by Lily Zante
We talk in a way we have never talked before, for longer than we have ever talked before, and it feels nice. It feels easy.
There are plenty of picturesque spots along the way, and I can actually take them in slowly, and savor them, in a way I couldn’t have undisguised. So much of my being outdoors, as me, is about rushing in and out of vehicles, or having a herd of photographers on my back. Or bodyguards in tow, if it’s a public event. This rarely happens. People look past me and enjoy the evening. It’s slightly chilly, but there is plenty of light coming off the numerous cafes and restaurants. A few live music performers are brave enough to perform outside. We walk over many bridges, admiring the many pieces of sculpture on display. We walk among families who have probably come from abroad, tourists enjoying the view, just like us, and lovers meandering hand-in-hand.
“Remember the last time we were out on the streets of Chicago?” I ask her.
“How could I forget.”
“I bet you never thought you’d be going out with me like this.”
“You said you wanted a friend, Callum.” She startles me with that. It’s as if she’s making it clear what this is, what we are.
“I do.” But equally, I wonder why she pushes back so much. I have never experienced such non-interest from a woman before. And it grates on me because I like her. My charm just doesn’t work on her. I don’t have any indecent intentions. I’m not the kind of guy who’s going to stalk her and demand she goes out with me. That’s not who I am.
But her reluctance for anything to happen, makes me curious. It’s not that I can’t take ‘no’ for an answer, it’s that sometimes I catch a whisper of interest in her voice. Sometimes, I’ll see a flicker of attraction in the way she’s looking at me, in how her eyes settle on my lips, before she looks away. It’s like a game of emotional tennis, we volley our emotions back and forth and keep the ball up in the air. This is why Nina captivated me, because she’s unlike any woman I’ve ever met. “Why did you feel the need to remind me of that?”
“I’d hate for you to think this could be anything more.”
I want to reassure her. I’m not the type of guy who would do anything untoward. “That wasn’t a line, by the way.” I need her to know that.
She looks at me, as if she can’t work out whether I’m lying or telling the truth. “This is a nicer walk than going to my night school.”
“I’m glad I came today and not yesterday. Then I would have ended up talking to that security guard in the lobby again.”
“You know when my classes are?” She looks worried.
“I pay attention when you say something, Nina.”
“Oh.”
“I’m not stalking you, I swear.”
“It would be the other way around, surely. Have you ever been stalked by a fan?”
“Not yet.”
She laughs. “Must be scary.”
“Unwanted attention is, yes.”
“Are you hungry? You didn’t each much at the diner.”
“That’s not the type of food I like to eat.”
“So you were in character today?” she asks, surprised.
“Of course. When I play a role, I get into character. You must be hungry, since you’ve only just come off your shift.”
“I’m starving.”
“We should get something to eat.” I hold up my hands. “As good friends, not as a date or anything.”
“Of course,” she answers easily.
“Done.” Even though it’s going to be uncomfortable for me to sit down and eat, I’m looking forward to more time with it being just me and her. I suggest we sit outside. There are plenty of such places along the river. I’ll be uncomfortable in my outfit, but it’s worth it for this chance.
We find a place that looks half empty. It’s cold outside, which explains it, but there are heaters. We order and talk some more. She tells me about how her day at the diner went, and about the different types of customers she encountered there today. And I tell her what happens next once we finish shooting the film.
Soon the conversation comes around to Ben again. I tell her about him, about his laugh which would fill the house, about the petty fights we’d get into over sports. I tell her the bits about him that come to me. Everything about him is preserved back at mom and dad’s house. His bedroom is untouched. Mom won’t let anyone lay a hand on it. His clothes are still in the closets, all his posters are still up on the walls. She dusts and cleans it regularly. I go in there sometimes, when I go back home to see them both.
Time has frozen in that bedroom, but all my memories about Ben are still as fluid and as colourful as ever.
“That must have been a huge shock for your family.”
“It’s like our whole world changed. The life we knew disappeared. We were broken. It must have been really hard on my parents, losing a kid.” My voice breaks, and I clear my throat to keep it together. Nina puts her hand over mine. It shocks me like ice water thrown over my head, and then, I get used to the warmth of her skin over mine.
We’ve been not-flirting all evening, we’ve not touched hands accidentally, or bumped into one another, or given one another those long, lingering looks. It’s never happened to me before, that I can be friends with someone I am attracted to, I’m not sure I can with her. The depth of my attraction for Nina has crept up on me like a climbing vine, twisting its way around me and ensnaring me. She has no idea how I feel. Worse, she’s made it crystal clear that she wants us to stay as we are, nothing more than friends.
Chapter Thirty-Six
NINA
* * *
Joni avoids me the next day. She can be so childish sometimes, but now it irritates me more than ever. I don’t have my usual patience for her, so I leave her to sulk alone.
I have nicer things to think about for a change. I rewind and replay my evening with Callum. We ordered dessert and coffee after dinner and talked long into the night.
