Page 51 of Take Two

So far, Callie wasn’t a fan.

But she was listening. Could she text Emma? That would be simple enough. And maybe all she owed someone after two dates and no kiss.

Or she could do the hard thing.

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ she muttered, and hit call before she could talk herself out of it.

The ring seemed very loud. After three rings, she nearly hung up. On the fourth, Emma answered.

‘Callie?’

Callie tried to make her voice sound light. ‘Hi. Sorry to cold call you.’

Emma knew right away this wasn’t a pleasant call. ‘Everything okay?’

‘Sort of,’ Callie said, and winced at herself. ‘No. That’s a lie. I’m… I just wanted to tell you something happened to me. Actually, it happened a long time ago, and I was just the last to know. And it affects this. You and me.’

‘Right,’ Emma said nervously. ‘Callie, if this is about the other night, it’s fine. Honestly. First dates are weird. Or second. Or… what were we calling that?’

Callie swallowed. ‘That’s sort of the thing. I don’t think we should be calling it anything.’

Oh God. Had she really just said that? This was officially brutal. Callie was a monster. How was thisbetterthan ghosting?

‘Okay,’ Emma said after a moment. ‘Did I do something wrong? Because you seemed… I thought you liked, um, me.’

‘I do. That was never the issue.’ Callie pushed herself upright, bracing her back against the headboard. If she was going to be honest, she might as well suffer physically as well as emotionally. ‘You didn’t do anything wrong,’ she said. ‘You were… Emma, youarelovely. I need you to know that.’

Emma said nothing.

‘The problem is me. I have been an absolute idiot.’

‘All right,’ Emma said slowly. ‘In what way?’

Callie shut her eyes. ‘You know my friend? The one who runs the bakery.’

A tiny beat. ‘Mae.’

‘Yes. Mae.’

Another pause, longer this time. When Emma spoke again, her voice had moved to deep, tired resignation. ‘You’re in love with her,’ she said.

Callie let out a helpless little laugh. ‘Is it that obvious?’

‘It was… not subtle,’ Emma said. ‘You lit up whenever you talked about her. And you kept looking at your phone the other night. I suppose I was just hoping we still might…’ She stopped there.

‘I really am a disaster,’ Callie said weakly.

Emma didn’t jump in to defend her.

Callie gritted her teeth. ‘I’m sorry. You deserve better than this.’

‘That’s true,’ Emma said. ‘Bye, Callie.’ She hung up.

Callie kept the phone pressed to her ear for a moment longer, listening to the silence, then dropped it onto the mattress and flopped sideways.

She’d told the truth. To Emma. To herself. To Mae.

Mae.