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11

Calista

After

He was too close to me.

The scrape of his rough and calloused palm as he slid it around my neck like there hadn’t been a whole two years between now and when he did it last made my stomach flip.

Flip and roll. Revel and relish. My body was having a celebration, like the way he held me was a victory.

It wasn’t.

It was the opposite. It was something I had made myself learn how to live without, and he waltzed right into my life like it hadn’t been one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do.

“Get your hands off me.” My jaw was clenched so tight it was painful. I focused on that as much as I could instead of how the woodsy scent that had always belonged to Fane still clung to him.

Subtle but all-consuming.

Like he’d walked by something, and it clung to his shirt. His skin and hair. It was mixed so perfectly with something else that I had only ever been able to identify as purely Fane.

“Not until you sit your ass down and listen to what I have to say.”

I widened my eyes as if to say, The floor is yours, buddy.

With his face set into a scowl that was anything but inviting, he walked me back three steps until the back of my legs hit an empty milk crate, and I was forced to sit.

“When we’re in public, there will be no chance anyone will be able to question that you’re mine.”

I crossed my arms and gave him a withering look of my own.

If I didn’t latch onto something to mix in with that thread of anger I was holding onto for dear life since he’d appeared out of the blue, I might start thinking about how I’d woken up with the smell of him lingering on my clothes and that it took everything in me not to let my hands dip in between my legs when I showered.

Which had also been wet. Because of him.

“That means,” he continued, “we’re going to act like a couple.”

I rolled my eyes. “Thanks, Captain Obvious.” He honestly looked like he wanted to bend me over his knee and teach me a lesson and, oh my god , I was not going to think about that.

Ew. Ew.

“I’m going to touch you, Calista.”

I literally jumped from hearing his words that my ass came off the milk carton. “I beg your pardon?”

“When we’re in public.” He let out an aggravated sigh through his nose.

I rolled my eyes. “God, Fane. I know what it’s like to be in a relationship with someone and what that entails.” I threw my hands up and resisted the urge to stand up.

Fane’s eyes seemed to darken a little at that, and he looked so imposing from where he stood above me. He crossed his arms and took a small step back from me, and it was like visibly seeing him change right before my eyes and morph into another version I didn’t recognize of the man I used to know better than myself.

“Then you’ll know that means you can’t look at me like you wish I wasn’t there. You can’t freeze up like a fucking corpse when you stand next to me. When I kiss you–”

“ Kiss me?” My legs catapulted me up from my sitting position so fast I was certain I got at least a foot of air before I came crashing right back down to the ground. “You won’t be kissing me.”

“Yes, I will.”

“ Why?” My hands balled into fists.

You’re an adult, don’t punch him. You’re an adult, do not punch him.

“Because, Calista.” He took another deep breath, and I saw the way his head twitched like he wanted to crack it. When he spoke again, it was slow, deliberately sounding out every word. “Boyfriends,” he gestured to himself, “do that with their girlfriends.” He gestured to me.

Girlfriends. Plural.

I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me that Fane would have been dating in the last two years. In my effort to eradicate him completely from every part of my life, I had also decided to completely refuse to think about what his being with someone else would look like. Feel like.

Instead, it was perfect fodder for why losing him was perhaps the best thing that ever happened to me. He and his girlfriends could all be very happy somewhere far away from my town.

“ Fake girlfriend,” I hissed, ignoring all the things hearing him say those words did to my heart and hating him all the more for making me feel them all over again when he was the reason that nothing about it worked right anymore. “And only until I figure out a way to end it that won’t make my parents suspicious.”

This time, Fane rolled his eyes. It sucked that he knew them as well as he did because we both knew that any reason I gave them wouldn’t be enough.

“I hate you,” I told him.

“So you’ve said,” he grumbled, running a hand through his hair and tugging on the strands.

“Would hate for you to forget it,” I said back.

“How considerate of you.”

God, he was infuriating. Just like a jack-in-the-box, my right hand flung up between us with my middle finger already extended. I hadn’t consciously intended to do it, but it happened all the same, and I can’t say I was mad about it.