I never knew I could talk for so long, or that I had so much to say to someone I barely know. Only, Callum is no longer someone I barely know. He’s become a friend, this man who is so far away from my norm, and now he’s fast becoming one of the people I look forward to seeing the most.
We agreed to meet up again. I’m probably going to go to his suite for dinner—he explained that he doesn’t like eating out unless he’s in disguise, and he didn’t want to be in disguise all the time. It was either he come to my place, or I go to his. Going to his place works better because I can leave when I want.
He said he would call me when he was next free. We have agreed on no more night school for him, and no more delivering lunches to his trailer for me. Our daily interactions are gone, but it feels like something deeper, something more fulfilling might be blossoming instead.
“What are you looking so happy about?” Frankie asks.
“Can’t I look happy?”
“You can, and you should, but it’s rare. I like it.”
My smile soon slips when I see Rhys. To my surprise, Joni doesn’t run to him like a puppy. I avoid walking past his table, because I don’t want to wait on him either.
Unfortunately, I forget to take a detour away from his table when I head back to the coffee machine to fetch a fresh pot of coffee.
“Did you put her up to it?” he snarls, grabbing my arm with his pincer-like fingers.
I frown in confusion. “What?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
I yank my arm away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“She dumped me. The goddamn bitch dumped me.”
Joni found the courage to split with this douchebag? My heart swells with pride. “That’s the best news I’ve heard all day.”
Something close to hate flashes across his face but is just as quickly replaced by a smug sneer. “The offer still stands,” he says, his voice dropping dangerously low. “If you ever get lonely.”
“I wouldn’t come anywhere near y
ou even if you were the last man standing.” I spin on my heels and march off, almost colliding into Harper. It’s a good thing that the coffee pot in my hand is empty otherwise I would have spilled it on her.
“You’re impossible to get a hold of,” she cries.
“I’m sorry. I meant to call you back.” I know what she wants to hear. “Take a seat. I need to refill this.” I refill my jug and go back to the tables I was waiting on, refilling all their coffee mugs, and then I slide over to the table where Harper is sitting. “Have you ordered?” I assume she’s here to get the usual takeout for my brother.
“I have. Now, tell me what you’ve been up to. I came by this morning and Frankie says Callum turned up here in disguise last night.”
“I didn’t realize she was reporting my every move,” I mutter.
“She said you both went out. Now I get why you’re not answering my calls.”
I tuck a lock of hair behind my ear and huff out a breath. “Aren’t you supposed to be packing to leave for Elias’s training?”
“That’s the other reason I came by.” She sits forward excitedly. “Eli’s leaving in a few days’ time, and I’m going at the weekend. Why don’t you come along?” Her eyes glitter with mischief. “You and Callum could both come.”
“He said he couldn’t get any time off.”
“He was probably just being polite.”
“Or he was telling the truth,” I reply. That night was a fraught one. There was so much tension in the air that I could have cut it with a knife and spread it.
Harper is like a pit bull with a juicy bone, she’s not about to let go of this. “He’s hardly going to jump to accept an invite from Elias, but if you ask him, he might … ”
Just as I’m about to dismiss the idea automatically, it sinks into my brain and I start thinking.
I could ask him.
Why would I do that?
A rush of heat spreads down my belly. Makes my heart flutter. What if I did ask him? Would his answer be any different?
But what would he take it to mean?
“You want me to ask Callum?” It’s all I manage to say, as my brain whirls at full speed with the many possible ideas and outcomes. I feel excited in a way I haven’t for a long time. My heart even skips a beat or three. I picture Callum and me going for walks in the mountains. Elias and Harper have said it’s beautiful. I look up and see Rhys staring at me from across the tables. He winks, and I jolt, as if he’s fired a crossbow at me.
This could be the break I need. Time away from here. From jerks like Rhys. From everything.
“I don’t believe it!” Harper’s fingers dance on the table. “You’re actually thinking about it.”
I seem to be. This is odd, because I would never do this. How have I gone from avoiding him, to going on the Chicago Riverwalk and having dinner, to thinking about this?
Harper sticks her neck forward and gapes at me. “You’re seeing him, aren’t you?”
I shake my head. Harper’s idea of ‘seeing someone’ is very different to mine. I have a feeling that most women’s version of seeing’ someone is vastly different to mine. “We’re just friends.”
“That’s how these things start. Me and Elias were just friends,” she points out.
“Elias hated you,” I remind her.
“And look where we are now.”
Blissfully in love.
I swallow.
“Think about it,” she tells me, as her cell phone rings. “Your brother’s getting impatient. I should go. Think about it,” she says again.
“I will.” Elias turns into a monster the closer a fight gets. He turns inwards, and goes super quiet too, but it’s not a calm rage. More like a volcano simmering and about to erupt at any moment.
Going to the mountains will be different. It could even be fun. And if Callum comes along, it could be so much more.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
CALLUM
* * *
When I finally get a free evening, I call Nina over. I’ve prepared myself for her to decline the invite, because even though things are moving along nicely when we’re together, I sense that it’s when we’re apart that she backtracks on everything and closes off towards me.
