He’d suggested I visit him during the long summer holiday between first and second year. After weeks of slow replies to my messages and phone calls cut short, I was elated. I jumped on the next train over to his neck of the woods.
‘I visited him at his parents, and walked in on him fucking someone else.’
‘Aster.’ Callum’s face crumpled with sadness. ‘I’m sorry.’
I shook my head. ‘It was a long time ago. And maybe it was on me, at least in part. We never talked about what being in a relationship meant. I shouldn’t have assumed he was only sleeping with me.’
‘No, Aster.’ Callum took my hand, his thumb strong against the pulse point at my wrist. ‘He should have spoken to you if he was seeing other people. You’re not to blame for wanting to be exclusive.’
‘Mark didn’t make me feel that way.’ I dislodged Callum’s hand and pulled mine away. It wasn’t that I didn’t like him touching me—my skin protested the loss of his fingers as I drew my sleeves over my knuckles—but talking about this made me feel pathetic and sad. I didn’t want Callum touching me in pity, and that was the only way he could right now.
‘Anyway, I spent another two years alone.’ Let it not be said that I was incapable of wallowing. ‘Then one of my school friends, Jamie, came to my university to study for his master’s.’
Ah, Jamie. Impossibly cool, wildly intelligent but not a dick about it, a body he honed to perfection. I didn’t expecthim to look at me, let alone show any interest in getting all up on this.
‘One night, he was at the same party as me and Lucas. We chatted and, after Lucas left, I told him all about my breakup with Mark.’
Jamie had been kind. Maybe not self-sacrificingly kind like Callum, but Jamie at least put his hand on my shoulder when I got teary.
‘He suggested we have casual sex to get me over Mark, and at the time it seemed like a good idea.’ It never stopped seeming like a good idea, to be honest. Here was someone who I knew was a nice guy, who was model-level stunning, offering to have regular sexual congress with me. What twenty-two-year-old would say no to that?
‘We were at it for months. I didn’t make the same mistake I had with Mark, I made no assumptions, but Jamie was pretty open about only sleeping with me.’ I knotted my hands together to stop them skipping across my knees. ‘Anyway, we had sex one afternoon and as we were cleaning up, he said he was done with it all.’
Jamie was that casual. He’d stepped out of the shower after unloading in the soapy space between my thighs, and while he dried his hair he said he wasn’t interested in having sex with me any more. I’d turned towards the wall, embarrassed by my nudity as I absorbed the blow of his rejection.
‘I wasn’t heartbroken,’ I mused. ‘More pride-broken. Jamie had suggested this thing to help me out, and I hadn’t realised it could be so suddenly taken away. It made me feel like it meant nothing to him. And I didn’t want it to mean everything, you know? But I couldn’t have sex without having some kind of affection and friendly feeling.’
I sniffed, staring at my lap. Callum knew it all now. I’d been trampled again and again in the romantic sphere. It was unrealistic for me to expect anything else.
‘You’re scared you’ll get hurt again if we act on liking one another?’ Callum checked.
I huffed out a humourless laugh. ‘Duh. That’s what happens to me. I get close to people, at least romantically, and they stamp all over my heart.’
Not dramatic at all. But that didn’t stop it from being true.
‘Aster, will you look at me?’
I pouted down at my lap. I didn’t want to look at Callum. He knew all my embarrassing secrets now. No way the next words out of his mouth weren’t going to be some kind of take-backsies.
Reluctantly, I raised my head. I didn’t expect him to be smiling. It knocked the petulant scowl right off my face.
‘It’s alright to be afraid.’ Callum’s crinkled eyes didn’t leave mine. ‘I am too. But please don’t judge me by what other people have done. I would never use you for personal gain or play with your feelings. If we were together, even briefly for the rest of your time on the island, then you would be it. There would be no one else. And I don’t think I could casually call this off.’ He swallowed, his smile fading as his eyes darted nervously between mine. ‘I’ve wanted you from the first moment I saw you, and I’ll want you until the last.’
‘Fucking hell, Cal,’ I breathed, reeling from perhaps the longest speech he’d ever given. ‘Way to make a declaration.’
He was right; I shouldn’t judge him by what others had done. I shouldn’t assume that getting closer to Callum would hurt me, because he’d proven he would only treat me with the utmost care.
‘We know this thing has a time limit.’ As the words skipped merrily from my mouth, I had to wonder if I was making a huge mistake. But even if I was setting myself up for my biggest heartbreak yet, I didn’t think I could be around Callum any longer without boning him. Especially now I knew he was up for it. He’d been up for it since I’d arrived.
So. Many. Missed. Opportunities.
‘It does,’ Callum agreed. ‘I can’t leave the island, and you need to go back to London in a couple of months’ time.’
‘Exactly.’ I nodded eagerly. ‘We’re not wandering into this blindly. We have ground rules. We’re not going to get hurt.’
That last one felt like a lie even though nothing had started with Callum yet, but I didn’t want to stop what we were pushing into motion. Our time together might be limited, but I wanted to wring every morsel of closeness out of it that I could.
‘You want to do this?’ Callum reached his hand slowly across the space between our crossed legs.
