“Does he?” His question was asked quietly, but it still made me flinch. “Lewis …” He reached out and patted my knee. “I wish it wasn’t true, but you’ve been through so much already, losing your mum a big part of that. You hold on to people so fiercely, and I admire that about you. But I don’t want your fear of losing people to stop you from living. You’re fifteen. If you want Callie to be your first girlfriend, you should not let the fear of losing her friendship get in the way. Life is too short, son.”
Guilt suffused me. “What if … what if she doesn’t want me now, anyway? What if I did something?”
“Like what?”
I saw Callie’s hurt face over and over in my mind. “We were all at Fyfe’s birthday party last weekend.” Fyfe lived with his mum, and she wasn’t around a lot. Whenever we wanted to hang out without parental supervision, we went to Fyfe’s, even though his place was small. His eighteen-year-old neighbor and her friends dropped by with some beer. I got a bit drunk and got talking to her. We were in the back garden, talking one minute, and the next she was kissing me. “I got off with this older girl who was there.”
Dad raised an eyebrow. “Got off as in …”
“Just kissing, Dad.”
“Right. And Callie found out?”
She’d interrupted us. I nodded, swallowing hard against the guilt. The hurt on her face had killed me. I felt like I’d cheated on her, and we weren’t even dating.
“But you don’t like this other girl?”
I shook my head vehemently. “Shekissed me, and I didn’t … stop it. But I don’t like her. I love—” I cut off.
Dad was good enough not to give me a patronizing smile. “You love Callie?” he asked seriously.
That panic in my chest flared.
I nodded.
“Not dating her isn’t going to change that, Lew. You either give it a chance and risk losing her … or it seems like you lose her for definite if you don’t. You’re at that age where her boyfriend will become the person she spends all of her time with.”
“What if she’s too mad at me to give me a chance?”
Dad grinned. “Callie Ironside thinks the sun rises and sets with you, son. That doesn’t go away because of one moment of hurt. You can apologize and tell her the truth.”
“You really think so?”
“I know so.”
That nervous agitation thrummed through me again. “Will you give me a lift to her place?”
“Now?”
I nodded. “I want to be there when she gets back from … her date.”
Dad sighed but stood up. “Okay. But what about Michael?”
The thought of hurting my pal didn’t sit right with me either, but he’d gone out with Callie, knowing what it might do to our friendship … so fair play and all that. “We’ll figure it out later. Callie’s more important.”
“Get your shoes on, then.”
Callie’s mum, Sloane Ironside, could very well pass for Callie’s big sister. In more ways than physical appearance. They bothhad this optimism and goodness that radiated from them, which was amazing, considering everything they’d been through.
When she opened the door to find me on her doorstep, Mrs. Ironside gave me a sympathetic, knowing smile. I was also sure I saw relief in her eyes as she stepped aside to let me in.
Mr. Ironside was a different story. Callie’s dad never said much because he didn’t need to. He could terrify a bloke just by looking at them.
We sat in awkward silence as I waited for Callie to come home.
Then Mr. Ironside broke the silence. “Better you than Barr, I suppose.”
For Ironside, that was almost a blessing. Mrs. Ironside seemed to think so because she gave me an encouraging smile.