So, when she accepts my offer to come to my place and have dinner with me, I’m blown away.
I tidy up, get Dottie to get me some menus from some of the best restaurants in the city, and then I wait.
She turns up dead on eight o’clock. My hands feel clammy—something I’ve not experienced since my teens. This isn’t even a normal date. There will be no first kiss, no touching, no holding hands.
Why am I so nervous? Who gets together with someone they’ve recently met—someone they have developed feelings for—just for dinner, and nothing else and no chance of it going any further? It’s safe to say that Nina Cardoza has tested the limits of my patience. My curiosity has made me take these labyrinthine turns in a situation that is as unfamiliar.
I open the door with a beaming smile, that hides my nervousness. She’s holding a bouquet of flowers. “I didn’t know what to get you,” she says, walking in and handing them to me.
I quirk a brow. Shouldn’t I be the one to buy her flowers?
No, because she would take it to mean something.
“You didn’t need to bring anything but thank you.” They’re in a bag of water. I’ll get Dottie to put them in a proper vase later. Heck, I might even do that myself. Still, I marvel at Nina’s thoughtfulness. She seems anything but nervous, and her sudden change in temperament throws me, because I’m the one who’s feeling anxious while she’s as cool as ice.
“This place is awesome.” She looks around and does a complete three hundred and sixty degree turn, taking in the entire room. “This room is bigger than my apartment.” This suite is huge, I don’t deny that.
“Yeah?” I feel embarrassed by the opulence. I’m just one guy and looking at this sprawling living space with a balcony, it suddenly seems wrong that I have this all to myself.
We’re standing in a huge room that doubles as my living room and eating area. The front facing side is a wall of windows, with two glass doors which open up onto a huge balcony which I’ve never stepped out onto.
“It’s cheaper than me renting an apartment, and it’s easier security-wise. I pretty much stay in my room, or I’m on the set.”
“Or you’re at the diner.”
“Or there. I like their shakes.”
She smiles, knowingly.
“Hungry?” I ask her and pick up the small stash of menus and hold them out like a fan, ready for her to pick one.
“A little.”
“Take a look and let me know what you want.”
“So much choice,” she squeals, and rifles through the menus. “What do you like?”
“Frankie’s food.”
“We could get a takeout from there,” she suggests.
“And risk your friend Joni bringing it over? No thanks.”
We settle on Japanese food, and I order.
“You have a lovely place,” she comments, walking around the room. “Sorry to keep going on about it.”
“Thanks, but please don’t apologize.” It is nice, now that I take a moment and look at it. I’ve taken it for granted, just like I take most of the things in my life for granted. I would show her around, but I don’t want her to think that there’s a reason I’m showing her the bedrooms. So, I refrain from making the offer.
“Is that a balcony?” She stares at the floor-to-ceiling glass doors that open out to the balcony.
“I can show you around after dinner.” Apparently, it has a beautiful view, according to Dottie, and out there, we can talk without her getting uneasy in case she thinks I’m planning any moves. I’m not. I’m happy that she’s here. After all of our earlier interactions, who would have thought Nina Cardoza would ever come over to my place to have dinner with me?
I pour her some wine, and we talk.
She tells
me that Harper came to see her, and that she and Elias are heading to the mountains soon. “My brother’s going for a couple of weeks, for some intense training before the big fight, but Harper’s going for a weekend, and—”
There’s a knock on the door. “That was fast.” It’s the food delivery. I let the guy in, tip him, and then Nina comes over and takes the bags.
“Here?” she asks, putting everything on the main table. I nod. We’ve ordered tons. “This is too much,” she says.
“You said you were hungry.”
We sit down across the table from one another, with the flowers she brought for me at the center. I refill our glasses, and we eat. In silence at first. The food is phenomenal, and I can see that Nina loves it. I recall that night at Elias’s house when she pushed the food around on her plate. This is nothing like that. She is nothing like she was that evening. This is a different Nina, with a big appetite; a Nina who talks and eats and seems very relaxed. A complete opposite to how she was that night at Elias’s place.
It could also be that I won’t talk about the things I know she hates. I won’t bring up her past, or what happened to Elias, or any of that. I won’t even talk about us, because I don’t know if there will be an us. It’s up to her.
I play it safe, so that she feels safe.
In fact, it’s enough for me to watch her devour the food which she seems to be enjoying.
After dinner, we both go outside on the balcony. She walks around, surveying the terracotta pots and the plants and flowers inside them. “It’s pretty.”
“I haven’t been out here,” I confess, sheepishly.
Her jaw drops. “You have all this, and you haven’t even been out. How long have you been here?”
“Long enough.” It’s shameful.
“This is wasted on you,” she cries, touching the bright red petals of the flowers in a pot.
“Then it’s a good thing you’re here to appreciate all of this.”
“I would kill to have something like this on my doorstep. I don’t even have a yard. You’re so lucky.”