Yep. Still very, very therapeutic.

We both looked at my hand. His face registered a very small amount of amused shock, and then his own hand was raised between us, mirroring the same gesture.

Fane was flipping me off.

He added one of those smirks that teenage girls deliver that could raise anyone’s blood pressure so high they would fear for the health of their heart.

“Gah! Why are you even here? It could have been anyone else! Why you?” I yelled, all pretense of trying to manage my own sound levels out the window.

That was the precise moment that I heard Mags call out from the back door of the café, which Fane had left wide freaking open.

“Everything okay out here?” She sounded…not worried but hesitant.

Everything flashed before my eyes.

The look on my dad’s face when small-town gossip got back to him about how I’d fabricated an entire relationship. I could see the confusion on my mom’s face. They’d both look at me like they had no idea who I was. Like someone who could lie to them for two whole years during the hardest part of their lives without a second thought. Causing them to worry even more when my exact mission had been to remove it entirely.

I’d even gone on a fake holiday to the next town over for a whole week and ordered an I Heart Australia shirt and one of those hats with corks hanging around the brim from Amazon to bring back for them.

My dad wore that hat for a month. A month!

So, I did the only thing that made sense at that moment. I launched myself at Fane. My arms wound around his neck, my feet no longer touched the ground, and my eyes were already closed by the time I pressed my lips to his.

* * *

Fane didn’t even stumble at the way I threw myself at him.

It didn’t even take him a second to react before his arms were wrapped around my back, pressing me closer into him.

The way he kissed me was zero to a hundred. Like nothing had changed. Every single thing about him like this was achingly familiar.

He pulled back just for a second, eyes darting to the open door where Mags stood, then back to me. The smallest hint of a smile pulled up one side of his mouth.

“Is she still there?” I was breathless and wholly focused on the shape of his lips, determined to avoid his eyes. At seeing them this close. The flecks of green and warm, honey brown that would greet me like old friends I had cut off with an Irish goodbye.

Fane’s only response was pulling one of his arms from around my back and sinking his fingers into my hair. Fisting the loose black strands, tilting my head back, and kissing me again.

There was no rush in the way his lips moved against mine. In the way his tongue pushed into my mouth and seized every last bit of control that I had. I got lost in it. In him.

In the bite of pain on my scalp from his grip. In the way I could feel the rapid beating of his heart pressed against my chest, joined in perfect synchronization with the beat of my own.

Every swipe of his tongue unleashed a memory I had carved out and locked away.

The memory of his stubble against my cheek, the sound of his husky groan as his fingers dug into the side of my ribs. The feeling of his erection, rock-hard and straining against his jeans between us. I couldn’t have even pretended not to feel the length of him through my flimsy sundress, even if I wanted to.

Which I did. I wanted to ignore it, ignore him .

I remembered everything about him, and it reminded me with a jolt that though he may want me like this , that had never been the problem.

My hands reached between us, pushing on his chest. I still kept my eyes on his mouth, red and swollen and parted like what had just happened had somehow caught him off guard even though his hand was still fisted in my hair.

“Is she gone?” I didn’t even recognize my voice. It sounded too broken for anything I’d ever let him see, and I pushed at his chest again.

“She left a while ago,” he murmured. His voice was rough and full of the sort of need that I knew led to clothes coming off. To dirty, filthy things coming out of his mouth. To me turning into someone else completely.

Wait.

“She left a while ago?” I repeated the words back like they’d make more sense that way. I squirmed in his hold, which earned another groan from Fane.

“Keep squirming, and you’ll make me come in my pants,” he warned, his grip tightening.

“Then put me down, you caveman,” I snapped, doubling my efforts and resisting the urge to knee him in the nuts. I felt the deep breath he took before setting me on my feet.

As soon as he stepped away, he shoved his hand down the front of his pants to adjust what, admittedly, looked like an incredibly uncomfortable situation.

I swiped a hand over my mouth. “Gross, Fane.” I scowled at him, and his eyebrows became one with his hairline.

“ Gross?”

