AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I hang up, feeling useless. I think about it. I could wait till morning and give her space. That might be the smart thing to do. Then again, I let Callie dictate how we did this last time and I’m not about to do it again.
It’s too important.
I jog through the house and grab my billfold and keys and head out the door.
CHAPTER 41
Callie
Guilt hits me when I hear Reed’s message on my voicemail. I knew he’d be upset, and it’s clear he is. I can also hear the hurt in his voice and that’s not what I want. I start to call him back, but I chicken out. We can talk tomorrow. I’ve been trying to go through everything in my head. The only thing I can come up with is that I don’t want to let Reed go. The problem is I don’t know if I’m at a place where I can handle living the life he does. He’s in the public eye. That sounds like hell to me. With my panic attacks, I don’t like being around ten people—let alone hundreds or more.
I hate that I’m like this. I’m so mad at myself. Mitch is gone. He’s never coming back, so why do I still feel so terrified at times? Why can’t I heal? Reed deserves better, I know that. Heck, I’ve always known that. He loves me though and God, I want to be the woman he believes I am. I want to be strong. I want to be…
Normal.
When I hear the pounding at the door, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who it is.
I get out of bed and pad down the hall toward the front door. Once there, I take a deep breath before unlocking it, and opening the door.
“Do you realize it’s close to two in the morning and you’re banging on my door wearing nothing but sweatpants, Reed?” I ask, my eyes going wide. He is literally only wearing sweatpants and slip-on flip flops. His chest is completely bare, and the moonlight shines on it. It’s a bad time to take in how truly gorgeous he is, but as my gaze drops down to the deep V shape on his torso that disappears under his pants, I’m not sorry. He’s also so hard that I have to continue looking—while sending up a silent universe thank you to the inventor of sweatpants. It should be illegal for Reed to wear anything else. Hopefully, the fact he’s obviously horny will mean he’s not extremely mad.
“What the fuck, Callie!?!” he barks.
Apparently, you can be horny and extremely mad.
I sigh as I step back to let him in. “Come in. If you’re going to yell at me, you can do it while I’m lying down.”
“You’re going to bed?”
“That’s the plan,” I retort, as I walk down the hall. I can hear Reed following me. I know I upset him and kind of ran away, but I don’t want to fight with him. I just don’t know how to make him understand what’s in my brain. I kind of think it’s impossible because I don’t even understand myself.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he says when we get to the bedroom.
“I wish you would tell me because I have no idea,” I confess with a weary sigh.
“You’re wearing my shirt,” he points out the obvious.
“I always sleep in your shirt. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve worn anything else since you left five years ago, Reed. Is that what you want to hear?” I stand on my side of the bed and look across at him. He studies me.
“Is it the truth?”
I roll my eyes and let out an annoyed breath and get back in bed. “Of course, it’s true, you big dummy. That’s not exactly something I would confess if I were lying.”
“You ran away because you think we won’t work. You think we don’t belong together, but you’re wrong.”
“I ran away because your manager said I was causing you to throw your life away, Reed. I had to think. That’s all, but since you are insisting on bringing it up, I’m not sure we can work.”
“You’re wrong,” he says stubbornly.
“What makes me wrong? You can’t just say I’m wrong because you want me to be because believe me, I want me to be wrong, too.”
“Doesn’t the fact that you’ve been sleeping in my shirt for five years is proof enough that you belong with me, Bluebird? I mean, in all that time you could have taken the great Kurt, your friendly, neighborhood pastor up on all his offers to dinner. You didn’t and you did that for a reason.”
“I didn’t take him up on his offers because he wasn’t you.”
“Wrong. You didn’t take him….” Reed stops talking and frowns at me. “You kind of take the wind out of my argument, Callie, when you agree with me.”
