Tahoe’s face is getting redder by the second, the veins popping out of his neck as he charges. “You mother—”
“Tahoe, no!” I leap before them, stopping Tahoe in his tracks. Callan shoves me behind him again, his hand clenching my waist harder this time in a silent message that I stay there.
A scream of unfairness gets trapped in my throat.
Tahoe glares at me past Callan’s shoulder. “Get dressed. We’re leaving. Now.”
Callan moves forward and I grab him by the shoulders, stopping him. “Don’t,” I plead in his ear.
There’s a tense silence as the men face off.
“You leave with me,” Tahoe says warningly, his eyes shooting fire at me again.
I grab my shoes and slip them on and forget about anything else I might be leaving behind—like my damn heart—as I grab my bag and tuck it under my arm, hurrying to leave and get these two away from each other.
“I’ll be back,” Tahoe warns.
“I’ll be waiting,” Callan says.
“Olivia.” Tahoe rakes his hands through his hair as we head out of Callan’s home and toward Tahoe’s Hummer in the driveway.
“I love him!” I cry.
“Jesus!”
“I fucking love him!” I climb into the car and once I’m in the passenger seat, I start crying.
He gets behind the wheel and pulls me to him, growling, “He’s not what you need.”
“He’s your friend.”
“I wouldn’t give him the time of day if I were a girl like you, who wants the things you do.”
“I do and I did and I will.” I punch his chest.
“What the hell was that for?”
“You’re . . . Stop treating me like a baby. I’m a woman! He treats me like a woman.”
“For how fucking long!”
He glares at me, and suddenly he gets out of the car and charges for the front door. I run after him and my chest literally hurts when I’m back inside and I notice Callan’s mega-pissed-off expression as he stares at my brother.
“You’re either all in or you get out now,” Tahoe says. “Do you hear me? She’s not your plaything, she’s my sister.”
“Get out of my face before I break you in half. She’s got a mind of her own, and so do I. I might not be what you wanted for her, but I’m what she wants and she’s what I want.”
“For how fucking long?! Tell her that now.”
Tahoe shoots off the dare but doesn’t even wait for an answer, angrily pulling me back outside.
I cry all the way to my apartment. My brother doesn’t say a word. He’s stewing. I can feel his anger and his frustration. But most of all I sense his disappointment and the feeling that I betrayed him.
I’ve never felt so low.
Callan had wanted to talk to him; I had insisted that I’d do it, but had I meant to? Not really. Now their friendship might be ruined forever.
“Don’t hurt him. I was the one who started it,” I say stiffly, then I get out of the car to dead silence and peer back inside, mad now. “If you touch him I’m going to hit you, Tahoe! Really hard!”
“Oh, I’m gonna hit him,” he stews. “I’m going to fucking break his damn nuts!”
I slam the door shut and march up to my apartment, stewing too.
I’m frustrated, wandering restlessly around the apartment, cursing my life and cursing both men and then cursing myself for not telling Tahoe sooner. I keep calling both numbers and neither of them answers. I finally lie down in bed but it takes forever for sleep to claim me.
I dream I’m lying on a hill in our Hill Country home, the sun warm to the point I’m almost hot. But there’s a breeze rustling by, cooling my skin. I hear footsteps and raise my head, and Nana is there, looking like about a million bucks.
“Nana? You look amazing!” I gasp.
“I feel excellent, Livvy, EXCELLENT!” she says.
She’s wearing a big crown on her head. I squint at it. “Where did you get that crown?”
“What do you mean? It’s mine. It’s always been mine. We’re the queens of effing everything, remember?”
She takes it off and comes set it on my head, looking at me with the biggest smile and warmest eyes ever.
I wake up to a knock on the door, and open it to see Tahoe. He looks like shit. He drags a hand over his beard, growls low and painfully, “Grandma passed.”
We fly back to Texas in Tahoe’s jet, my brother and his copilot at the controls.
In the car, the three of us—he, Gina, and I—are all quiet. My brother has a black eye, and he keeps rubbing it in frustration. Gina keeps her hand on his thigh in silent support. I want to cry but something blocks the tears. Shock. I stare out the window as Tahoe drives us to my parents’ place, the familiar Hill Country cityscape rolling past us, knowing I won’t see Nana again.
“You okay, Liv?” Tahoe asks when we park in my parents’ driveway.
I’m silent as I step out of the car.
He grabs my wrist and stops me, looking down at me with brotherly concern.
“You and she were very close. Why aren’t you crying?” he asks me, frowning.
“Because I’m mad.” I sweep away and head to my parents’ home, where Mom and Dad open the door and hug me.
“I’m sorry, Dad,” I tell my father, because Nana was his mother, after all. But I can’t hold the hug too long, my throat is on fire and my whole body feels as tight as a ball with no way to crack open.
I let go and head up the stairs, straight to my room, and I sit on the edge of the bed and just stare at the ground, wondering if Nana felt any pain, wondering if she was scared, wondering why I wasn’t here, wondering why I’m so angry.
