Page 108 of The Havenport Collection

Callum

I couldn’t stop thinking about Violet. And what a fool I had made of myself.

Everything was out of sorts. I had always been the steady, dependable one. But these days I wasn’t feeling it. The tables had turned. Thoroughly.

My brothers suddenly had it all together, building their businesses and finding amazing women to tolerate them. Liam had proposed, for fuck’s sake. They were moving on, building futures for themselves.

And here I was—the oldest, the caretaker—alone and stuck in a rut, obsessively exercising, and drowning in self-pity and whiskey. All I had to keep me company were my obsessive thoughts and a nuclear bomb of a wedding invitation.

I hadn’t realized I had completely zoned out until I noticed both of my brothers were staring at me with concerned looks on their faces.

We were sitting in Liam’s office in his brewery.

We got together on Tuesday nights to check in on business and work through any issues that had come up with our beverage distribution company.

We had spent most of the last year working together to get it up and running.

We were all busy with our day jobs, but this had become a passion project that combined our skill sets.

Liam was the brewer and knew the beverage business, Declan had lots of logistics experience, owing to his work with our family’s fishing company, and I was the business guy.

Declan’s girlfriend, Astrid, was a corporate lawyer who decided to take pity on us and take over the legal work.

And she refused to let us pay her. She was so sharp and hardworking, it definitely made the rest of us raise our game a bit.

She was a force of nature. Declan had his hands full, that was for sure.

She usually joined us for these meetings but wasn’t here yet, so I took the opportunity to wallow for a few minutes before I had to turn on the usual Callum charm.

“He’s in bad shape,” Declan grunted.

“Really bad,” Liam echoed.

“Should I slap him?” Declan asked. “I don’t mind.”

I whipped my head around. “Don’t slap me, asshole.”

Liam stood up from his desk. “Oh good, you’re back.

Thanks again for joining us for this very important business meeting.

” Liam was the sarcastic one, and I was growing tired of his shit.

I missed the days when he just worshipped me and never questioned anything.

What was the point of being the oldest if I couldn’t keep these two idiots in line?

Declan shot me a look, and I nodded at him. It was times like these I appreciated having him around.

I drained my beer while he filled Liam in on Becca’s upcoming wedding. I watched as Liam’s eyes grew wide.

“I’m not sure how to ask this,” Liam began. “But do you think…”

I held my hand up to stop him and took another gulp of my beer. “I know what you are going to ask.”

I paused and took another sip. Both Liam and Declan were watching me carefully.

“I don’t know. Six months ago, I would have said no, Becca never cheated on me, and that had nothing to do with our divorce.

But now I’m not so sure.” It was horrifying.

Could she have been cheating on me under my nose?

After reading the nauseating ‘how we met’ story on their god-awful wedding website, I truly wondered.

She definitely hooked up with him pretty quickly, so my mind had started to wander.

Declan raised an eyebrow at me.

“No. You do not need to kick his ass,” I replied.

I was fluent in Declan’s facial expressions.

He was never much of a talker but did occasionally enjoy talking with his fists.

Although I would love nothing more than to kick the ass of my ex-friend, for a myriad of reasons, it wasn’t the answer here.

Let him marry Becca. Good fucking luck, dude.

“So on top of feeling like shit because my ex-wife—who specifically told me she never wanted to be married—is getting married to my former friend, now the timeline is making me question whether or not they were fucking around behind my back.”

“So are you going to let us help?” Liam asked.

I shook my head. What could they possibly do?

“You need a distraction, bro. You are spiraling.”

“I am not,” I snapped. “Spiraling,” I scoffed. “I’ve got everything under control.”

Liam looked at me with pity. “I don’t doubt that, but we’re just looking out for you. You are not yourself.”

“My spiral is another man’s A game,” I quipped pathetically. “I’m fine.”

My brothers exchanged a look. I felt left out. Our whole lives, Declan and I had been really close, and Liam was on the outside. He didn’t seem to mind—being the baby of the family was his thing. But I didn’t like being the odd one out.

They were all old and wise now that they had locked down their women.

“Maybe you should start dating again?” Liam offered.

After my divorce I had “dated” pretty aggressively. I was on the apps, out and about all the time, dating women from Rhode Island to Maine. It worked for a bit, helping to distract me from my divorce, but then it just became a drag.

