by Corri Lee
“Ah, well, when you put it like that...” It sounded so lonely. Watching how much happened in a New York minute had quickly become one of my favourite pastimes and I couldn’t imagine what life would be like without it. To be so cut off from all that excitement...
“I always see people from here now. It reminds me that I am one.”
“You’re one of my people.” Elbowing him in the side where I knew his scars were, I pulled his hand into my lap and linked our fingers. “Defined by hurt and strengthened by weakness, we are the beautifully broken. Beautiful being the operative word.”
“Damn straight.”
Hoisting myself up, I tugged at Calloway’s hand to urge him out onto the balcony with me. The frigid breeze outside remained but I wanted to check out his coveted view of Central Park, knowing that I’d be a fool not to.
It didn’t disappoint. His balcony looked out over the rippling waters of Central Park Lake and the thick bank of trees around it and beyond. I knew that when autumn came in full force the view would be even more awe-inspiring, and I’d snagged myself a man who’d probably let me see it every day.
I was mentally making plans to buy a decent camera to make a day by day photo-journal of the transition, vibrating with a kind of strange visceral satisfaction, when Calloway wrapped himself around me and pressed his lips into the crook of my neck.
“God, look at you,” he whispered as he swept my hair away over my shoulder. “Not so long ago you were so down that you were waiting for life to end. Now you’re on the edge of your seat, chomping at the bit, just waiting for it to begin.” The tenderness of his tone made me shiver. All day, he’d spoken to me with such reverence—a kind of pained peace that seemed almost like envy.
“You can have that, too.” That renewed lust for life that made him appreciate the splendour of what was around him. “You’re here; alive and healthy. Happiness will prevail in time. You just have to know it when you’re looking at it.”
The way you did and threw it away anyway?
Turning me in his arms, Calloway looked me in the eye and said, “I do.” And what he knew was directed right at me in the stormy jet of turbulent emotion blasting from him. Despite the strange new lack of control in his life, my volatility and the fact that he knew part of my heart was still in London, he was awash with an eerie sort of yearning and reluctant anticipation to taste more of the forbidden fruit of life—one that held so many risks and negative triggers that might make him fall to pieces.
And he might never have found it if I hadn’t collapsed at his feet, trying to run away from what he was chasing. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or not, but he knew that his happiness laid with me.
Even if yours isn’t with him.
It might have been. Four days wasn’t nearly enough to say that I’d really given myself chance to find out; I was still settling into my new life away from everyone and everything I knew and adjusting to my own need for spontaneity. Romance hadn’t been something I’d planned or wanted when I landed at JFK in August but it had found me anyway. Calloway didn’t believe in fate, but I did. I had to believe that the choices I made had a purpose and a goal towards a brighter path. If it didn’t...
“I’m not there yet,” he interrupted my reverie, “but I get closer to it every day because of you. Your strength is an inspiration—a miracle.” I nuzzled into the hand he cupped my face with, aware that I wasn’t feeling the chill anymore and felt, honestly, a little punch drunk. In ways, he was so much like a child and I felt an almost maternal instinct towards him, having walked the requisite mile in his shoes myself. Still, if he said one more nice thing, I’d be tearing his clothes off with my teeth.
“I’m just well-versed.”
“No, it’s more than that. You—... Wow.” I frowned and looked up at him, finding him staring at me with glassy eyes. My clicked fingers pulled him back into his senses; he shook his head to himself and smiled slightly. “I’m sorry, I’ve just never been close enough to notice before. But you have the most amazing eyes.”
I lunged, kissing him brusquely and shoving him by the shoulders back in through the open balcony doors. Catching me with an arm around my waist before he fell backwards, he staggered to the couch where I leaned over him, clamping my teeth down around his lip. I was rewarded with a groan and two firm, ardent hands on my hips.
“God damn it,” I muttered, wrestling myself out of my shorts. “I should have warned you that obscure compliments are an external erogenous zone.”
