by Maribel Fox
“Well… Not… Not dumped, but you—” She hiccups, groaning with her eyes screwed shut tight before prying one accusatory eye open. “You know what I mean…”
Callie hiccups again, then she takes a deep breath and blows it out, shaking her head, then making a face at that motion. I don’t envy her tomorrow’s hangover.
“You stopped hanging out with me… avoided me at school…” When she trails off, her eyes are unfocused, faraway, shiny. She looks genuinely hurt about this, even now, and it’s not what I expected.
She huffs, angrily swiping at her eyes before tears fall.
“Callie… I—”
“No,” she snaps, cutting me off. “Nothing you can say will make this any better Miles. You’re… you’re dead to me!”
That nearly does it. As serious as this is right now, that nearly makes me break. It’s hard to keep a straight face. She’s adorable. She always has been, but all fired up like this, hair practically glowing in the shitty incandescents?
I’m not sure adorable does her justice, but it’s hard as hell to keep my face from betraying me.
Callie’s not just cute as fuck all riled up — or, let’s face it, any other time — but she’s also dead wrong.
Whatever she’s told herself about me not caring about her or abandoning her or whatever, she’s got it all wrong.
I’ve always loved her. It may’ve only been puppy love, we never got a chance to find out if it could be more than that, but there’s no chance I’d ever hate her.
It was just too complicated. Too difficult to ever explain.
There are too many things about me that Callie doesn’t know. Too many obstacles to us ever being together. And I tried to save her as soon as I found out the truth.
Seeing her like this, though?
She’s still glaring at me, eyes glazed over, simmering rage, her nostrils flaring, chest heaving, face flushed. There’s beer all over the bar, dripping from her hand where she over-enthusiastically sloshed her mug for emphasis, not that she’s paying it any attention.
That’s my Callie.
And I might be falling in love with her all over again.
I glance behind the bar to Rue, who’s mopping up some of Callie’s spill. “Aren’t you supposed to cut her off or something?”
Rue shrugs, wiping down Callie’s hand, too before tossing the rag aside. “She’s staying upstairs. It’s not like she’s gonna get behind the wheel and kill someone, and I’ll make sure she gets to her room.”
“Full service here, huh?”
She snorts. “Yeah, we call it the ‘Drowning Your Sorrows’ package. You interested?”
“Why would I be?”
I’m more interested in what sorrows Callie’s drowning, but I can play along with Rue for the sake of getting there.
“You tell me,” Rue says, lifting an eyebrow quizzically.
“Hey!” Callie interjects, sloshing her beer anew. “Hey, I’m still here, buddy, and it’s rude to ignore a—” hic “—lady.”
Before I can ask how I’m ignoring her when I’m dead to her, Callie’s face scrunches up, her nose wrinkling the most.
“What are you doing so far away?” she asks, slurring through her struggle with volume control. She presses her palms against the bar, and braces, and I realize she’s starting to get out of the stool. Only Callie seems to forget that the stool swivels, and she’s teetering and turning and all I can see is her skull split open on the floor in about five seconds, so I jump to my feet and move to her.
“Easy tiger. I’ll come to you,” I say, dragging my drink down the bar. That’s enough to keep her from trying to actively injure herself for the time being. “But I thought I was dead to you?”
She huffs, and I get a strong hit of rum. Enough to almost make me cough. She should’ve been cut off a while ago.
“You are,” she insists. “I just wish I knew why…” Her oceanic eyes drop to her half-empty glass, welling up with tears again.
It’s killing me to see her like this, but I don’t think I’m the impetus for any of this. Just a convenient conduit for her angst.
“It wasn’t you… It was… me.”
She scoffs, rolling her eyes so hard I feel it. “That’s what people always say, and they’re always full of shit.”
“You don’t know everything, Cal.”
“Then tell me,” she says, so quickly, so plainly, that I almost do. It’s crazy though. I can’t tell her. She’d think I’m nuts. And even if she didn’t… She doesn’t deserve to be brought into this.
