“Oh.” Carianne stepped back like I might be contagious. “Okay. Well … are … are we okay?”
Everything that had happened in the last few weeks crashed down on me.
The villagers, people I’d grown up around, talking shit, trying to make me feel bad for going off and experiencing life and the world. Gossiping in front of their kids and saying things they shouldn’t overhear, only for it to be repeated with the sole purpose of tormenting my wee brother.
And me just smiling and bearing it because I wanted everyone to like me, to accept me, to love me.
Look where that had gotten me! Stressed out of my mind trying to make the bakery work, leaving my parents’ house out of necessity rather than want, and agreeing that it would be wrong of me to be pissed off if my friend dated my ex-boyfriend.
I pushed off the wall and glowered at her. “No, Carianne, we’re not okay. Don’t come around me anymore. I don’t want to see you.”
“Callie!” Carianne called after me, audaciously sounding shocked. “Callie, don’t be like that.”
“Fuck you,” I replied without heat. “And fuck Lewis Adair too.”
I let the bakery door slam shut behind me.
Mum gaped, clearly having heard my last words.
I shrugged, like I wasn’t in incredible emotional pain. “Carianne asked Lewis out, and he said yes.”
Anger darkened Mum’s face. “Are you kidding me?”
“Nope.” I tugged hurriedly at the knotted tie on my apron. “Do you mind if I leave early? I could do with a walk.”
“Of course. Can … can I do anything?”
“Nope.”
“Callie—”
“I feel like I can only trust you and Dad right now,” I choked out. “I was supposed to come back here and be happy. Safe and happy. Like always. And right now, I would give anything to be back in Paris. Anything.” Maybe the postcard from Gabriel this morning just made me long for a simpler place. A place where the connections I made had been shallow, easy, uncomplicated. No one had wormed their way into my heart, friends or lovers. Right now, that seemed like the answer. Because if you only cared on a superficial level, no one could hurt you.
That evening, I dragged myself to Thurso for my first tae kwon do class since returning to Ardnoch. I was feeling a bit out of shape and ready to get back to it. When we were kids, we had to drive all the way to Inverness for a class, but Dad had told me there were two guys running classes in the same sports center where he held his jujitsu school. One of them was one of his security guards at the estate.
I’d signed up online a few nights before Carianne’s revelation. I considered not going to the class tonight, but in all honesty, I needed the physical exertion and somewhere to focus my hurt and fury.
The last thing I wanted or expected was to walk into the class and find Fyfe at the head of it, chatting with Lewis.
No.
They couldn’t possibly be the guys who ran the class.
Dad would have told me.
I turned as if to bolt, but Fyfe caught sight of me. He wore his white dobok. It had the World Taekwondo badge on the chest.
“Callie.” He patted Lewis on the shoulder and headed over to me, his black belt knotted around his waist. Five gold stripes on the end of it told me Fyfe was now a fifth dan black belt. Wow. From the bloke who couldn’t afford lessons, to a fifth dan black belt. He’d surpassed even me. “I saw your name on the list. Glad to have you in the class.”
I tried not to look beyond him at Lewis. “You’re the instructor?”
Fyfe nodded. “Me and Evan Willis. He’s a security guard at Ardnoch Estate. He runs the Tuesday and Saturday classes.”
“Callie.” Lewis approached. He also wore his whites. His black belt had four gold stripes on one end and three on the other. He’d advanced to seventh degree.
My own belt still only had three because I’d stopped going to gradings while I was in Paris. And gradings were where you were tested to advance to the next level. Now seeing the gold stripes on both Fyfe’s and Lewis’s belts, I felt an old familiar competitiveness rise in the wake of my anger.
“You’re taking this class now too?” I practically spat at Lewis.
