Page 190 of We Can't Be Friends

CALLUM

“Auds, hey. Can I call you back in an hour? I’m in the middle of reviewing—”

“No,” she cuts me off. “This is your three-second warning that Mom learned that Liam is proposing and that you are coming to London. She’s going to be calling you—”

My cell beeps with an incoming call.

“Right now. I better jump.”

“May the odds be in your favor,” she quotes her favorite movies.

Switching lines, I answer Sienna Sullivan on the second ring.

“I expect first ring, Callum Jasper.” As soon as the second ring sounded, I knew she’d have a comment ready to go.

“Mom. How are you today?”

“No better than learning you are coming to London and told no one in your family.”

“Audrey knew. It’s going to be a quick weekend trip. Liam and Emerson are getting engaged.”

“So I’ve heard.” She pauses. Huffs. “Honestly, for the best. Thank heavens. You follow him like a lost dog; whatever Liam does, you do. Always been a follower, never a leader.”

I grit my teeth. Wonder why that is?

If only you were like your older brothers.

“When Chloe and I are ready to get married, we will.” The thought rolls off my tongue casually. “There’s no rush, no due date, no plan that says I’m required to do any of that right now.”

I do want to marry her at the right time. That could be tomorrow, it could be in a decade. I don’t care as long as she’s by my side.This life with her right now is exactly as it should be, an anchor in a storm. A slow Sunday morning.

“Still datingthatgirl,I see.”

“That girl is Chloe, and yeah, I am.”

“I set you up on dates with proper, beautiful young women from good families, and you settle on tattoos and—” I can hear her face scrunch. An ugly face—I’d never call my mother ugly, but this behavior is, she’s contorting her mouth and eyes into.

“—And what? I love her tattoos. She is beautiful and from aproper,incredible family. You’d know this if you paid an ounce of attention to us.”

She scoffs. “Not true.”

“It is.” I’ve given up on craving her attention, wanting praise that I know will never come. I don’t know where her distaste for me originates. I used to believe she hated me, that there was something wrong with me that caused her not to love me as she does my brothers or Audrey.

“I don’t want to bicker with you Callum. Come to dinner, and we can get to know her.”

I’m shocked. Thoroughly shocked. “Yeah? I’d love that, Mom.”

“Sure.” There’s a shuffling on her end before she adds. “And Callum, tell her to cover her tattoos. I don’t see yours, so I don’t need to see hers.”

The line goes dead, and so does my excitement about that dinner.

I text Chloe to let her know about dinner, but I leave out the part about covering her tattoos. Whatever she wears will be perfect, just like the ink that paints her skin and the memories and moments that makeup who she is.

Maybe I’ll wear shorts and show off my thigh tattoos to add to the fun.

***

“Why are you giddy?” I ask Chloe.

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