Two days back in New York and I’d already returned Callum’s life to chaos. How could I even blame him for being wary of me?
“You good?” When Oz called out, I snapped my head up to see Callum exiting the building with Isabel and Logan, both of them looking rattled to their cores. One glance at their faces and I knew to look down at Callum’s fist. His left. My hand covered my mouth when I saw his knuckles dripping a neat trail of blood onto the sidewalk.
“We’re good.” His voice was tight as he replied to his friend. We made eye contact but he fell back to let Isabel run to the window. Oz opened the door for her and she threw her arms around me.
“I’m so sorry,” she breathed. “I shouldn’t have let you come. I thought it’d be okay for you to see Theo. I swear he’s gotten better, but Nick… ”
“It’s not your fault,” I assured her, albeit shakily. I grabbed her hands. “Isabel, tell me what happened in there.”
“I didn’t see. I only heard the screaming and the glass breaking, but it’s over – the whole party. Security shut it down. We just need to leave now before Nick and them come out. Callum says you’re going home with him tonight, okay?”
I blinked with surprise. “I – what?”
“That’s okay, right?”
“Of course, I just – ”
“I’m going to call you tomorrow. Okay, babe?”
“Okay,” I blinked, letting her kiss my cheek and say sorry a dozen hasty times more before leaving with Logan. Then, in silence, Callum got into the front seat of the car, leaving me alone in the back as Oz drove us away.
Chapter Six
Lake
Oz dropped us off in front of a polished, black building in TriBeCa. It looked at least twelve floors, its penthouse wrapped with a sleek, glass balcony. Through it, I could see peeks of garden flowers and saffron umbrellas. It looked nothing like it but reminded me of the penthouse across the street from the townhouse I grew up in with Callum. It was atop one of those shiny new condos and as kids, we used to stare longingly out the window at it. It had a similar balcony and was owned by some older, obscenely wealthy bachelor. At least twice a week, we’d watch him throw lavish parties with cocktail servers handing out flutes of champagne and beautiful people splashing in his enormous pool. One night, we watched him go into his apartment with two willowy girls and leave the blinds open as they climbed into bed.
“I’ll have a penthouse like that someday,” Callum had said. When I snorted, he challenged me. “Wanna bet I will?”
“Sure.”
“What do you want to bet?”
I didn’t actually doubt that he’d become rich on his own and buy a penthouse someday, but the reality seemed so far away that I just smirked and said, “Infinite dares.”
His eyes had lit up like he’d won the jackpot in Vegas. “I’m holding you to that.”
“Go ahead.”
I wanted to smile when I thought about how long ago that was. His voice hadn’t even changed yet and he was the same height as me, our eyes at the same exact level. Riding the elevator in silence, indeed to the penthouse floor, I studied Callum. He was still rigid, drying blood off his knuckles. He was decided about avoiding my gaze. I couldn’t help wondering what was about to happen. Whether he remembered that conversation we had in seventh grade and how much of us he had really managed to forget.
I didn’t stop wondering, especially as he led me out of the elevator and directly into his sprawling apartment. It screamed of his taste – spacious, neat and modern with dark hardwood floors as polished and shiny as the floor-to-ceiling windows that made up most of the wall space. He clicked a button on a remote to bring the blinds down. My breath shortened as I watched him lift his chin and pinch the knot of his tie. His eyes finally settled on me as he loosened the black silk. A chill licked over my skin when he yanked it off his neck with the sound of a whip.
“You’re not staying at Isabel’s anymore,” he broke the silence evenly. “You’re staying here from now on.”
I wasn’t going to argue. I just wanted to know why. “And the reason for that is?”
“It’s not a good idea for you to be there. I know Nick and Theo and they’re both going to want to talk to you after tonight, whether it’s to harass you or apologize, and they have all the access they want to you if you’re there. They’ll waltz right into that apartment with their dad living there, so to keep you out of the line of fire, you’re staying here.”
I nodded, watching him lay the tie out on the back of a leather chair. “I take it we’re nixing this whole forgetting that we ever existed thing.”
Callum’s eyes were none too amused as he looked at me. “Yes.”
I waited for him to elaborate but he didn’t. I took time to muster up the courage for what I was about to say. “You know I want to be near you, Callum. All the time. But I won’t stay here if you’re not actively trying.”
“Trying what?”
“To forgive me. I don’t want to stay and be a burden that’ll make you increasingly bitter. I want to know that while I’m here, you’ll be trying to give me a second chance. I’m still me, Callum. I’m still the same girl you grew up with and I know it’s going to take time for us to be us again but it’s better than giving up before we start. We’ll just have to work on it. Actively.” My tone was steady despite the nerves ravaging my stomach throughout my speech. I was confident in what I had to say – it was just the way Callum looked that was making my heart pound. His blue eyes burned through me as I stood in the very middle of his sprawling apartment, smack dab in between the foyer, the kitchen and the living room. The longer the silence went on, the more I felt like I was stranded at sea, floating farther away from him, losing more and more hope.