“You’re fucking married. That’s why.”
Cold water washed over me at her words. For a moment, I’d forgotten everything. The fact that we’d been in a fight had completely left my brain. I pressed a soft kiss to the nape of her neck as I answered her, “I’m not married.”
Her small hands balled and pushed at my chest. “I heard her on the phone, Callum. Don’t you dare fucking lie to me.”
I pulled back to take a deep breath. We locked eyes as I rested my forehead against hers. “I’m going through a divorce.”
“You’re not lying to me.” It was more of a realization than a question, so when her lips parted again, I waited to hear what else she had to say to that. Of course, I hadn’t blamed her for running out after hearing Cheryl’s message. She had no idea that I’d even been married, let alone that I was getting divorced or that my ex was nostalgic and rethinking our relationship.
Or that Cheryl had indeed been off her tits drunk when she’d called. Real classy for five o’clock in the morning.
“You’re completely unattached?”
“Single,” I ran my nose along the side of her neck, up and down, just breathing in her scent mixed with her perfume. “And ready to mingle.”
A sudden thought occurred to me as I pulled away once more, “Why did you run away? Did you really think I’d bring you home if I were married?”
“I don’t know what I thought. I guess I just heard marriage and bolted.”
“You weren’t jealous, were you?” Try as I might, I couldn’t hold back the smirk from my lips. Even the thought of Mel being jealous over me made me gleeful.
Mel narrowed her eyes at me after that comment. Whoops.
“How about we start over?”
“Start over?”
“Go on a date with me?”
“A date? Is that what we’re doing here… dating?” She asked as if the idea of us dating was just that ludicrous. I was tempted to remind her that we had dated before. I resisted because I didn’t want to bring up the past and how our previous trip down the dating lane had ended badly.
“Again, Melody, will you go on a date with me?” I ignored her question and instead replied with my own.
She hummed as she thought it over, “Tomorrow night?”
“Okay, tomorrow night it is.”
“Meet me here at 7 pm.”
“I love it when you get all bossy.” I leaned in and captured her lips against mine. I smiled into the kiss because she wasn’t pushing me away. In fact, she’d just agreed to a date. I knew it was only a small step to repairing our once thriving relationship, but it was still a step. “We’ll talk more tomorrow night.”
And with that, I left her to get back to her work. I had a grin on my face and a skip in my step the whole way home.
Iwaited patiently at the bar for Callum to arrive for what was officially our second first date. I’d lied to him when I had told him I was working tonight. Tonight had been my night off but I needed somewhere for Callum to pick me up other than my house. And with that came the need for a lie.
It hadn’t felt good, lying to him already. We hadn’t even been on our date yet and I was ready to leave and call it quits.
The bottom line was that he couldn’t know where I lived, that would only be tempting fate. I could imagine him showing up to surprise me and Ava or Hallie opened the door. I’d spent years ignoring the fact that they looked more like their father than me but I highly doubted that Callum would have missed it.
I’d had to tell more lies when my mother and sister asked where I was going tonight. Apparently, I was going on a double date with Carla from work. Carla was someone that I was close to but not close enough that my family would feel comfortable asking her about the date. At least that was what I’d hoped.
After what happened last week I was already getting more questions about him than I would have liked. I hadn’t been ready to tell anyone about our involvement just yet.
I wasn’t ready to face the truth, the ugly truth that I was bound to hear. The big question that would lead to a big, intense discussion that I didn’t want.
‘Have you told him about Ava and Hallie?’
It was already a soft spot with our family because from the beginning Mom and Naomi hadn’t agreed with my decision to keep the girls a secret from him.