“Is that right?” I lifted, feeling my chest tighten when I saw that Calloway was primed, ready, and wriggling out of his trousers. Commando. Fucking hell. And bigger than I’d first thought in the sparse light of the thunderstorm. Not wasting time undressing further, I lowered down with a helpless whimper, feeling full to my limits and too naked despite being mostly covered. Something cracked at that second and flooded me with the same sense of guilt I’d felt the last time he was inside me. As much as I was starting to feel for the guy—
This isn’t right.
Seemingly oblivious, Calloway sat, cheeks flushed, and peeled his letterman jacket off my shoulders, followed by both of our t-shirts. “Sweet Jesus,” he drawled, talking directly at my chest, “I am a lucky bastard.”
Pushing past my own feelings, I arched my back provocatively. “Like what you see?”
“I’m balls deep in a god damn supermodel, Emmeline. It’s a miracle I can string together sentences.”
Blushing, I said, “Supermodel?” scoffed incredulously and began to move. My enjoyment was already lost, but I could sure as hell rock his world. “Not with my scars and hang ups.”
“You have the body. You know it.” A vein in his temple began to visibly throb through the effort of keeping himself restrained enough to finish the conversation he’d inconveniently started. “You can cover the scars. A tattoo. Pretend they’re not there.”
I stalled. Cover my scars? Cover them when really, I’d only just started to become comfortable with them? I’d begun to look at them differently—wear them with pride—but he was proposing I covered them for the sake of being seen as some sort of sex symbol?
“Emmeline?” My eyes burnt as I recalled an old conversation at the worst time.
“Why do we have our scars?”
“Because we’re not beyond hope.”
Neither is he. He promised he’d come back for you and you promised you’d wait. Tell me you’re not waiting.
Ashamedly, I closed my eyes and thought of Blaze, working myself into a frenzy against Calloway’s body, barely hearing his thready moans of ecstasy. Pitifully, I imagined his face, grunting with frustration at the imperfect recollection, imagining it was his hands I could feel on me, his lips I could taste and his sweat I could smell...
“Ah, God!” I keened, shred apart by the feeling that I should stop but the lack of will to do so. This was always the way Blaze and I had really felt connected and, apparently, still was. It was unfair on Calloway. Unfair on me. Unfair on Blaze if he somehow ever found out that I missed him so much I thought of him while I was impaled on another man. Still, I could make the illusion feel so real...
A violent shudder ran through me when I came, followed by an immediate nip of cold that covered me in goosebumps. Calloway caught me when I collapsed with my face on his shoulder, panting and disgusted with myself for using him to aid some pathetic fantasy.
“You’re going to kill me, woman.” His voice hummed with humour and contentment. Well, at least he’d enjoyed it.
Not wanting him to see how I really felt, I swept my hair away and kissed his neck before sitting and stretching coolly. “This is true. Like the black widow I am, I mate before I feed. Tell me dinner is almost ready.”
“Wow, tough crowd.” Detecting his perplexity at my apparent sprightliness after one seriously fierce quickie, I dipped to nuzzle my nose against his, which seemed to ease the angst. “It just needs the finishing touches. Do you want to shower first?”
> “Um, that would be good, actually.” Could he sense that I felt a little dirty and needed to wash away just some of my shame?
He led me down a corridor that lead to the other rooms in the penthouse; a home library, an office, a small but lavish bathroom, and a few empty rooms that gave no clues to his plans for them. Most of them were crammed with unpacked boxes—a small detail that made him seem a little more human.
We stopped outside the master bedroom. Calloway pulled me close and put his lips to my forehead before he opened the door.
“Make yourself comfortable. There are fresh towels in the bathroom. I’ll be in the kitchen when you’re done.”
I frowned. “Okay...”
“If you’re wondering why I’m not coming in with you...” He grinned, pushing me towards the door with his hand between my shoulders, as ever. “We’d never leave and I’m hungry, too. It’s safer that I don’t see you standing next to my bed.”
