“Sometimes, the best way to start again is to set it all on fire, watch the baggage burn to the ground, and then build yourself up again,” he suggested.
“What the fuck does that mean?” I asked.
“It means, give her what she wants. Open up, let her in, give her the good, the bad, and the downright ugly, and if she can hack it, she’s the one. If she can’t, then she’s not, and it’s better to know now than later ‘cause mark my words, brother, your emotional baggage will come out eventually. It always does.”
“I wasn’t aware I had emotional baggage,” I protested.
Cal cocked an eyebrow at me. “Liar. You don’t let anyone in, not completely. That’s why you’ve never settled down with a girl. The thought of having to lay it all out there terrifies you. You’d rather shy away from being close to someone than let them see you, warts and all.” He shrugged. “I blame Da. You were sensitive as a kid, and he used to laugh at you, call you a pussy, and tell you to toughen up. It hurt you, so you did as he said, not to obey him, but to stop giving him the power to cause you pain. The Army was the perfect career for you ‘cause it enabled you to bury those feelings deep, encouraged it even, and it’s turned youinto an emotionally constipated motherfucker. It’s no wonder Rosie canned your ass.”
My eyes widened at him. “What the fuck?”
He shrugged and took another swig from his bottle. “Maeve talks about this shit all the time. Part-time brewer, part-time writer, part-time shrink. That’s my missus.”
He leaned his elbows on the bar in a classic bartender stance. “So, tell me what happened.”
My lips thinned at the memory. “She says I don’t let her in.”
“There’s gotta be more to it than that,” he argued.
“There isn’t,” I insisted. “Except, well...”
Callum tilted his head, waiting.
I took a breath and in a low voice blurted out, “We haven’t fucked yet.”
His head reared back, and his eyes rounded. “You’ve been together for weeks. I get you’d wanna take it slow to a point; this is your first relationship. But even I took less time to get Maeve in my bed, and we weren’t even really together at the time.”
I grimaced. “Well, when you put it that way?—”
“It’s not just that, brother,” he said, cutting me off. “Also... well, it’s Rosie Woods.”
“And?” I questioned.
His chin dipped, his eyes holding mine. “Have you seen her? And more to the point, have you seen her ass?”
“There’s more to her than her ass, Callum,” I bit out.
“Yeah, exactly,” he concurred. “There’s a lot more to her, and all of it good, which makes me even more confused. I mean, if Maeve had never been on the scene and I had a shot at Rosie Woods, even I would’ve had a rethink about my no-strings strategy. Did something happen in the last month that turned you gay? No judgment here, bro. I just want you to be you.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not gay.”
“Then why?” he demanded.
All eyes in the bar turned to us.
“You okay, bro?” Karma called over.
“Yeah,” Callum answered. “Karm, let me say a name, and I want you to give me an honest reaction.”
Karma nodded.
“Rosie Woods,” Cal said.
Karma clutched his hands to his heart and threw his head back. “Girl of my dreams, but unfortunately, she has a brother who’s my boss and now”—his eyes drifted toward me—“a man.”
“Would you hold off on the fucking if you were in a relationship with her?” my brother asked.
“Yeah,” Karm said dryly. “For all of two point four seconds.” His eyes slid to me and narrowed. “Don’t tell me you—” He paused briefly, his expression turning confused. “Are you secretly gay or something, cause you know these days, you can be whoever you wanna be, right? Though I’d be shocked considerin’ how one glimpse of Rosie Wood’s ass would turn Elton John straight.”
