Page 80 of Scoring Grey

“Callum, Eloise, it’s so good to see you again,” Sherry says, pulling up a chair to Cal’s right.

Cal removes my hand from his hard length and laces our fingers together, moving them to rest on the table. I can tell by how he acts around Sherry that she’s special to him.

“Sherry.” He smiles sweetly. “Is Ron here tonight?”

“He is. I put him to work and sent him to go fetch our drinks. I’m exhausted. I needed to rest my feet.”

I lean in so she can hear me. “This place looks incredible. You guys must have worked around the clock straight for the past three days.”

“Oh, we did?—”

“Balfour,” Roe interrupts, squeezing Cal’s shoulders. “Mr. Bronson is requesting your help with the auction items. I think he wants you to be the gofer.”

Cal turns to me. “You going to be okay if I leave you? I’m sure I can find something for you to do.”

“I’ll keep her company,” Sherry interjects.

Cal’s lips thin as though he doesn’t love the idea of leaving me with her. He nods to the stage. “You’d look better up there anyway. We’d probably get top dollar for every item presented,” he says with a wink.

“I’m fine. I’d rather not be on stage.” He purses his lips and hesitates. “If you’re worried about earlier, don’t be. I’m done with Blair. I don’t even care anymore. It’s like you said… there are no secrets between us, so whatever she has is moot. I promise I’ll be good.”

He anxiously taps his thumb on the table, thinking it through, leading me to believe his hesitance isn’t related to Blair but something else.

I’m just about to reassure him again when he gets up and kisses my forehead. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” I say.

He gives me one last look and heads over to the side of the tent, where I see Mr. Bronson speaking with the MC and pointing toward the stage.

The second he’s up, Sherry scoots over and claims his chair. “He’s probably just worried about me bending your ear and spilling all his secrets.”

“Oh, is that so?” I say with a smile as I rest my forearms on the table.

“It’s what all men worry about, isn’t it? The gossip we women tell when they’re not around. I meant to ask you the other day. How is your mother? Is she doing well?”

“I didn’t realize you knew my mother.” I lace my fingers together. I thought her words were fruitless small talk, but maybe I underestimated the entanglement of her friendship and history with Cal.

“Oh yes, before we all started having children. I’d meet her and Virginia for lunch almost every Saturday.”

“Wait, you said her and Virginia. Do you mean Cal’s mother?”

Her eyebrows draw together. “Of course, dear. Who else would I mean? Virginia and your mother, Ada, were best friends.”

My eyes stay pinned on hers as a million thoughts war for my focus.

“Cal never mentioned it?”

My eyes widen as they flick toward the stage. “No, it hasn’t come up.”

That feels like something that should have come up over the past ten years. I knew my mother was friends with his stepmother, Keely, years ago, but I never knew she was friends with Virginia. How did I not know this, or better yet, if Cal knew, why wouldn’t he tell me?

“Oh well, it’s hard for him to talk about his mother. I’m sure that’s why it never came up.” She dismisses the topic easily as though she didn’t just drop a huge truth bomb on me. “Anyway, she’d be so pleased to see the two of you together. Virginia and your mother tried to get pregnant at the same time so that their babies would be best friends just like them. The goal was girls, little mini-mes to shop and get mani-pedis, but when Virginia found out Callum was a boy, the dream changed. Ada would have a girl and the two of you would get married.”

My breaths become shallow as a pit forms in my stomach. Did Cal know about this plan? My mind quickly zips back to the day we met. I thought it was organic, but what if it wasn’t? The day we had lunch at the Bronson Estate, he even joked that not catching the football was part of his strategy. He planned on meeting me. My phone lights up on the table, and I see it’s from my brother.

Iverson: I cracked the file…

I pick up my phone and swipe open the screen to read the rest of the text.

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