I can’t tell her. She’d never understand.
I stare studiously into my beer, take a drink, then set it back down without a word.
“Ugh,” she exclaims, throwing up her hands. “You’re the worst. This town is the worst. Everything is the worst.”
Disregarding the puberty-level drama there, I look her way with an arched brow.
“Why’re you back then?”
She scowls, looking like she’s offended by the question. Then she looks like she’s considering answering, and finally, she shakes her head.
“Stupid reasons,” she says, shaking her head. “Ugh. I’m such an idiot.”
“Doesn’t sound right to me. I can’t imagine you coming back here without a good reason.”
Callie gives me a hard look, annoyed that I know her if I had to guess.
“Well, it is stupid. The stuff we used to find in the bay as kids… I wanted to study it, but I can’t find a damn thing. Might as well pack up and go home.”
There’s a very real and very visceral reaction to the thought of Callie leaving again.
“Gonna give up that easy?” I challenge, watching her brain take its time to catch up in its sluggish state, the fire igniting in her eyes.
“What do you mean ‘that easy’?”
I shrug, finishing off my beer. “You haven’t been at it all that long. Archaeologists can be at digs for years before they hit pay dirt.” I don’t know how long Callie’s been in town, but I can’t imagine it’s been long. I haven’t been at the bar much with the holidays and the weather, but if she’s been here more than a month, I’ll eat my boat.
The way she glares down at her drink tells me I’m right though. She doesn’t challenge me or correct me. She just frowns, her petal-pink lips pulling deeper. There’s something she’s not telling me, something deeper bothering her, but I’m in no position to press.
“I just wish… I wish I could look in the bay. Under the water, you know?”
“Why can’t you?” Seems a reasonable enough thing to want to me.
Not by the expression Callie gives me though. “Uh… Because I’m not a mermaid or a scuba diver?”
By now, Rue’s refilled my beer, and I take a long pull, considering the options here.
If I were a smart man, I’d walk out of this bar — and Callie’s life — forever.
The smart part of me gave up twelve years ago when I ripped myself apart to protect her. I walked out of her life, even though all I wanted to do was talk to her, spend time with her, be with her every waking moment of every day.
That was puppy love, though. The girl next door who’d had my heart all along.
Of course there’s never been anyone that’s come even close to Callie for me ever again, and that makes it tempting. Tempting to offer to help. To spend more time with her, to learn all about her life, what she’s been doing since we were teenagers. I want to get lost in her eyes, to drink in every detail of her, to memorize every freckle.
I’ve spent a dozen years beating that part of myself back. I’ve spent my entire adult life smothering the voice of temptation that keeps whispering ‘fuck careful, fuck logic, go after what makes you happy and never let go.’
I’ve ignored it long enough. With her right here in front of me like this, I can’t ignore it anymore.
Fuck it.
“I am,” I say, biting the bullet.
Callie chokes, sputtering beer, and I notice Ru
e swapping it out for water as she wipes up another mess, tossing a knowing wink my way.
Guess I didn’t give her enough credit.
“You are?”
“Yeah… A scuba diver, not a mermaid,” I clarify, almost laughing at the truth. “I’ve got a boat, equipment — I’m a certified instructor and can certify others…”
“How much do you cost?” she asks, chewing on the plastic straw in her drink absently.
“Depends on what you’re after. I’m sure we can work out a deal,” I tell her. It’d be hard to charge her anything at all, let alone going market rate.
“A deal?”
“Yeah. Most people hire me for a couple of hours, maybe a couple of days, tops. A big project like yours, though? Who knows how long it’ll take. I could work up a multi-day discount.”
“Okaaay,” she says slowly, nodding though I’m not sure any of it’s getting through judging by the gloss on her eyes. “So how much—”
“Cal, why don’t I give you my number, and we can work out the details tomorrow? You’re not exactly in ‘official business’ shape right now.”
