I try to follow Callum, but every step I take, I swear I get swallowed by more and more bodies.
“Callum!” I call out again, even though it seems pointless.
“Four!”
No, no, no, I chant to myself, using more force as I push forward, desperate to get to him.
“Three!”
“Callum!”
“Two!”
I can see the door swinging shut just a few feet away.
“One!” the crowd hollers just as I reach it, tossing it open so hard it bounces off the wall.
“Hey! What the fuck?” the security guard shouts, but I ignore him as I look left, then right,prayinghe’s still there.
Maybe this night isn’t complete shit, or maybe it’s because it istechnicallyNew Year’s Day—by some miracle, there he is.
“Callum!” I bellow again, and he pauses momentarily, but it’s enough to let me know he’s willing to hear me out if I can catch him.
So I run. I hike up my long dress, and I push my legs harder than I ever have before. I can’t let this be our reunion. I have to talk to him. I have to tell him I wasn’t tryingnotto see him, just that I wasn’t ready to yet.
“Callum, please,” I beg as I push myself harder, my heels clacking against the sidewalk as I try to close the distance between us that feels like it’s just getting bigger and bigger. “I just…” I draw in a deep breath. “Let me explain, okay? I need to talk to you. I need?—”
“What?!” He whirls around so quickly I barely have time to skid to a stop.
In fact, Idon’t. I stumble into him, his arms going around me, and though I’m sure it’s purely instinct, a part of me says it’s because hewantsto touch me.
I hate the way my body reacts, like it’s falling into a pile of pillows as I sink into him. And I hate even more how he still smells just as he did all those years ago—like bodywash and expensive cologne and every single thing I’ve ever wanted.
But it’s gone as fast as it comes, and I’m standing on my own, Callum’s hands no longer on me. Instead he’s staring down at me with dark eyes.
“What doyouneed, Chloe?”
Chloe.Not Clover. Not babe. Not sweetheart. Not any of the other nicknames he’s used over the years.
Just Chloe.
I don’t want to be just Chloe to him.
“I…”
But nothing else comes out. All the words I know I should say get stuck in my throat. It’s like every thought I’ve had over the last three years seems to dissipate right before my eyes, and I saynothing. I stare up at him blankly, looking for anything that tells me we’ll be okay after this. Tells me he’ll talk to me again. Tells me we’ll figure this thing out.
But there’s nothing. No hint of the man I fell in love with during my freshman year of college, or the one I married in a rushed ceremony because I couldn’t wait another day to be his wife.
He’s just Callum Keller, the Seattle Serpents’ most relentless and brutal power forward. He laughs, and the sound is scathing, as if he’s just dumped a steaming hot cup of coffee right on my heart.
“Of course you don’t have the words. You don’t have an explanation. You didn’t then, and you don’t now. Yet you still come into my city with some fuckwad and you?—”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “No, it’s not?—”
“Stop!” he yells, so damn loudly the word bounces off the buildings, and a few passersby turn their heads our way.
Tears spring to my eyes, and I can’t tell if they’re from the fact that he’s never talked to me this way before, if I’m embarrassed, or if I’m just finally breaking down.
