“I should also mention, full disclosure, that Calum is Asher’s father.”
“Well, duh, we already knew that,” Holly laughed, rolling her eyes in jest. “I mean, look at the two of them!” Shelly nodded vigorously with wide eyes, verifying she’d suspected it all along, too.
I pressed my lips together. “Okay, awesome. So, we’re all on the same page. Hen session over. Back to work, girls.”
Holly tilted her chin in acceptance and strolled over to the café, and Shelly returned to the front table to set up her picks for this week’s staff recommendation table. The store was quiet this morning—not uncommon for dreary April mornings. Music spilled softly from speakers, and I took a moment just to breathe.
I still had a lot to do, and I was behind on everything already with our super late start. But my mind was too scrambled to focus, so I headed into the back room to deposit my purse, aware of Ellery trailing behind me.
Pausing to punch in the code, I spared a glance over my shoulder. My wicked friend shot me an innocent smile like she hadn’t encouraged our younger employees’ spy break.
Shaking my head and huffing, I pushed the door open and moved toward the office. I shrugged my coat off, hanging it up on the hook by the door, thoughts adrift, recalling the kiss my colleagues just witnessed.
I tried to muster up the irritation at Cal for kissing me so recklessly, but—this was Cal. This is how we’d always been—this was exactly what I’d craved so desperately. The kind of love that only he seemed to offer.
And man…he’d delivered.
“Why are you smiling like that?” Ellery smirked, tilting her head.
“I’m not.” I stopped immediately, having been unaware of action—traitorous lips.
“Oh, but you were,” my friend’s eyes gleamed with delight. “It’s kind of this weird tiny smile? Like you’re thinking about something naughty, like naughty fun. Spill, or I’ll ban you from caffeine.”
“You can’t do that. Not after the morning I just had!” I whined, practically stomping my foot. I hadn’t had a single sip of caffeine yet, and I needed to rectify that immediately.
And the reason for my extreme exhaustion? My thoughts had no sooner recalled his name before my core clenched and my cheeks heated.
“Sure, I can. You don’t know how to work the machine.” She pointed out dryly. “Now stop stalling and give me the deets. How did the dinner go?”
“Really good.” I bit my lip, remembering. “They got along great.” I choked on that last part, overcome with emotion. Clearing my throat, I continued. “We also spent Sunday with him. He picked us up after Asher’s piano lesson.”
“What’d you do?” My friend’s interest was fully piqued now, and there was no way I was escaping without giving her details. Moving around my desk, I pulled out my chair and sank down onto it.
“We went out for lunch, and he took us to see the house he just bought.”
“Holy shit.” Whatever she’d been expecting me to say, it hadn’t been that. She sank down on the couch in front of the desk. “I mean, I guess he can do that, being as loaded as he is, but still. He bought a house? That’s…big.”
“Tell me about it,” I glanced around the office space, looking anywhere but at my friend directly. “Asher wanted him to come back to our house, and he did. He stayed…late. We…talked.”
“Sothat’swhat they’re calling it these days!” Ellery interrupted, her eyes sparkling with mirth. I leveled her with a look. “What, you’re not even going to try to deny it? You’ve got that freshly laid look about you, and you had a clusterfuck of a morning—which tells mesomebodykept you up late and threw you off that rigorous schedule of yours. After your little display out front…I’ve got one guess on who.”
Laughter bubbled over, and I shook my head. “What can I say? It’s hard to resist something you know is going to feel amazing.”
“Touché,” she laughed. “I approve of this look. This…glowy look.”
“I don’t have a glowy look,” I rolled my eyes. “Anyway, that’s notallthat happened.”
“Uh, oh!” Ellery’s eyes widened.
“He said he wanted us to move in with him.”
“What’d you say?”
“No, obviously,” I wrinkled my nose, not with distaste—it’d be a lie to pretend a part of me didn’t wanteverythingCalum mentioned last night—but out of confusion at my own conflicting feelings. Love and betrayal tangled but eased with each moment Cal waspresent. “But I wanted to say yes. Does that make me an idiot?”
“No. Did it occur to you that you want this because it’s right? For everyone? Think about it, in all the years I’ve known you, you’ve quietly pined for him, yearned for him, even if you didn’t talk about it and pretended that you didn’t. His ghost blockedeveryguy you attempted to move on with.Nobodymade it past that first kiss.”
The silence in the office was deafening.
