairs window, you could see the sea. The scent of peat fires still clung to the old stone walls. On cold nights, they used to huddle in the living room, listening to Welsh legends on the radio or arguing over rugby and politics in two languages.
There was a bookstore on Great Darkgate Street he used to get lost in for hours, and he couldn’t wait to bring Alejandra there. A pub off North Parade where his taid had bought him his first pint, and where he'd been drunk more than once. A cliff railway that carried tourists up Constitution Hill, but to Callum, it had always been just part of the backdrop of home. Familiar. Steady. The kind of place that made the world move slower, and maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.
And now, he was sharing this place with Alejandra.
She’d see the slate roofs, the winding coastal road, the ancient ruins of the castle where he’d kissed his first girl, and the beach where he’d tried—and failed—to stand on a surfboard at eleven. He wasn’t sure how she’d take it, this sleepy town that had raised him, but he hoped—selfishly—that it would grow on her.
They arrived just in time for sunset, and as the light dipped behind the ocean, Alejandra looked out at it with a mix of emotions he couldn’t quite place. There was longing, guilt, anxiety. Ashe parked in front of his childhood home—a pastel blue house his mother insisted on repainting the same color every year because it reminded her of him—he looked over and saw her quietly taking it all in.
