Page 22

21

Calista

After

I slept like shit.

Like actual shit.

The entire night was filled with screams that fell short, turning into pathetic, useless gasps that jolted me awake. With running in my head and twitching myself awake. With sweating until I was soaked through and waking up thinking the doors were unlocked and the windows were open.

Every time without fail, my hand reached out for Fane the second I woke up. Given that most times I was lying on or near him, it didn’t take long to find him. The moment I did, I pushed myself away from him, relieved that regardless of my restlessness, he stayed sound asleep.

He’d always been a light sleeper. He’d told me once that when he was growing up, he was scared that if he slept too deeply, he wouldn’t wake up in time to reach his mom. A pin drop could’ve stirred him awake.

Of everything that had changed between us, that might be the only real thing that made me happy. That maybe someone, at some point, had managed to feel safe enough to sleep through the night.

With that thought in tow I gave up entirely the moment it started to lighten outside, creeping out of bed with a lead weight in my stomach, a pounding heart and throbbing headache. It felt like I was severely hungover but didn’t get to experience any of the fun parts that usually led to this sort of dreary end.

The second I was out of my bedroom and the door closed behind me, Jerry’s massive head was nudging into me. His nose was working overtime, sniffing and huffing as he checked me over. Making sure I was still whole.

I sank to the floor outside my room, resting my head against him. He didn’t move, his steady presence grounding me in a way I desperately needed. Jerry had been my constant when everything else spun out of control from the moment we settled into our new life in Darling. I’d been adrift, and he had been my anchor in a way.

I stayed like that for a while, lost in thought, replaying everything from yesterday. Every misstep. Every choice. The moment I ran straight into Fane and thought it was over—that I was over.

It made me realize that I’d gone my whole life without feeling the way I did yesterday. Scared and entirely willing to give up something I loved because of that feeling, just to make it stop.

The thought of never running again had crossed my mind. It lingered, sharp and heavy, because giving up running felt safer. But something about that thought—it didn’t fit right. Like I was giving in to something far bigger than fear. Like I’d be letting down more than just myself.

And maybe it wasn’t just running. Maybe it was about the way I’d always reached for someone else when I needed to feel steady. First Dad, then Fane, then Jerry. Every time life knocked me off balance, I looked outward instead of inward.

I’d never realized that in such stark clarity before.

And there was still a very big part of me that wanted to throw in the towel, to go back to leaning on someone else, but I didn’t want it to be because I had to. I wanted it because I didn’t but I chose to anyway. I knew how much life had already taken from me. Knew how hard I’d worked to bring myself back from nothing, even if my soul was still rough and cracked. If so much of it still felt tender.

I got as far as standing in front of the front door. It felt like I’d only been standing there for a second, ignoring Jerry’s nudges and insistence to take him with me.

If I could just make it around the block, that would be enough. If I could just step outside , that would be enough.

My hand twitched for the doorknob three times but never made contact. On the fourth and final attempt, I heard him walk up behind me. Felt the way he stood just close enough for his chest to touch my back on his inhales.

“You have no concept of personal space.” My voice was rough, like all those screams hadn’t been just in my dreams. There was no bite to my words at all, but it was easier to be like this with him than to be any other way.

“I love to run.”

His statement caught me so off guard that I snorted so violently I started to cough. “I remember you lying on the floor of the gym crying ‘Take me now!’ after a five-mile jog on the treadmill.”

“I wasn’t crying, and that wasn’t jogging. I’m good at jogging, that was attempting an olympic record.”

“You were definitely crying.”

“Hold on — ”

I turned around, a big, bright grin on my face that Fane instantly narrowed his eyes at. “Like a big baby.”

“That’s—”

“A big, buff, gym baby.” My smile was so huge that my eyes were crinkling. The look on Fane’s face was so priceless that I couldn’t help but laugh. My head tipped back, and my arms wrapped tight around my stomach, unable to do anything but hold on.

“Okay, laughy pants, are we going for a run or not?”

