“Can I come by tomorrow?”
I frown. “I don’t know if that’s—”
“Please, Callie.” He takes a couple of breaths, as if every word is broken glass inside his mind. “This is just horrible timing. Nothing more.”
“I’m about to go out,” I say softly, even though I didn’t know it until now. “I’d better get ready.”
He looks so stricken, and suddenly I feel angry at the waste of it all. Aside from anything else, that kiss was hands-down the best of my life.
He whistles out a breath. “Okay. Well, have a good time.”
“I’ll try.”
But still he doesn’t turn to leave, which gives me no choice but to say good night before ever-so-softly shutting the door in his face.
28.
Joel
Though I feel the strongest urge I’ve had in a long time to punch something, I just about manage to resist breaking my knuckles on the nearest wall. I want to knock on Callie’s door again, make a better attempt at explaining myself. But she gave me a chance and I did nothing with it. So instead I go back downstairs, craving time to think.
When I get inside, Melissa’s lost the dress. She’s bare-legged now in one of my T-shirts, caramel hair shaken loose around her shoulders. She stops me by the front door, glass of red wine in hand. Running a finger along the dent of my cheekbone, she brings her freckled face close to mine. She smells of fag smoke and a perfume so familiar I’ve come to associate it purely with kissing her.
“I won’t tell anyone, gorgeous.”
As gently as I can, I move away, make for the kitchen. “That wouldn’t be a very good idea.”
She settles down on the sofa. Arranges herself cross-legged so if I looked, I’d see her underwear. “Can I ask you something?”
“Are you hungry? Shall I order pizza?”
“What does she have that I don’t?”
It really isn’t that simple, I want to say.How much I like Callie—it’s not about pros and cons, comparisons or preferences.
Even though it sounds crazy, the connection I have with Callie feels...more fundamental than that. Innate and elemental. Like a lightning strike or moving tide. A hurricane of feelings.
I picture how Callie looked at me just now, eyes scattered through with fragments of green and gold, like something beautiful that was broken.
“Pepperoni?” I say softly, so I don’t have to answer the question.
29.
Callie
I leave the flat a short while later, summoning Esther to town for impromptu mojitos. I simply couldn’t bear it if I heard Joel and Melissa going at it again—at least if I’m out I won’t feel like I’m celebrating my new job by lying in bed wearing noise-canceling headphones.
We sit up at the bar, and I drink too quickly, in the way people do when they’re trying to blunt the edges of something, and for almost an hour I don’t even mention Joel.
But eventually Esther asks, so I tell her about Melissa.
“Wait. Isn’t she a prostitute?” Esther says, memory now muddied by mojitos.
“No, she just dressed as one for Halloween.”
“How do you dress as a prostitute?”
“Pretty Woman.”
