As if she’s reading my brain, her joke turns exactly to that. “How many guys have you fucked?”
The crowd both gasps and bursts out laughing, because it’s really bold of her to ask that.
My lips form into a shit-eating grin because I’m no coward. I’m not going to let Sabrina embarrass me, though Scott will get an earful later. My roommate already looks embarrassed and afraid because he knows my wrath.
“One.” I cross my arms over my chest as I shout it and enunciate the syllable.
“So, we’ve got a liar. What is it they say, you add three to any number a girl says, and subtract three from any number a guy says?”
She stole that from American Pie, but I’m not a liar.
“Actually, I’ve only ever fucked one guy. Sorry my sex life doesn’t work with your joke, honey.”
“Actually, it does.” She gives me a saccharine smile, like she’s mocking me and I’m the dumbest bitch she’s ever encountered. “It’s a good lesson; never judge the prude by her leather jacket.”
That joke lands and every person in the place is laughing at me. My cheeks grow hot and my hands begin to sweat. Looking around the table at my friends, they’re all smiling but look extremely uncomfortable, even Scott. At least he mouths me an “I’m sorry.”
The laughs continue and I can’t sit here anymore. It feels like the entire crowd is branding me with hot pokers, the shame burning as it passes through my body. I’m standing all of a sudden, not giving a shit what anyone or that bitch on stage feels about me. It’s been hard to sit here, feet from Callum, all night and I won’t be the butt of a joke and continue to smile along.
“Uh oh, looks like we hurt Sons of Anarchy Barbie’s feelings,” I hear Sabrina mock me as I stomp out of the club.
I reach the door and push; the night assaulting me with its cold fingers. October is nearly here and the dismal temperatures of a New York winter are almost upon us. Lotso’s Laugh Room is in a random part of town, toward the side of the tracks we never really venture to. I should call an Uber to get out of here, since Gannon drove me, but I can’t seem to pull out my phone. Like it might be mocking me to when I finally unlock it.
Instead, I sink to the cold pavement, leaning on the crusty building in this shitty part of town.
The door creaks open and I shrink myself into the wall, not wanting to be seen by whoever just witnessed my humiliation inside. But when a pair of black sneakers stop in front of me, I know I’m in even deeper dangerous territory than I would be with someone who doesn’t know me.
“You okay?” Callum kneels down but doesn’t touch me.
The click in his jaw, that protective instinct radiating off him, has me clawing to be in his arms. That look has always been one of my favorites.—the tough, silent guy act where he juts his chin up and lodges his tongue in his cheek. Like he might gut punch anyone who looked in my direction wrong.
“Fine.” I snort sardonically, tears clogging my throat.
“A bitch makes fun of you on some stage and you get riled? You really aren’t the girl I once knew.” He goes for humor but it doesn’t hit.
“I don’t laugh when it comes to calling me names. I swing. Or at least I used to. Unfortunately. I just fucking hate people poking fun at the fact that I’m not a slut. But would it have been better if I stood up and announced to the whole room how hot our sex life was? That you gave me great dick and I hadn’t needed to go elsewhere?”
When I say that, Callum’s eyes heat from molten to lava. I see the irises dilate in real time, and everything south of my waist begs for him to haul me to him right now. I stand when he does, and now we’re almost chest to chest. My back is against the building and I have nowhere to run. Not that I would.
“You haven’t been with anyone else?” He doesn’t seem to buy my story I told in there.
“You admitted you haven’t been either, is it really that surprising?” I cross my arms over my chest, the night turning colder as the air whips through my hair.
“I just thought you would have. You’re …”
“What are you calling me, Callum, a whore? First, I’m a prude, and now I’m a whore.” What little is left of my prickly, frigid heart completely collapses.
“I was going to say stunning. Stunning.” He breathes the words like reverence, and it blows across my lips.
The air has shifted, we both notice it. Callum’s hand raises, almost of its own volition, and then he drops it down. Like he knows he shouldn’t touch me but his body is reacting otherwise.
“Don’t say these things to me.” I squeeze my eyes shut and press my palms sharply into them. “God, have I dreamed about hearing them. Since we broke up, I’ve laid awake wondering if I’d ever hear them again. But then you follow those beautiful words up with statements that you don’t want me, that you hate loving me. That you can’t wait to graduate so you never have to see me again. You love me and don’t know what to do about it? I’ve never stopped. I’ve never stopped loving you, not for a second. So don’t say those things to me unless you can stand by them. Unless you’re going to do something about it.”
Everything in this universe stills. I think even my blood stops pumping and my lungs stop working, because I feel suspended. For a whole beat, I’m absolutely sure that Callum is going to kiss me. That he might even take me here, beside this building, just to prove Sabrina wrong. Prove to the whole world that you can only ever love one man and it will be more than enough. That it will be the kind of passion to burn a thousand galaxies to the ground.
“Fuck. I want to. I want to so badly. But we’re us, baby.”
Baby. The nickname makes my knees buckle.
“We’re us, and it ended so terribly last time.”
“But we’re us,” I argue, though my voice is small.
“And that’s why I’m standing here trying to punch my urges in the face. You’re stunning, and you didn’t deserve that tonight. But still, I can’t.”
Disappointment is a swift, biting motherfucker.
“Are you going home?” he asks, glossing over the fact he just punched my heart again.
“Yes.” I straighten and sidestep him, gulping in air.
When I finally turn, Callum isn’t outside anymore. It’s probably best for both of us that he removed himself. Whatever would have been said after this point would only lead to more arguments and anger.
17
CALLUM
What the fuck am I doing?
I think I’ve gone temporarily insane with all the shit I’ve been stirring up with Bevan. I’ve been berating her about being the one who ended us, about causing drama, about hating that I was still attracted to her.
Then, all in one week, I told her I love her, that she’s stunning, and went to protect her from that bitchy comedian. I was doing a bang-up job of keeping away from her.
“You burning the midnight oil?” Robert comes into the office he has loaned me now that I’m student teaching.
“Something like that.” I look at the clock, and it’s four hours after the school day has ended.