by Erika Kelly
“Then we have it out. Like we should have done years ago.”
“In front of her fiancé?”
“She’s not marrying him.” And right then the dark shroud lifted, because he knew without a doubt Callie would never marry Man-Bracelet.
“You’re right,” Brodie said. “The Callie you grew up with would never marry that guy. But she’s changed. You gotta see that, man. Unless you want to move to New York and wear a suit and work in a cubicle, you have to face it. You guys have grown apart.”
Hitting a stoplight, Fin shoved his hands in his pockets, the June air chilly on his bare arms. He tipped his head back to take in a sky full of blazing stars. “You shouldn’t have interfered. I don’t know what your problem was with her anyway.”
“Never had a problem with her,” Will said. “Callie’s great. It was about you. You were too young to be so into her.”
“You were going to move to New York.” Brodie gave him a look that said, What kind of life would that’ve been for you?
After Brodie tore his ACL in a skiing accident when he was nine, their mom moved the three youngest sons—Brodie, Gray, and Fin—to New York. She’d said she’d wanted the best care for Brodie, but everyone knew she hated Calamity.
If she’d thought she couldn’t manage them in the mountains, though, she’d had an even harder time in Manhattan. They hadn’t lasted a year before she’d shipped them back home to their dad.
But Fin had only been six. He didn’t have the bad memories of city life his brothers had.
Nor had he cared. He’d just wanted to be with Callie.
“I’ll tell you the truth, man.” Will leaned in, shutting out the people around them. “You scare the shit out of me. Since she left, it’s like you’ve got a death wish. You’re lost without her, and I wish you’d just let her go and get your life on track.”
Rage pumped through him. “This is my track. I’m good enough at what I do that National Adventurer wants me on their cover.” Why was he standing there talking about the same old bullshit? Each minute that passed drew Callie closer to leaving town again.
Fin struck off across the intersection, but Will kept right up with him. “Would you just think about it first before you go over there and make a scene? It’s ten at night. Are you going to storm into her bedroom while she’s with her boyfriend?”
Right in the middle of the street, Fin lost it. That image—Jesus—of Callie in bed with another guy. No. “I don’t care what you have to say, okay? I let you keep me from her last time. It’s not going to happen this time.”
The red glow from the traffic light tinted their skin, as Brodie quietly held his gaze. “No one kept you from her. You made the decision to go with Dad and Will on your own.”
He knew that, and it drove him crazy. To this day, he’d wake up in the middle of the night jolted by the force of his colossally stupid decision. The twist of regret made him want to crawl out of his skin. There was no escape from the decision he’d made.
A car honked, and the trio continued to the other side of the street.
To be clear, Fin didn’t regret his decision. He’d made the right one, but he should have handled it differently. And that’s what I need to tell her. “I think we all know how much I let you influence me, but yeah, okay. I own what I did. It was the world’s shittiest thing—”
Laughter exploded beside him, and some guy grabbed his arm and raised it. “You hear that? Fin Bowie just admitted he’s the World’s Shittiest Boyfriend.”
People crowded around them. “Is that him?” someone said.
“Are you serious? That’s the actual World’s Worst Boyfriend?”
“That’s hilarious.”
Fin swung around, hands curled into fists. He felt the press of his brothers, the tension in their bodies. “Jesus Christ, I didn’t do anything.”
Lights from camera phones went off.
“Cool it,” Brodie said in a low voice.
Christ, if everyone knew about the meme that meant Callie did, too. The idea of her seeing thousands of women calling him exactly what she must’ve thought about him ratcheted up his anger.
He didn’t give a rat’s ass what strangers thought of him, but Callie? He needed to explain—fuck, he had to get to her. But the crowd boxed him in at the same moment someone came up from behind and shoved a paper Burger King crown on his head.
“World’s Worst Boyfriend,” the guy shouted.
“Quick, get a picture.”
Slapping the hat off, Fin charged through the crowd, his shoulder knocking into someone. He did not need this shit right now, but then, out of nowhere, the guy he’d bumped into said, “Fucker,” right before coldcocking him. Fin’s neck snapped back, the pain exploding in his cheek.
