Haggard, surprised by the arrival of a girl, looked at me with curious eyes.
“Callum,” I whispered when Haggard finally looked away to go back to the hot dogs he was grilling.
He looked up and stared at me with surprise.
Okay, I’d been gone a long time.
There was no denying what I’d been doing.
Even worse, now I had a dilemma that only he could help solve.
I moved around the chair he was sitting in and went to his side.
“Yeah?” he asked, pulling me in by the back of my thigh.
God, he was hard.
Not ‘there’ hard. But body-wise, he was hard.
All over.
He didn’t have any fat on him whatsoever, and he had muscles on top of muscles.
Jesus, I didn’t want to tell him.
But I couldn’t let someone else find that.
No way.
I bit my lip, really, really, not wanting to tell him why I needed help.
But in the end, I knew that I couldn’t leave it in there. They would all know.
Then the news would spread.
At least, owning up to my mistake, they would know that I didn’t purposefully try to leave it and not do anything about it.
“I need a plunger,” I whispered.
Callum’s eyes met mine and they were shining with mirth.
“Um, what? Could you repeat that?” he requested, squeezing the back of my thigh a little harder now.
Oh, he’d heard me all right.
I punched him in the shoulder as he tried in vain not to smile.
“This isn’t funny,” I hissed at him. “I’m having a traumatic experience.”
And I was, too.
I was trying to make a good impression here. With him and his family. How was taking a shit and clogging the toilet making a good impression?
Eyes still sparkling, he leaned up and over before he pressed his mouth to mine, slowly to the point where I started to squirm. “I know. I’m sorry for teasing you.”
And he was, too.
When he pulled back, I could see the sorrow in his eyes.
“Come on.” He caught my hand and led me into his mother’s bedroom where he then went into the bathroom and stopped beside the toilet.
When he turned around, he had the oddest-looking plunger in his hand.
“What the hell?” I asked, looking at it.
He jerked his head toward the bathroom that I’d come out of earlier, then started to step inside.
“NO!” I called out, inevitably drawing everyone’s attention in the living room and kitchen my way. “I’ll do it!”
“Honey,” Callum’s mom called out. “If he has that plunger, it means that the toilet is stopped up again. Literally, it happens twice a week. If not more. It’s like the people of trailer park city decided to grace us with small shitter pipes or something, because everyone in this house, even my little grandchildren over there, has clogged it up. Trust me when I say, forcing shit down that toilet is something that happens on a regular basis.”
It didn’t matter.
I just couldn’t do it.
Nope. No. Nuh-uh.
“I’ll do it.” I wrapped my hand around the plunger.
I could handle plunging a toilet.
I’d done it myself about half a dozen times as an adult.
“I don’t mind.” He didn’t let go of the plunger.
I narrowed my eyes and said, “I. Do.”
He rolled his eyes and finally let go of the plunger, and I disappeared into the bathroom to take care of business.
When I was finished, I put the plunger in the clean toilet and flushed it a few times over the top of it before I shook it off in the bowl and put it down next to the toilet.
When I was done, I washed my hands and came out of the bathroom to find the entire room watching me.
My face immediately flamed.
“Get that shit flushed down, doll?” Derringer asked.
I licked my lips and said, “Yes, sir.”
He winked at me. “Welcome to the family.”
CHAPTER 14
Is he intimidating, or are you intimidated? There’s a difference.
-Bram to Teller, talking about Shine
SHINE
“I really like your family.”
I grinned at her words.
She was pleasantly drunk, and I was loving the hell out of it.
Well, she had been. Since I’d been pouring water and coffee in her for the last hour, she’d sobered up.
She’d been so carefree and happy, in fact, that I didn’t stop her wandering hands once that night.
Tomorrow, she’d likely feel embarrassed that she was all over me in front of my family.
But today, there was no embarrassment. Just touching.
Touching that I really fucking liked.
“Come on,” I urged as I walked us to my bike. “You ready to go?”
She sighed. “I guess so. I forgot about something I had to do tomorrow. I was reminded a few minutes ago when you were saying goodbye to your mom.”
I instantly disliked her words. I didn’t want to let her go if I didn’t have to.
Which was worrying, because the last time I cared about someone this much, it ended up biting me on the ass.
I tilted my head down to look at her. “Oh yeah? What is it that you have to do?”
She kicked a rock that was in her way, and then promptly tripped over said rock in the next instant.
She cursed cutely before saying, “First, doctor’s appointment. Then, I have to go to my parents’. Tomorrow is my dad’s birthday, and I promised I’d drive over for the day before I have to go back to work on Sunday.”
My stomach clenched at the thought of her leaving.
She’d be gone for days this time.
“Bummer,” I grumbled as I picked up her helmet and put it on her head. “How long is this hitch?”
She sighed. “Only down and back. But it’s a long flight. Six hours. A two-hour layover, and then six hours right back. I have a half a day rest before I fly out that night to New York, stay there a day, and then fly back. Then I’ll have three days off.”
So she’d be gone all weekend.
That fucking blew.
“Damn,” I grumbled. “But are you sure you don’t want to stay the night with me?”
She laughed. “I wish I could. But I need to pack, wash my uniforms, and feed my animals.”
“Feed your animals?” I asked.
“I have a cat… and an iguana. Polka, my cat, has a continuous feeder, but I’ll still need to fill it up today or he won’t have enough to get him through the weekend,” she admitted. “And my iguana… well, he eats nonstop, but I can stock him up today, and he should be okay.”
I pursed my lips. “Invite me over to yours.”
Her lips turned up into the sweetest smile I’d seen yet. “Callum, do you want to come over to my apartment and spend the night with me?”
Fuck yes, I did.
“Yes.” I hesitated. “Unless it’s going to cause trouble with the ex…”
I wasn’t too sure if it would cause Teller to get pissed off, but more so, I didn’t like the fact that it might cause her any extra grief when she most certainly didn’t need it.
She rolled her eyes. “I think that it’s time to stop worrying about what’ll bother our exes—and me moving on so fast after him definitely will bother him—but I’m done living for someone else. I’m starting a new chapter in life. One that’ll have me focusing on what makes me happy. And that’s you.”