At least, that’s what I thought, but still, my traitorous eyes started to tear up, anyway—like they failed to get the memo my mind had. I set my phone down, trying to push the tears back, not wanting to cry, for I knew that if I let the tears fall, my focus would be shot and I’d do nothing but wallow for the rest of the day.
I cried a lot, but I was smart enough to know I should never cry about a guy, especially one I wasn’t even dating. Not technically.
What were we doing? If we weren’t dating, we had to be doing something.
Ugh, either way, did it matter? Calum was obviously done with me, and Mason…Mason would get tired of me, too. No one would ever want to stick around. I wasn’t worth it.
I closed my eyes, leaning my head on my desk. I remained there for a while, a long while, and as I stayed there with my head bent, I struggled to get my emotions under control. It sucked, because I knew this would happen from the beginning. I’d told myself not to get emotionally involved, and what did I do? I went and let my heart get the better of me, anyways. Stupid, stupid. How could I have been so stupid?
When I finally lifted my head, I saw that I had a missed call from Calum, and I wondered if he somehow knew I was thinking about him. If, subconsciously, he knew I was giving up, trying to cut myself off from the source and protect the fragile heart residing in my chest.
Or maybe he was just calling me to say goodbye.
I guess I would never know, because he hadn’t left a voicemail. With a sigh, I grabbed my phone and tossed it off my desk. It landed on my bed with a small bounce, too far from my fingertips to be of any use to me. Out of sight, out of mind. That’s what they said, wasn’t it?
Nope. Wrong.
A soft knock echoed on my door, and I didn’t get up from my desk. Figuring it was my mom, I said, “I’m studying. Go away.” But she didn’t. I heard the hinges on my door creak open as she pushed inside, and I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping I could fake it long enough for her to believe it and get the hell out. Privacy, and all that.
But when I turned around on my chair to give her a smile and kindly ask her to leave, I realized it wasn’t my mom.
It was…Calum?
I swore, my heart nearly stopped in my chest when I saw his handsome face. His blonde hair had just gotten cut, so he looked a little dorky, but still a ridiculous sort of attractive. A bit of near-white stubble rested on his jaw, and he gave me a tiny smile as he shut the door behind him, stepping inside, acting as if nothing at all was wrong.
“Bree,” he said, flashing me his pearly whites. “I have to say, I thought you’d be a little more excited.”
I probably sounded stupid, but all I could do was say, “Calum. What are you doing here?” My back hurt because I was so twisted in my seat, my fingers curling around the back of the chair so tightly my knuckles were white.
Calum shrugged. “I wanted to surprise you, but it looks like you don’t want me here, so maybe I’ll just go—”
What happened next was a blur. One moment I was sitting there, staring at him, questions racing through my head, and the next I was up, walking to him in a daze, practically slamming my body against his wide, strong chest. His jacket was unzipped, allowing me to grab hold of the fabric of his shirt under it, bury my face against it and breathe him in.
He was here. He wasn’t ignoring me or trying to leave me; he was only trying to surprise me. I didn’t know what to think about that. This almost felt like a dream. A strange, hyper-realistic dream that I never wanted to wake from.
His arms were slow to wrap around me, holding me tight, and I heard the thrum of his voice in his chest as he asked, “So, I can stay?”
I nodded against him, too speechless to beg. I was at that point, you know—where I’d beg this man to stay, plead with him to not go back. If that made me pathetic, if it made me stupid because this could never last…then I guess I was the most pathetic and stupid of them all.
Calum’s arms squeezed me once before letting me go, though he didn’t release me entirely. His hands went to my arms, as if he was afraid to let me go. His sapphire gaze bore into me, holding a dozen emotions I could hardly begin to describe. “I missed you,” he murmured.
Was it weird to feel my body ache when he said that? I had no idea. “I missed you, too,” I replied, watching as he bent his tall frame down and lowered his head to mine. My eyes closed the moment he kissed me, and it was just as sweet and warm as I remembered.
When his lips were pulled off mine, I gazed up at him and said, “You should’ve told me you were coming.” I could’ve showered. I was looking a little ratched right now…though, in all honesty, that’s how I looked every day. It’s just that I was now starting to care about how I looked, at least to Calum and Mason.
“And miss the surprise on your face? Never.” Calum smiled as he stepped back, taking off his jacket and laying it across the foot of my bed. His head tilted as he meandered to my desk, glancing at what I had out. A textbook, along with my notebook—a notebook that was full of doodles, but I would argue that I still paid attention in class better than half of the other kids. “What are you working on? That group project you have with Mason?”
He didn’t sound as jealous as Mason did when he brought Calum up, and I wondered if he didn’t view Mason as competition. If he wasn’t worried at all about it, if he thought he had me in the bag. He never told me to not hang out with Mason, but at the same time, he also didn’t know how close Mason and I were.
Last night…he knew nothing about my date with Mason last night.
“No,” I said, feeling my cheeks heat up as I went to close the textbook. “I have an exam in another class next week, so I was doing a bit of studying.” It was right then when I wondered if I should tell Calum about my date with Mason last night—not every detail of it, but just the fact that he’d had me over, and we spent time alone not working on the project.
Would he be angry? Would he be jealous? I already knew Mason was beyond jealous when it came to Calum.
But as I looked back to Calum, no words formed in my throat, nothing at all to tell him about last night. I just couldn’t do it. Call me weak, call me useless, call me a scaredy-cat. Whatever. If I was a bad person for not telling him, then I guess that’s what I would be.
Calum spent the rest of the day with me. We lounged around my room, talking and cuddling, and then he took me out to dinner later that night. Mom was thrilled to see him again, though Dad kept his emotions close to his chest. Even though he already had a daughter who’d been dating for what felt like ever, it was somehow different with me.
It always was.
I was the first-born. I was their pride and joy. It was different to watch me go out with a guy than it was to watch Michelle do it. Don’t ask me why; parents were a mystery I could not decipher.
We ended the night on the front porch, sitting in the dying daylight and holding hands as we talked. I’d put on a hoodie before we left for dinner, but even that wasn’t enough to shield the cold air. Winter would be here soon, and even colder weather would follow. One thing I hated about living here: the eternally changing seasons.
“Trent made himself scarce,” Calum was busy saying, opening up about how his return to home had been. I’d made it a point not to ask him, because I didn’t want to seem too worried about him going back, even though I totally was. If he wanted to tell me, he would. I would not force him. I wasn’t like that. “I barely saw him in the office, and anytime I was home, he made it a point not to be there. I have no idea how long that’s going to last, but I’m enjoying it.” He tossed me a smile, though I could tell it was strained.