What the hell? With bodies pushing and shoving around him, Fin swung, his fist connecting with a meaty gut, and then it became a blur of punches and grunts. His brothers pushed into the mêlée, shoving the strangers aside. Just as they reached Fin, bike cops arrived at the scene. A moment later a cruiser’s siren tapped out three beats.
The crowd parted, as rubber-soled shoes scurried around them. One of the guys picked himself up off the ground and pointed at Fin. “Dude knocked me down.”
Strong hands got hold of Fin’s biceps, and his arms were jerked behind his back.
“Hang on,” Will said. “He didn’t start this.”
Cold metal cuffs snapped around his wrists. As the cops led him to the cruiser, Fin caught the concerned looks on his brothers’ faces.
Dammit. Ryder’s wedding was tomorrow.
Chapter Five
Fin started picking fights with me over every little thing. And then he started losing weight, getting rid of that flabby-ass beer belly. I figured he was freaking out over the wedding. I tried to be supportive and understanding, gave him lots of extra lovin’ (wink wink). But then, the night of the rehearsal dinner, he didn’t show. No one knew where he was. Not his brothers, his parents, or his friends. Finally I got a text from him late that night—really late, like maybe 2 or 3 in the morning. CALLING OFF THE WEDDING. I mean seriously WTF? We got into it, and he finally told me the girl he’d liked in high school had started following him on social media a few months earlier. She’d “inspired him” to lose weight, made him feel like a “man.” Yeah, so, Fin Bowie dumped me hours before our wedding so he could finally get with his high school crush. #worldsworstboyfriend.
Callie looked up from her phone, only then becoming aware of the early morning chill and the ache in her neck from staring down at her lap. She hadn’t been able to sleep last night, so she’d come outside to watch the sunrise from the deck. Instead, she’d gotten lost in Fin’s meme.
At some point the comments had turned from reaming Fin for abandoning Traci into a forum for sharing stories of heartbreak—with the scorned people substituting Fin’s name for the actual significant other.
She’d read hundreds of them, and the pain out there, the heartache…it was killing her.
The screen door rattled on its runner, shattering the morning quiet.
“Hey, Callie-bean.” Her dad stood with a mug of steaming coffee in his hand, one bare foot on the deck, the other in the kitchen. “He left, huh?”
Tears threatened, but she blinked them away. Julian had packed his bags and stayed at an airport hotel last night. He’d actually dumped her. “Yep.” Frustrated with herself, she clicked out of Traci’s Instagram page and opened the text Julian had sent an hour ago. She held it out to her dad.
If you give me your address in Calamity, I’ll send your belongings first thing Monday morning.
None of this made sense. How had he gone from pursuing her relentlessly for two years to dumping her at the first sign of trouble?
Her dad, standing there with his messy salt and pepper hair, his threadbare Van Halen T-shirt and cargo shorts, handed the phone back. “Ride with me.”
Her body felt sluggish, but she couldn’t afford to fall apart. Her life had just turned
upside down, and obsessing over Fin’s meme would accomplish nothing. “Give me a second to change.”
Steam rose from his mug, and he swallowed. “You’re home now, sweetheart. You can go just as you are.”
She glanced at her leggings and purple NYU baseball-style T-shirt. Even as an undergrad she’d never left the apartment looking so unkempt. In the depths of her depression over her breakup with Fin, her roommate, Delilah, had told her if she walked around looking like a slob, she’d act like one. That, instead, she should dress like she was ready to kick ass and take names, so she’d eventually adopt that attitude. Her friend had been right.
But today she could relax. It was Calamity. No one would notice her clothes.
Pulling the car keys off the hook by the back door, her dad headed into the garage. It smelled of gasoline and fresh-cut grass from the ride-on mower. Callie stepped over a car vacuum to get to the other side of her dad’s old truck.
