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“Once peppers touch something that’s all you can taste,” she explains needlessly.
“Yeah, I remember.”
There’s a moment of silence, but it’s not an awkward one. Still, it’s late. I don’t want to push her too far.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, sweetheart.”
“Tomorrow,” she breathes. “Goodnight, Reed.”
“Goodnight.”
I wait until she clicks off the phone, then I hang up, too.
But I hold the phone against my chest for long moments after—not ready to end the connection.
CHAPTER 18
Reed
“What the hell was that?”
Callie cackles with my question. “Uh, two hours we will never get back again?”
“Seriously, that has to be the worst movie in the history of movies.”
“It had moments that were kind of good,” Callie says, but even she sounds doubtful.
“Name one.”
“Okay what about when the bomb blew that crazy guy all to pieces? That was kind of cool.” She avoids my eyes as she answers—probably because she knows the whole movie sucked.
“Dude, Bruce Willis was like the king of action flicks not so long ago. I don’t know what that was, but it was not a movie he should be doing.”
“I can’t argue,” she finally admits. “The pizza was good, though.”
“Yeah, it was. Actually, I mean, if we pushed the weird and boring movie aside, the whole night has been good, Callie.”
“Yeah.” She pushes her hair from her face, her eyes darting up to mine for a brief second before she gets up from the sofa and takes our empty paper plates to the kitchen.
I follow her, sitting down at the bar while she pretends to be busy putting the few pieces of left-over pizza in the fridge. It really has been a good night. Being near Callie, listening to her laugh, drawing her out of her shell—all of it—has been nice. She’s still very much the girl I fell in love with years ago, but I can see changes, too. I find everything about her fascinating, right down to the way she rubs the pad of her thumb over the inside of her wrist when she thinks no one is looking. She changed shampoos, too. Her hair smells like watermelon taffy. When I was in high school and worked at Mr. Johnson’s garage, he would always bring me some back after he and Mrs. Johnson would go on vacation at the ocean. I’d never traveled outside of Macon at the time and had definitely not tried saltwater taffy. I loved the smell, the texture, and taste of it. Tonight, while trying to concentrate on what truly was a god-awful movie, I just kept smelling Callie’s hair and remembering things I loved about Macon when I was younger. It could be summed up in that smell, really. I knew Mr. Johnson and his wife cared about me. They thought about me and as good as that candy was, what I loved most about it was the feeling that someone thought enough of me that they wanted to make me smile. Callie also liked to make me smile. Sometimes, when we first moved in together, she would make these lemon cookies for me. The first ones she made were horrible, but she worked and worked until the ones she made would melt in your mouth. When she finally conquered the recipe, she was so proud that she came to the garage with this huge container of them and fed everyone. She kissed me there in front of everyone, holding her cookies, and in that moment, I felt like I was the king of the world.
“Reed? Are you okay?” she asks, and I shake myself from my thoughts to concentrate on the here and now.
“I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“You zoned out on me, didn’t you?”
“I guess I did,” I admit sheepishly.
“What were you thinking about?” Her voice is feather soft as she questions me.
“Lemon cookies.”
There’s a moment of silence and then she starts laughing the sound so happy that it feels as if it wraps around me.
“God, I made a mess of those when we first got together.”
“Well, it didn’t help that you mistook the salt for the sugar.”
“You promised to never bring that up, Reed!”
“Whoops,” I laugh. She shakes her head and I smile. “We had some good times, didn’t we, Bluebird?” I ask, unable to stop myself from reaching out to touch her hair again. I pretend I’m just tucking it behind her ear. I wonder if she realizes just how often I do that. It’s the only way I can excuse my need to constantly touch her. This way she might not realize how much I crave a connection with her.
“We did,” she admits.
I gently pull her against me—giving her plenty of time and space to resist. She doesn’t, choosing instead to rest her head on my shoulder.
It’s not much, but for now, it’s enough.
CHAPTER 19
Callie
“Callie, you’re looking beautiful tonight.”
I smile up at Kurt—and I mean up. I’m five-seven. I think that’s pretty tall for a girl. Reed always towered over me. He is six-three. Kurt is probably a couple inches taller. Taller guys usually make me self-conscious and, as ashamed as I am to admit it, more than a little afraid.
