Chapter 27
Sophie
When I walk into the apartment that evening, I almost burst into tears at the sight of my big brother sprawled out on the couch.
“Cal,” I say, a tremble in my voice.
“Smudge?” Cal stands from the couch, using his nickname for me, which I had hated throughout my childhood, but now feels like a warm blanket. “What are you doing here?”
I let him wrap me in his arms, and I bury my nose in his shirt. He smells like the cologne our dad used to wear.
“I left Marshall. You said I could always come here.” I decided to go back to the reason I initially showed up here, despite a lot of other things happening in the last ten weeks.
“Of course,” he says, rubbing big circles on my back. “I’m glad you came.”
He pulls back and holds me by the shoulders like he’s studying me for bruises.
“I’m fine, Cal.”
The bruises are all on my heart.
Cal tips his chin to my painting on the easel. Before Liam left, he swapped out my blank canvas for the San Francisco skyline I’d painted that very first morning on the roof. It was like he was trying to remind me I was more than a blank canvas.
“You’re painting again,” Cal says.
“Not really,” I say. “It was just to pass the time this summer until I figured out what’s next. None of it was…real.”
Cal watches me for a long beat. “Are we still talking about that skyline painting?”
I look away and blink back the tears that are threatening to break free.
Cal pulls me back into the hug he knows I need and shushes me gently.
“I’m glad you finally left Mr. Artsy McDouchebag,” he says.
I freeze. That was what Liam had called him.
He knows. Of course, he knows.
I pull back from his arms and bite my lip, trying to decide which way I want to spin this lie. But he doesn’t let me.
“I saw Mr. Snowflake in the background of my bedroom the first time I FaceTimed Liam,” he says with a knowing laugh. “No one else still has that same dingy stuffed animal from their childhood.”
“But if you knew we were both here, why didn’t you say anything?”
“It seemed like maybe you both had a lot to figure out first. You didn’t need me butting in.”
“Cal Rhodes not butting in with advice? That seems wildly out of character,” I joke, but I can’t believe how much relief I feel.
“Call it growth,” he chuckles and squeezes my arm.
“Have you…” I swallow down the knot forming in my throat. “…talked to him?”
“Yeah,” Cal nods. “I called when I got back to the States, during my layover in Dallas. He told me he was in Iowa. And he told me you were here. Instantly confessed you’d both been here together.”
“And you didn’t threaten to fly to Iowa to punch him in the face?”
“Nah, I’d break my hand on that square jaw of his.”
