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The waiter makes his way to the table. “Can I get you anything?” He glances at Callie first and then me, knowing Mase and Ami already have drinks in hand.
“I’ll have… water. Bottled,” Callie says absently, her attention on the table pushing the menu away.
“You’re not drinking?”
She gives me a brief, distracted glance. The table goes silent. Callie’s gaze rises from the table to mine again. Handing me the drink menu, she turns her stare back to the table. “I don’t feel like it.”
I shrug, blowing it off. She’s acting strange. I’m not surprised by anything anymore. “I’ll have a Corona.” Giving the drink menu to the waiter, he leaves, and I look over at Mase. “Remy should be here any minute. He caught an earlier flight.”
Mase nods.
When Remy does show up, we all laugh. He wasn’t feeling good this morning, which was why he took a later flight than us, but he isn’t one to pass up a trip to Mexico, so he came anyways. Stuffed up, red eyes and coughing, he walks into the restaurant with a bottle of Nyquil in one hand and a fifth of Crown Royal in the other. Seems like a perfect combination if you’re trying to put yourself out of misery. I’m thinking of asking him if he’ll share.
He sits down next to Callie, wraps his arm around her, and then smiles at us. “Hola.”
We stare at him, not sure what to say. Callie raises her hand to his forehead. “You’re burning up, Remy.”
“Para tu, bebé.”
“Since when do you speak Spanish, Carson?” Mase asks, laughing at him.
“This cocktail mixture of Nyquil and Crown Royal have drawn out this innate talent I didn’t even know I had, mi amigo.” And then he sneezes.
I don’t like that Remy has his arm around Callie. He knows how I feel about her, but no way am I letting on that it bothers me. Instead, I sit back in my seat and drown myself in beer. When they deliver chips, salsa, and the best guacamole in the world, I eat like I’ve been rescued from a deserted island and had lived off coconuts and bananas for months. I’m fucking angry at Callie, Remy, and myself, and taking it out on the unsuspecting chips and dips sitting in front of me.
* * *
I’m worried about Callie.More so than before. She has a pissed-off, ready-to-cry expression on her face all through dinner, and when I ask her to dance, I think she’s going to shoot me down, but I try anyway.
She nods to the dance floor.Fuck yeah. Progress.
We leave Remy, who’s three sheets to the wind and flirting with the bartender, and head to the dance floor.
“Talk to me,” I beg, pressing my lips to her neck as we sway to the music. “I can’t take this any longer.”
Her body tenses in mine. “You just want me to go up to your room with you.”
“Well, that too, but if that’s not what you want, I’ll hold you all night.” Our eyes connect. “Whatever you need.”
I said that to her before. That night in the hotel room after the incident with Dave.
I think maybe she’s going to talk to me, but she doesn’t. Instead, she bursts into tears and walks away from me.
I return to the table. “Well, I fucked that up too, apparently.”
“Go check on Callie,” Mase says to me, words slurring, wrapped around Ami in the booth. They look moments away from boning, and though the thought of catching a glimpse of Ami naked is appealing, I’m more compelled to find Callie. I have enough liquid courage in me; this time I’m going to demand an answer.
When I find her, she’s in the women’s bathroom drinking from an orange juice container, a bottle of gin in the other hand. She’s half dressed in the stall, staring at herself in the mirror ten feet away, crying hysterically.
Okay, this is a new one to me. What the fuck is going on?
I lock the door behind me. “Callie?” I peek my head around the corner of the stall. She stares at me, cheeks flushed, wide brown eyes watching me.
“What are you doing in here?” she asks, wiping her tears away.
“What happened to you?” I lean into the door, relaxed with my arms crossed over my chest. “You’re acting like someone slapped you in the forehead with their dick again?”
I’m only teasing, trying to get a rise out of her. But she doesn’t take it that way. She straightens her dress, dumps the gin down the drain, and leaves me in the bathroom without another word.