Ididn’t want this conversation to devolve into a bitter argument, even though it frustrated me beyond measure how she perceived our breakup. One of the reasons I’d decided to leave, not to stay and fight for her, was because I was pissed off that she didn’t even try to understand. She cut me out of her life. No mistakes, no errors, no wavering allowed.
That was her failure in our breakup.
Mine was walking away instead of fighting for her. But I was a kid, and I could give myself grace for that decision.
However, I was a man now.
“Drink?” I changed the subject.
“You got any whisky?” She surprised me by asking.
I raised a brow. “I have a bottle of Ardnoch.”
“My favorite. With ginger ale, if you have it.”
That made me smile. “I don’t.”
“Straight it is, then.”
As I poured us both a dram of my uncles’ whisky, I was aware of Callie looking around the flat as if in search of something. Finally, she took a seat on the couch and pulled her phone out of her clutch. I hated that my immediate concern was that she was texting some bloke. I despised being a jealous guy, and I felt like I’d been playing that role for seven years now.
“Just texting Eilidh to let her know we left.”
Shit. Though my sister had plenty of friends to keep her occupied, I hadn’t even thought to let her know I was leaving. I’d been concerned with chasing Callie. “Good shout, thanks.”
I handed her the whisky and sat down on the other end of the sofa, turning my back to the armrest so I could face her. Raising the glass, I said, “To reunions.”
She gave me a droll smile that didn’t reach her eyes but raised her glass too. “To reunions.”
We stared at each other as we sipped.
“Mmm. Your uncles don’t know how to be bad at anything, do they?” Callie murmured.
“Since when do you drink whisky?”
“I had a glass on my eighteenth. Took a liking to it, much to Mum’s surprise.”
Her eighteenth. Her birthday is August 2. Mine’s in March, so I’m only a few months older than her. We’d celebrated my eighteenth with an unsupervised party at Fyfe’s, and Callie and I had gotten drunk and had sex in Fyfe’s mum’s old room while everyone partied beyond the doors. For Callie’s eighteenth, my uncle Arran, the youngest of my uncles, had taken me to Inverness so I could get obliterated. We’d had a lot of whisky that night too. Dad had been furious when we returned the next morning with the worst hangover, but Uncle Arran must have talked to him because he got over his snit quickly.
It was the worst summer of my life, avoiding Callie before I left for London. Wondering if she was kissing someone else on her eighteenth birthday. But she’d asked Fyfe to her party, and everyone else in our class who was still in Ardnoch that summer. Fyfe said she didn’t kiss anyone else, and that she was sad, though she pretended she wasn’t.
“Where did you go just now?” Callie asked, brows pinched.
I shook my head. “Nowhere.”
She frowned but shrugged, taking another sip of her whisky. Her lips plumped over the rim of the glass and glistened with the amber liquid after her sip. I found myself licking my own lips at the memory of how soft her mouth felt beneath mine, on my skin, around my?—
“So …” She gestured around the room. “This seems like a nice part of London.”
Small talk. I could do small talk if that’s what she needed.
“Aye. Lucky to be blessed with a wealthy family,” I answered dryly. “Hopefully I’ll start earning enough to cover my own bills now, though.”
The corner of her mouth kicked up. “I hear that. Mum paid for me to go to school in Paris. There was no way I could afford it otherwise. But I’m hoping that what I’ve learned will benefit her, too, by benefiting the bakery.”
“Sometimes it makes me feel guilty. The money. The advantages. I have a friend. Sean. Really nice bloke. From Dublin. He was brought up in care, moved from foster home to foster home. Worked his arse off to go to UCL to study architecture and then had to work harder than any of us to stay here. The guy barely slept he had so many side jobs, just so he could afford the shitty flat he had to share with two other blokes, who were not good human beings.” I scrubbed a hand over my beard. “I asked him in third year to move in with me, that my rent was covered, so he couldfocus on class and the internships. He got so pissed off, saying he didn’t need the handout. It made me feel like a privileged arsehole.”
“I think it was a kind offer.”
