Page 187 of Well Played

Callie gestured at her mostly-empty plate.

“That chicken was delicious. You must have noticed that I wolfed it down.” She indicated the cherry tomatoes with her fork. “Sorry I’m not eating it all, that’s a bit much for me.”

“No problem.” Ben beamed at her. “Nice to see you’re not as fussy as you once were.”

“Don’t remind me how bad I am with food. I’m doing my best.”

“I know, and I’m impressed.”

Callie knew she was blushing. She tried to distract herself by reaching for her water glass.

“Maybe I should hire you as my personal chef,” she teased. “I’m sure you could get both of my kids eating those as well. I know for damn sure that I can’t.”

“Well, it’s not that difficult. Just add new foods into their meals.”

“Easier said than done.” Callie sat back and sighed. “It’s bad enough with my food issues without those two having problems. At least they’re eating, just not often the right things.”

Her kids. This was the first time she had been away from her children for this amount of time, and Callie was getting stressed about it. She should be able to trust Drew, but right now…

Her phone started ringing, and Callie glanced at the ID. Speak of the devil. Sighing, she pulled her hand away from Matt and stood up.

“Excuse me. I need to take this.”

Hurrying into the lounge, Callie answered before it went to voicemail.

“Hello?”

“Hey.” Drew cleared his throat. He sounded awkward. “Listen, but…I’ve gotten called into work.”

“What?” Callie squeaked. She swallowed and tried again. “But I thought this was meant to be your annual leave. You said you would block off this time so you could be with the kids.”

“I did, but things have happened at work. There’s been an emergency, and they need everyone possible to come in.”

“Can’t they ask bank staff or temps to help?”

“I’m afraid not. Especially when I’m in charge of it.” Drew hesitated. “I wouldn’t do this normally, and if it was something we could put off until Monday I’d say no, but it’s sounding bad.”

Of all the possible timings. Callie couldn’t believe this was happening now. She wanted to scream at him, but if it was work it wasn’t his fault. She took a deep breath.

“Okay. We can’t get out of it. Have you called Mum? She’s not doing anything this weekend so she can come up?”

“I have. She’s on her way right now, but I need to get to work right now.” Drew hesitated. “I’m just letting you know that I’m going to leave the kids here on their own.”

“What? No!”

“But Callie…”

“Absolutely not!” Callie cut him off. “You will not be doing that! Kara is nine! She’s not meant to be at home on her own.”

“But Brad will be here as well,” Drew pointed out.

“Brad is not old enough to look after Kara. You shouldn’t put that on him!”

“Well, I did it when I was younger than them. We were fine.”

Callie had to count to five in her head. She didn’t want to argue about how that wasn’t a guideline to go from, but Drew was adamant that it hadn’t been a problem for him.

“I said no. I’ll send you the number for my babysitter. She’ll get over there or send her son over to keep an eye on them until Mum gets there.”

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