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Do I? My face scrunches up but then softens as I gaze into his oh-so-blue eyes. “I think so?”
His hand covers my mouth and then he spins me around and points with his other hand. “It’s that way. Go, please, because you’re still loud.” He releases me and gives me a small push, urging me on.
Crap, I swore I was whispering.
“Well, you weren’t.”
Argh! I forgot to ask my family tonight about this. How can I properly adult if I can’t keep my thoughts and opinions a secret?
Callan points in the direction of his office again and I find my way, closing the door behind me. I glance around. He has a desk with two monitors, a closed laptop sitting on top of it with a mouse perfectly placed in the center of the mouse pad beside it.
There’s a massive built-in bookshelf loaded with books, everything from medical textbooks to what I think might be classic first editions—fuck, I’m getting wetter by the second here—to contemporary thrillers. The couch is leather and gray and large and that’s where I go because if I start scrolling through his library, I’ll jump his bones for sure and that’snotwhat I’m here for.
The room is fastidiously neat and tidy like every space he has in his home is, and I wonder how he’s managing a little girl disrupting that. A few seconds later he returns with a glass of ice water for me, and I take a large sip before setting it down on a coaster on the distressed wood coffee table.
I offer him a contrite smile. “Hi. Sorry. I didn’t mean to come in here like a hot mess and throw off your night, but I wanted to tell you as soon as I figured it out and I didn’t want to wait.”
He takes a seat on the couch beside me, leveling me with a seriousness I’ve come to expect from him. “I’m glad you’re here, but before we start talking, I want to make sure that everything we say is what sober Layla would say. I can’t have you agreeing or not agreeing to something tonight and then when you sober up tomorrow, you change your mind. Moreover, I don’t want to tell Katy something and then have to go back on it.”
I meet his gaze head-on. “I’m not going to change my mind.”
He swallows hard and then nods slowly. Nervously. “Okay. The floor is yours.”
“I’m saying yes, Callan. I think I already said that, but it might have gotten overshadowed by the no-sex stuff I blurted out after.”
He exhales a breath I think he was holding and his eyes glass over as his expression warms with gratitude. “Jesus, Layla. Fuck.” He shakes his head incredulously, laughs lightly, and fidgets all around as if he doesn’t know what to do with himself now. “Thank you. Holy shit, thank you. I want to kiss the hell out of you, but I know that’s the wrong reaction to have. Especially now. I also know thank you is ridiculous and simple to say, but I’m having difficulty adequately expressing my level of gratitude.”
“I couldn’t not say yes.”
“May I ask why?”
I give him a dubious look, quirking an eyebrow at him. “Come on, Callan, I think you know. I was almost exactly like Katy once. I had Amelia who gave up her entire life for me. She dropped out of college and gave up her medical school dreams. Her boyfriend was a prick and broke up with her over text about it. She moved back home to Boston and accrued an insurmountable amount of debt so she could get her BSN and then worked for a misogynistic douchebag for years and years because he paid well. We had no money and she struggled endlessly, and she did all of that for me.”
Annnd I’m totally crying again.
He reaches over and wipes at my tears. “She’s an amazing woman.”
“The very best in the world, but Katy deserves an Amelia and I think you’re her Amelia.”
“That’s what I’d like to be.”
I knew it. My gut is never wrong. His response does all the wrong things to my insides and this… this is the problem.
“But I don’t know if I’m enough right now,” he continues. “Amelia was also going through the loss of her parents. Yes, I lost my brother and sister-in-law, but as you know, it’s not the same as losing a parent, and while I’m trying the very best I can, you reach her in ways I’m unable.”
“I’m attracted to you though.” Insanely. Painfully.
He coughs, giving me that playful smile again complete with dimples. “Um. Yeah, I know.”
“No. That’s my problem. I’m attracted to you, and well, I don’t want to be.”
That takes him aback for a moment. “Ah. Okay.” He wipes at his jaw. “I think I’m starting to understand all this now. That said, I’m not sure what to do about it or how to change it.”
Here goes nothing. I sit up straight and clear my throat. “That brings up the words I blurted out to you when I first arrived. I think we’d very easily and very quickly fall into bed with each other and while I know it’ll be fun, I don’t want to confuse fun for feelings. Plus, there’s the whole other side of this coin where we actually shouldn’t because of our jobs.”
He leans back against the leather, kicking his ankle up onto his opposite knee and giving me a steadying look. “Alright. So that means no sex.”
“It does. If I move in here and we live this fake life with each other, I can’t have sex with you. It complicates and confuses things.”