“ Laughy pants?” That just made me laugh even harder, especially with his dry delivery of the words. “Good one, Mr. Soft and Approachable.”

Fane reached around me and snapped the lock on the front door, pulling it open and grumbling about how he was going to toast Ashton’s balls. Despite the last twenty-four hours—despite the last two years—the smile on my face felt genuine for the first time in a long time.

“What the fu—” My arms fumbled for the doorframe, and it was only because of Fane’s arm miraculously appearing and banding around my waist that I didn’t trip over what had to be twenty pounds of lasagna.

He pulled me back into him, crushing me against his chest and what I was going to assume was just some morning wood that hadn’t gotten the hint or the benefit of being tucked away in something sturdier than running shorts.

The tips of Fane’s fingers flexed, and I felt the pad of each individual digit press against my skin. The way my back arched wasn’t on purpose. Both my hands moved to his arm before I did the exact opposite of what I commanded my brain to do. I moved my hips, grinding my ass on the growing thickness I felt behind me.

It was the single, gasping exhale that Fane released that made my eyes fly open. Eyes that I hadn’t even known were closed, and I used my hold on his arm to fling it off me like he had fucking cooties and hurdled over the stack of lasagnas on my doorstep.

“That was—Sorry, uh, your…your parts…are awake.”

Your parts are awake? Sweet Lord, kill me now.

I was definitely aware of the silent, shaking laughter racking through Fane’s body. I decided to rise above it and focus instead on the pile of family dinners on my porch, like any very normal, very not horny, morning runner would.

There was no mistaking the beautiful, precise, scrawling letters on the sticky note stuck to the top container.

For sweet Fane, I hope you feel better.

Love, Isla.

And then there was another note just under it in a scrawl that very much belonged to my father and done in something resembling a poorly sharpened pencil.

Fane, I had a bite. Sorry.

Fane’s pointer finger shot across the space I’d hurdled, pushing up on my chin to close my mouth. I swatted his hand away and glowered at him.

“You see that? Your mom thinks I’m sweet.”

I huffed, running my finger up the bridge of my nose. “Well, my mom clearly doesn’t know you that well.”

“Are you jealous, Rosie girl?”

“You… you… ” I was pointing right at him like lightning might spontaneously fly out the tip of my finger and smite him.

“No, wait. I can guess. I make you sick?” He ran a hand through his hair before crossing his arms in this smug, cocky stance.

“Among many other things,” I muttered, spinning on my heels to avoid looking at him.

Fane grabbed the food and darted back inside before reemerging and locking the door, his shoes laced. “I could probably guess those things too,” he continued, that infuriating beam still plastered across his face as he started to stretch.

I should have been stretching too, but instead I crossed my arms and gave him my most unimpressed expression. “I highly doubt it.”

“I make you nervous?”

I scoffed. “Try annoyed.”

“I make you all gooey on the inside?”

“Sure, in a my organs are failing sort of way.”

“I think I turn you on, Calista.” He was still stretching, but the smile had dropped off his face. Replaced with a look that translated roughly to I could rip off all your clothes without damaging the buttons .

“You actually remove all the moisture from my body.” I was eighty percent sure I held my composure…until he opened his mouth to reply.

“Yeah, from too many orga—”

I slid my earbuds into place, giving him my best suck it smile and cutting off whatever he was going to say. I had a pretty good idea, and if the way my entire body was humming was any indication, I was firmly in the danger zone of volunteering to experience the sort of dehydration he was describing. Which I didn’t want to do.

Right? Yes. Yes.

Even with my music blaring, it didn’t stop his laughter from trickling in and evaporating almost every single one of the clouds that had turned my life into one overcast, gray, and dreary twilight.

I looked over my shoulder once, not fully able to evade the small amount of lingering terror from the day before, to find Fane running right behind me.

It didn’t even occur to me that the smile that still lingered on my face was something I should have hidden away. Not when the one he was giving me now sent the remainder of those heavy rain clouds that followed me around running for the hills, leaving me to bask, just for a bit, in nothing but never-ending sunshine.