Page 116 of Your Place or Mine

“I don’t need you to be anything you’re not, Callum,” I said. “But I’d like to know who you are underneath all that armor.”

For a long time, he said nothing.

Just reached for the fork and cut off a small bite of pie. He held it out to me, balanced on the tines like a peace offering.

I took it.

Sweet, warm, cinnamon-rich.

And for the first time in days, something settled in my chest.

Not peace exactly.

But maybe the start of it.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Callum

I didn’t mean to walk her home.

Not at first.

But when she stood from the barstool, murmured a thank-you, and slid her empty plate toward the edge, something in me wouldn’t let her walk away alone.

She didn’t ask.

She didn’t have to.

“I’ll walk you back,” I said gruffly, pulling on my flannel from behind the bar.

She gave me a look. Not surprised. Not grateful, exactly. Just knowing.

Like she’d expected me to do it, and I didn’t know what to make of that.

We stepped out into the night air, the breeze cutting just enough to remind me that a spring storm wasn’t far off. The quiet of Reckless River stretched around us, sleepy and still, the streetlamps casting pools of amber on the cracked sidewalk.

She didn’t say anything for the first few doors down.

I didn’t either.

But the silence wasn’t heavy this time.

It was thick with something else. Something electric. Something neither of us wanted to name.

By the time we reached her apartment stairs, I could feel it in my chest. That pulsing, humming ache of a live wire ready to snap.

She stopped in front of the door and looked up at me. “You want a beer?”

Simple.

Soft.

Dangerous.

I hesitated for half a second.

And then I nodded.

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