Page 22 of Sunflower

“You think?” I scoffed.

He sighed. “Okay. I deserved that.”

“Youthink??”

Grimacing, he leaned forward and kept eye contact as he began. “Mam told me she explained our family secret to you.”

I nodded stiffly, then looked up at our server who was back with our drinks. Callum said nothing until we were left alone again.

“Well, my ability is slightly different to everyone else’s in my family.”

I frowned and felt myself leaning forward slightly. “What do you mean?” I sipped at the drink Callum had ordered for me and hummed when the taste hit my lips. This was agooddrink. How had Callum known that I’d like it?

He shifted in his seat, squirming once more under my concentrated gaze. “I can do everything that she told you, but what she didn’t realize until a few years ago is that I can access snippets of the future.”

My initial reaction to Callum’s statement was to scoff and tell him he was delusional, but something in his tone held me back. Instead, I held still as the full impact of what he said went through me.

Maybe he hadn’t heard something in my head that day four years ago that made him run.

Maybe he’d seen something in my future.

I felt the color drain from my face as every possible scenario ran through my head. Of course, what ended up blurting out of my mouth was, “Oh my God, I’m going to die, aren’t I? You saw me die.”

Callum’s eyes widened to almost comical proportions. “What? No!”

“You saw Dad die.”

“No!”

“Erin?”

“Joey—”

“Oh fuck, not you?!”

“What?! No! No one’s dying!” His voice carried loud enough to make several people in the restaurant turn our way. He grimacedand leaned forward, reaching his hand over the table to take mine, and lowered his voice. “I saw our wedding day.”

“WHAT?!” I reared back in alarm, but Callum gripped my hand like a vise, not allowing me to move far.

“Shh!”

“Fuck you and your shushing, Callum! You can’t drop a bomb on me like that and expect me not to react!” I glared at Callum accusingly, trying to tug my hand from his as I spoke.

“Did he say bomb?”

“Is there a bomb?”

Slowly, the murmurs from our nearest seat neighbors broke through my heated focus on Callum, but it wasn’t until our server came rushing up to our table that it registered what I’d just said.

“Is there an issue, sirs? Do I need to call for some assistance?”

The server stared pointedly at me like this was allmyfault, which I guess in a way it was, although I’d never admit it to anyone. Callum sighed and turned to face our server. “No, no problems,” he said, flicking a short glare at me before returning his attention to the young man standing at our table. “My date received some shocking news and wasn’t aware of how loud he was being. There’s no issue, I swear.”

The server nodded stiffly and shifted his attention to me. “Sir? Is that true?”

Finally, I pulled my hand from Callum’s and rubbed it against my cheek as I grimaced guiltily. “Yeah, that’s true. I… uh… yeah. He told me something I wasn’t expecting to hear. That’s all.” I glanced around to see some of the guests staring at us, one with a phone to her ear. “I’m sorry. Truly. There’s nothing to worry about.”

The server narrowed his eyes as he studied me, much like he was trying to see if I was sending himhelp mevibes. “Okay. If you’re certain.”

---