An accumulation of twenty years of active family life cluttered the space. Four dirt bikes dangled off a rack from the ceiling. Tennis rackets, sleds, rakes, and shovels hung off hooks on the walls. She got a pinch in her heart when she thought of all the family outings her parents had planned but missed because of the demands of the diner.
Callie got into the passenger seat and latched the seat belt.
“Can you text your brother?” Her dad turned the key in the ignition. “Let him know we’re on our way?”
“Sure.” As she typed she asked, “Is Theo going to be the ring bearer?”
“Nope. He’s a shy one.” Her dad slung a hand across the bench seat and twisted around as he backed out. He gave her a sweet smile. “Like you used to be.” At the end of the driveway, he turned onto the highway. As soon as she sent the text, she clicked on the Instagram icon and went to Traci’s page.
Holy crap. She saw dozens of new comments. This is crazy.
I met Fin online and fell for him hard and fast. We’d been dating about a month when he suddenly ghosted me. I was so pissed. It made no sense. He’d come on strong, treated me like his queen. Talked about this amazing future we were gonna have. Our wedding, our kids, our house, even the kind of dog we’d get. I shoulda known it was too good to be true, but come on. He said everything I wanted to hear. And then—poof—he vanishes into thin air. A few weeks later my sister starts gushing about some dude she met online. Her soulmate. Love of her life. I didn’t pay much attention cuz I was still freaking out over Fin ghosting me like that. But pretty soon I started paying attention cuz I’m noticing this dude’s telling her the same shit Fin had told me. So I show up at the club she said she was going to and don’t you know it was Fin fucking Bowie grinding on my sister’s ass on the dance floor? Let’s just say the bouncers had to pry my fingernails out of his face. #worldsworstboyfriend.
“You got a plan?” Her dad’s gentle voice broke through the quiet.
Right. Julian. “Not a clue. I guess I’m waiting for him to change his mind.” He was upset, sure, she understood that. But he’d calm down. Nothing else made sense.
An uneasy feeling crept through her as they sped past the elk preserve. “I really hurt him, Dad. I’ve known him for two years, and I never mentioned Calamity.”
“Is Calamity code for Fin?”
A smile broke the tension across her features. It had been too long since she’d spent time around her parents. “Yes.”
His brow crinkled. “Your boyfriend’s an ass.”
“Julian? No, he’s not. He’s a great guy.”
“A great guy doesn’t propose to you just because he’s threatened by your ex. Only a jackass would do that.”
“Dad.” But her tone lacked any real conviction. As much as she wanted to defend Julian, she couldn’t. Because he had done that. “Okay, but I dropped him into the situation unprepared. It wasn’t fair.” Her dad still didn’t look convinced. “But he’s a good man. And he treats me…” Politely. Sweetly. “He treats me like a princess.”
“Well, no wonder you said no to his proposal.”
“What?” Who wouldn’t want to be treated like a princess?
“Not really your style, is it? Having to be on your best behavior all the time? Acting like you’re better than everyone else. You’re more the kind of girl who gets her hands dirty.”
His words called up delicious memories. Plunging her hands into pastry dough in the diner’s kitchen, in dirt working alongside her mom in the garden. In paint when she’d thrown herself into her canvases.
She’d forgotten that part of herself. How strange was that? To have forgotten the sensual pleasure she’d gotten from touching things? She hadn’t gotten dirty in years. “My life in New York is so different.” That wasn’t a bad thing, but the contrast did surprise her.
“You went there to be an artist.”
“Oh, I made peace with that years ago. It took me all of one semester to figure out I’m not suited for the life of a starving artist.” Mostly, to realize she didn’t have the kind of talent it took to make it in the big leagues.
“You hardly gave it a chance.”
“I lost the fire.” Her teachers kept asking her to dig deeper, but she just hadn’t had the energy. “But, honestly, it was more than that. I didn’t want to be a poor, struggling artist in New York City. It’s one thing to do my art from the comfort of my parent’s basement, when all expenses are covered. It’s a whole other thing to live in a sketchy part of town, work multiple jobs, and then have to decide each day between food and paint.”
