Page 50 of Callahan

That kind of hurt my feelings, which I suspected was what she was going for. Not that I didn’t deserve it.

Still…

“Too bad. Because I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be in the bakery every day. Probably more than once.”

“I don’t understand why.”

Because since the moment we met, I’ve been drawn to you.

“I owe it to Shawn.”

She narrowed her eyes at me.

“You know what? You’re right. I owe Shawn, too. He’d expect me to make you feel welcome, so that’s what I’ll do. But we’re not going to be friends.”

Yeah, we are.

“Fine. I’ll take it.”

“Fine.”

We stood glowering at each other, our chests heaving as we fumed. It was the perfect quintessential romantic movie moment where we’d then grab each other’s faces and kiss passionately.

Yeah, that’s not what happened.

And I’d probably regret it for the rest of my life.

Instead of kissing her passionately, I stepped back and sputtered, “I need to let Angus know I’m going to accept his offer. And I want to show Brian the letter you received.”

Lainey waved her hand. “Take it. Get that bad juju out of my apartment. The envelope it came in is on the kitchenette table; take that, too.”

I gathered up the letter and envelope, then paused at the door. “Make sure you lock this behind me.”

“Yeah, no shit,” she grumbled.

“I’ll text you later.”

“You don’t need to. I’m certain Brian will check on me once you talk to him. We’ll be fine.”

That wasn’t going to work.

“I’ll want to make sure for myself.”

“Then ask Brian. I don’t know if I’ll respond to you.”

“Then I guess I’ll just come by.”

“And I guess I won’t answer the door.”

“You don’t need to. Simply tell me your safe word through the door, and I’ll be on my way.”

“Safe word?”

I felt my mouth turn up.

“Yeah, a safe word. How about “Runaway Baby”? Ordancing queen?”

“Har har. You’re hilarious. I think I’d probably rememberbaseball bateasier. Orconcussion. Orbreast milk.”

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