Mostly because I made the major mistake of dating a woman in Havenport.

I knew I should have kept my extracurricular activities confined to outside of town, but Moira came on to me.

She was a very successful local realtor, and I had worked with her on a real estate deal.

She was beautiful and sophisticated, so I happily said yes when she asked me out to dinner.

I knew we were in trouble when she updated her Facebook profile to say we were “in a relationship” between the appetizers and entrees.

And it only snowballed from there. She called and texted me constantly.

At first, I was flattered, but we went on two more dates, and it became clear she had crossed over into stalker territory.

I gently hinted that we weren’t a good fit, and she didn’t get the memo.

She even showed up at my parents’ house with a bottle of wine to introduce herself and declare she would be their daughter-in-law someday.

My mother suffered no fools so got rid of her quickly, and my dad, the Captain, still ribbed me about it to this day.

Soon news of our coupledom got out all over town, and Moira happily fanned the flames.

I found myself having to constantly explain that we were not a couple.

At one point I hadn’t seen her in weeks, and she showed up at the diner where I was grabbing coffee with a client and started to scream at me.

That was fun. I had to threaten a restraining order to get her away from me, and it was still awkward as fuck when we saw each other at town events.

After this ordeal, I dialed back my dating activities significantly. I was bored and unfulfilled, and then I got word that Becca was getting married in the spring and that set off a whole downward spiral. But maybe my brothers were right? Maybe I should get back out there? They seemed really happy.

The problem was that every time my mind even wandered to women, it wandered straight to one woman—Violet Thompson.

Even in my hungover, dehydrated haze, she looked so beautiful.

So much like I remembered her, but better.

She looked older, and wiser, and still had that playful twinkle in her eye.

In my insomnia stupor I found my mind wandering to her.

The bright smile, that beautiful hair, those freckles scattered across her collarbones.

I was jolted out of my daydream to hear my brothers still talking shit about me.

“Dude, we know you’re super vain, but at some point there is such a thing as too much exercise,” Liam offered.

Wait, what? This conversation was disorienting, but he wasn’t wrong. I had been overdoing it a bit.

“Yeah,” offered Declan. “When you are throwing up on a neighbor’s lawn and require IV fluids, you are probably overdoing it.”

I punched him in the arm. It was like hitting a brick wall. Jeez. I need to hit the weights more.

“I’m just staying healthy,” I offered.

“No, you are obsessively exercising like a compulsive nut job.”

“Fabio, we know you’re obsessed with your abs, but you need a hobby.”

They were so annoying when they teamed up like this. “You guys better watch it. Don’t get soft and disappoint your women.” I patted my stomach, knowing they envied my abs.

Declan rolled his eyes at me and punched me back. “Are you going to tell us who she is? Or do I have to interrogate you?”

“Don’t use your navy shit on me,” I said, putting my hands up. Although I did take great pride in my health and fitness, I was not dumb enough to think I could win a fight with Declan.

Liam looked at me for a moment, studying my face. “I think he’s into Violet Thompson,” he declared proudly. “Because he made a fool of himself trying to say sorry after the vomit incident.”

“Yeah,” scoffed Declan, “and almost killed her chicken.”

“Rooster, actually,” I said. “And I’m not into her. I was trying to make amends and I ended up scaring her kids, almost killing the rooster, and doing serious damage to my car.”

“Oh, you’re so into her.” Declan laughed.

He and Liam high-fived. “Guys, you don’t get it…” I started, ready to launch into another older brother lecture.

“I can’t do this without more beer. Ooh, I think the girls are here.

” Liam almost tripped over his feet to get out of his office to see his fiancée.

What a lovesick chump. He was my brother, and I was happy for him, but he was like a puppy when Cece was around.

Not that I blamed him. She was spectacularly out of his league, so I understood his desire to lock it down quickly.

But couldn’t he at least play it a bit cool?

We made our way into the taproom, where a bunch of our friends were gathered, drinking beer and chatting.

Cece came right over to Liam and laid a kiss on his lips, and Astrid greeted Declan with a saucy smirk while he petted his beloved dog, Ginger.

It was a lovely, heartwarming sight and made me want to hit the whiskey again.

Was there any hope for me? Could I ever find my person?

Or was I too screwed up to make it work?