Page 38 of Sunflower

“You’re delusional if you think I’m going to be calling you that, old man,” Callum piped up, still grinning from ear to ear.

“See what I have to work with, Joey? The disrespect I’m given on an almost daily basis?” George asked, a rumbling laugh to his words. “How I’m supposed to work under these conditions, I’ll never understand.”

“Eh, this is how you trained me. What else did you expect?” Callum asked light-heartedly. “You’ve really got no-one to blame but yourself.”

“True enough, true enough.” George let out a beleaguered sigh before getting serious. “Okay, judging by that remark, am I right to assume that you’ve read Joey in?”

The giddy grin dropped a little on Callum’s face, but he still kept the happiness he’d held onto all morning. “He’s been given the basics. I need more time to go through the details.”

“Ah, good, good. Now I understand why I received nothing other than a simple confirmation that last night’s case was a success,” George replied with a hint of reprimand in his tone.

“Yeah, yeah.” Resigned, Callum shook his head and turned in his seat to face forward, starting the engine as he did. “Look, George, we’re on our way to our folks’ for Thanksgiving lunch. Can we catch up later? I’ll finish the report by tonight, I promise. Shouldn’t you be helping Mary? She’s going to be pissed with you if you leave her to prepare dinner for the family on her own.”

“Your words to God’s ears,” George said with a sigh. “Alright, I’ll let you go. Make sure you send through the final report tonight. I don’t want this case lingering any longer than it has to.”

“Will do. Happy Thanksgiving, George.”

“Happy Thanksgiving, Callum. Lovely to meet you, Joey.”

“And you, sir.”

Once George disconnected, Callum pocketed his phone, and we began the drive to our folks.

Leaning back in my seat, I turned my head to watch Callum drive, a soft smile on my lips. He looked as relaxed as I felt, like a heavy burden had been lifted from his shoulders. I reached over and interlocked my fingers with his, making him glance my way quickly before he refocused on the road.

“Penny for your thoughts,mo lus na gréine?” he asked, squeezing my fingers slightly before relaxing once more.

I shrugged, even though his eyes were trained on what was in front of us. “Just wondered how you want to play this today with Dad and Erin.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you said that they knew this was coming, but they didn’t know when.”

“That’s right.”

“So, how do we explain how we got together?”

“Uh… the truth?” Callum turned towards me again and looked entirely too confused.

I raised a disbelieving eyebrow at him. “That we hooked up over a glorified dating app and that I went home with you so we could fuck each other’s brains out in your super-secret apartment located less than an hour away from them that you didn’t tell anyone about, because you work for a super-secret government agency doing super-secret things?”

“Yeah, probably best not to lead with that,” Callum replied with a laugh before quickly sobering. “Truly, Joey, you can’t tell them about where I work or what I do.”

“Aha! So you admit you need to tell them you’re back living in town!”

He groaned in defeat. “This lunch is going to be insufferable, isn’t it?”

“You know your mom better than I do,” I said, smirking up a storm. “What do you think she’ll say?”

He puffed out a breath in a resigned sigh, before pressing his lips together in a tight grimace. “It’s not so much what I think she’ll say, more what I think she’ll do.”

“Hm?”

He glanced at me again, this time somewhat guiltily. “She’s going to try to read me to find out why I’m back. Not that she’ll likely be able to get anything out of me with my shields up, but…” He trailed off as he thought about what he was saying, then his eyes widened.

My eyes did the same in slight panic when I realized what he was thinking. Why had I not put the pieces together before now about that? She may not be able to get through Callum’s shields, but my mind was an open book! Everything he’d told me the prior night was fair game to her if she decided to go digging. “Um, Callum? How do I block her??”

“Yeah, have to admit, I didn’t think this one through,” he conceded begrudgingly. “Okay. Let’s see. How often did she read you when you were living with her? Every week? Month? What?”

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