I feel numb, robotic after the funeral, receiving a thousand and one hugs, one after the other—I’m so sorry, our deepest condolences, the world lost someone very special—and I only nod, and nod, and nod, until I’m engulfed in a pair of familiar arms, and my lungs fill up with the distinctive, addictive smell of Callan Carmichael.
His lower lip is split—right in the middle—and his gaze is the rawest I’ve ever seen it. A scrape in my heart, that’s how the sight of him feels.
We ease apart. His timbre is low and partly questioning. “I didn’t like that you didn’t come to me. That you didn’t let me hold you.”
“I had to leave. I couldn’t think. But I wanted to.”
He gives me a look that implicitly tells me how much he wants to be here for me now. “So are you going to rob me of comforting you now?” he asks me.
“No.”
He opens his arms.
I crawl inside and the well in my eyes opens. He’s strong and feels warm and so good and he smooths his hand gently down my hair and my back, resting his jaw on the top of my head as I’m tempted to cry for the first time.
He squeezes me tight. “I’m sorry, Livvy.”
“I’m sorry too. It’s okay—my mom said she didn’t suffer, you know.”
“But you are.”
“Well, we had this thing. I could tell her anything, and she would laugh but not in a mean way, in a loving way, sort of like you do.” I sniff. “This wasn’t supposed to happen when I wasn’t here to even say goodbye.”
“You can’t plan the bad things that happen. They just do.”
The next person in line sort of skims around him and embraces me, and as the line continues, I keep stealing glances, watching him as he hugs each of my family members, counting the times I feel him glance in my direction until I lose count.
Black clothing, bodies, heat, flowers, and food flood my parents’ living room hours later, and among all those faces it’s only my nana’s face that I don’t see. People keep talking, their well-meaning sorrys invading my brain, everything going fuzzy. For the first time in my life I have been rendered speechless. I’m this numb.
Veronica and Farrah are fawning over Callan during the reception at my parents’.
“Your boss is so gorgeous it’s not even slightly hilario
us.”
“It’s like a GQ parade here.”
“Gina’s engagement ring almost poked my eyes out.”
“Are you and the boss . . .” Veronica wiggles her brows. I almost wonder if she’s asking me if she can go up there and have a go at him.
“Yes,” I say. If I sound possessive, it’s because I am.
I hear their excited giggles as I stand and walk around a while to avoid any conversation. Callan stands with Saint and my brother. Tahoe hasn’t taken his eyes off either of us. Callan is watching me as I head to just sit on a couch thoughtfully. He starts coming over—Tahoe’s eyes narrow, but Callan doesn’t care.
I get to my feet and cross the room to meet him.
“Olivia,” my mother calls to me from across the room, stopping me midway. “Are you okay?”
I nod, feeling a little jolt as I see Callan still approaching. He looks terribly big and terribly strong as he nears me, and he cannot get here fast enough all of a sudden.
“Hey you.” His voice is husky.
“Hey you back.”
He leans closer. “Why is it you’re the most beautiful woman in the world, yet also the loneliest?”
“I’m just . . . processing.”
I feel myself sinking into his eyes when my mother—not appeased by my nod—gently draws me aside and scans my features in concern. “I was going to wait to tell you, but maybe you need to know now so you can start processing everything.” She tucks my hair behind my ear, and I wait in silent dread for whatever it is she looks concerned about mentioning.
“She left a note. She asked me to leave it for you at the tree house.”
“What?” I scowl, and suddenly I’m so mad at Nana. For not letting me say goodbye, for leaving me. For dying. I stomp outside. Tahoe had reattached the ladder after stupid Jeremy tore it away, but I never went up there again. Even though my brother built it, someone tampered with it and it’s no longer safe in my eyes.
But I feel suicidal, I’m so sad and mad.
I stomp down the yard and head to the tree house, climb up there and then just sit and stare at her handwriting.
I open the letter and tears are falling before I even read the words.
A life of fears is no life.
Live it fully, my Livvy.
“Olivia?”
I lift my head and my eyes well.
“I’m up here!” I call.
I swallow the emotion back and tuck the letter into its envelope when Callan reaches the top.
He looks so out of place in a suit, always so perfect and hot, climbing into the tree house that is so the complete opposite of Carma, I’m torn between laughing and crying because the only reason Callan would be in anything like this would be . . . I guess . . . for me.
He struggles to find a spot next to me and folds his knees to his chest. I show him the note. I look a mess and try to wipe my eyes and right myself as he reads it.
Callan is cramped, his big shoulders hunched as he stretches his feet and pats his thigh. This playhouse was made for kids, not fully grown adults.
He lowers the note and hands it back to me. “What are you afraid of now?”
I shrug.
“What is it?” he asks.
You. My plans not going like I wanted. Losing what I love most.
I settle for a simpler answer. A more immediate one. And just as true. “If I kiss you, that you won’t kiss me back. I feel like I’ll end up like Jeremy, go down in a tantrum and leave you up here so you never kiss anyone else either.”
“You kiss me?” He lifts a brow, smiling tenderly. There’s a sadness in that smile, in both our smiles. Because it’s a sad day.
“It’s an idea,” I defend.
“I have a better idea. Me. Kissing you.” He cups my face and kisses my lips softly. I miss him so much, I launch myself at him.
