Page 28

TOM

S hould I have been aroused watching Callie sing to my son?

Probably not. But fuck, it had been far too long since I’d seen any action other than my fist. And here she was, her curly hair, one of my biggest weaknesses, flowing wildly, swishing over the top curve of her ass every time she walked past me.

Yep, that only drew my attention to her perfectly round ass, wide hips and tiny waist, and those tits.

Crew and I watched intently as she played her guitar and sang The Beatles, Blackbird.

Her voice was beautiful; that was a given, but the song reminded me of my Mom when I was a kid.

I don’t know how she selected songs that spoke right to me.

For Crew, she could have sung the alphabet and strummed the guitar, and he would have loved it.

Crew’s eyes were half-mast when she finished, and he was falling fast. He nuzzled into me for a hug.

“Mama and Pops?” he said sadly.

“I know, buddy. You miss them. I’m sorry.” Kelsey had video-chatted with him earlier, but Sam wasn’t available. As far as I could tell, Crew was happy with us, but it didn’t stop him from missing his mom and stepfather.

Callie eyes met mine, shining with emotion as they welled up with tears. She mussed his hair and rushed out of his bedroom. I gave him one more kiss and hug and followed after her.

Callie had her back to me and her head in the refrigerator, rifling around, looking for something.

“What are you looking for?” I asked, startling her as she jumped, her head hitting the edge of the door.

“I thought I saw a bottle of wine in here earlier. But I guess I don’t really need wine right now.”

“Here,” I said, reaching past her and pulling out a bottle of Chardonnay that had been pushed to the back of the refrigerator. “Does this work? I’ll open it for you.”

“Will you join me for a glass?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said, pulling two glasses out of the cabinet as she took the bottle from me, digging into the utensil drawer for the wine key. “How do you feel about the cookout tomorrow?”

“Umm, I think I can hold my own with the women. But the fake relationship thing might be a little more difficult while we’re together. I mean, they’ll notice if we don’t do normal couple things.”

“What do you consider to be normal?” I asked, taking a sip from the wine she had poured for me, briefly making eye contact before looking away.

“I don’t know; my last relationship, we bickered all the time. It didn’t matter who was around. I don’t think any of your teammates would be impressed if you showed up with a new girlfriend who nitpicked your every move.”

“Agreed. But shit, Callie, how’d you accept that bullshit?” I asked, not understanding why someone as talented, smart, and beautiful would accept bullshit from some piece of shit.

“Umm, it wasn’t always like that. When we met, we both had similar career goals, and we’d stay up all night talking about our plans.

I didn’t realize that I was the one sharing and he was stealing,” she swallowed her wine hard.

“And I somehow took his criticisms to heart as he slowly chipped away at my self-confidence. How about you? Do you have any experience you can draw from?”

“I was dating someone before I found out about Crew. We were heading towards being serious, but she didn’t stick around when my life blew up. It was hard for her to accept that she was second to the relationship I was trying to build with my son.”

“I can see where that would be a problem. Not so much now, but if someone is used to having a certain amount of attention and then suddenly gets pushed out, it’s not good. I don’t see many women being able to handle that.”

“Sam did for Kelsey,” I said.

“Have you watched them together?” she asked pointedly. “I mean, Sam loves Crew like his own, and he and Kelsey remind me of my parents. They mesh with each other; yes, they have their own identities, but I can’t imagine either of them without the other,” Callie continued.

I sighed, “Yeah. It’s great. Think we can pretend to be like them?”

“Sure, all you need to do is stare at my ass every chance you get,” Callie joked.

The wine started affecting me as I finished my first glass and poured us both a second one. “Uh, yeah. Like I don’t already do that to distraction.”

She took a large swig of wine, gulping it down audibly. “And my tits, I caught that too.”

Oh yeah, she was feeling the wine, too. “Sorry, not sorry.”

“So, it won’t be so hard to pretend?” She asked.

I shook my head. Unspoken was that it was harder to pretend not to be interested.

Everything with her flowed naturally, conversation, hanging out with my sun, sexy banter, all of it.

Keeping things professional in private was a much greater challenge than it would be to pretend in front of my teammates.

“What about touching you?” she asked.

“That’s up to you. I mean, I’ve never been much for grand public displays of affection. But it would look weird if we avoided touching each other.”

Callie was quiet for a bit, thinking about what I’d just said. “We’d need to kiss at least. I mean, we don’t need to do it with tongue, but I don’t think our first kiss should happen with an audience.”

“You want to kiss me?” I asked, blood immediately rushing south as my dick misjudged her intentions.

“I mean, yeah. An experiment of sorts, right?” she questioned, her gaze resting shyly on mine. “For science.”

“I failed science,” I warned her. “I got sick of trying the same thing repeatedly, changing one variable at a time and waiting for a different outcome.”

“What outcome would you want from a kiss?” she asked.

“Typically, if I am interested in kissing someone, we wouldn’t be going to bed alone afterward.” Yeah, the wine wasn’t the best form of lubrication for this little chat.

“Oh,” she whispered just before she jumped away from the kitchen counter, dumping the rest of her wine down the sink and fleeing the room.

Fuck, Tom. You took that one too far.

And because I still couldn’t keep my mouth shut, “Wait, no kiss?” I called after her, hearing her footsteps pick up and her bedroom door closing behind her.