Truthfully thankful that he’d left, I crept through into the bedroom. The walls were a pale cream accented with royal purple fleur de lis’ and magohany furnishings like the lounge. A four-poster bed stood right in the centre of the room, adorned in deep blue heavy satin sheets and matching drapes. The posts were carved with intricate filigree that would have taken the carpenter hours to create. I might have been impressed if I hadn’t seen that bed before.
Dread coiled in my stomach as I faced the bed of my nightmares. The sweat that clung to my back froze and made me shiver, while my head did a sonic speed recount of that horrendous dream that haunted me whenever I did, eventually, manage to fall asleep.
It was a woman. That faceless figure staring up at me was definitely a woman, obvious from the mane of blonde hair that flew out behind her. The eyes were too thickly lashed and preened to be that of an effeminate man. Would I find a woman in Calloway’s bed one day and kill her for being my lover’s mistress?
I was blonde. The colour of those eyes had not been discernible—the whole dream in a strange kind of off-grayscale haze, like a picture that’s colour hadn’t been completely saturated. Maybe the woman on that bed was me and I was looking down at myself. Maybe from Calloway’s vantage point...
You’re being absolutely ridiculous.
I straightened when the voice that didn’t have a nice word to say about Calloway set me straight. I was being ridiculous; it was just a dream. I was by no means a clairvoyant or prophet—God knows I wouldn’t have even known it if I was.
It was a recurring nightmare. Something silly bubbling around in my subconscious that had projected itself bizarrely. Admittedly, I may have been that faceless woman laying dead. But was I seeing a premonition of my own murder?
Of course I fucking wasn’t.
I showered quickly, emerging from the steamy bathroom to find my overnight bags hanging from the door of a huge wardrobe. Seeing no point in dressing fully, I pulled on a clean t-shirt and underwear and head out into the kitchen.
The music that had been playing quietly was louder and livelier. Calloway swayed to the sound of Santana as he added sprigs of parsley to our lamb as finishing touches.
“Ah, perfect timing.” He gave me a smile so dazzling that I blushed. “It’s ready when you are.”
“It looks great.” And it smelled better. He’d served up the lamb, herbed potatoes and green beans with the presentation worthy of a Michelin star but it was the collaborative aroma that really made me realise how hungry I was. My mouth watered greedy as I sat on the stool he pulled out from under the stainless steel island that centred the room, legs twitching impatiently as he poured us wine.
All that kept me polite was the sight of Calloway. He moved with his usual grace and confidence but kept his eyes on me as much as possible. I was back to feeling bashful and giddy, aware that the shadows left by our sex were banished just because we shared air. Our arrangement seemed to be perfect outside of the bedroom, and that was definitely something I could work on over time.
I knew that I could grow to love him. The stirrings were there, if a little obstructed by misplaced affections laid elsewhere. But that was an obstacle I’d overcome once already. There was no reason why I couldn’t fall madly for the man who’d lured me into his city and been the only other man that had really registered on my radar after I’d met Blaze.
When Calloway raised his glass and proposed a toast ‘to us’, I whole-heartedly agreed. My scars gave me hope, and that alone gave me strength to believe that I could leave my old life behind and walk into the next. The man who sat across from me was perfect in his own flawed way and crazy enough to want me despite all of the baggage I’d tried to leave behind. After just four days, I was his commodity and he was mine. Our lives were linked by our own self-destructive pasts, and in that moment, I sat in a cocoon of belief that Calloway and I, we were my happily ever after.
It was short-lived.
“Cal.”
I flinched at the sound of his laughter across the coffee table, not understanding why he chose to pick at my pet peeves. He knew that the lounge was the only place I could think straight to work and every damn time he was in my apartment, he sprawled out across the opposite couch and made as much noise as possible.
This time, he was talking to his pig of a brother about the Superbowl of all things. The fucking Superbowl. The single most event of American culture I couldn’t have given less of a shit about.
