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She chokes a laugh and my chest swells. “Something funny?” I drawl the words, and when I raise my head, her eyes are glinting with happiness.
I like you, her face says.
You can’t like me, mine replies. I’m not made for liking. I turn to the bowl, whisking furiously, tilting it awkwardly.
“You look like a natural.” Callie’s compliment goes straight to my chest.
“I’m not.”
“Your parents never taught you?”
I shake my head. “Nah. My mom is traditional. She taught Christine but not me.”
“Does Christine like it?”
“She does. Gives her a chance to hold something over my head, too.” I look up, smiling faintly. “And now she’s having a baby, so she’s a real domestic goddess. She’d kill me if she heard me say that, though.”
Callie smiles and my pulse speeds. She gives those smiles away to everyone she meets, but the ones I receive feel hard fought.
“What does she do?”
“Runs a PR firm. With her wife.” I dump the eggs into the saucepan. Low and slow. That means five on the dial? Six? Fuck it. Cooked is cooked. I set it to five. “I don’t know how anyone could work with a spouse or a partner. I certainly couldn’t.” And definitely not after Annalise. I stir the eggs more angrily than I mean to at the thought of how she and Dylan stole my company from under me.
“I could, I think.” Callie sounds dreamy, like she’s imagining a neat little world in which no one ever argues and no one has any secrets. “I mean, it might be nice, building something with someone you love. I work with my dad on the paper, and it’s tough, but more rewarding because it’s family.”
“You don’t want to murder each other?”
She bites her lip, looking uncertain. “It’s tough. My dad is set in his ways.”
I set our plates on the counter and settle in next to her. “And?” I take a bite of eggs and grimace. “Damn, this is bad.”
Callie tries it, daintily. “No. It’s good. Stop being such a critic.” She takes a bigger bite.
“Stop avoiding the question. Tell me about your dad.”
She sighs, those navy eyes shadowed. “He’s been doing this for a long time. He loves being a reporter, but he’s in his late sixties now, and he’s stuck in the same habits. Newspapers have changed a lot since he started writing.” Her shoulders slump. “The paper has been dying for years. If you hadn’t come along, I think we would have stopped printing.”
My chest aches at her words, the way she’s so fragile. “You have the money now, though.”
“It doesn’t matter if he won’t change. Why keep publishing for fewer and fewer readers? I have ideas that could help us, but he won’t let me implement them.”
Protectiveness sinks hot spikes into my stomach. Fix it. Fix it for her. I shake the thought away. What am I going to do? Give her a print division at Kings Lane and have her grow? She’d love that. She’d blossom. And I almost want to tell her I’ll solve all her problems for her.
“Like what?” My emotions make my voice rough, and Callie looks up at me in surprise, her mouth full of coffee.
She swallows, looking skeptical. “You want to know? You’re not going to, I don’t know, retaliate?”
“No.” The truth of it rushes through me. “I’m not going to retaliate. I want to understand.”
“Well, first of all, we need to focus more heavily on digital media and getting quality advertisers. To do that, we need to invest more. I don’t think we should focus on print at all. But my dad disagrees.”
“There’s something nostalgic about printed papers. I imagine that’s why he likes them.”
She gives a funny, surprised look. “Yeah. That’s exactly it.”
“But you don’t?”
“I would sacrifice nostalgia for success. I’m practical. He’s not.” She shrugs.
