His jaw works.“This is ...this is going to change everything.”
“Yes.”I don’t soften it.I can’t.“And we don’t know what’s going on with the father.Are they together?”
“She’s not dating anyone,” Cally mumbles as if it’s not important.
My head turns before I can stop it.The look I give him is pure question and pure warning.
How the fuck do you know that?
Did she choose him and forget to tell me?Did she decide I’m optional?Did she ...?
Jealousy isn’t a good look on me.It never has been.It makes me mean.It makes me stupid.
I keep my voice even anyway.“Are you?—”
He reads the sentence before I finish it.“The father?”His eyes roll.“Come on.”
“Then how the fuck do you know she’s not dating anyone?”I bite out.
He huffs like I’m the slow one.“New Year’s Eve.I was drunk.Called her before midnight.”His gaze drops for a second, like the memory still hurts.“It was already morning where she was.I said a bunch of idiotic shit.Told her I needed her.”
His throat bobs.He swallows hard and keeps going because Cally has never been able to stop once he starts bleeding.
“Told her I loved her, just like I do when I’m losing my shit.”
I stay still, because if I move, I might do something I can’t undo.
“She said she hated herself,” he continues, voice rougher now, “for not being able to stop loving us.For keeping us stuck.For not letting herself live.”He laughs once, humorless.“It gave me hope and broke me in half at the same time.”
Hope.
That word makes me want to smash something.
Because hope is the thing that gets men like me killed.
“We have to figure this out,” I say.“It’s not just her anymore.We can’t keep doing this to her—or ourselves.”
“Right now it has to be an us, Alberto,” Cally replies instantly, fiercely.Possessive in a way he doesn’t even try to hide.“She’s not alone.Unless you want to walk away.”
I let out a short breath that might’ve been a laugh if I had any humor left in me.“Wouldn’t you love that?”
His gaze cuts to mine, eyes hot with something that looks a lot like hate—except hate is too easy.Hate doesn’t shake like this.Hate doesn’t look like it’s holding on by fingernails.
“You have no fucking idea what I wanted then,” he says, each word tight, controlled, “or what I want now.You decided what you wanted from the beginning.And then you made her choose, fucker.”
My jaw clenches.“I didn’t make her do anything.”
“You cornered her,” he snaps.“You made it a war and called it protecting her.”
I take a step closer, because my body responds to threats the way it always has—with forward movement.“Watch your fucking mouth.”
“Make me, asshole,” Cally says, and his grin flashes for a second—too much like a dare.
Then a voice slices through the tension like she owns the air.
“I heard the wordassholeout there,” Vesper calls from her room.“Just checking—are we naming the team after you two, or is this a limited series?”
I turn my head toward her door, relief and dread hitting at the same time.
