“Callum, it’s so nice to finally meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Only the good stuff, I hope,” he replied smoothly, shaking her hand with a polite smile. “How was your flight?”
“Oh, it was fine,” she said, giving me a pointed glance. “I’m going to watch Brody tonight. You and Callum should go out. Enjoy yourselves.”
I blinked. “Wait, what?”
She waved her hand dismissively after withdrawing it from Callum’s. “You need a night off and I need to spend some time with my grandson. Besides, it’ll give you two a chance to talk freely and to work things out, hmm?”
I swallowed hard, my cheeks warming. I knew this was about her wanting me to tell Callum the truth, but I still had no ideahow. My heart hammered against my ribs, excitement and fear tangling together.
Callum nodded. “I’d like that. What do you say, Mais? Night out on the town?”
I held that blue gaze for a long moment, but Mom’s subtle push had already set things in motion. Things I wasn’t sure I was ready to confront. But I knew I couldn’t avoid it anymore either. Tonight would be the first time I would have an actual opportunity to tell him, without fear of interruption or of being overheard.
“Yeah,” I finally said, knowing that my time to hesitate had run out. “I’d like that. Let’s do it.”
CHAPTER 25
CALLUM
Downtown was chaos in the best possible way. The Halloween festival had taken over half the waterfront, turning it into a blur of lights and costumes. Pumpkin-shaped lanterns bobbed above the crowd. Music from the band playing on a makeshift stage clashed with the thump of bass coming from somewhere in the distance.
It had been ages since I’d attended anything like this, but with Maisie by my side, it felt electric to be back. I grinned and glanced down at her, wondering if she would have preferred a quiet, romantic restaurant for the one-night reprieve of responsibility provided by her mother.
“What do you think?” I asked, loudly enough to be heard above the music and the telltale hiss of fryers and grills working overtime.
Her head kept turning to catch every little thing, her eyes sharp, but an awed, almost childlike smile was on her lips. Finally, she lifted those green eyes to mine. “I love it.”
As I grinned, I paused to buy a skewer of grilled corn dripping with butter and she gave me a look that was half amusement, half wonder. “We’ve been here ten minutes and you’ve had, what, three snacks already? How?”
I held up the corn, bringing it closer to my mouth, but not biting into it just yet. “I have the metabolism of an athlete. It comes with the territory.”
She arched an eyebrow at me. “You’re not skating six hours a day anymore, Callum. You can’t keep using that as an excuse.”
“I can,” I said around a mouthful of juicy corn. “Watch me.”
She laughed, shaking her head, and we kept walking. Every other booth called to me, the churros tossed in cinnamon sugar, the dumplings steaming in bamboo baskets, and even caramel apples lined up like shiny jewels.
Every time I stopped, Maisie pretended she was going to keep walking, only to circle back and steal a bite. She licked chocolate off her fingers after swiping my last mini doughnut. “Do you know what your problem is?”
“I didn’t order enough food for two?”
“Exactly.” She smirked and nudged me with her shoulder. “You’re predictable.”
“That’s rich coming from you, Ms. I-usually-stick-with-wine,” I countered. “Even back at college, you always had a protein bar in one hand and a water bottle in the other. Whenever I saw you in the student lounge, I’d just think,there’s poor Maisie, living off almonds again.”
Her mouth fell open in mock outrage. “Excuse me, I ate actual meals.”
“Barely,” I teased. “Diver metabolism, right? It’s just not quite the same as ours.”
“What, because I wasn’t a real athlete?” She laughed, and for a second, the sound transported me right back to campus, the scent of chlorine clinging to her hair, the air in the rink cold enough to sting my lungs.
We’d circled each other back then, both just a little too busy, a little too stubborn, and apparently, too chicken shit to admitto the other what we wanted. I leaned against a railing while she tried a candied pecan from a sample tray.
“Nah,” I said. “You were a real athlete. Shit, I’m pretty sure you put in more hours than even we did.”
She pumped her eyebrows at me. “Let me clear that up for you so you don’t just have to bepretty sureanymore. I totally put in more hours than you.”