It felt like I’d been stuck to him for an eternity. All the subtle nuances of his personality that I might have been able to overlook before now screamed at me with irritating clarity. It had only been a month and I’d become the kind of woman who would have met up with her girlfriends—if I’d had them—and done nothing but talk about her partner, and not a single word of it would have been complimentary.
“Cal.”
“I’m thinking we need a keg and the women in cheerleader outfits.”
“Calloway!” He lifted his head and glared at me without moving his phone away, but I was in no mood to take silent threats. “Take it in the kitchen.”
“Excuse me?”
“Take. It. In. The. Kitchen. You’re in my place and you can see I’m working.”
Scoffing, he shuffled around so his feet met the floor but didn’t stand. “No, she had a new Depo jab a few days ago—she’s all hopped up on progesterone.” I cocked my head in disbelief. “She just needs a good fucking.”
“The only thing getting a fucking around here is going to be you, getting fucked up by me if you don’t take your fucking phone call in the fucking kitchen.”
I glared back at him until he moved, but that was it. My concentration was gone and I was none too pleased about it. No matter how much I stared at my laptop now he’d disturbed me, the numbers no made sense. They never made sense.
Fuming, I made a heavy footed path into the kitchen and shoved Calloway aside to pour myself another coffee. He ended his call as soon as I walked in and I, brushing off the fact that it would have been more courteous for him to do just that thirty seconds earlier, didn’t grace him with conversation.
“You shouldn’t drink so much of that stuff. It’ll kill you.”
“Pass me a bigger mug, then.” Glancing over my shoulder, I rolled my eyes. “It doesn’t kill you, Cal. It’s just not very good for you in large amounts.”
“You’re so pissy, Emmeline. Your blood pressure must be through the roof. Are you still taking your meds?”
Fucking hell. I was sick of him asking me that every day. My five-hundred-dollar-an-hour shrink had gone out of his way to diagnose me with schizophreniform disorder and put me on a course of charming anti-psychotic drugs that made me light-headed, horribly restless, short of breath and completely intolerant to alcohol. This was the better option, I was told. Admittedly I hadn’t heard Fat Emmy for three weeks but I always seemed to be moving.
“I’m twitching, aren’t I?”
“That could be the caffeine.”
My eyes narrowed. “I’m still taking them. If
only there were a drug you could take to stop you being an incurable arsehole!”
Calloway bit his lip. He was going to laugh—I knew it, and it was for no reason other than the fact he loved it when I ‘got all British’ on him. I’d held on to my regional colloquialisms but picked up a New York twang he told me was cute and irresistible, particularly when the two were combined.
I hated that his smile was his get out of jail free card and immediately dissolved all my frustration. “Don’t you dare laugh.” He snorted, face turning puce with effort. “Pack that shit right in.”
His face scrunched up before he erupted into laughter, scooping me up to plonk me down on the dining table with tears running down his face. “God, you’re fantastic.”
I’d quickly come to learn that compliments were the only way he knew how to apologise so, not wanting a domestic, I took that one as penance for the brash phone call and shitty comments that arose from it. Hooking my fingers into the waistband of his slacks, I tugged him towards me until I could cage him in my legs. “Please stop being an ass when I’m working.”
“It was just a phone ca—” He corrected himself when I shot him a look. “Okay, I get it. Silence when your laptop is out or my balls are on the line. But...” I sighed when he immediately shot back with an argument. “To be fair, Emmeline, you’re working on a Saturday. This is supposed to be our time to relax.”
I rubbed at my eyes, sick of rehashing old debates. It felt like we’d had the same conversation every day for the past four weeks. “How many times, Cal? I don’t work a nine to five like you. I have to make compromises for a timezone delay and I actually like working.” Truth be told, the timezone excuse was bullshit. Even with Fat Emmy out of the picture, I didn’t still sleep well and used most of the wee hours to plough through my in tray. I could never leave a job half done, be it The Tudor Initiative paperwork or household chores, so often found myself doing dishes at four in the morningwhile talking to Henry via video conference and getting grief for looking exhausted in the process. Did he want a proficient daughter or did he want two Tallulah’s?