“Yes,” I mimicked, doing my best impression of his voice. It turns out this version of Fane did, in fact, lower my maturity levels to an all-time low.

“Kissing me is gross?” He was doing that thing with his mouth that made it clear he was trying not to smile. I’d ask him again if he was laughing at me, but he’d probably call me ma’am, and I would definitely punch him this time.

“Do you no longer speak English? Yes, that’s what I said. Don’t do it again.”

“ You kissed me .” He pointed one tattooed hand in my direction and I smacked it away from where it hovered too close to my face.

“The first time! And because we had an audience. You’re the one that gripped my hair like…like some hair pervert!”

“Hair pervert?” He was actually laughing now. Shoulders shaking and eyes dancing.

“Don’t kiss me again.”

“But you’re my girlfriend.”

“I’ll bite your tongue.”

“Cali, I’m trying to get rid of my raging hard-on, and that is not helping.” He was glaring at me again, but it looked more forced than anything after his laughter had died off. I could feel the way the aftermath of the sound settled around me, the way it threatened to chip at my armor.

“You need to leave.” I pointed at the door that led back into the café. “And learn how to close doors. This”—I waved between us—“will not happen again.”

“The you kissing me part? Or the boner?”

I could do nothing but gape at him. He winked at me, and my fists balled again at my sides. “Anyway, I have a bit of work I need to do in the next couple of days, and then we can start with the tours. I’m thinking I should also try and be your shadow? Get an understanding of what life here is like.”

I opened my mouth to tell him he could do his own tours and that he could go fuck himself on all the rest of what he’d said, but it was also the reminder I needed that Fane wasn’t here just to ruin my life, despite that being a clear motive for him for some ungodly reason.

He was here to ruin my town, and I could put my desperate want for his disappearance on the back burner while I saved Darling.

“See you at home!” he called over his shoulder just as he disappeared through the door that led into the kitchen.

I gave myself ten seconds to breathe. To talk myself down from the idea that going into his office after hours and TP-ing his desk was a good idea.

I’d be no good to Jerry if I was behind bars.

I lifted my chin and dropped my shoulders. Smoothing my hands down my dress, I decided that I would redirect all the energy being used toward hating Fane into my plan on how to convince him that he needed to leave Darling alone.

Yes! Yes. Perfect.

I would make a list, because lists always helped. I wouldn’t let this town become some overpopulated, overpriced, perfect-on-the-surface and rotten-in-the-middle idyllic getaway.

This place was the only thing I had left that was truly mine.

It took five seconds for my resolve to set in and only one for it to be shaken when I got behind the counter, ready to serve the small line of patrons who were waiting for their coffee and noticed that my jar of cookies—the whole jar— was missing.

Steam must have been pouring out of my ears because the guy in front of me, who was clearly part of the contractor team Fane was managing, took a small step back and raised his hands.

“It wasn’t me.” He looked like he wanted to turn around and haul ass out of Sunshine .

I plastered on my best smile, which made the guy’s face crinkle in worry. “What can I get for you?” I asked instead, pulling a pen and notepad out from under the counter.

“Just a flat white, please.”

“Sure thing.” I got to work, quickly going through the motions of making his coffee. Losing myself in the familiarity of it.

“So,” the guy said just as I finished steaming his milk. “You’re the boss’s girl?”

I heard him but chose to ignore him for a second while I composed myself and tried not to look like I should be sedated.

There was a decent-sized line now, at least nine people waiting to place an order. That’s when Sammy walked in, her eyes wide at how many people were in the café as well as how another three people had just followed her in.

I was grateful she’d gotten my message this morning after I had a hunch that there would be too many customers for one person to handle for a weekday.

“Hey, Cal.” She smiled before reaching under the counter for an apron, reminding me that I hadn’t even put one on yet.

“Thanks for coming, Sammy.”

“Oh, don’t mention it.” Her smile was warm and kind, the way it always was.

With no way to dodge the question from a man I didn’t even know, I slapped on my cheeriest, most unsettling smile and handed him his coffee. “That’s me!”