We kiss, and it feels so good to get lost in him and his warm, wet mouth and his slow-moving, gently sucking tongue. I suck a bit too hard, and he groans and I remember his split lip.
When I pull back to breathe, he’s smirking.
I touch his lip with my index finger. “I’m sorry about this,” I say.
“I’m not.” He smiles. “I’m sorry about T’s eye.”
I frown. “How did that go?”
“Let’s see now. He said he would keep it to one punch because you asked him not to hit me. So I kept it to one because he’s your brother.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He smiles down at me in tenderness. Then I am pressed to his side, his arm around me, his shoulders hunched over me. And I realize my new favorite place is inside his hug. No other hug compares. I glance around the wooden house.
“So many years to get back up here. Now I don’t want to get down,” I admit.
“And this is one place that should send you into a panic.” The wood creaks beneath us as he shifts, and he laughs.
“Well, I’m not. I’m with you,” I defend myself.
He looks mildly puzzled and sardonic. “I’m no Clark Kent, Olivia. The sooner you know that, the easier it will be.”
“Who needs Clark Kent when I have Callan Carmichael?”
“My ego, woman. Stop feeding it.” He tweaks my nose. “You think I’m Superman.”
“I think you’re Henry Cavill as Superman.” I grin, and I sit up and admire the way the sunset streaming through the slits in the wood plays on his face. “I don’t know what I think you are. Don’t even make me analyze it too closely right now. It’s just the way I feel when you’re near. A little safe and a little breathless and a little happier than when you’re not.”
He sits back and tugs me close so that I snuggle against his side again. “I, on the other hand, feel crazed when I’m near you, and crazed when I’m not.”
“You’re never crazed. Only OCD.”
He laughs softly and the sound is reassuring. I hadn’t realized how exhausted and wound up I was until I feel myself relaxing now.
“I knew my grandma would die. I mean, I knew she wouldn’t be with me forever, no matter how much I wanted it. But in my mind, it was after I was twenty-eight, maybe around thirty-five, after she met my husband and my two children one day.”
“Two children?” he asks in interest.
“See? You probably don’t even like children so you better get out of my fucking tree house now.”
“I’m not fucking leaving. Hell, I like it here.” He extends his legs out as far as they can go, and his smile fades. “Nobody ever plans for the bad things.”
“Every time I lose someone, I get so mad. You’d think I’d only be sad. But I get so mad. I’m so selfish.”
“You’re not selfish, you’re hurt. You lost someone you cared for.”
He’s holding me and it strikes me with painful intensity how I don’t want to lose him. I realize it would make me madder than mad to lose him, despite being afraid of loving him because he’s not the husband I pictured. He’s more, and he challenges me and he keeps me on my toes and pushes me, and also makes me melt and respect and learn, and admire and want him, want him like nothing in this world.
He’ll be a difficult and infuriating husband. Hell, he won’t even want to be anybody’s husband.
I don’t want to wait until the timing is right, because it’s never going to be right.
I won’t want anyone the way I want him.
I never have and I never will and I know it.
I’m pretty sure I’m irrevocably in love with him.
Suddenly I don’t want to wait until I’m twenty-eight anymore. I’ll be like an old lady by the time I’m twenty-eight. But at least I’ll be worldlier, more able to make a decision like that.
“I had a dream the moment she died. Do you think she was saying goodbye?” I ask him with a small scowl.
“I don’t know, Livvy.”
“But what do you think?”
“What do you think?” he counters.
“That she wa
s saying goodbye.”
“Then she was saying goodbye.”
Later that evening when the house is near empty, I hear Tahoe and Callan talking out on the patio terrace. Callan sits on a chair, shoulders hunched, hands steepled, and he’s breathing deep and slow.
“Don’t ruin it. I see the way she is with you,” Tahoe says.
Callan drags his hands over his face.
“Look if you’re not all in, get out now. My sister has lost enough, she’s hurting enough.”
Surprise makes me gasp, but thankfully I cover the sound with my hand. Callan drags his hand over the back of his neck, quiet. I nervously wait for a reply.
I don’t want him to get out. I want any piece of him I can get.
Quickly, I step outside, letting the door bang loudly as I step out to the porch.
Tahoe doesn’t turn to see who it is, but Callan lifts his head as if he can innately sense it’s me.
I smile tremulously at him and extend a cup of coffee, just like he likes it.
He looks like he wants to both crush me in his arms and run away from me as fast as he can.
Gina steps out with another bang of the door, and she seems to take in the scene. I guess it’s stupid to assume the look I’m giving Callan is only visible to Callan. And the look he’s giving me is only visible to me.
It’s been a long day, I suppose.
“I have an idea. Why doesn’t Callan stay here tonight?” she says brightly. “I can sleep with Livvy, you guys can fight it out over the bed in Tahoe’s old room.”
Both men laugh as if there’s no way they’ll fight out anything—both men’s egos too big to be in the same space.
“I’ll be at the hotel. I need to leave tomorrow anyway.” Callan stands and looks at nobody but me.
He leans over and sets a kiss on my cheek, and I curl my fingers into my palm to keep from pushing them into his hair and feeling the warmth of his mouth on mine.