AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Rin. There’d be a time when hearing him say my name in his soft Alabama accent didn’t weaken my knees, but today wasn’t that day.
“Why are you here then? It seemed like maybe you were waiting for me.”
He nodded. “You’re right. I was. I enjoyed standing in line with you last week. I’d like a repeat of that.”
I snorted a light laugh. “A repeat of standing in line? Are you going to be mean to me again?”
His lids lowered, but his eyes never wavered from mine. “No, I won’t be mean to you. I didn’t think I was being mean last time. It wasn’t my intention.”
My feet itched to run. Even after what happened at the party on Friday, I believed I could slip out of Callum’s life without telling him I was his disappearing little bird. With every encounter we’d had since, that belief faded, and I was faced with reality. I had to tell him. And I would.
Just...not now. This conversation wasn’t suited for a public place.
“Okay. Let’s go inside and be nice to each other then.”
The line was even longer than last time, but instead of lurking behind me, Callum stood next to me. He didn’t speak, and neither did I. His arm stayed in constant contact with mine, and there was no denying it was purposeful.
Customers were taking second and third glances at Callum as they came and went. He lowered his head, locking eyes with the ground, but he was impossible to miss.
“Do you hate it?” I murmured.
His head canted toward me. “What?”
“The stares. Everyone’s looking. If they haven’t figured out who you are, they’re wondering.”
He paused for a moment and brought his eyes up to my face, scraping them over my features slowly. “I don’t love it, but I’m adept at ignorin’ it. People stare, but they usually leave me alone.”
Probably because he’d perfected that stone-cold expression of his. With his height, his stark features, and thefuck offsnarl, he was more intimidating than inviting.
“You don’t have to be here with me, you know. I can bring you coffee to the studio.”
He brought his hand up and trailed his rough thumb along the rounded curve of my jaw. “I’m not really here for the coffee.”
My heart rattled in its cage like a can on prison bars. This man had no right to say something like that to me, and yet, here he was, being his blunt, Callum Rose self.
“The pastries?” I quipped. If I didn’t make light of this, I’d cry over what I’d lost with him. We could have had this. It could have been real. But now we were living in the calm before the storm that wiped us completely off the map.
He rolled his head in the direction of the well-lit case holding a wide selection of baked goods. “They’re not so bad. I have a massive sweet tooth.”
“Oh yeah? Which one are you going to choose?”
“You choose for me. I trust you, Wren.”
Oh, that was a dagger to my conscience. I couldn’t keep standing here with him, letting him say things like he trusted me and not tell him the truth. Or at least make a solid plan for telling him the truth. Jenny had been right—it wasn’t fair to Callum to be kept in the dark. Even if he never spoke to me again, I had to do it.
We ordered our drinks, I picked out a chocolate muffin for Callum, which he seemed to approve of, then we were back outside again. I was heading to the park to eat my lunch, and he had to get back to the studio.
But neither of us hurried off. I scuffed my heels on the sidewalk, and he stared down at me. I was trying to work up the nerve to ask him to meet me somewhere this weekend to talk, but he spoke first.
“You haven’t mentioned the plant. Did you like it?”
It took me a beat to understand what he meant. “The oversized succulent that mysteriously appeared on my desk this morning?”
He nodded, intent on my face.
“Of course I liked it. It was a surprise, though, since I already had a nice little plant.”
“Too little,” he said flatly.