She blows out a breath and looks like she’s going to argue, then thinks better of it as her head lolls slightly.
“Fine,” she grumbles, fishing her phone out of her bag. She thrusts it at me without a second thought, and I have to hold in a smile. Not many people are so trusting with their smartphone these days.
I add myself to her contacts, then text myself from her phone so I have her number.
“There. You’ve got my number, I’ve got yours. We’ll talk details tomorrow.”
She nods like her head’s too heavy. “Kay. Tomorrow. ‘S a date.”
I can’t help smiling at her. This level of drunkenness is rarely endearing, but Callie manages to be the right combination of vulnerable and feisty to keep me grinning. I fish a twenty out of my wallet before I can convince myself to stick around longer, and wave to Rue.
“I’m gonna call it a night. Talk to you tomorrow,” I say with a final wave to Callie. She murmurs something unintelligible, nursing her water under the watchful eye of Rue, and I leave the bar wondering what the fuck I’ve just done.
3
Callie
Getting up is the last thing I want to do. This bed is too comfy. Too soft and cozy. The light that’s coming in through the curtains is dim and gray, the same as it has been ever since I got here.
I don’t have any reason to pull myself out of bed at dawn, and it feels way too good to give in to unconsciousness. When I finally do wake up totally, I’m hit full-force with a pounding headache, throbbing right between my eyes. Eyes that are way too sensitive to that dull gray light that shouldn’t be making me wince away like a vampire.
“Ugh,” I groan, the vibration of my own voice through my head enough to make my stomach turn. What did I do last night?
Drank too damn much, clearly, I scold myself, slowly sitting up in bed, giving the room time to stop spinning before I take my next move.
I’m not in college anymore, I can’t have this kind of reckless abandon. Not that I had it in college. I was too young to drink back then and didn’t want to risk my scholarships. Now the only thing stopping me from getting hammered is the knowledge of how awful I’ll feel the next day.
Didn’t do me much good last night, apparently.
I drag my fingers through tangled hair, hissing as I work through knots, each one making my head throb a little more. I can smell the rum on me, not to mention a pretty unpleasant post-drinking funk, and I know that item one today is a shower. Before I do anything else, I need to wash all this regret off.
Peering out my door, across the hall, I strain my ear to hear if anyone else is in the bathroom. The B&B only has the one communal bathroom for the handful of rooms up here, but I’m not sure anyone else is currently staying here. I think I might be the only guest, but before I assume that and scamper across the hall in nothing but a t-shirt and panties, I want to make sure.
The coast seems clear, so I grab my change of clothes and the little bag of toiletries with my shampoo and toothbrush and all that stuff. I move a little too quick across the hall, and by the time my hand’s on the other doorknob, the world is lurching, spinning around me, vomit making the back of my throat burn.
Keep it together, I warn, tumbling into the bathroom, starting up the shower at full blast.
What the hell was I thinking getting so shit-faced? That’s not like me at all, but things haven’t been going well in the realm of Callie lately.
As steam fills the bathroom, the night starts to trickle back in, and I remember talking with Rue — who mysteriously has my favorite rum in stock now; dangerous — about all the problems I’ve been having since I got here. The issues finding anything worth writing back to the team about, yeah, but then I remember telling her about my dad and all the history there, then Trenton and that nonsense.
“Oh god,” I groan, dropping my forehead to the cool tile wall, water cascading down my back. I told her everything. Or close enough to do the damage.
Rue seems nice enough, but I don’t need to be the stereotype pouring out my heart and soul to the bartender, damn it.
My beleaguered head scrambles to present me with more information. Another conversation that’s much fuzzier.
Wait… was that real?
Did I really see Miles at The Shamrock?
Did I really confront him?
I don’t know. I can barely remember any of it, and it’s all really blurry. I’m not sure what words made it out of my mouth and which ones only sounded good in my head.
