“Oh, I know,” I tell him once I know we’re not the center of attention again. “I didn’t plan it. But she’s been there for me, you know? She’s helped me through everything. And she’s Callie. Funny, adorable, sexy as hell Callie.”
“Callie will be your best friend,” Luc surmises and stands to pull on his shoulder pads, which he dragged over from his cubicle earlier. “You should see her with Rosie. She’s always checking up on her. She sends her money even though Rose never asks for any. She offered to fly to Vermont and punch a professor that gave Rose a bad grade.”
I can’t help but laugh at that. Luc does too for a minute but then he gets serious again. “Callie is a warrior. When she loves you, she’ll do anything for you.”
I swallow and try not to let the dark feelings in my heart take over. “But she doesn’t love me. She doesn’t love anyone. She doesn’t want to—that’s the problem.”
“Nah, man, that’s all an act.” Luc shakes his head. “She loves everyone.”
He walks back over to his locker and I try to make sense of his words. Callie loves everyone. Including me? That makes no sense. Or does it?
Chapter 39
Callie
Imeet Rose at the hotel the Barons have put Luc up in until he finds something more permanent. She comes bounding off the elevator full of energy and kisses my cheek.
“Donna and Wyatt are picking up Conner and meeting us there,” I inform her as we jump into a cab in front of the hotel. “Are you nervous?”
“No. I’m excited. He’s nervous,” she explains happily.
“He’ll be great,” I assure her, even though she doesn’t need it.
“So…” she starts, letting her sentence trail off.
“We’re not having sex anymore so you don’t need to lecture me,” I blurt out, knowing that she’s been dying to talk about Devin and me since she got here yesterday. “And I’m moving out, so it won’t happen ever again.”
I glance over at her and she looks disappointed, which confuses me. She pulls out her phone and starts to dial. I don’t ask what she’s doing but then she hits speaker and I hear Jessie’s voice fill the car.
“Hey, Rosie! Are you with her?”
“Yep. You’re on speaker.”
“Seriously?” I roll my eyes and glance at the cabbie, who is trying to act like he’s not paying attention, but he’s smiling ever so slightly. “Are you guys holding an intervention here?”
“Pretty much,” Jessie confirms.
“I just told Rosie it’s not going to happen again,” I repeat firmly as we stop at a red light. “I’m moving out and then we’ll go back to being friends.”
“Callie, I hate to break this to you, but take it from two girls that know,” Jessie announces through Rose’s iPhone. “Once you’ve had the monkey sex, you never go back.”
I laugh out loud at my sister using my personal term for crazy, hot sex. It just bursts from my lungs and it sounds more nervous than amused.
“You two are crackheads,” I announce and try to contain my giggles. “I did Devin when I was eighteen and I walked away. I can do him at twenty-three and walk away too.”
“How, exactly, can you say you walked away when you came back?” Rose wants to know, a small smile on her face. “It may have taken five years, but you ended up in his bed again.”
“Technically, it was on his couch…and then my bed, but neverhisbed,” I correct her snidely because I don’t know what else to say. Rose is right. Technically, I slept with him and came back—two nights in a row. And now I have to fight the urge to do it again every waking minute of every day.
I glance at the cab driver again in the rearview mirror and he rolls his eyes. I shrug as if to say “whatever.” I honestly don’t care what this old guy knows about my sex life. He’s a New York cab driver. I’m sure he’s heard worse.
“Couch sex,” Jessie says longingly. “Couch sex with a Garrison is good sex.”
“Back on track here!” Rose commands, sounding like the schoolteacher she’s studying to become. “I don’t care if you sleep with Devin a hundred more times.”
“Rosie! We’re supposed to be on the same team here!” Jessie argues. “Remember? The Don’t Touch Devin Again Because You’ll Break His Heart team?!”
“It’s too late for that, Jessie,” Rose tells my sister, turning her pink-glossed lips toward the phone she’s holding up. “You should have seen them yesterday! They touch each other without even knowing it. And they give each other little looks and smiles and they share Conner. And Conner loves it!”
