Page 69 of Shattered

“No. I’m not really hungry at the moment.” She gave him a smile and quickly looked away when their eyes met.

She wasn’t sure why, but she felt so small and shy in front of him at that moment. He was a complete contradiction to her initial assumptions. She wanted to hate him, but she didn’t. She didn’t hate the way he’d left her all those texts and calls. She didn’t hate the way he’d come to check on her the previous night. She didn’t hate the way he’d stayed. She didn’t hate the way he’d had water and aspirin waiting for her when she awoke.

It wasn’t supposed to be him. Not him. Not the college dropout with the long hair and the tattoos. That hadn’t been her plan. She had fought so hard to make sure her future was pristine. She wanted the white picket fence with two and a half kids, a yellow lab and a husband who was home every night for dinner. That was

supposed to be the ideal life, right? The perfect life that had been shoved down her throat for so many years. She tried to picture it. She tried to picture that house and yard and perfectly clean-cut husband, but now all she saw was him.

Now, all she saw was how much of a hypocrite she had been.

She had spent the last few years basing her life choices on what she thought was right, what was supposed to be right. She was judging every book by its cover while desperately hoping no one judged her by her past. She was a hypocrite, and in that moment she hated herself for it.

She looked him over once more. He’d dropped out of college and built a business from the ground up that now had four separate locations in less than five years. He was a business owner who worked his ass off practically every day to make sure everything was perfect. He was kind. She knew that from watching him with the various patrons at Topline. He was honest. He hadn’t led her on, but instead had been truthful about what he could give her from the start. He was…

“Are you okay?” Callum’s voice barreled into her thoughts as he reached out to interlace his fingers within hers.

“What?”

“You have tears running down your face.”

She quickly reached up, face hot with embarrassment and wiped away the dampness she found.

“Can I ask you a favor?” She desperately needed to change the subject.

Callum looked up quizzically and then nodded his head.

“Can you please get a new playlist for Topline? We listen to the same fifty songs every single night.”

Callum laughed. She could tell he wanted to inquire further about why she was suddenly crying in the middle of a packed coffee shop but he left it alone.

“Yeah. What would you like to hear?”

Sam smiled. “I don’t think my taste aligns with that of most of our clientele.”

“What’s your taste?”

“Taylor Swift.”

Callum had to wipe away the coffee that burst from his mouth at the laugh. “For some reason, I just don’t see fifty-year-old socialites wanting to hear Shake It Off as they dine with their mistresses.”

Sam laughed. “Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, she would be perfect. Her music literallytranscendsgenerations. That's what they said during her montage at the music awards ceremony last year. You should definitely use her Evermore and Folklore albums.”

“I’ll take it into consideration.” He smirked and then sipped

on his coffee. It was another minute of silence before he spoke again. “Can I ask you a question?”

“You just did.”

She’d thought he would have smiled at her dig, but his face held a pensive and stressed look.

“What exactly would anusentail?”

His question caught her off guard. “What?”

“If we got together, for real, what would that look like?”

“Um, I guess just like any other relationship. You get out of it what you put into it.”

She couldn't believe they were having this conversation. She wouldn't let herself get too excited, but the fact that he was even asking must have meant that he had been thinking about it.Right?Maybe he had been stressing and crying and raging as much as she had since their big argument. Maybe he’d finally come to the decision to take that leap and let her in. Her guard was still up, but a little bubble of hope started to build inside her.

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