“So what does this mean for you, now that he’s ended things?”
She wanted to say, He’ll come around. But he was sending her belongings to Calamity.
Which meant…holy shit…she had nowhere to live. Reality was slowly sinking in.
Two months ago, her roommate had gotten a job offer in Minneapolis, leaving Callie with an apartment she couldn’t afford. So when Julian had suggested crashing with him, she’d agreed. Now what? “I have nowhere to go.”
“What about Delilah?”
Her first dorm mate and closest friend in the city lived a fancy life. “She gave her cousin her apartment for the summer while she studies at the Cordon Bleu in Paris.”
“Guess it’s a good thing your mom didn’t let me turn your room into a brewery.”
Wait, Calamity? The idea of being banished to Wyoming for the summer rocketed through her like a speed ball. “I’m not staying here, Dad.” Her pulse kicked into overdrive. She had two jobs…her life was in New York. Julian knew that. He wouldn’t do this to her.
Except the apology she kept waiting for wasn’t coming. Instead, he wanted her forwarding address.
This is really happening.
She had to talk to him, get him to change his mind. But her body rebelled against the idea. He’d not only broken up with her, but he’d kicked her out of his apartment when he knew she had nowhere else to go. What kind of person did that?
She had to think of someone who’d let her crash on their couch until the fellowship started. Oh, and she had to get her full-time hours back. “I can’t just not show up to work.” Dammit, the whole point of spending time with the Reyes’ was to make sure she got the fellowship.
Wait…was the fellowship in jeopardy?
No. Not a chance. She was the perfect candidate, and she’d nail the interview.
Except…she could just imagine the board members glancing at her resume and wondering about the three-month gap.
“So you graduated in May…what have you done since then?”
“Well, I lived in my parents’ basement and waited tables at a diner in Wyoming.”
Yeah, that’s not gonna work. She had to get back to the city. “I’m still leaving tomorrow morning.”
“You need a little green to get you through the next month?”
Affection streamed through her, and she rubbed his shoulder. “I love you, Dad.” But there wasn’t a chance in hell she’d take his money. He worked too hard for it.
&
nbsp; “I love you, too, Callie-bell. And you can always stay in town for a bit, save up some cash before you go back to the city.”
Saving up money would help so much, but she couldn’t be out of the art world that long.
The other candidates were most likely doing interesting work this summer.
Her dad slowed, making a turn onto a dirt lane. “Besides, it’ll give you a chance to hang out with your nephew.”
The truck bounced on the rutted road. When a small house came into view, her dad cut the ignition.
“Ryder lives here?” Last she’d known her brother had lived in the apartment over the diner. It made it easier for him to leave Theo with her parents when he worked.
He looked at her strangely. “Since the beginning of the year. Once Lynn agreed to move out here, they bought a house together.”
Her brother and Lynn had done things backward. She’d gotten pregnant when they’d just started dating, and neither believed in marriage for the sake of a baby. Since she lived in Idaho Falls, two hours away, they’d continued getting to know each other long-distance, while sharing parenting duties. Fortunately, they’d gotten their happy ending.
Her dad got out of the truck. “Come on. Let’s get our boy so Ryder and Lynn can get ready for the wedding.”
Sun glinted off the metal flashing of the ranch-style house, and the sage-scented air brushed across her skin like a cool silk scarf. God, she’d forgotten how clean the air smelled out here.
The front door opened, and Ryder stepped out in gym shorts and a navy blue and gold MSU T-shirt. “Hey, Dad. Callie.”
On the battered porch, her dad pulled his son in for a hug. “You don’t look much like a groom.”
“Give me five minutes, a toothbrush, and a monkey suit.”
“That oughtta do the trick.” Her dad smiled and headed into the house.
Callie walked into her brother’s arms, breathing in his fresh, soapy scent. When his hold around her tightened, it hit her hard and fast how much she’d missed him. Given their eleven-month age difference, their parents had started them in school at the same time. That, plus their parents’ crazy work hours, had made them close.