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Hailey nodded, feeling her chest constrict as the enormity of the panic she’d created sunk in. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She’d let what had happened with Eric override her clinical judgement. Let it blind her to what had been in front of her all along—a kid with too much sugar and boyhood exuberance on board. She felt foolish. ‘I know,’ she whispered, leaning into the comforting stroke of his hands. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Maybe it’s best if you and Tom don’t see so much of each other.’ He didn’t want to do this to punish her but Tom and Hailey had been spending a lot of time together and he didn’t know if he could survive another of those calls.
Hailey nodded. Tom had wormed his way into her heart. The dread she’d experienced that afternoon when she’d thought he was sick had been almost crippling. Maybe a little distance from him was a good idea.
‘I’m going to take Tom home.’
Hailey looked into the calm grey pools of his eyes and saw his withdrawal. Paul’s had been like that. She averted her gaze, unable to stand the distance she saw in Callum’s. She stared down at her hands, knowing he was right, hoping he wouldn’t see how much it hurt. ‘Of course.’
‘See you next week,’ he said gently. Part of him wanted to linger, to take her back in his arms. The other part wanted to go to Tom and hug him close.
He chose Tom.
CHAPTER EIGHT
HAILEY WOKE to pounding at her door on Sunday night. She looked at her bedside clock with bleary eyes. Nine. She hadn’t slept a wink last night after the incident with Tom and had finally fallen into the black abyss of sleep from sheer weariness about an hour previously.
She sat up, knocking something to the floor, the room in darkness except for the flicker from the television set. She switched the lamp on, trying to orientate herself as she squinted at the insult to her eyes. Her head felt like it was full of cotton wool.
The bed was strewn with several DVDs, the remote, headphones, photo albums and several scrunched-up discarded tissues she’d used to wipe away the flood of tears that she hadn’t seemed able to stop since yesterday. The incident with Tom had bought back memories of Eric’s battle for life and Paul’s betrayal. It had been an emotional time.
The door was pounded on again and she threw the duvet back, covering most of the mess. Who would be calling at nine o’clock on a Sunday night? She padded to the door and looked through the peephole. Callum? Her heart slammed against her rib cage. She looked again. It was definitely Callum—her guilty conscience hadn’t just conjured him up.
She fumbled with the handle as she opened the door. ‘Callum?’
He looked terrible. His jaw was dusted with dark stubble, looking rough and scratchy, almost the exact opposite of the velveteen stubble that covered his scalp. His clothes looked like they’d been hastily thrown on, his creased, collared shirt untucked with the buttons done up wrongly. His grey eyes looked troubled. Stormy.
Callum’s gaze devoured her from her tousled hair and sleepy eyes to the crease on her face obviously from her bedclothes. ‘I woke you up.’
‘It’s OK,’ she dismissed.
Now he was there, he wasn’t sure how to start. He had acted on impulse, not giving a lot of thought to what he was going to say. ‘I dreamt about Annie,’ he said after a moment. ‘I haven’t dreamt about her in years.’
Hailey gazed at him for a few moments and nodded. ‘Where’s Tom?’
‘At the coast with his grandparents.’
‘Of course. I forgot.’ She nodded again, holding his troubled gaze. ‘Come in. I’ll make us a cup of tea,’ she said quietly, opening the door further and standing aside.
He followed her through to the kitchen, watching her wordlessly from the doorway as she padded around in her bare feet. She flicked on the kettle, took some mugs out of an overhead cupboard, placed teabags in the cups, spooned sugar into them.
She was wearing a white singlet with shoestring straps that didn’t quite meet the waistband of her long striped cotton pyjama bottoms. He could see her belly button and her untethered breasts bounce with each movement. ‘I owe you an apology. I didn’t mean it about not seeing Tom again.’
Hailey gripped the kitchen counter. ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘You were right. I overreacted.’
He pushed away from the doorway and moved to stand on the other side of the bench. ‘And I knew where that was coming from. I know how much Eric’s death affected you. I was just…a little…thrown.’
Hailey didn’t want him to apoligise. She’d spent the last day castigating herself for yesterday’s debacle. She’d alarmed Callum unnecessarily. Callum, who lived every day under the cloud of Tom’s possible relapse. And she’d made a fool of herself in front of Rilla and Luca, not to mention setting her confidence back months.
