“Callie, I haven’t given up any part of me to be with Cole,” Leah assures me. “Cole complements who I am.”
I say nothing. I just stare at her looking for signs she’s lying. She’s not. Damn her.
“I’ve only been here forty-eight hours, Callie, but you look like you’re enjoying the life you’ve worked out here with Conner and Devin,” Leah tells me.
“I do. I love it,” I confess in an embarrassed whisper. “It’s so fun taking care of Conner and cooking for them. I forgot how much I love cooking. I may actually take some courses. I want to learn how to make homemade pasta.”
“And, by the way, you don’t seem any different. You’re still the same cantankerous, blunt freak you always were,” Jessie says and winks at me. “Only now you have this warm smile on your face all the time.”
“Well, except now. Now you look like you might throw up,” Rose explains, her dark eyes narrowed with concern.
In a way I guess I can see how it might seem stupid. But then I remember waking up in our tiny San Diego apartment after our parents separated and hearing her sob. Every single night I woke up for that short time between their breakup and our mom dying, I could hear her cry. Love did that to her. Love wrecked her. He never came to see her when she was sick but yet the last time I was allowed to see her, two days before she died, I remember she murmured his name as she floated in and out of consciousness on her pain meds. I never understood it before and it made me angry. But right now I feel like I would murmur Devin’s name if I were on my deathbed.
“Because what if I fail? What if Devin and I fail?”
“Please.” Leah smiles brightly and laughs. “Have you not met the Garrison brothers? They fail at nothing.”
Chapter 45
Devin
Are you about to just storm right in there?” Cole asks me cautiously. “Because you look like you might and you don’t need an arrest charge.”
“I’m not going to storm in there,” I reply calmly. “I just want to talk to her as soon as she gets out. Before Jordan’s shitty captain can get to her.”
“He’s the best player in the entire NHL,” Jordan mutters and then shrugs as I glare at him. “But let’s just call him Shitty Captain anyway. I’m good with that.”
“So, like, what the fuck is going on, Dev?!” I glance at Cole quickly. He looks completely pissed off and confused. I realize that, although I finally talked to him about the whole divorce, I never mentioned the Callie stuff to him.
“Devin and Callie are banging,” Jordan pipes up helpfully as he hands both of us fresh beers and sips his own.
“You’re kidding, right?!”
“You saw us kissing.”
“I know. I just thought she was being Callie.”
“It wasn’t Truth or Dare, Cole. We’re not fourteen.”
He gives me the bird. “When did you start sleeping with her?”
“Long after my marriage fell apart. I promise.”
“But Callie doesn’t do relationships,” Cole reminds me.
“See, that’s the problem.” Jordan nods and points at me. “This one here is hell bent on changing that.”
“Wow…” Cole shakes his head sadly and sips his beer. “You’d have a better chance at winning a wrestling match with a polar bear.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, asshat,” I bark.
Leah, Rose, Jessie and Callie all emerge from the women’s restroom. I start toward Callie but Jessie cuts me off by standing in front of me and putting a hand on my chest.
“Give her some space, Dev,” she insists, so I just stand there helplessly and watch her make her way back to the table of NHL players.
An hour later I can’t stay away from her. I’ve been watching her the entire time. She’s been smiling and chatting with everyone but she looks guarded and tense. Avery is sitting beside her again and his arm is across the back of her chair again. And it’s making me lose my mindagain.
I walk up to the table and stand across from her. Avery looks up at me right away but I ignore him and wait for her to acknowledge my presence. She finally turns her chocolate-brown eyes on me, batting her long, thick eyelashes.
