I frowned hard. “I’m sure your version of fat really wasn’t that fat.”
He pulled out his phone then and started swiping through pictures, stopping only when he found the one he wanted.
Turning the phone around, he showed me the picture that he’d been searching for.
In it was an enlistment ceremony picture.
In it was Ace, Banks, Callum—or at least who I assumed was Callum—Darby, and Georgia.
Callum and Banks were side by side, smiling wide for the camera.
And yes, Callum was the heaviest person in the picture. He was also quite adorable, even then.
“That’s adorable,” I admitted. “Where’s the graduation one?”
He pulled his phone back and swiped another couple of pictures, turning it back around when he found the one he wanted.
“This one was taken eight weeks later,” he said. “At our graduation ceremony.”
Callum and Banks were side by side, Callum noticeably slimmer than he had been.
The both of them were decked out in their official uniforms and looking sharp as hell.
My eyes automatically strayed to Callum and stayed there.
I admired everything about the man from his shaven jaw all the way down to his polished-within-an-inch-of-their-life shoes.
“You look really good there,” I admitted. “Like you’re finally happy.”
And he did.
There was a significant ‘feel’ to the other picture. Although they’d all been smiling, you could tell that they were definitely sad.
In the second picture, though, you could practically see that the pall had been lifted—at least momentarily.
“I was happy-ish,” he agreed. “For a little bit, anyway.”
It was like he was mirroring my own thoughts.
“How long were you in the military?” I asked as I handed him back his phone.
He took it and shoved it back into his pocket, his eyes taking in the ornaments around him.
“Four years,” he said. “I might’ve stayed in longer had Ace not wanted to come back here and reopen the farm.”
I smiled. “That was nice of you, doing that for him.”
“I didn’t want him to come back here by himself,” he said. “He would have, too. And I’d have felt horrible about it.”
The Valentine family had been the big tragedy of Kilgore, Texas.
I hadn’t lived in Kilgore my whole life like most of the people here. But I had lived here long enough to hear about the Valentines.
The townspeople felt awful that they hadn’t paid enough attention to be able to prevent the tragedy that plagued the Valentines. It haunted everyone—cops, firefighters, and even the regular Joes.
Two of their siblings and their mother had perished in the fire.
The five oldest children had been able to get themselves free.
“Did y’all redo the house when y’all got home?” I wondered.
I hadn’t actually seen the Valentine house, but I’d heard that it’d been almost ruined.
“The main house was bulldozed. The barn and hands’ quarters was damaged, but the town and Nico had it fixed up before we ever came home,” he confessed.
Without thinking, I reached forward and caught his hand in mine, giving it a little squeeze.
“You have some really nice people here that love you,” I told him. “I’d heard a lot about you before I even met you. Though, saying that, I never expected you to be able to pick someone’s pocket before, or cheat them out of a wedding ring.”
His lips formed into a wide smile. “Some people just deserve to have their shit stolen.”
I was the one to laugh at that.
“Let’s go decorate my tree. You can do Codie’s some other time,” he suggested.
And that was exactly what I did.
I ignored my to-do list, had an amazing meal that tasted magnificent and wasn’t healthy in the least, and spent the night with a man that was quickly reminding me that the man I used to have wasn’t much of a man at all.
Chapter 5
I want to be a nice person, but people are just so stupid.
-Desi’s secret thoughts
Desi
There comes a time in life that one should just admit defeat.
Like right now.
I stared at the clock and inwardly groaned.
Five in the morning.
Five. In. The. Morning.
Who in their right mind got up willingly this early in the morning?
My phone chirped from the nightstand where I’d thrown it after turning off my alarm, and I looked at it hesitantly.
Then last night all came back to me.
Decorating the Valentine house with Codie, Callum, Ace, Banks, Darby and all the others.
Surprisingly, despite my worry earlier in the day after our lunch, I’d had a great time. Callum and I had picked out decorations for a tree at Codie’s house, and he hadn’t even blinked an eye at spending over three hundred dollars on ribbon and ornaments.
Even more surprisingly, he’d spent quite a bit of the time helping choose said ornaments.
After decorating, eating dinner there and laughing my ass off with Callum and his brothers, I’d known that Callum could be a changing point for me.
Smiling now instead of scowling, I rolled over and picked up my phone, grinning even wider when I saw Callum’s name on my phone.
Callum: This is your wake-up call. Hope you actually managed to set your alarm and wake up. Don’t make me come over there and pull you out of bed.
Mouth widening into a smile, I quickly typed out a reply.
Desi: I’m up, but I can tell you right now that my mood is a hell of a lot worse than it was yesterday. Not only am I tired, but I’m craving a bagel and cream cheese like nobody’s business. Even one of my cakes is sounding good.
Callum immediately replied.
Callum: You should look into making cakes that taste good but are good for you. Ones that have no artificial sweeteners in them and won’t force me to run four miles after I have a slice.
That was actually a really good idea.
Desi: What do you think the demand would be for those? I’ve actually considered it before. I was asked to make a wedding cake a year ago for a diabetic couple. It had about two carbs per slice and ended up being fairly tasty despite not being able to use the good stuff in the cake.
Callum: I’d buy one right now if it was available.
Last night I’d learned that Callum was diabetic. He’d had Type 1 diabetes since he was a young kid. And since he’d had such a high carb lunch, he’d practically had to shoot himself up with insulin later that night.
As I’d watched with surprise and a little bit of fear, he’d explained that although he was diabetic, his health didn’t stop him from indulging every once in a while.
Desi: I’ll make you one. I just have to figure out how to make my legs and hands work first. I’m not sure I’ll be good at this Spartan preparation thing. I want to literally die, and I haven’t even made it out of bed yet.