It wasn’t the first time I’d seen him since I got back to town, at least. Small miracles, I suppose. If I’d seen him for the first time in that state, there’s no telling what kind of scene I’d have made. But I’ve almost run into him around town a couple of times since I got here, and I’ve done everything I can to avoid an actual meeting. As far as I know, he hasn’t noticed me — or hadn’t, until last night.
I can’t remember what we said at all. Like, at all, at all, which leaves me with a really nasty feeling in the bottom of my stomach.
Or maybe that’s the hangover.
Probably both. After all these years of thinking about what I’d ever say to him if I got a chance to give him a piece of my mind, the day I finally get the chance, I’m completely sloshed and incoherent. I can’t imagine anything I said put me in a flattering light.
At least the shower does a pretty good job of washing off most of the crappy feeling that comes with a hangover like this one. Coffee and breakfast will probably make up the rest, but I’ve got no idea what time it is, and it’s probably too late for me to get breakfast here.
That makes me frown. Micah, the B&B’s chef, is pretty incredible. Which is good, since ‘breakfast’ is one of the ‘B’s in B&B. Missing out is my own fault for sleeping in, though.
With the towel wrapped around me, I head back to my room and get dressed, then look at the time: 10 a.m.
The time’s not the only thing I see. I’ve got a text notification, and my heart jumps into my throat.
Did I drunk-text Trenton?
There’s a sour taste in the back of my throat when I open the message, only to see it’s not from Trenton. It’s from Miles.
Since when do I have Miles’ number in my phone?
I really need to fill in some blanks about last night.
Figure you’ll sleep late. See you @ the Duck @ 1 to discuss business, the text says.
That’s it.
No context, no emojis, nothing.
Business?
Fuck! I can’t remember anything and it’s killing me.
I flop down on the bed, hair fanning out around me, curls soaking the sheets.
What business could we possibly have to discuss? Think, Callie.
The harder I think, the more my head hurts. That’s all I manage to accomplish, and no amount of self-flagellation seems to be producing any results. There’s a b
ig black hole in my memory after Miles shows up. I don’t remember him leaving, I don’t even remember how I got up to my room.
I need to talk to Rue. Surely she’ll be able to help me fill in some of these blanks. I can’t put off the inevitable forever, and it’s only three hours until my scheduled meeting with Miles. I need to figure out what I can between now and then and decide whether or not I should cancel it.
My gut tells me to cancel it no matter what. Seeing Miles Halloran again is not what I came back to Lupine Bay for. He broke my heart, and I know we were kids, and we weren’t an item, and I know I don’t really have any right to still be this angry at him for his mysterious rejection of me, but that doesn’t stop me. I spent years hating him, because it was the only way I could stop hurting so much.
He was more than the guy I had my first major crush on. He was my best friend. We grew up on that beach together, the two of us, the rest of the world forgotten. And then one day I was forgotten too. He just… stopped acknowledging me. I never got any explanation for why, we never had any big fight, there was no reason for it. But it didn’t matter to me then, and it doesn’t matter now. I moved on with my life. I got out of this town and made something of myself.
…Sorta.
I sigh, shaking my head. Some pep talk, Cal.
Sitting up here stewing in the dark by myself isn’t going to help a damn thing, so I get dressed and head down to The Shamrock in search of Rue.
What I find is the irresistible scent of buttery scrambled eggs. I take a deep breath and sigh, the smell traveling all the way to my toes, filling me with warmth.
“Rue warned me you would probably be late today,” Micah says, peering out from the kitchen.
My eyebrows lift. “Did she? I’ll have to thank her, is she around?”
“It is her day off,” he says, before dipping back into the kitchen for a moment. When he comes back out, there’s a tray with scrambled eggs, lightly buttered toast, and fresh fruit. “Coconut water,” he says, dropping what looks like a juice box down next to the offering. “I understand it is a great hangover cure.”