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Tara looks back and forth between us. “Hey, Garrett. And . . . Callie . . . hi . . .”
“Hey, Tara.”
“Tara . . . hey. How’s it going?” Callie smiles.
And because Tara’s cool, there’s only a hint of awkwardness.
“It’s good. I heard you were back in town. Welcome home.”
A dark-haired little boy comes up behind her, Joshua, holding the hand of a light-brown-haired guy with glasses.
Tara gestures to the man beside her. “Matt, this is Garrett and Callie—old friends from high school.”
I shake Matt’s hand and the four of us talk for a few minutes about nothing in particular. Eventually we say goodbye and Callie and I walk over to the next aisle.
“So . . .” Callie says, walking next to me, “you and Tara Benedict, huh?”
I toss a box of corn flakes into the cart. “It was a casual thing. Not serious.”
“Right.”
“Was it that obvious?”
She shrugs. “A woman looks at a guy that she’s slept with in a certain way. I could tell.”
I slide my hand into the back of her jeans, giving her plump, pretty ass a squeeze.
“You jealous, Callaway?”
She takes a second to think about it. Then she shakes her head.
“You know what . . . I’m not. Lakeside’s a small town, we were bound to run into someone you’ve dated—probably won’t be the last time. Whatever happened through the years, it brought us both here. And I like here.” She takes my hand out of her pocket and holds it in her smaller one. “Here is good.”
I lean down and kiss her, softer, longer this time.
“Here is very, very good.”
Callie smiles, then resumes pushing the cart. After a minute, she laughs. “Besides, it’s not like you hooked up with Becca Saber or something.”
Becca Saber . . .
The back of my neck goes itchy and hot.
Becca is Coach Saber’s daughter—she was in the same grade as us, and the splinter under Callie’s fingernail all through high school. She was on my dick like white on rice, and not subtle about it. She’d drop by the locker room after practice, always making sure I knew she was available and up for anything. She got off on doing it in front of Callie. I told her to cut it out, that I wasn’t remotely interested, but that didn’t stop her from trying over and over.
And Callie . . . pretty much just sucked it up, let it go, ignored it, and kept her mouth shut. For me.
To not cause problems between me and the football coach I idolized, who thought his daughter was an angel straight from heaven.
“That would be a different story.” Callie shrugs, still smiling.
I open my mouth to tell her, because—like I’ve said before—a guy gets to a point in his life when he knows that straight-up, brutal honesty is simpler. The best way to go.
Except . . . when it’s not.
I look over at Callie again—and she’s so happy—gazing at me with the perfect combination of playfulness, tenderness, and heat.
Here, where we are now, really is good. And it could all go away at the end of the year when Callie goes back to San Diego. Distance was the reason we ended the first time . . . one of the reasons anyway. And if history is bound to repeat itself . . . well, fuck . . . this could be all the time I get with her. The only time I get.
I think about what I tell my kids every Friday . . . “Don’t be idiots.” And I take my own advice. Because only an idiot would waste a minute—a second—with Callie explaining and rehashing shit that happened years ago. That shouldn’t affect us at all here, now, in this moment.
So I nod. “Yeah, totally different story.”
Then I put my arm around her, kiss the top of her head, and we head off together to the frozen food section.
Chapter Sixteen
Garrett
Mrs. Carpenter, with Colleen and Callie’s help, has decided to cook up an epic spread for Thanksgiving. Callie’s friends from San Diego, Bruce and Cheryl, are coming to Lakeside for the holiday. The day before Thanksgiving, I drive Callie to Newark to pick them up from the airport.
We’re waiting near the baggage claim when a piercing war cry rings out and a blur of beige sweater and dark-red hair comes streaking around the corner—all but tackling Callie.
“Girlfriend!” The blur squeals. “I’ve missed you! Damn, you look great—the Jersey air agrees with you.”
This must be Cheryl. Callie’s told me about her—the loud, quirky bookkeeper of the theater company Callie will be returning to at the end of the year.
She bounces with delight in her tall friend’s arms, hugging her back. Then she introduces me to Cheryl and I get a hug slammed into me too—knocking me back a step. Cheryl would’ve made a great lineman.
