Page 52 of Because of Her

I stare at him, still expecting some kind of explanation. Wondering if it means what I think it could mean. Wondering if his possessive actions meant he wanted more. Because if that’s true, he should say it.

I’d been holding on to the idea that I needed to stamp down my feelings because we would never work. Because he has a child and I can never be a mum. Because I’m not the person he needs. I’d pushed back against all his advances, worried I could never be enough. But he hasn’t backed down, and this feels bigger than everything that has come before.

I stare him down, waiting for him to explain himself. To say something, anything.

“Goodnight, Cass,” he says finally, as he turns into his apartment.

“Wait!”

Before he can close his door, I slam mine shut behind me. Closing the distance between us, I breathe deep into my stomach. I fake a kind of courage I’ve never possessed as I step closer. So close I can feel the rise and fall of his chest, and I’m sure he can feel mine. My breasts tingle, rubbing against him with the movement.

I look up at Callum and I see the man who takes my breath away. But I also see the boy I used to like. The bestfriend I had through high school. One of the best friends I have now.

Every swirling emotion inside him rests in his eyes and on his face. From this close, I can see his pulse throbbing in his neck, and the way his Adam’s Apple bobs. I can feel his shaky breaths, and the way his arms are stiff at his sides. He is holding himself back. We both are.

Reaching up, I place my hand on his cheek.

Callum’s beard, longer now than when he first moved in, tickles my fingertips as I trace the chiselled structure of his jaw. My thumb finds the dimple in his chin when I cup his face, guiding him to look me in the eye.

“Were you jealous, Callum?”

He deflects, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear instead of answering.

“How much did you drink this evening, Cass?” he asks, his hand tracing slow lines from behind my ear, down my neck and over my shoulder.

“Enough,” I whisper, before shaking my head to continue. “Enough to have tripped on my way up the stairs and to lose my key in my handbag. Enough to have a little liquid courage. But not so much that I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Callum’s breath catches, stealing mine away as his fingers caress further down my arm. He tilts his head into my hand.

I suck in the thin air between us, trying to steady the fire burning inside me. Callum doesn’t speak. He bows his head, urging me to continue, but I have no idea what exactly it is that he wants me to say. I don’t know what I want me to say, either, so I let it all come tumbling out.

“I’ve drank enough that even though I’m angry about what just happened, I don’t want you to go back into your apartment. Not enough that I don’t know what I’m saying, but enough that I don’t care about how messy this whole thing is. Enough that I can finally admit to myself, to you, that I craveyou. That no matter how hard I try to stop wanting you, no matter how often I remind myself of how different our futures might be, I can’t stop.”

The words fly out in a single breath, liquid courage forcing out secrets I thought I would never tell.

“I want this,” I end with a whisper. “I want us.”

The words haven’t fully left my mouth before he traps them. Slamming his lips into mine with enough force to knock the wind out of me.

CALLUM

When you think you’ve found the love of your life, everything about your world changes. And for a long while with Audrey, I thought that’s what I had.

She was, when I met her, a peer from another Supers branch. From one Pantry Manager to another, we bonded over delayed shipments, damaged cereal boxes, and chips nearing their best before dates. We became each other’s ‘go to’, whenever either of us needed to whine, we knew the other would be there.

It didn’t take long for our friendship to blossom. The phone calls became less work related and more about our lives outside of work. We would talk for hours, neither of us with enough guts to say how we really felt.

Looking back, I’m not sure who made the move first, or what prompted it. We just fell quietly in love. In the same way our relationship had flowed from colleague to friends, it continued to flow from friends to lovers, to married couple, to parents. My life was no longer just about me, it centred around Audrey and her needs. It was, for all I knew, exactly how love was supposed to feel.

Here and now, though, with Cassidy, everything is … different.

My world hasn’t changed, it’s brightened. Like putting glasses on after years of living with astigmatism, or finally turning on the lights after dusk. Finally acknowledging the emotion that has been building inside me, a light has switchedon in my brain, and every small, or excessively big, reaction makes sense.

And I don’t know what to do about it.

For how long were we friends? After how long apart have we finally built that friendship back up?

I doubt she understands the extent of my emotions. If I dive in, there is no turning back. None. There will be no land to save me except her, and if she doesn’t feel the same way, I’ll drown.

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