Page 152 of On The Rocks

I walked in front of her and bent down. “Come on. Piggyback.”

Maeve giggle-snorted. “Hang on, I need to pull this skirt up if I’m jumping up there. You’re the size of a horse.”

I turned around and grinned. “And that’s just my dick.”

Her weight hit me as she jumped on. I grabbed her legs, pulling her up my back and holding her under her knees, wrapping them around my waist.

“You’ve got a big head, husband,” she breathed in my ear, her arms sliding around my neck. “And I don’t mean the one behind your fly.”

“Well, babe,” I responded, setting off down the street. “You’ve only got a rampant rabbit for reference, so I’m fighting a losing battle. I can’t compete with a sex toy.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she murmured. “You do okay in comparison, husband.”

My eyes fell on the neon color of Giovanni’s sign, shining in the darkness from further up the street, and my strides grew more purposeful. “Flattery will get you everywhere, Maeve O’Shea, but I’ll let you in on a secret.”

“What’s that?” she asked.

I glanced behind me to catch my wife’s eyes, my grin widening. “When it comes to you, I’m a sure thing.”

She hooted out a laugh, then circled her arm in the air as if she was holding a lasso. Spurring me on with her heels, she pretended to whip my ass. “Giddy up, husband, I’m starved. Haven’t eaten properly for weeks.”

Her words hit me in the gut, and my smile died. Slowly, I slid Maeve down my back and pulled her around to face me. “I thought you’d lost weight. You gotta eat.”

She looked up at me and rolled her eyes. “And what about you?”

“It was my fault,” I reminded her. “I deserved to starve.”

“No, you didn’t, you eejit.” She gave me a gentle nudge. “You made a mistake, but I can see how you’re trying to make up for it.”

“You can?” I asked.

She nodded. “The notes and the books, Callum. They’ve been wonderful. The entire thing has blown me away.”

My heart swelled because my wife called me Callum without the O’Shea.

I took both her hands in mine and nodded toward Giovanni’s, which by then was just a few feet further. “Shall we go and gorge ourselves on pasta?”

My wife beamed up at me before threading her hand through my arm and pulling me toward the restaurant.

A place deep inside me that had snapped apart when Maeve kicked me out knitted back together. My heart bounced, and my chest filled with elation at her joyful expression.

And for the first time in weeks, I felt a sliver of hope.

CHAPTER 32

MAEVE

“This place is awesome,” I declared, sitting back in my chair to give my stomach some room to stretch. “I’ve never eaten so much pasta in my life. It’s like I couldn’t stop. I was full but had to keep going regardless.”

I took a sip of my Coke, taking in the ambiance of the room for the hundredth time that night.

Candles flickered from every table, lighting up the glowing, crisp, white tablecloths. Classical music played softly, and the murmur of conversation filled the air.

Callum had been sweet, funny, and attentive and had gone out of his way to make sure we had the best first date ever.

Usually when I went to restaurants in New York, we ordered, ate, and got out. Everything was on a time limit, even the lingering staff, who checked their watches, getting ready to bus the table for the next party who were due in.

Here, it was the opposite.

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